The use of corpora is becoming increasingly common in Translation Studies.
Example C6.5
[This country], a unique federation and a unique experiment. An unparalleled experiment not known by the human society with compatible motives and constituents, where most
political systems are proclaiming non-existence of such federation to that of [our country] through the history.
Editorial, Al-Jumruki, in-house publication of the Customs Department, Sharjah, UAE 1999
Task C6.6
In the particular case of the above English TT editorial, minimal modification of the translation would be simply unacceptable not only in terms of the
kind of writing customary in English for this kind of text but also from the standpoint of general cohesion and coherence.
➤ Edit the example to highlight the argument more succinctly and in keeping
with what is customary for this kind of text in English. ➤
Apply similar evaluation procedures to translations of editorials of the kind normally published by foreign English-medium newspapers and magazines, or
on the internet.
THE TRANSLATION PROCESS
In the examples we have examined so far, the changes introduced are part of the so-called restructuring stage. In the analysis stage, which could occur before or
after transfer and restructuring as the three stages are not necessarily sequential, grammar and lexis would obviously be under focus. As we saw in Section C, Unit
5, techniques such as componential analysis are available for the analysis of meaning in these areas. But this leaves us with the vexed question of what to do with
connotative
and stylistic meaning.
Task C6.7
➤ Translate a legal text into or out of English.
➤ Examine your own decision-making process as you progress through the
translation. ➤
Make a list of the kind of stylistic parameters you need to work with e.g. technicality of terminology, formality of tone, etc..
➤ Illustrate each parameter by noting what a given grammatical or lexical choice
was as opposed to what it could have been.
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➤
Are these decisions taken right from the start i.e. in the analysis stage, during the transfer or in the revision restructuring stage?
In the transfer stage, what is involved seems to be more than a straightforward replacement of SL elements with their most literal TL equivalents. Take for example
the important analytic distinction made between contextual consistency and verbal consistency
in translation. According to Nida and Taber 1969:199, contextual consistency is:‘the quality which results from translating a SL word by that expres-
sion in the receptor language which best fits each context rather than by the same expression in all contexts’.
Task C6.8
➤ Examine the translation of a sacred or sensitive text into English.
➤ Identify some key terms e.g. God, spirit, even war or home.
➤ Chart the various renderings of a given term, noting the context of each
rendering using the criterion of contextualverbal consistency. ➤
Even without access to the ST e.g. for the Bible, you can still ascertain whether the criterion used has been verbal or contextual consistency:is the formal
rendering God opted for systematically throughout, or are there any variations?
➤ What would happen if you were to impose verbal consistency on an entire
portion of the text? Would the ST’s sacred message be distorted in any way? If so, how?
Finally, stylistic appropriateness features prominently in restructuring. At this stage, the translator would be concerned with special effects and would thus focus
on such features as choice of oral or written mode, the role of situational factors, the selection of appropriate genre and type of text, appropriate language varieties
or styles, choice of formal features and lexical items.
Task C6.9
➤ Go through some of the TTs covered in this exploration unit and focus on
the criteria invoked in restructuring the various texts. Make a checklist of the reasons why a change was made i.e. what features of context have proved
crucial in solving a particular problem. For example, the problems in Examples C6.2 and C6.5 are all related to the type of writing we conventionally associate
with news reports.
Thus, we do not go through the translation process piecemeal one stage at a time, nor do we deal with the various words and sentences as isolated entities. Rather, we
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seek all the time to relate these micro-level elements words, phrases to higher levels of text organization. Even when our immediate decision is to leave things as they
are because there is absolutely nothing to modify or change, or aim for a formal or a dynamic kind of equivalence possibly despite an odd usage, we tend to ensure
that words are assigned values that go beyond referential or even associative meanings. These values tend to cater for such aspects of text in context as subject
matter and level of formality which we shall deal with under register in Unit 9, as well as rhetorical conventions and a diverse range of textual norms see text, genre
and discourse, Unit 11. Equivalence is thus both relative and context-sensitive. It is the variable nature of equivalence that we shall now explore.
CONCLUSION In this and related units A6, B6, we have considered the issue of equivalence
and found that, except in those cases where we deliberately choose to focus ‘on the message itself, in both form and content’ Nida 1964:159, any form-by-form
translation is a kind of literalism that rarely works. This is simply because there can never be absolute correspondence between languages. The issue of correspondence
is also an important consideration in judging extreme forms of dynamic equiv- alence
and the kind of response it is supposed to elicit. Such a response can never be identical with that which the original has elicited from its readers, ‘for no two
people ever [. . .] understand words in exactly the same manner’ Nida 1969:4. How, then, is translation possible? Like all forms of intercultural communication,
the process of translation works well at levels deeper than surface similarities and differences of structure or behaviour. Translators working within the framework of
dynamic equivalence
would thus be more concerned with the need to conjure up in the reader of a translation ‘modes of behaviour relevant within the context of
his own culture’ Nida 1964:159. The same may be said of the motivated variety of literal translation i.e. formal equivalence which, in its own peculiar way, also
focuses on context. In either kind of equivalence, there will be much less concern with matching TL message with SL message, a procedure typical of most literal
translations. In Unit 7, we shall establish that equivalence is not only relative, but also hierarchical and context sensitive.
PROJECTS
1. Refine the Translation Evaluation Scheme commenced in Unit C4 by going through the various texts covered in the different sections of Unit 6. Recall
the criteria you invoked in dealing with the various flawed translations. For instance, the criterion for Example C6.5 is genre.
Categories such as ‘genre’ tend to explain why things go wrong. To describe a problem, however, we need initially to work with basic syntactic, semantic and
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textual categories. There will thus be two sets of categories, one subsumed under Description syntactic, etc., the other under Explanation genre, discourse,
purpose
of translation, culture, etc.. Establish these two levels and the cate- gories within each, and leave the entire analytic ‘toolkit’ open for other variables
to be added as we progress through the book.