STUDYING TRANSLATION

PRODUCT AND PROCESS

This chapter looks at ways of analyzing translation, first as a linguistic product
and then as a cognitive process.
Since the 1950s, a variety of linguistic approaches to the analysis of translation
have proposed detailed lists or taxonomies in an effort to categorize what happens
in translation. The focus in this first part of the chapter is on the following two
linguistic models:

(1) Vinay and Darbelnet’s taxonomy in Comparative Stylistics of French and

English (1958/1995), which is the classic model and one which has had a very
wide impact; and
(2) Catford’s (1965) linguistic approach, which saw the introduction of the term
‘translation shift’.
Vinay and Darbelnet’s model

Vinay and Darbelnet carried out a comparative stylistic analysis of French and English. They looked at
texts in both languages, noting differences between the languages and identifying different translation
‘strategies’ and ‘procedures’.

strategy is an overall orientation of the translator (e.g. towards ‘free’ or ‘literal’ translation, towards the
TT or ST, towards domestication or foreignization) whereas a procedure is a specific technique or
method used by the translator at a certain point in a text (e.g. the borrowing of a word from the SL, the
addition of an explanation or a footnote in the TT).

Although the model proposed in Stylistique comparée centres solely on the French–English pair, its
influence has been much wider. It built on work on French–German translation and inspired two similar
books on English–Spanish translation. Vinay and Darbelnet’s model came to wider prominence in 1995
when it was published in revised form in English translation, thirty-seven years after the original.
Two strategies and seven procedures

The two general translation strategies identified by Vinay and Darbelnet are (i) direct translation and (ii)
oblique translation, which hark back to the ‘literal vs. free’ division discussed in Chapter 2. Indeed, ‘literal’
is given by the authors as a synonym for direct translation. The two strategies comprise seven procedures,
three for direct translation and four that cover the oblique translation.

Direct translation procedures:

1- Borrowing: The SL word is transferred directly to the TL. This category covers words that are used in
English and other languages to fill a semantic gap in the TL. Sometimes borrowings may be employed to
add local color (sushi, kimono, Oshōgatsu … in a tourist brochure about Japan, for instance). Of course, in
some technical fields there is much borrowing of terms (e.g. computer, internet, from English to Malay). In
languages with differing scripts, borrowing entails an additional need for transcription, as in the
borrowings of mathematical, scientific and other terms from Arabic into Latin and, later, other languages
(e.g. [al-jabr] to algebra).
2- Calque: This is ‘a special kind of borrowing’ where the SL expression or structure is
transferred in a literal translation. For example, the French calque science-fiction for the
English. Vinay and Darbelnet note that both borrowing and calques often become fully
integrated into the TL.

3- Literal translation: This is ‘word-for-word’ translation, which Vinay and Darbelnet

describe as being most common between languages of the same family and culture.
Literal translation is the authors’ prescription for good translation:
‘literalness should only be sacrificed because of structural and metalinguistic requirements
and only after checking that the meaning is fully preserved’.
 But, say Vinay and Darbelnet, the translator may judge literal translation to be
‘unacceptable’ for what are grammatical, syntactic or pragmatic reasons. In those cases
where literal translation is not possible, Vinay and Darbelnet say that the strategy of oblique
translation must be used. This covers a further four procedures:

4- Transposition: This is a change of one part of speech for another (e.g. noun for verb)
without changing the sense. Transposition can be:

obligatory: French [‘upon her rising’] in a past context would be translated by as soon as she
got up; or

optional: in the reverse direction, the English as soon as she got up could be translated into
French literally as a verb-to-noun transposition [‘upon her rising’].
Vinay and Darbelnet see transposition as ‘probably the most common structural change
undertaken by translators’.
5- Équivalence, or idiomatic translation:

Vinay and Darbelnet use this term to refer to cases where languages describe the same
situation by different stylistic or structural means. Équivalence is particularly useful in
translating idioms and proverbs: the sense, though not the image, of comme un chien dans un
jeu de quilles [lit. ‘like a dog in a game of skittles’] can be rendered as like a bull in a china
shop. The use of équivalence in this restricted sense should not be confused with the more
common theoretical use discussed in Chapter 3 of this book.

6- Adaptation. This involves changing the cultural reference when a situation in the source
culture does not exist in the target culture. For example, Vinay and Darbelnet suggest that the
cultural connotation of a reference to the game of cricket in an English.
text might be best translated into French by a reference to the Tour de France. The authors
claim that a refusal to use such adaptation in an otherwise ‘perfectly correct’ TT ‘may still be
noticeable by an undefinable tone, something that does not sound quite right’.
7- Modulation: This changes the semantics and point of view of the SL. It
can be:
obligatory: e.g. the time when translates as le moment où [lit. ‘the moment where’];

optional, though linked to preferred structures of the two languages:

e.g. the reversal of point of view in it is not difficult to show > il est facile de démontrer [lit. ‘it is easy to show’].

