Article What is Translation?
TRANSLATION
I. WHAT IS TRANSLATION?
A. Interpretation of the meaning of a text in one language
1. Source text
2. Target text
3. Relation of equivalence between both languages that must have the same meaning
B. Concept of translation
1. Etymological origins
2. It is to “bring across”
3. Common misconceptions about translation
C. Translation vs Interpretatio
1. Translation is writing
2. Interpretation is oral
2. TRANSLATION IS A PROCESS
A. Decoding the meaning of the source text
1. Identify the translation unit
2. Interpret and analyse it
3. Requires to know: Grammar, syntax, idioms and culture
2. Re-encoding this meaning in the target language.
1. The knowledge about the target text must be deeper than the knowledge of the source text.
3. Measuring success in translation
1. By faithfulness also called fidelity
2. Transparency
3. TRANSLATION PROBLEMS
A. General Problems
1. Problems related with the source text
2. Language problems and other related to culture preferences and euphony or dissonance
3. Untranslatability
B. Common words
4. SPECIALISED TYPES OF TRANSLATION
A. Administrative translation
B. Commercial translation
C. Computer translation
D. General translation
E. Legal translation
F. Literary translation
G. Scientific and Technical translations
H. Pedagogical and scholarly translations
5. HISTORY
A. Translations has a near history with religious texts
1. Buddhist monks translated the Indian sutras into the Chinese
2. The Old Testament into the Greek (Septuaginta - Third Century B.C.E)
3. The septuagint into the Latin, Coptic, Armenian and Georgian
4. St. Jerome did translate the Bible into the Latin (Vulgata)
6. TRENDS IN TRANSLATION
A. Machine Translation
1. A computer program produces a target text without human intervention
B. Computer-assisted Translation (CAT)
1. Human translator create a target with the assistance of a computer program
7. CULTURAL TRANSLATION
A. Criticism of translation