Chapter 4 Language Functions, Text-categories and Text-types
The expressive function (p39)
The core of the expressive function is the mind of the speaker, the writer, the originator of the utterance. He uses the utterance to express his feelings irrespective of any response. For the purposes of translation, the characteristic ‘expressive’ text-types are: serious imaginative literature; authoritative statement; autobiography, essays, personal correspondence
The informative function (p40)
The core of the informative function of language is external situation, the facts of a topic, reality outside language, including reported ideas or theories. For the purposes of translation, typical ‘informative’ texts are concerned with any topic of knowledge. The format of an informative text is often standard: a text, a technical report, an article in a newspaper or a periodical, a scientific paper, a thesis, minutes or agenda of a meeting.
The vocative function (p41)
The core of vocative function of language is the readership, the addressee. For the purpose of translation, I take notices, instructions, publicity, propaganda, persuasive writing and possibly popular fiction, whose purpose is to sell the book the reader, as the typical ‘vocative’ text.
The first factor in all vocative texts is the relationship between the writer and the readership; the second factor is that these texts must be written in a language that is immediately comprehensible to the readership.
The aesthetic function (p42)
This is language designed to please the senses, firstly through its actual or imagined sound, and secondly through its metaphors.
The phatic function (p43)
The phatic function of language is use for maintaining friendly contact with the addressee rather than for imparting foreign information.
The metalingual function (p43)
The metalingual function of language indicates a language’s ability to explain, name, and criticese its own features.
Chapter 5 Translation Methods
Introduction (p45)
The central problem of translating has always been whether to translate literally or freely. The argument has been going on since at least the first century BC. Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, many writers favored some kind of ‘free’ translation; the spirit, not the letter; the sense not the words; the message rather than the form; the matter not the manner. This was the often revolutionary slogan of writers who wanted the truth to be read and understood. Then at the
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turn of the nineteenth century, when the study of cultural anthropology suggested that the linguistic barriers were insuperable and that language was entirely the product of culture, the view that translation was impossible gained some currency, and with it that, if attempted at all, it must be as literal as possible.
The methods
(p45)Word-for-word translation: this is often demonstrated as interlinear translation, with the TL immediately below the SL words. The SL word-order is preserved and the words translated singly by their most common meanings, out of context. Cultural words are translated literally. The main use of word-for-word translation is either to understand the mechanics of the source language or to construe a difficult text as a pre-translation process.
(p46)Literal translation: the SL grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest TL equivalents but the lexical words are again translated singly, out of context. As a pre-translation process, this indicates the problems to be solved.
Faithful translation: a faithful translation attempts to reproduce the precise contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures. It ‘transfers’ cultural words and preserves the degree of grammatical and lexical ‘abnormality’ in the translation. It attempts to be completely faithful to the intentions and the text-realization of the SL writer.
Semantic translation: semantic translation differs from ‘faithful translation’ only in as far as it must take more account of the aesthetic value (that is, the beautiful and natural sound) of the SL text, compromising on ‘meaning’ where appropriate so that no assonance, word-play or repetition jars in the finished version. Further, it may translate less important cultural words by culturally neutral third or functional terms but not by cultural equivalents and it may make other small concessions to the readership.
Adaptation: this is the ‘freest’ form of translation. It is used mainly for plays (comedies) and poetry; the themes, characters, plots are usually preserved, the SL culture converted to the TL culture and the text rewritten.
Free translation: free translation reproduces the matter without the manner, or the content without the form of the original.
(p47)Idiomatic translation: idiomatic translation reproduce the ‘message’ of the original but tends to distort nuances of meaning by preferring colloquialisms and idioms where these do not exist in the original.
Communicative translation: attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership.
Comments in these methods
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(p47)In general, a semantic translation is written at the author’s linguistic level, a communicative at the readership’s. Semantic translation is used for ‘expressive’ texts, communicative for ‘informative’ and ‘vocative’ texts.
Cultural components tend to be transferred intact in expressive texts; transferred and explained with culturally neutral terms in informative texts; replaced by cultural equivalents in vocative texts.
Semantic translation is personal and individual, follows the thought processes of the author, tends to over-translate, pursues nuances of meaning, yet aims at concision in order to reproduce pragmatic impact. Communicative translation is social, concentrates on the message and the main force of the text, tends to under-translate, to be simple, clear and brief, and is always written in a natural and resourceful style. A semantic translation is normally inferior to its original, as there is both cognitive and pragmatic loss; a communicative translation is often better than its original. At a pinch, a semantic translation has to interpret, a communicative translation to explain.
Equivalent effect
(p48)However, in the communicative translation of vocative texts, equivalent effect is not only desirable, it is essential; it is the criterion by which the effectiveness, and therefore the value, of the translation of notices, instructions, publicity propaganda, persuasive or eristic writing, and perhaps popular fiction, is to be assessed.
In informative texts, equivalent effect is desirable only in respect of their insignificant emotional impact; it is not possible if SL and TL culture are remote from each other, since normally the cultural items have to be explained by culturally neutral or generic terms, the topic content simplified, SL difficulties clarified.
In semantic translation, the first problem is that for serious imaginative literature, there are individual readers rather than a readers rather than a readership. Secondly, whilst the reader is not entirely neglected, the translator is essentially trying to render the effect the SL text has on himself, not on any putative readership. Certainly, the more ‘universal’ the text, the more a broad equivalent effect is possible, since the ideals of the original go beyond any cultural frontiers.