Modulation is a procedure that is justified ‘when, although a literal, or even transposed, translation results in a
grammatically correct utterance, it is considered unsuitable, unidiomatic or awkward in the TL’ (2004: 133).

Vinay and Darbelnet place much store by modulation as ‘the touchstone of a good translator’, whereas
transposition ‘simply shows a very good command of the target language’. Modulation at the level of message is
subdivided along the following lines:

abstract<>concrete, or particular<>general: She can do no other > She

cannot act differently; Give a pint of blood > Give a little blood.

explicative modulation, or effect<>cause: You’re quite a stranger > We

don’t see you any more.
whole<>part: He shut the door in my face > He shut the door in my nose

part<>another part: He cleared his throat > He cleared his voice

reversal of terms: You can have it > I’ll give it to you.

negation of opposite: It does not seem unusual > It is very normal.

active< >passive: We are not allowed to access the internet > they don’t allow us to access the internet.

rethinking of intervals and limits in space and time: No parking between signs > Limit of parking.

change of symbol (including fixed and new metaphors): Fr. La moutarde lui monta au nez [‘The mustard rose up to
his nose’] > En. He saw red [‘he became very angry’].

Modulation therefore covers a wide range of phenomena. There is also often a process of originally free
modulations becoming fixed expressions. One example given by Vinay and Darbelnet is Vous l’avez échappé belle
[lit. ‘You have escaped beautifully’] > You’ve had a narrow escape.
Supplementary translation procedures

There are a large number of other techniques exemplified by Vinay and Darbelnet. Among those
that have maintained currency in translation theory are the following:

Amplification: The TL uses more words, often because of syntactic expansion, e.g. the charge
against him > the charge brought against him. The opposite of amplification is economy.

False friend: A structurally similar term in SL and TL which deceives the user into thinking the
meaning is the same, e.g. French librarie means not English library but bookstore.

Loss, gain and compensation: ‘Lost in translation’ has become a popular cliché, partly thanks to
the film. Translation does inevitably involve some loss, since it is impossible to preserve all the
ST nuances of meaning and structure in the TL. However, importantly a TT may make up for
(‘compensate’) this by introducing a gain at the same or another point in the text.
One example is the translation of dialogue: if the SL is a t/v language and shows a switch from formal to informal
address (so, French vous to tu), English will need to find a compensatory way of rendering this, perhaps by
switching from the use of the character’s given name (e.g. Professor Newmark > Peter).

Explicitation: Implicit information in the ST is rendered explicit in the TT. This may occur on the level of grammar
(e.g. English ST the doctor explicated as masculine or feminine in a TL where indication of gender is essential),
semantics (e.g. the explanation of a ST cultural item or event, such as US Thanksgiving or UK April Fool’s joke),
pragmatics (e.g. the opaque and culturally located US English idiom it’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback)
or discourse (such as increased cohesion in the TT, see section 6.3.2). Non-obligatory explicitation has often been
suggested as a characteristic of translated language (see the discussion in Chapter 7 on ‘universals of translation’).

Generalization: The use of a more general word in the TT. Examples would be ST computer > TT machine, or ST
ecstatic > TT happy. Again,
generalization has been suggested as another characteristic of translation (see Toury’s ‘law of increasing
standardization’.
 Levels of translation
These three levels reflect the main structural elements of the book. They are:

The lexicon (2) syntactic structures (3) the message; in this case, ‘message’ is
used to mean approximately the utterance and its metalinguistic situation or
context.
• Two further terms are introduced which look above word level. These
are:
• (1) word order and thematic structure.
• (2)connectors which they are cohesive links (also, and, but, and parallel
structures), discourse markers (however, first …), deixis (pronouns and
demonstrative pronouns such as she, it, this, that) and punctuation
marks.

• The important parameter was described by Vinay and

Darbelnet is the difference between servitude and option in
translation.
 • What is the difference between servitude and option?

• Servitude: refers to obligatory transpositions and modulations due to a

difference between the two language systems.
• Option refers to non-obligatory changes that may be due to the translator’s
own style and preferences, or to a change in emphasis.

