History of Translation

Review the history of translation in

different languages
• There are divisions of period made by scholars like George Steiner.
• According to Steiner, the history of translation is divided into four
periods.

 Cicero and Horace from 46 BC to 1792

 Friedrich to Valery Larbaud from 1769 to 1946

 Machine Translation to hermeneutic approach from 1940 to 1960

 Metaphysical approach to the present Time from 1960 onwards

• Translation Activity is very Ancient. The very first
translation known to us , are bilingual inscriptions
during Egyptian old Kingdom as for backing to as
3000 BC.

• From Ancient to modern period there were

introduced various theories related to translation.
• George Steiner divides the literature on the
theory and practice of translation into four
periods.

• The first period extends from statements of

Horace and Cicero (sizerio) on translation up to
publication of Alexander Fraser Tytler’s “Essays
on the principles of translation” in 1791.

• Cicero (sizerio) and Horace made an important

distinction between word for word and sense for
sense translation.
• Friedrich to Valery Larbaud
• The second period runs up to 1769 to 1946 and is
characterized as a period of theory and
Hermeneutic enquiry with the development of a
vocabulary and methodology of approaching
translation.

• The third period begins with the publication of

the first paper on machine translation in 1940 to
1960 it is characterized by the introduction of
structural linguistics and communication theory
into the study of translation.
• The fourth period has its origins in the early
present Time from 1960 onwards.

• It is characterized by interpretation.
General Theories About Translation
John Dryden, The Preface to Ovid's Epistles (1680)
reduces all translation into three categories.

1. Metaphrase, or turning an Author word by word,

and Line by Line, from one Language into another,
which corresponds to literal translation.

2. Paraphrase, Paraphrase, or Translation with Latitude,

where the Author is kept in view by the Translator, so
as never to be lost, but his words are not so strictly
followed as his sense, this involves changing whole
phrases and more or less corresponds to faithful
translation.
3 Imitation,
where the Translator assumes the liberty not
only to vary from the words and sense, but to
forsake them both as he sees occasion: and
taking only some general hints from the
Original, to run division on the ground-work, as
he pleases.

As Dryden pointed out, it is also of high

probability that the translator will not be called
a translator anymore due to the amount of
changes he does to the ground work.
• In metaphrase and paraphrase, a translator is
not permitted to make any changes.

• The freedom of making changes is available

only in imitation. It is where the translators
get the opportunity to make use of their
creativity.

• Specially poems, which have the influence of

other pieces of work can be called translations
in which only some general hints have been
taken from the original.
In 1934 Joseph casagrande describes 4 types of translations.

1. Pragmatic translation
This type of translation refers to the translation of message with
accuracy of the information conveyed in the SL. Translations of
scientific and technical texts come under this category.

Pragmatics — the analysis of language in terms of situational

context within which utterances are made, including the
knowledge and beliefs of the speaker and the attitude between
speaker and listener.

2 Aesthetic translation in this type of translation translator

takes into account the emotions and the means which convey
them. Translation of literature comes under this category.
3. Ethnographic translation

The objective of this translation is to explain the

cultural contexts of the source and target
language versions the texts.

4 Linguistic translation

This type of translation is concerned with the

equivalent meanings and the constituent
morphemes of TL text
 Peter Newmark’s Translation Theory
• Peter Newmark (1916-2011) was an influential British
translator and translation theorist. Except for English,
he spoke several other languages, such as French,
German, and Italian, which made it possible for him to
translate between different European languages.

• In 1974, he became English professor of translation at

the University of Surrey, where he began to publish his
academic works in the field of translation.

• In 1981, his first work, Approaches to Translation, was

published.
• In 1988, A Textbook of Translation was
published, which was prized by the British
Association for Applied Linguistics. In 1991, he
published his study About Translation.

• These two influential works have been

translated into many languages and widely
distributed.
• Peter Newmark proposed eight kinds of
translation.

• 1. word for word

• 2 Literal translation
• 3 Faithful
• 4 Semantic translation
• 5. Communicative translation
• 6. Idiomatic translation
• 7. Free translation
• 8. Adaptation
1. Word for Word translation.
It is often demonstrated as interlinear
translation, with the TL immediately below the
SL words. The SL word order is preserved and
the words translated singly by their most
common meanings, out of context.
2. Literal translation
In this translation the SL grammatical
constructions are converted to their nearest TL
equivalents but the lexical words are again
translated singly, out of context.
3. Faithful Translation

This kind of translation attempts to reproduce

the precise contextual meaning of the original
within the constraints of the TL grammatical
structures.
4. Semantic translation
This differs from faithful translation only in as far
as it must take more account of the aesthetic
value of the SL text, comprising on meaning
where appropriate so that no assonance , word
play or repetition jars in the finalized version.
5. Communicative translation
this translation attempts to render the exact
contextual meaning of the original in such a way
that both content and language are readily
acceptable and comprehensible to the
readership
6. Idiomatic Translation
This type of translation reproduces the message
of the original but tends to distort nuances of
meaning by preferring colloquialisms and idioms
where these do not exist in the original.

7. Free Translation
It produces the matter without manner, or the
content without the form of the original.
8. Adaptation
It is the freest form of the translation, used
mainly for plays and poetry, the themes,
characters and plots are usually preserved , the
SL culture converted to the TL culture and the
text rewritten.