Translation Theories, Strategies,

and Basic Theoretical Issues

Group 2
Wahyudi Daud Rahmiyatin Rama
Asfina Yunisa

Harlan Rahmawati
Contents of Discussion:

Definitions
and Types of A Historical A General
Translation Perspective Survey
 Definitions and Types

Translating /
Definitions Types Interpreting
Constraints

Translation Quality
Time Lag and Assessment and
Interpreting Audience
Strategies Reception
 Definitions
Translation consists in reproducing in the receptor
language the closest natural equivalent of the source
language message, first in terms of meaning and
secondly in terms of style (Nida and Taber, 1969:
12).
Translation is the expression in another
language (or the target language) of what
has been expressed in another, source
language, preserving semantic and stylistic
equivalences. (Dubois, 1974) .
Types

Translation Types according to Code

Translation Types according to Mode:
Written vs. Oral: Translating /
Interpreting: General Remarks
Convergent / Divergent Requirements for
Translating / Interpreting Competence
Translating/Interpreting Constraints

Below are the main constraints:

Syntactic Constraints
Semantic Constraints
Phonological and Prosodic Constraints
Cultural and Phatic Constraints
Paralinguistic and
Psychological Constraints
Time Lag

Time lag refers to the

time between the interpreters
reception of the speakers
utterance and his/her
production.
Translation and Interpreting Strategies

These strategies are of five sub-categories:

Domestication Strategy
Compensation Strategy
Compensation in Kind
Compensation in Place
Quality Assessment and Audience Reception

Only bilingual readers, listeners or critics can

accomplish translating / interpreting quality
assessment. To be objective, the assessment has to
be based on certain criteria, the most obvious of
which is the semantic / stylistic fidelity to the
original text / message. Fidelity entails such
parameters as accuracy, grammaticality,
acceptability, idiomaticity, and naturalness among
others. Interpreting, however, requires other non
linguistic criteria for assessment.
 Historical Perspective

First Second Third Fourth

Period Period Period Period

Contemporary
Translation Arabs Status of
Computeriza Theorization Translation
Theory
tion Era
First Period

This period starts with the Romans.

Eric Jacobsen (in Bassnett 1988:48)
goes so far as to hyperbolically
propound that translation is a Roman
invention though translation is as old
as language itself.
Second Period

This period, according to Steiner,

runs up to the forties of the twentieth
century. It is characterized as a
period of theory and hermeneutic
inquiry with the development of a
vocabulary and methodology of
approaching translation.
Third Period

This period, which is the shortest as it extends to

less than three decades, starts with the publication
of the first papers on machine translation in the
1940s, and is characterized by the introduction of
structural and applied linguistics, contrastive
studies in morphology and syntax among others
which help the translator identify similarities and
differences between NL and FL and
communication theory into the study of translation.
Fourth Period

The last period coexists with the third

period as it has its origin in the early
1960s, and is characterized by a
recourse to hermeneutic inquiries into
translation and interpretation, i.e., by a
revision of translation that sets the
discipline in a wide frame which
includes a number of other discipline
Translation Computerization Era

The invention of computer has led to

aspire after an automatic machine
translation (MT) wherein the computer is
provided with the ST to be reproduced
automatically or with the assistance of
man as a semantically equivalent and
well- formed text in the TL.
Arabs Theorization

The Arabs, according to Baker

(2005: 318), are credited with
initiating the first organized,
large-scale translation activity
in history.
Contemporary Status of Translation Theory

Peter Emery (2000:105) cites Klein-

Braley (1996:26) among others who
maintain that theory has no place
in most university translation
programmes and go so far as to
declare that it should be discarded in
favor of more practical work
A General Survey

Philological Philosophical
Theories Theories

Linguistic Functional
Theories Theories
Philological Theories

Philological theories mainly

concerned with the comparison of
structures in the native and foreign
languages, specially the functional
correspondence and the literary
genres in addition to stylistics and
rhetoric.
Philosophical Theories
The act of translation in the context of human
communication across barriers of language, culture,
time and personality, thus subdividing this motion
into four stages (moves):
Trust or Faith.
Aggression, penetration or decipherment, in which
the translator.
Incorporation, embodiment or appropriative use.
Compensation, restitution or fidelity
Linguistic Theories

Linguistic theories of translation,

according to Nida (1976:69), are
besed on a comparison of the
Linguistic structures of the STs and
TTs, rather than a comparison of
literary genres and stylistic features
of the philological theories.
Functional Theories
a) Text Type Theory
Informative
Expressive
Operative
Audiomedial
b) Translational Action Theory
c) Skopos Theory
d) Sociolinguistic Theories
e) Systems Theories
f) Manipulation Theory
g) Aesthetic Communication Theory