1. What is Translation?

Traditionally, translation is considered to be a change of form that is a change of

surface structures from a source language into a target language. A rather simple
definition of translation as "the replacement of textual material (SL) by equivalent
textual material in another (TL)" is suggested by Catford (1965,20).

1. The sociolinguistic approach

According to the sociolinguistic approach to translation, the social context defines what
is and what is not translatable and what is or what is not acceptable through selection,
filtering and even censorship. According to this perspective, a translator is necessarily
the product of his or her society: our own sociocultural background is present in
everything we translate. This approach was developed by the School of Tel Aviv and by
linguists and professors such as Annie Brisset, Even Zohar, and Guideon Toury.

2. The communicative approach

This theory is referred to as interpretive. Scholars Danica Seleskovitch and Marianne
Lederer developed what they called the “theory of sense,” based chiefly on the
experience of conference interpreting. According to this perspective, meaning must be
translated, not language. Language is nothing more than a vehicle for the message and
can even be an obstacle to understanding. This explains why it is always better to
deverbalize (instead of transcoding) when we translate.

3. The hermeneutic approach

The hermeneutic approach is mainly based on George Steiner’s research. Steiner
believed of any human communication as a translation. His book After Babel shows that
translation is not a science but rather an “exact art”: a true translator should be capable
of becoming a writer in order to capture what the author of the original text “means to
say.”

4. The linguistic approach

Linguists such as Vinay, Darbelnet, Austin, Vegliante, or Mounin, interested in language
text, structuralism, and pragmatics, also examined the process of translating. From this
perspective, any translation –whether it is a marketing translation, a medical translation,
a legal translation or another type of text– should be considered from the point of view
of its fundamental units, that is the word, the syntagm, and the sentence.

5. The literary approach

The literary approach does not consider that a translation is a linguistic endeavor but
instead a literary one. Language has an “energy” revealed through words that the result
of experiencing a culture. This charge is what gives it strength and ultimately, meaning:
this is what the translation-writer should translate.

6. The semiotic approach

Semiotics is the study of signs and signification. A meaning is the result of a
collaboration between a sign, an object, and an interpreter. Thus, from the perspective
of semiotics, translation is thought of as a way of interpreting texts in which
encyclopedic content varies and each sociocultural context is unique.

The 4 Most Common Different Types of Translation

The four most common types of translation services that we see are:

Literary translation

Professional translation

Technical Translation

Administrative translation

Below, we explain all of these in further detail, so you can get a better understanding of
what they are.

Literary Translation

As the name Literary translation may suggest, this type is all about translating literary
works like stories, poems, plays, etc. (see for example Kindlepreneur.) This type of
translation is often considered the hardest or most comprehensive, as the translator not
only needs to get the meaning of the words right, but also the context, sound, and
feeling behind the words. By this, we’re also talking about knowing the culture of both
languages well enough to translate any humor, emotions, and any types of similar
elements of a piece of work. As you can imagine, this requires extensive knowledge and
experience. Plus, it can still be hard even then, as in some cases, there are no suitable
translations. For example, in poetry, when the rhyming of words or puns is used for
additional wordplay, it often does not work in the target language.

Professional Translation

The next type of translation is professional translation. Any type of translations that are
used for professional purposes, we would usually fit into this category. Some common
examples would be a medical translation or a legal translation.

Here, the main goal is usually to get all the information translated as accurately as
possible. Unlike with a literary translation, documents won’t have any wordplay such as
puns or rhymes, making it a little easier for the translator.

However, accuracy is crucial for any type of professional translation, especially for
industries where the consequences of inaccuracies could be huge, such as medical or
law with medical translation and legal translation.

Like the ones named above, more complex industries will often also require a specialist
to ensure accuracy. Of course, this does depend on the subject matter, but the more
complex the source language, the more educated the translator must be.

This is especially the case if there is a lot of business jargon used or a certified
translation required.

