TRANSLATION THEORY

Dr. Mashadi Said

(Secretary of Masters Program in Translation of
Gunadarma University, Jakarta)

Drs. In English Literature and Education, 1984

Post Graduate Diploma in Applied Linguistics, 1990
Magister in English Education, 1994
Ph D. in English Education, 1998
1. What is translation?

a. Translation consists of transferring

the meaning of the source language
text into the receptor language text.
What is translation?
B. . Catford (1965: 20) Translation is
the replacement of textual material in
one language by equivalent textual
material in another language.
(Penerjemahan adalah penggantian
materi tekstual dalam suatu bahasa
dengan materi tekstual yang padan
dalam bahasa lain.
What is translation?
C. Translating consists of reproducing in
the receptor language the closest
natural equivalent of the source
language message, first in terms of
meaning and secondly in terms of style
(Nida and Taber, 1982)
What is translation?
D. Translation is the general term referring to
the transfer of thoughts and ideas from one
language (source) to another (target),
whether the languages are in written or oral
form; whether the languages have
established orthographies or do not have
such standardization or whether one or both
languages is based on signs, as with sign
languages of the deaf (Brislin, 1976)
What is translation?
E. Translation is a process of finding a
TL equivalent for an SL utterance.
(Pinhuhuck, 1977:38)
F. Translation is a craft consisting in the
attempt to replace a written message
and/or statement in one language by
the same message and/or statement in
another language. (Newmark, 1981:7)
What is translation?
G. (McGuire, 1980:2) Translation involves the
rendering of a source language (SL) text into
the target language (TL) so as to ensure that
(1) the surface meaning of the two will be
approximately similar and (2) the structure of
the SL will be preserved as closely as
possible, but not so closely that the TL
structure will be seriously distorted.
What is translation?
H. Translation is a transfer process
which aims at the transformation of a
written SL text into an optimally
equivalent TL text, and which requires
the syntactic, the systematic and the
pragmatic understanding and analytical
processing of the SL (Wilss and Noss,
1982).
What is the process of transferring the meaning
into the receptor lg. text?

Translation consist of studying the lexicon,

grammatical structure, communication
situation, and cultural context of the source
language text, analyzing it in order to
determine its meaning, and then
reconstructing this same meaning using the
lexicon and grammatical structure which are
appropriate in the receptor language and its
cultural context.
3. What are the characteristics of
language which affect translation?
a) Meaning components are packaged into
lexical items, but they are packaged
differently in one language than in another.
Many times a single word in the source
language will need to be translated by
several words.
b) It is characteristic of language that the
same meaning component will occur in
several surface structure lexical items
(forms).
3. What are the characteristics of
language which affect translation?

c) It is further characteristics of languages

that one form will be used to represent
several alternative meaning.
d) Whole sentences may also have several
functions. A question form may be used
for a nonquestion.
e) A single meaning may be expressed in a
variety of forms.
4. What is the goal of a translator?

The goal of a translator should be to

produce a receptor language text
(translation), which is idiomatic; that is,
one which has the same meaning as
the source language but is expressed in
the natural form of the receptor
language. The meaning, not the form,
is retained.
5. Is it necessary to change the form
when translating?

Anything that can be said in one language can be said in

another. It is possible to translate. The goal of the translator is
to keep the meaning constant. Whenever necessary, the
receptor language form should be changed in order that the
source language meaning not be distorted. Since a meaning
expressed by a particular form in one language may be
expressed by quite a different form in another language, it is
often necessary to change the form when translating. It is not
uncommon that passive constructions will need to be translated
with an active construction or vice versa, depending on the
natural form of the receptor language.
6. What is literal Translation?

Literal translation or form-based

translation attempt to follow the form of
the source language.
7. What is idiomatic translation?
Idiomatic translation or meaning-based
translations makes every effort to
communicate the meaning of the source
language text in the natural forms of the
receptor language. The basic overriding
principle is that an idiomatic translation
reproduces the meaning of the source
language (that is, the meaning intended by
the original communicator) in the natural
form of the receptor language.
8. How does a translator know that he
is successful in his translation task?

He will know that he is successful if the

receptor language readers do not
recognize his work as a translation at
all, but simply as a text written in the
receptor language for their information
and enjoyment.
 9. How does a translator make his translation
as dynamic as the original text?

For the translation to have the same

dynamics as the original, it will need to
natural and easy to understand so that
the readers will find it easy to grasp the
message, including both the information
and the emotional effect intended by
the source language writer.
10. What is non-equivalence?

Non-equivalence at word level means

that the target language has no direct
equivalent for a word which occurs in
the text.
11. Why non-equivalence?
Culture-specific concepts (Religious
belief, a social custom, or a type of food
and tools).
12. How do we handle a non-
equivalence
Translation by a more general word
(superordinate)
Translation by a more natural/less
expressive word
Translation by cultural substitution
Translation using a loan word or loan
word plus explanation
12. How do we handle a non-
equivalence
Translation by paraphrase using a
related word
Translation by paraphrase using
unrelated words
Translation by omission
Translation by illustration
13. How do we establish a
translation project?

There are a number of matters which

include the text, the target, the team,
and the tools which need to be clearly
understood before beginning a
translation project.
13. How do we establish a
translation project?
Text refers to the source language
document which is to be translated
Target refers to the audience. For
whom is the translation being
prepared?
 13. How do we establish a
translation project?
Team refers to the people who will be
involved in the project. The team may consist
of
1) co-translator, where one is a specialist in the
source language and the other a specialist in the
receptor language,
2) a translator with capability to handle both
source language and receptor language matters and
ad advisor or consultant,
3) a committee working together with specific
responsibilities delegated to each one.
13. How do we establish a
translation project?
Tools refers to the written source
materials which will be used by the
translators as helps. These include
dictionaries, lexicons, grammars,
cultural descriptions, etc.