Nguyễn Minh Đức aka Minh Minh aka Zịt zàng học giỏi chăm chỉ đẹp trai

Tóm Tắt Lý Thuyết Biên Dịch

1. What is Translation?
 A Source language is changed into a target language.
(1) The surface meaning of the two will be nearly similar.
(2) The structures will be preserved as closely as possible as long as the meaning will mot be
distorted.
 A translator has 2 tasks: Recieved and Emitter. Making the listener/reader understand the
speaker/writer.

→ Translation is the replacement of textual material in 1 language (source language) by equivalent

textual material in another language (target language) across linguistic and cultural barries in the
way that the author intended the text.

2. What is Translation Theory?

- Translation theory is a large number of generalizations of translation problems.

- Translation theory attempts to provide a framework of principles, restricted rules and hints for
translating texts and criticizing translations, a background for problem-solving.

- A translation theorist is considered to see that no linguistic or cultural factor is ignored when one
is translating.

3. Some criteria and priorities for analyzing a text?

a) The intention of a text: Means attitude to the subject matter (what we want). The translator who
has to be faithful to the author has to bear the intention of the original in mind throughout hisher work.

b) The intention of the translator: The translator must comply with the author of the SL text.

c) The reader/listener and the setting: Help translator to decide on the stylistic scales and other
features.

d) Text styles: Following Nida, we distinguish four types of text:

o Narrative (Tường thuật): A dynamic sequence of events.

o Description (Miêu tả): Be static, with emphasis on linking verbs, adjectives, adjectival nouns.

o Discussion (Thảo luận): A treatment of ideas, with emphasis on abstract nouns (concepts),
verbs of thought, mental activity (consider, argue, etc.), logical argument and connectives.

o Dialogue (Đối thoại): With emphasis on colloquialism.

 Nguyễn Minh Đức aka Minh Minh aka Zịt zàng học giỏi chăm chỉ đẹp trai
e) Stylistic scales: The degrees of formality are classified:

 Officialese (Phong cách hàn lâm)

 Official (Phong cách nghiêm túc)
 Formal (Phong cách lịch sự)
 Neutral (Phong cách trung lập)
 Informal (Phong cách giản dị)
 Colloquial (Phong cách hội thoại)
 Slang (Phong cách tiếng lóng)
 Taboo (Phong cách cấm kỵ)

f) The scale of generality or difficulty:

1. Simple. E.g.: “The floor of the sea is covered with rows of big mountains and deep pits.”
2. Popular. E.g.: “The floor of the oceans is covered with great mountain chains and deep
trenches.”
3. Neutral (using basic vocabulary only). E.g.: “A graveyard of animal and plant remains lies
buried in the earth’s crust.”
4. Educated. E.g.: “The latest step on vertebrate evolution was the tool - making man.”
5. Technical. E.g.: “Critical path analysis is an operational research technique used in
management.”
6. Opaquely technical (comprehensible only to an expert). E.g.: “Neuraminic acid in the form
of its alkali - stable methoxy derivative was first isolated by Klenk from gangliosides.” (Letter
to Nature, November 1955, quoted in Quirk, 1984.)

g) Attitude: Degrees of feeling: positive, neutral or negative. The translator has to assess the
standards of the writer.

E.g.: Plump (Positive) – Fat (Neutral) – Obese (Negative).

h) The quality of the writing and the authority of the text

 The text (SL) may be good or bad.

 Good text: Closely translating (TL) (matching)
 Bad text: Transferring the meaning
 Good writer: Good authority
 Bad writer: Flexible translation
 A good translator has to correct bad texts (SL). A translator is responsible for his/her TL text.
 Nguyễn Minh Đức aka Minh Minh aka Zịt zàng học giỏi chăm chỉ đẹp trai
i) Text functions and text categories

 Three functions: Expressive (I), informative (It), vocative (You). Most texts include all three
functions, with an emphasis on one of the three.
 Text-categories: Serious literature (belle letters), authoritative statements (speeches or
declarations) and personal or intimate writing; Journalism, reporting, scientific and technical
papers, general textbooks, most non-literary works; advertising, propaganda, polemical works,
popular literature.

j) Connotation and denotation

 Connotation: The meaning which is wider than the core meaning.

 Denotation: The core meaning.
Connotative meanings refer to the additional meanings that a word or phrase has beyond its
central meaning (= denotative meaning), these meanings show people’s emotions and
attitudes towards what the word or phrase refers to.
 E.g.: Dragon: an imaginary animal (core meaning); symbol of a king (wider meaning).

