translation theory

2021年1月25日发(作者：好啊)
Translation

is
the
communication
of
the
meaning

of
a
source-language

text
by means of an
equivalent

target- language
text.
[1]
Whereas
interpreting

undoubtedly antedates
writing
, translation began only after the
appearance
of
written
literature
;
there
exist
partial
translations
of
the
Sumerian
Epic
of
Gilgamesh

(ca.
2000
BCE)
into
Southwest
Asian

languages
of the second millennium BCE.
[2]

Translators always risk inappropriate
spill-over
of source- language
idiom

and
usage

into
the
target-language
translation.
On
the
other
hand,
spill-overs have imported useful source-language
calques
and
loanwords

that
have
enriched
the
target
languages.
Indeed,
translators
have
helped
substantially to shape the languages into which they have translated.
[3]

Due
to
the
demands
of
business

documentation
consequent
to
the
Industrial
Revolution
that began in the mid-18th century, some translation
specialties have become formalized, with dedicated schools and
professional associations.
[4]

Because of the laboriousness of translation, since the 1940s engineers
have sought to automate translation (
machine translation
) or to
mechanically
aid
the
human
translator
(
computer-assisted
translation
).
[5]

The
rise
of
the
Internet

has
fostered
a
world-wide
market
for
translation
services and has facilitated
language localization
.
[6

Western theory


Modern translator:

John Dryden

Discussions of the theory and practice of translation reach back into
antiquity
and show remarkable continuities. The
ancient Greeks

distinguished between
metaphrase
(
literal translation
) and
paraphrase
.
This distinction was adopted by English
poet
and
translator

John Dryden

(1631
–
1700), who described translation as the judicious blending of
these two modes of phrasing when selecting, in the target language,

equivalents
, for the expressions used in the source
language:
When [words] appear . . . literally graceful, it were an injury to the
author
that
they
should
be
changed.
But
since...
what
is
beautiful
in
one
[language] is often barbarous, nay sometimes nonsense, in another, it
would be unreasonable
to
limit a
translator to the narrow compass
of his
author's
words:
’tis
enough
if
he
choose
out
some
expression which
does
not vitiate the sense.
[7]



Cautioner:

Cicero

Dryden cautioned, however, against the license of
adapted tr
anslation: “When a painter copies from the life... he has no
privilege to alter features and lineaments...
[8]

This general formulation of the central concept of translation
—

equivalence

—
is
as adequate as
any
that has been proposed
since
Cicero

and
Horace
, who, in 1st-century-BCE
Rome
, famously and literally
cautioned against translating
verbum pro verbo
).
[8]

Despite occasional theoretical diversity, the actual
practice
of
translation has hardly changed since
antiquity
. Except for some extreme
metaphrasers
in the early
Christian
period and the
Middle Ages
, and
adapters
in
various
periods
(especially
pre-Classical
Rome,
and
the
18th
century),
translators
have
generally
shown
prudent
flexibility
in
seeking
equivalents

—


literal

where
possible,
paraphrastic

where
necessary
—

for the original
meaning
and other crucial
style
,
verse
form
, concordance with
musical
accompaniment or, in
films
, with speech
[8]
articulatory
movements) as determined from context.



Lexicographer and literary critic:

Samuel Johnson

In general, translators have sought to preserve the context itself by
reproducing the original order of
sememes
, and hence
word order

—
when
necessary, reinterpreting the actual
grammatical
structure. The
grammatical differences between
languages
[11]
(e.g.
English
,
French
,
German
)
and

languages
[12]

(e.g.,
Greek
,
Latin
,
Polish
,
Russian
) have been no impediment in this regard.
[8]



Religious translator:

Martin Luther

When
a
target
language
has
lacked
terms

that
are
found
in
a
source
language,
translators have borrowed those terms, thereby enriching the target
language.
Thanks
in
great
measure
to
the
exchange
of
calques

and
loanwords

between languages, and to their importation from other languages, there
are few
concepts
that are
untranslatable
languages.
[8][13]

