Translation

Translation

Competent translators show the following attributes:

• a very good knowledge of the language, written and spoken, from which they are translating (the source language);
• an excellent command of the language into which they are translating (the target language);
• familiarity with the subject matter of the text being translated;
• a profound understanding of the etymological and idiomatic correlates between the two languages; and
• a finely tuned sense of when to metaphrase ("translate literally") and when to paraphrase, so as to assure true rather than spurious equivalents between the source- and target-language texts.

A competent translator is not only bilingual but bicultural. A language is not merely a collection of words and of rules of grammar and syntax for generating sentences, but also a vast interconnecting system of connotations and cultural references whose mastery, writes linguist Mario Pei, "comes close to being a lifetime job.
The complexity of the translator's task cannot be overstated; one author suggests that becoming an accomplished translator — after having already acquired a good basic knowledge of both languages and cultures — may require a minimum of ten years' experience. Viewed in this light, it is a serious misconception to assume that a person who has fair fluency in two languages will, by virtue of that fact alone, be consistently competent to translate between them.
The translator's role in relation to a text has been compared to that of an artist, e.g., a musician or actor, who interprets a work of art. Translation, like other arts, inescapably involves choice, and choice implies interpretation English-language novelist Joseph Conrad advised his niece and Polish translator Aniela Zagórska:

[D]on't trouble to be too scrupulous... I may tell you (in French) that in my opinion "il vaut mieux interpréter que traduire" ["it is better to interpret than to translate"].... Il s'agit donc de trouver les équivalents. Et là, ma chère, je vous prie laissez vous guider plutôt par votre tempérament que par une conscience sévère.... [It is, then, a question of finding the equivalent expressions. And there, my dear, I beg you to let yourself be guided more by your temperament than by a strict conscience.

Translation Definition

Translation Definition

Translation is a term used in geometry to describe a function that moves an object a certain distance. The object is not altered in any other way. It is not rotated, reflected or re-sized.
In a translation, every point of the object must be moved in the same direction and for the same distance.
When you are performing a translation, the initial object is called the pre-image, and the object after the translation is called the image. So, in the picture above, the rust-colored item is the pre-image, and the blue item is the image. We know this because the arrow tells us the direction in which the image was moved. For other images, you might be told which image is the pre-image, or you might be asked to find either the pre-image from the image, or vice versa.

How to Perform Translations

When working with translation problems, the information may be presented in different ways.
You may be given a figure drawn on the coordinate plane like this:

Then you will be asked to translate the figure. You will be given a distance and direction for the transformation.
For example, translate the figure down 7.
The way to do this is to take each vertex point individually and count down 7. So the point at (1, 5) will move to (1, -2). Notice we did not move the vertex along the x-axis, or horizontal direction. The instructions asked us to move it down only, along the y-axis.

The Process of Translation

The Process of Translation

1)      The Process of Translation
"Here, then, is the full process of translation. At one point we have a writer in a room, struggling to approximate the impossible vision that hovers over his head. He finishes it, with misgivings. Some time later we have a translator struggling to approximate the vision, not to mention the particulars of language and voice, of the text that lies before him. He does the best he can, but is never satisfied. And then, finally, we have the reader. The reader is the least tortured of this trio, but the reader too may very well feel that he is missing something in the book, that through sheer ineptitude he is failing to be a proper vessel for the book’s overarching vision."
(Michael Cunningham, "Found in Translation." The New York Times, Oct. 2, 2010)

2)      The Untranslatable
"Just as there are no exact synonyms within a language ('big' does not mean precisely the same as 'large'), there are no exact matches for words or expressions across languages. I can express the notion 'four year old male uncastrated domesticated reindeer' in English. But our tongue lacks the economy of information packaging found in Tofa, a nearly extinct tongue I studied in Siberia. Tofa equips reindeer herders with words like 'chary' with the above meaning. Furthermore, that word exists within a multidimensional matrix that defines the four salient (for the Tofa people) parameters of reindeer: age, sex, fertility, and rideability. Words are untranslateable because [they] do not exist in a flat, alphabetised dictionary style list, but rather in a richly structured taxonomy of meaning. They are defined by their oppositions to and similarities to multiple other words--in other words, the cultural backdrop."

Translation

Translation

"Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful."
(attributed to Yevgeny Yevtushenko, among others)

a.       Translation and Style
"To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one's own style and creatively adjust this to one's author."
(Paul Goodman, Five Years: Thoughts During a Useless Time, 1969)

b.      The Illusion of Transparency
"A translated text, whether prose or poetry, fiction or nonfiction, is judged acceptable by most publishers, reviewers, and readers when it reads fluently, when the absence of any linguistic or stylistic peculiarities makes it seem transparent, giving the appearance that it reflects the foreign writer's personality or intention or the essential meaning of the foreign text--the appearance, in other words, that the translation is not in fact a translation, but the 'original.' The illusion of transparency is an effect of fluent discourse, of the translator's effort to insure easy readability by adhering to current usage, maintaining continuous syntax, fixing a precise meaning. What is so remarkable here is that this illusory effect conceals the numerous conditions under which the translation is made . . .."

c.       "Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful."
(attributed to Yevgeny Yevtushenko, among others)

d.      Translation and Style
"To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one's own style and creatively adjust this to one's author."
(Paul Goodman, Five Years: Thoughts During a Useless Time, 1969)

e.       The Illusion of Transparency
"A translated text, whether prose or poetry, fiction or nonfiction, is judged acceptable by most publishers, reviewers, and readers when it reads fluently, when the absence of any linguistic or stylistic peculiarities makes it seem transparent, giving the appearance that it reflects the foreign writer's personality or intention or the essential meaning of the foreign text--the appearance, in other words, that the translation is not in fact a translation, but the 'original.' The illusion of transparency is an effect of fluent discourse, of the translator's effort to insure easy readability by adhering to current usage, maintaining continuous syntax, fixing a precise meaning. What is so remarkable here is that this illusory effect conceals the numerous conditions under which the translation is made . . .."
(Lawrence Venuti, The Translator's Invisibility: A History of Translation. Routledge, 1995)

Definition about translation

Definition about translation

(1) The process of turning an original or "source" text into a text in another language.

(2) A translated version of a text.

An individual or a computer program that renders a text into another language is called a translator. The discipline concerned with issues related to the production of translations is called translation studies. (See Examples and Observations, below.)

Examples and Observations:

1.      Three Types of Translation
"In his seminal paper, 'On Linguistic Aspects of Translation' (Jacobson 1959/2000. see Section B, Text B1.1), the Russo-American linguist Roman Jakobson makes a very important distinction between three types of written translation:
 

2.      intralingual translation - translation within the same language, which can involve rewording or paraphrase;

3.      interlingual translation - translation from one language to another, and

4.      intersemiotic translation - translation of the verbal sign by a non-verbal sign, for example music or image.