Technical Translation

Technical translations are also technical, as the name suggests. Here, we’re usually
talking about translating technical content for businesses such as:

Engineering Documents

Instruction Manual

User guides
Technical Training

These types of documents will usually need technical translation services because the
translator has to understand the topic well to ensure that they can tell the user what
they should do accurately. Not only this, but they also have to understand the
formatting requirements, and sometimes the images have to be changed so that they
can be understood in the target language. If you require a technical translation, it’s also
crucial that you choose a company or transcriptionist who is comfortable and is
experienced with your particular industry. The content of a technical translation is
usually quite complicated, so if your business ever needs some documents like the ones
mentioned above translated, this is the translation type you’ll be looking for.

Administrative Translation

The administrative translation is a translation type used for the documents and
management texts of organizations like corporate or regional businesses. Administrative
translations can be considered a sub translation type of professional translations.
However, not all professional translations are administrative, so it doesn’t quite work,
vice-versa.

Other Types of Translations

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, there are endless ways you can break
down the world of translation into different types. Here are some other translation types
that we have not yet mentioned but are also quite common:

Machine translation

Judicial Translation

Website Translation

Script Translation

Multimedia Localization
Financial translation

Commercial Translation (Also overlaps with professional translation)

Legal translation

Medical translation

Qualities of a Good Translator

Dolet set out five principles in order of importance as follows:

(1) The translator must perfectly understand the sense and material of the original
author, although he [sic] should feel free to clarify obscurities.

(2) The translator should have a perfect knowledge of both SL and TL, so as not to
lessen the majesty of the language.

(3) The translator should avoid word-for-word renderings.

(4) The translator should avoid Latinate and unusual forms.

(5) The translator should assemble and liaise words eloquently to avoid clumsiness.

EQUIVALENCE:

'Translation involves two equivalent messages in two different codes'

When a word or phrase means exactly the same thing in both languages, we call
that an equivalence,

Converting one language (SL) to another (TL) so that the TL could convey the
intended message in SL.

  Baker's approach to translation equivalence

New adjectives have been assigned to the notion of equivalence

(grammatical, textual, pragmatic equivalence, and several others) and made
their appearance in the plethora of recent works in this field. An extremely
interesting discussion of the notion of equivalence can be found in Baker
(1992) who seems to offer a more detailed list of conditions upon which the
concept of equivalence can be defined. She explores the notion of
equivalence at different levels, in relation to the translation process,
including all different aspects of translation and hence putting together the
linguistic and the communicative approach. She distinguishes between:

 Equivalence that can appear at word level and above word level, when
translating from one language into another. Baker acknowledges that,
in a bottom-up approach to translation, equivalence at word level is
the first element to be taken into consideration by the translator. In
fact, when the translator starts analyzing the ST s/he looks at the
words as single units in order to find a direct 'equivalent' term in the
TL. Baker gives a definition of the term word since it should be
remembered that a single word can sometimes be assigned different
meanings in different languages and might be regarded as being a
more complex unit or morpheme. This means that the translator
should pay attention to a number of factors when considering a single
word, such as number, gender and tense (ibid.:11-12).

 Grammatical equivalence, when referring to the diversity of

grammatical categories across languages. She notes that grammatical
rules may vary across languages and this may pose some problems in
terms of finding a direct correspondence in the TL. In fact, she claims
that different grammatical structures in the SL and TL may cause
remarkable changes in the way the information or message is carried
across. These changes may induce the translator either to add or to
omit information in the TT because of the lack of particular
grammatical devices in the TL itself. Amongst these grammatical
devices which might cause problems in translation Baker focuses on
number, tense and aspects, voice, person and gender.

 Textual equivalence, when referring to the equivalence between a SL

text and a TL text in terms of information and cohesion. Texture is a
very important feature in translation since it provides useful guidelines
for the comprehension and analysis of the ST which can help the
translator in his or her attempt to produce a cohesive and coherent
text for the TC audience in a specific context. It is up to the translator
to decide whether or not to maintain the cohesive ties as well as the
coherence of the SL text. His or her decision will be guided by three
main factors, that is, the target audience, the purpose of the
translation and the text type.
  Pragmatic equivalence, when referring to implicatures and strategies
of avoidance during the translation process. Implicature is not about
what is explicitly said but what is implied. Therefore, the translator
needs to work out implied meanings in translation in order to get the
ST message across. The role of the translator is to recreate the
author's intention in another culture in such a way that enables the TC
reader to understand it clearly.