4. The translation process:

- Eugene Nida’s model of translation process:

- Jakobson called this process an interlingual transposition, while Ludskanov considers it a semiotic
transformation.
- Semiotic transformations are the replacement of the signs encoding a message by signs of another
code.
exp:
‘Anh yêu em’ [ký hiệu của tiếng Việt]
‘I love you’ [Ký hiệu của tiếng Anh]
 Nguyễn Minh Đức aka Minh Minh aka Zịt zàng học giỏi chăm chỉ đẹp trai
5. Translation approach: Two approaches:
o Sentence by sentence:
 Spend time revising your translation.
 Prefer for an easy text.
o Read the whole text two or three times, analyze it and start translating it when you understand
it:
 Inhibit your intuition.
 Prefer for a harder text.
6. Semantic translation vs Communicative translation

o Be dependent on the source language. o Attempt to render the exact

contextual meaning of the original in
o Sounds unnatural.
such a way that both content and
o Include literal and faithful translation
language are readily acceptable and
methods.
comprehensible to the readership.
o Attempt to render, as closely as the
o Attempt to produce on its readers an
semantic and syntactic structures of
effect as close as possible to that
the source language allow, the exact
obtained on the readers of the original.
contextual meaning of the original.
o Include free and idiomatic translation
o Be used for expressive texts.
methods.

o Be used for “informative” and

“vocative” texts

Example:
Good morning:

Chào buổi sáng (Semantic translation)

Xin chào/Chào bạn (Communicative translation)
Thưa … (chú, bác, ông, bà, cô, anh, chị) (Communicative translation)

Chúc mừng ngày Phụ nữ!

Happy Women’s Day! (Communicative translation)

Congratulations on Women’s Day! (Semantic translation)

Chúc ông bà sống lâu trăm tuổi!

I wish you to live until one hundred years old! (Semantic translation)
I wish you every longevity! (Communicative translation)
 Nguyễn Minh Đức aka Minh Minh aka Zịt zàng học giỏi chăm chỉ đẹp trai
7. Translating a text, we should consider the following problems

1. give the words of the original.

2. give the ideas of the original.

3. read like an original work.

4. read like a translation.

5. reflect the style of the original.

6. possess the style of the translation.

7. contemporary of the original.

8. contemporary of the translation.

9. never add to or omit from the translation.

10. may add to or omit from the original.

11. a verse should be in verse.

12. a verse should be in prose.

8. SL emphasis: 9. TL emphasis:

Word-for-word translation Adaption

Literal translation Free translation
Faithful translation Idiomatic translation
Semantic translation Communicative translation

SL EMPHASIS TL EMPHASIS

↓ ↓

Word-for-word translation Adaption

↓ ↓

Literal translation Free translation

↓ ↓

Faithful translation Idiomatic translation

↓ ↓

Semantic translation Communicative translation

 Nguyễn Minh Đức aka Minh Minh aka Zịt zàng học giỏi chăm chỉ đẹp trai
10. Translation procedures

- Translation methods relate to whole texts.

- Translation procedures are used for sentences and smaller units of language.

 One translation procedure is literal translation.

 Other procedures depend on contexts.

- Procedures Methods

A) TRANSFERENCE - It is transliteration (Conversion of different alphabets)

B) NATURALISATION - Follows transference and adapts the SL word first to the normal
pronunciation, then to the normal morphology.

C) CULTURAL EQUIVALENT - An approximate translation where a SL cultural word is

translated by a TL cultural word.

D) FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENT - A similar procedure is used when a SL technical word has

no TL equivalent.

E) DESCRIPTIVE EQUIVALENT - There are no equivalent words, so we use the names of SL

and explain them to the listeners.

F) SYNONYMY (mark of a poor translation)

G) THROUGH-TRANSLATION - It is known as loan translation. It is the literal translation of

common collocations, names of organisations, components of compounds, etc.

H) SHIFTS OR TRANSPOSITION - It is a change in grammar from SL to TL.

I) MODULATION - A variation through a change of viewpoint. The TL rejects literal translation.

J) RECOGNISED TRANSLATION

K) REDUCTION AND EXPANSION

M) OTHER PROCEDURES

1) Equivalence: As poor as mouse in the church.

2) Adaptation: Use of recognised equivalent between two situations: Dear…, Yours ever, etc.

N) COUPLETS AND TRIPLETS - Combining two or three procedures in translation.

O) NOTES, ADDITIONS, GLOSSES - Notes at bottom of the page. Notes at the end of the
chapter. Notes or glossary at the end of the book.
 Nguyễn Minh Đức aka Minh Minh aka Zịt zàng học giỏi chăm chỉ đẹp trai

SAMPLE QUESTIONS

1. Faithful translation belongs to semantic translation. TRUE

2. Idiomatic translation belongs to semantic translation. FALSE

3. In Russian-French translation, Russian is the target language. FALSE

4. Transposition is a procedure of translation. TRUE

5. Adaptation is a method of translation. TRUE

6. Literal translation belongs to semantic translation. TRUE

7. Free translation belongs to semantic translation. FALSE

8. In Chinese-English translation, English is the target language. TRUE

9. Reduction and expansion is a procedure of translation. TRUE

10. Word-for-word is a method of translation. TRUE

11. Taboo is a stylistic scale of translation. TRUE

12. Vocative is a function of translation. TRUE

13. Free translation is a semantic method of translation. FALSE

14. We should focus on the intention of the translator. FALSE

15. When we translate a text, we should relate to pragmatics. TRUE