CONCEPTS - Translation

CONCEPTS Conceptual grid is the conceptual chunk of the Source Text that comes to the translator's mind as he translates. Textual grid is the textual chunk that the translator thinks of as he translates. Russian Formalist School is a school of literary theory and analysis that emerged in Russia around 1915, devoting itself to the study of literariness, i.e. the sum of 'devices' that distinguish literary language from ordinary language. In reaction to the vagueness of the previous literary theories, it attempted a scientific description of literature (especially poetry) as a special use of language with observable features. This meant disregarding the contents of literary works deliberately. Literal translation, one of the three types of direct translation, is also called word-for-word translation by Cicero, Horace and called 'metaphrase' by John Dryden. It is ideally the segmentation of the SL text into individual words and the TL rendering of those word segments one at a time. Borrowing is one of the three types of direct translation. The SL word is directly taken into the TL as it is. Calque is one of the three types of direct translation. This is a 'special kind of borrowing' where the SL expression structure is transferred in a literal translation. Transposition is one of the four types of oblique translation. This is a change of one part of speech for another without changing the sense. Modulation is one of the four types of oblique translation. This changes the semantics and the point of view of the SL. Equivalence is one of the four types of oblique translation. This term is used to refer to cases where languages describe the same situation by different stylistic or structural means. Adaptation is one of the four types of oblique translation. This involves changing the cultural reference when a situation in the source culture does not exist in the target culture. Resistant difference is the difference between languages which resists being translated(?) Elective affinityEquivalence is the relation between an ST and a TT that allows the TT to be considered as a translation of the ST in the first place. Equivalence is supposed to define translation and translation in turn defines equivalence. (Pym 1992a: 37) Equivalent effect: Equivalences across languages don't necessarily have the same effect. Ye kyaa chiiz hai?, in Hindi, said of a lush, seductive woman or a woman who is remarkable in some sense has hardly any correspondence in Kannada, a South Dravidian language, a correspondence which has the same effect as the sentence in Hindi. This is because languages have properties that are codedependent. Feedback to meaning contrived by sound is not crosslinguistically communicable.e.g alliteration, assonance, rhyming. It is clear that the still-to-be-researched code-dependent properties of language are what lead to limitations of translation. Translation that achieves equivalent effect approximates to 'communicative translation'. Hermeneutics is an interpretive method, named after the Greek word hermeneuin meaning 'to understand'. It involves empathic projection of the interpreter's desire to understand the activity s/he is trying to understand. They imagine themselves inside the activity, feel subjectively and describe what they find from within. Hermeneutic motionA term of George Steiner's coined in his attempt to project himself into the activity of translating and to describe it from within. It is a movement through four stages viz.

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Trust-the translator surrenders to the SL text and trusts it to mean something. Aggression-the translator goes abroad, enters the SL text, driven no longer by passive trust but by an active intention of taking something off the SL. and tries to extract something. The translator is said to go with plunder in mind. Incorporation- the translator has the intention of bringing back something from the SL from abroad. The translator is said to return with plunder in mind. Restitution- the translator tries to achieve a balance by trying to be as faithful as he can and as freely as he must. The translator must be willing to give back to the SL as much as he has taken. Foreignising- is choosing a foreign text and developing a method, which is not in the dominant cultural values of the TT. Not to be confused with exoticisation. Domesticating- is choosing a foreign text and bringing it as close as possible to the TT culture. Semantic translation- tries to present the semantic and syntactic structures of SL language to TT language as closely as possible. Communicative translation- tries to produce a similar effect as that of the SL text in the readers of TL text. Rationalization- (one of the twelve deforming tendencies) mainly affects syntactic structures including punctuation, sentence structure and order. Clarification- (one of the twelve deforming tendencies) making clear what is not clear in the original by explication. Expansion- (one of the twelve deforming tendencies) is making the TT longer than ST by overstating. Ennoblement- (one of the twelve deforming tendencies) some translators try and improve the style and rewrite it more elegantly. Qualitative impoverishment- (one of the twelve deforming tendencies) replacing words and expressions with TT equivalents that lack the richness of their ST equivalents. Quantitative impoverishment- (one of the twelve deforming tendencies) loss of lexical variation in translation. The destruction of rhythms- (one of the twelve deforming tendencies) not only in poetry but in novels too the rhythm may get destroyed due to changes in word order and punctuation. The destruction of underlying networks of signification- (one of the twelve deforming tendencies) a network of words formed may be destroyed if the translator is not aware of it. The destruction of linguistic patternings- (one of the twelve deforming tendencies) the systematic way in which the sentences are constructed in the ST may not be followed and the TT may be asystematic. The destruction of vernacular networks or their exoticization- (one of the twelve deforming tendencies) the local speech and language patterns that play an important role in the setting of the novel may be either exoticized or reduced to vernacular slang, both leading to the destruction of vernacular networks. The destruction of expressions and idioms- replacing of an idiom or a proverb by its TL equivalent is ethno-centricism and playing with equivalence. The effacement of the superimposition of languages- (one of the twelve deforming tendencies) the way in which translation tends to erase the traces of different forms of language that co-exist in the ST.

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