Generally,
the
greater
the
contact
and
exchange
that
have
existed
between
two languages, or between those languages and a third one, the greater
is the ratio of
metaphrase

to
paraphrase

that may
be used in
translating
among
them.
However,
due
to
shifts
in
ecological
niches

of
words,
a
common
etymology
is sometimes misleading as a guide to current meaning in one
or the other language. For example, the English
actual
should not be
confused with the
cognate
French
actuel
(
Polish
aktualny
(
[14]
or the Russian
а
к
т
у
а
л
ь
н
ы
й
(
The translator's role as a bridge for
cultures has been discussed at least since
Terence
, the 2nd-century-BCE
Roman adapter of Greek comedies. The translator's role is, however, by
no
means
a
passive,
mechanical
one,
and
so
has
also
been
compared
to
that
of
an
artist
.
The
main
ground
seems
to
be
the
concept
of
parallel
creation
found in critics such as
Cicero
.
Dryden
observed that
type of drawing after life...
musician
or
actor
goes back at least to
Samuel Johnson
’s
remark about
Alexander Pope
playing
Homer
on a
flageolet
, while Homer himself used a
bassoon
.
[14]



Axiom:

Johann Gottfried Herder

If translation be an art, it is no easy one. In the 13th century,
Roger
Bacon

wrote
that
if
a
translation
is
to
be
true,
the
translator
must
know
both
languages
,
as
well
as
the
science

that
he
is
to
translate;
and
finding
that few translators did, he wanted to do away with translation and
translators altogether.
[15]



Polish author and translator:

Ignacy Krasicki

The
translator
of
the
Bible
into
German,
Martin
Luther
,
is
credited
with
being
the
first
European
to
posit
that
one
translates
satisfactorily
only
toward his own language. L.G. Kelly states that since
Johann Gottfried
Herder
in the 18th century,
only toward his own language.
[16]

Compounding
the
demands
on
the
translator
is
the
fact
that
no
dictionary

or
thesaurus

can
ever
be
a
fully
adequate
guide
in
translating.
The
British
historian
Alexander
Tytler
,
in
his
Essay
on
the
Principles
of
Translation

(1790), emphasized that assiduous
reading
is a more comprehensive guide
to a language than are dictionaries. The same point, but also including
listening

to the
spoken

language
,
had earlier, in
1783, been made by the
Polish poet and
grammarian

Onufry Andrzej Kopczyński
.
[17]

The translator’s spe
cial role in society is described in a posthumous
1803
essay
by

La
Fontaine

the
Roman
Catholic
Primate
of
Poland
,
poet
,
encyclopedist
,
author

of
the
first
Polish
novel,
and
translator
from
French and Greek,
Ignacy Krasicki
:
“

[T]ranslation . . . is in fact an art both estimable and very
difficult,
and
therefore
is
not
the
labor
and
portion
of
common
minds;
[it] should be [practiced] by those who are themselves capable of
being actors, when they see greater use in translating the works of
others
than
in
their
own
works,
and
hold
higher
than
their
own
glory
the service that they render their country.
[18]

Religious texts
Further information:
Bible translations
and
Translation of the Qur'an



Saint Jerome,
patron saint
of translators and encyclopedists



Mistranslation:
the horned
Moses
, by
Michelangelo

An
important
role
in history
has
been
played
by
translation
of religious
texts.
Buddhist

monks

who
translated
the
Indian

sutras

into
Chinese

often
skewed their translations to better reflect
China
's distinct
culture
,
emphasizing notions such as
filial piety
.
One of the first recorded instances of translation in the West was the
rendering of the
Old Testament
into
Greek
in the 3rd century BCE. The
translation
is
known
as
the

Septuagint

a
name
that
refers
to
the
seventy
translators (seventy-two, in some versions) who were commissioned to
translate the
Bible
at
Alexandria
,
Egypt
. Each translator worked in
solitary
confinement
in
his
own
cell,
and
according
to
legend
all
seventy
versions
proved
identical.
The
Septuagint

became
the
source
text

for
later