(p49)However, the more cultural (the more local, the more remote in time and space) a text, the less is equivalent effect even conceivable unless the reader is imaginative, sensitive and steeped in the SL culture.
Methods and text-categories (p50)
Note that I group informative and vocative texts together as suitable for communicative translation. However, further distinctions can be made.
Unless informative texts are badly/inaccurately written, they are translated more closely than vocative texts. Vocative texts exemplify the two poles of communicative translation. On the one hand translation by standard terms and phrases is used mainly for notices. On the other hand, there is, in principle, the ‘recreative’ translation that might be considered appropriate for publicity and propaganda, since the situation is more important than the language.
Where communicative translation of advertisements works so admirable, producing equivalent
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pragmatic effect , there seems no need to have recourse to ‘co-writing’, where two writers are given a number of basic facts abut one product and instructed to write the most persuasive possible advert in their respective languages.
Chapter 6 The Unit of Translation and Discourse Analysis
Introduction
(p54)Discourse analysis can be defined as the analysis of texts beyond and above the sentence—the attempt to find linguistic regularities in discourse. The subject now tends to be swallowed up in text linguistics. Its main concepts are cohesion—the features that bind sentences to each other grammatically and lexically—and coherence—which is the notional and logical unity of a text.
The argument about the length of the UT, which has been put succinctly by W. Haas, ‘as short as is possible, as long as is necessary’, is a concrete reflection of the age—old conflict between free and literal translation—the freer the translation, the longer the UT; the more literal the translation, the shorter the UT, The closer to the word, or, in poetry, even to the morpheme. Free translation has always favored the sentence; literal translation the word. Now, since the rise of text linguistics, free translation has moved from the sentence to the sentence to the whole text. In the last 15 years, the argument has been revived by those who maintain that the only true UT is the whole text. This view has been underpinned by the vast industry in discourse analysis, or text linguistics, which examines a text as a whole in its relations and cohesion at all levels higher than the sentence.
(p55)The general properties of a text have often been described. These are the tone, the intention of the text, your own intention as a translator, the type of the text, the quality of the writing, the permanent features of the writer (dialect, sociolect, period, sex, age, etc.), the situation linked to the readership, the degree of formality, generality or technicality, and emotional tone—say, the register and the pragmatic features.
I categorize all texts as expressive or informative or vocative, each with a basic translator’s loyalty to the SL writer, or the ‘truth’, the facts of the matter or the readership respectively.
Coherence (p55)
The more cohesive, the more formalized a text, the more information it, as a unit, affords the translator. Consider first its genre. Next, consider the structure of the text.
Titles (p57)
I distinguish between ‘descriptive titles’, which describe the topic of the text, and ‘allusive title’, which have some kind of referential or figurative relationship to the topic. For serious imaginative literature, I think a descriptive title should be ‘literally’ kept, and an allusive title literally or where necessary, imaginatively preserved. For non-literary texts, there is always a case for replacing allusive by descriptive titles, particularly if the allusive title is idiomatic or culturally bound.
Dialogue cohesion (p57)
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Cohesion is closer in the give and take of dialogue and speech than in any other form of text. The main cohesive factor is the question, which may be a disguised command, request, plea, invitation (i.e. grammatically a statement or a command or a question) and where the forms of address are determined by factors of kinship and intimacy, and, regrettably, class, sex and age.
The translator has to bear in mind the main differences between speech and dialogue: speech has virtually no punctuation (‘The sentence is virtually irrelevant in speech’: Sinclair er al., 1975), is diffuse, and leaves semantic gaps filled by gesture and paralingual features.
Punctuation (p58)
Punctuation is an essential aspect of discourse analysis, since it gives a semantic indication of the relationship between sentences and clauses, which may vary according to languages.
Sound-effects (p58)
Sound-effects, even at the level beyond the sentence, should be taken into account, not only in poetry, but in jingles, where succulent s’s can sometimes be transferred, or in realistic narrative.
Cohesion (p59)
The most common forms these take are connectives denoting addition, contradiction, contrast, result, etc. these connectives are tricky when they are poly semous, since they may have meanings contradicting each other.
Referential synonyms
(p59)Sentences cohere through the use of referential synonyms, which may be lexical, pronominal or general.
(p60)In many cases, all three types of referential synonym are used to avoid repetition rather than to supply new information. Whilst the translator must reproduce the new information, he should not be afraid of repetition, in particular of repeating the most specific term or the proper name to avoid any ambiguity.
Enumerators (p60)
Enumerators also act as connectors between sentences. Numerical adverbs are usually straightforward, and double enumerators may oscillate between enumeration and contrast.
Functional sentence perspective
(p61)It is intimately related to translation problems. FSP examines the arrangement of the elements of a sentence in the light of its linguistic, situational and cultural context, determining its function within the paragraph and the text. What is known, or may be inferred, or is the starting-point of a communication is to be regarded as the theme of a sentence; the elements which convey the new piece of information is the rheme. Elements that belong neither to theme nor rheme are transitional. Normally one proceeds from the known to the unknown: one begins with the theme, and therefore the new elements with the highest degree of CD come last in a sentence.
(p62)Thus in considering the functional, semantic and syntactic aspects of a sentence, the translator may have to weigh the writer’s functional purposes against the particular language’s
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