1.2 Comparison between CT and ST
To lend readers more concrete understanding of relevant knowledge about communicative translation and semantic translation, this part will conduct their mutual comparisons.
1.2.1 The Differences between CT and ST
These two kinds of translation have obvious difference, according to Peter Newmark, the methods of communicative translation and semantic translation vary from each other in terms of the following aspects:
(1) Communicative translation addresses itself solely to the second reader, who does not anticipate difficulties or obscurities, and would expect a generous transfer of foreign elements into his own culture as well as his language where necessary.
Semantic translation remains within the original culture and assists the reader only in its connotations if they constitute the essential human (non-ethnic) message of the text.
(2) Communicative translation must emphasize the “force” rather than the content of the message.
Semantic translation would be more informative but less effective.
(3) A semantic translation is always inferior to its original, since it involves loss of meaning;
Communicative translation may gain in force and clarify what it loses in semantic content. The translator is trying in his own language to write a little better than the original, unless he is reproducing the well-established formulae of notes or correspondence. (Newmark, 2004: 39)
Generally, a communicative translation tends to undertranslate. It uses more generic, hold-all terms to translate difficult passages. It is smoother, simpler, clearer, more direct, more conventional, conforming to a particular register of language. It is foremost to produce the same impact or effect on SL readers and fulfill the function of TL texts to establish the communication between SL authors and TL readers. A semantic translation tends to overtranslate. It is more complex, more awkward, more detailed, more concentrated. It pursues the thought-processes and includes more meanings in its search for one nuance of meaning.
Differences between communicative translation and semantic translation can be further displayed by the following example:
谋事在人，成事在天
Version A: Man proposes, God disposes.
Version B: Man proposes, Heaven disposes.
In ancient Chinese culture, “天” means the ruler of the universe; in Western culture, God is a being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe. So, the communicative translation, “God”, catering for the Western religious background, is more acceptable for Western readers. Here, Version A can be viewed as communicative translation and Version B can be viewed as semantic translation (刘士聪,谷启楠, 1997:16).
1.2.2 Similarities between CT and ST
Despite the differences, communicative translation and semantic translation are also established largely on the common ground. They “may well coincide——in particular, where the text conveys a general rather than a culturally bound message and where the matter is as important as the manner” (Newmark, 2004: 40). And they both comply with the usually syntactic equivalents for the two languages. That is to say, a translation can be more or less semantic, or more or less communicative, but without complete division. Chinese scholar Liao Qiyi presented the following similarities (2001: 188—190)：