Nida in favor of ‘two basic orientations’ or ‘types of equivalence’ (Nida

1964a: 159): (1) formal equivalence and (2) dynamic equivalence. These
are defined by Nida as follows:

(1) Formal equivalence: Formal equivalence focuses attention on the

message itself, in both form and content . . . One is concerned that the
message in the receptor language should match as closely as possible the
different elements in the source language.

(Nida 1964a: 159)

Formal equivalence, or ‘formal correspondence’ (Nida and Taber 1969: 22–

8) is thus keenly oriented towards the ST structure, which exerts strong
inflfluence in determining accuracy and correctness. Most typical of this kind
of translation are ‘gloss translations’, with a close approximation to ST
structure, often with scholarly footnotes, allowing the student (since this
type of translation will often be used in an academic environment) to gain
close access to the language and customs of the source culture.

(2) Dynamic equivalence: Dynamic, or functional, equivalence is based on

what Nida calls ‘the principle of equivalent effect’, where ‘the relationship
between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that
which existed between the original receptors and the message’ (Nida 1964a:
159). The message has to be tailored to the receptor’s linguistic needs and
cultural expectation and ‘aims at complete naturalness of expression’.
‘Naturalness’ is a key requirement for Nida. Indeed, he defines the goal of
dynamic equivalence as seeking ‘the closest natural equivalent to the
source-language message’ (Nida 1964a: 166, Nida and Taber 1969: 12).
This receptor-oriented approach con siders adaptations of grammar, of
lexicon and of cultural references to be essen tial in order to achieve
naturalness; the TT language should not show interference from the SL, and
the ‘foreignness’ of the ST setting is minimized (Nida 1964a: 167–8) in a
way that would now be criticized by later culturally oriented transla tion
theorists (see Chapters 8 and 9). For Nida, the success of the translation
depends above all on achieving equivalent response. It is one of the ‘four
basic requirements of a translation’, which are (p. 164):

(1) Making sense;

(2) Conveying the spirit and manner of the original;

(3) Having a natural and easy form of expression;

(4) Producing a similar response.

It is interesting to note the similarity with Tytler’s principles of translation in

one of the early

NEWMARK: SEMANTIC AND COMMUNICATIVE

TRANSLATION

Newmark’s Approaches to Translation (1981) and A Textbook of Translation

(1988) have been widely used on translator training courses2 and combine a
wealth of practical examples of linguistic theories of meaning with practical
applications for translation. Yet Newmark departs from Nida’s receptor-
oriented line, feeling that the success of equivalent effect is ‘illusory’ and
that ‘the conflict of loyalties, the gap between emphasis on source and
target language will always remain as the overriding problem in translation
theory and practice’ (Newmark 1981: 38). Newmark suggests narrowing the
gap by replacing the old terms with those of ‘semantic’ and ‘communicative’
translation:

Communicative translation attempts to produce on its readers an effect as

close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original. Semantic
translation attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic
structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of
the original.

(Newmark 1981: 39)

This description of communicative translation resembles Nida’s dynamic

equivalence in the effect it is trying to create on the TT reader, while
semantic translation has similarities to Nida’s formal equivalence. However,
Newmark distances himself from the full principle of equivalent effect, since
that effect ‘is inoperant if the text is out of TL space and time’ (1981: 69).
An example would be a modern British English translation of Homer. The
translator (indeed any modern translator, no matter what the TL) cannot
possibly hope or expect to produce the same effect on the TT reader as the
ST had on listeners in ancient Greece. Newmark (p. 51) also raises further
questions concerning the readers to whom Nida directs his dynamic
equivalence, asking if they are ‘to be handed everything on a plate’,with
everything explained for them.

Other differences are revealed by Newmark’s definitions of his own terms

(1981:39–69), summarized in Table 3.1 below). Newmark (p. 63) indicates
that semantic translation differs from literal translation in that it ‘respects
context’, interprets and even explains(metaphors, for instance). Literal
translation, on the other hand, as we saw in Chapter 2,means word-for-word
in its extreme version and, even in its weaker form, sticks very closely to ST
lexis and syntax.