• Clearly, this is a crucial difference. Vinay and Darbelnet

(1995: 16) stress that it is option, the realm of stylistics,
that should be the translator’s main concern. The role of
the translator is then ‘to choose from among the
available options to express the nuances of the
message.
 Analytical steps
Vinay and Darbelnet list five analytical steps for the translator to follow
in moving from ST to TT. These are as follows:
(1) Identify the units of translation.
(2) Examine the SL text, evaluating the descriptive, affective and
intellectual content of the units.
(3) Reconstruct the metalinguistic context of the message.
(4) Evaluate the stylistic effects.
(5) Produce and revise the TT.
• The first four steps are also followed by Vinay and Darbelnet in their
analysis of published translations. As far as the key question of the unit of
translation is concerned, the authors reject the individual word. They
consider the unit of translation to be a combination of a ‘lexicological
unit’ and a ‘unit of thought’ and define it as ‘the smallest segment of the
utterance whose signs are linked in such a way that they should not be
translated individually’.

• So to facilitate analysis “oblique translation” is used, Vinay and Darbelnet

suggest numbering the translation units in both the ST and TT. The units
which have the same number in each text can then be compared to see
which translation procedure has been adopted.
Catford and Translation shifts

• Translation shifts are linguistic changes occurring in translation of ST to

TT. Although Vinay and Darbelnet do not use the term, that is in effect
what they are describing. The term itself seems to originate in Catford’s A
Linguistic Theory of Translation (1965), where he devotes a chapter to the
subject. Catford (1965: 20) follows the Firthian and Hallidayan linguistic
model, which analyses language as communication, operating functionally
in context and on a range of different levels (e.g. phonology, graphology,
grammar, lexis) and ranks (sentence, clause, group, word, morpheme,
etc.)
Catford makes an important distinction between formal correspondence and textual
equivalence, which was later to be developed by Koller.

• A formal correspondent is ‘any TL category (unit, classes, etc.) which can be

said to occupy, as nearly as possible, the “same” place in the “economy” of
the TL as the given SL category occupies in the SL.
• A textual equivalent is ‘any TL text or portion of text which is observed on a
particular occasion to be the equivalent of a given SL text or portion of text.
In Catford’s own words (1965), translation shifts are thus ‘departures from formal
correspondence in the process of going from the SL to the TL’. Catford considers two
kinds of shift: (1) shift of level (2)shift of category.

• A Level shift would be something which is expressed by grammar in one language and lexis in another.
• Category shifts are divided to four kinds:
1-Structural shifts: These are said by Catford to be the most common and to involve mostly a shift in
grammatical structure.
2-Class shifts: These comprise shifts from one part of speech to another.
3-Unit shifts or rank shifts: These are shifts where the translation equivalent in the TL is at a different rank
to the SL.
4-Intra-system shifts: These are shifts that take place when the SL and TL possess approximately
corresponding systems
Catford statement that ‘translation equivalence does not entirely match formal correspondence’. This
kind of statement of probability, which characterizes Catford’s whole approach and was linked to the
growing interest in machine translation at the time, was later heavily criticized by, among others, Delisle
(1982), Henry (1984), (ibid.: 155)

• Catford’s assertion that translation equivalence depends on communicative features such as function,
relevance, situation and culture rather than just on formal linguistic criteria. However, as Catford himself
notes (1965: 94), deciding what is ‘functionally relevant’ in a given situation is inevitably ‘a matter of
opinion’. Despite the steps taken by Catford to consider the communicative function of the SL item and
despite the basis of his terminology being founded on a functional approach to language, the main
criticism of Catford’s book is that his examples are almost all idealized (i.e. invented and not taken from
actual translations) and decontextualized. He does not look at whole texts, nor even above the level of
the sentence.
Options, markedness and stylistic shifts in
translation

• Another approach to the analysis of shifts, particularly stylistic shifts, came

from Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and 1970s. Stylistic analysis, and its link to
the identity, intentions and ideology of the translator, have come to the fore
in the ‘translational stylistics’ of the new millennium (Malmkjær 2003).
• Czechoslovakia introduced a literary aspect, that of the ‘expressive
function’ or style of a text. Among these, Jirˇí Levý (1926–1967)’s
groundbreaking work on literary translation (Umeˇní preˇkladu, 1963) links
into the tradition of the Prague School of structural linguistics.

• Levý looks closely at the translation of the surface structure of the ST and
TT, with particular attention to poetry translation, and sees literary
translation as both a reproductive and a creative labor with the goal of
equivalent aesthetic effect.
• The question of stylistic shifts in translation has received greater attention in more recent
translation theory. This has to do with: (1) interest in the intervention of the translator
and his/her relationship to the ST author as exemplified through linguistic choices; and (2)
the development of more sophisticated computerized tools to assist analysis. The first
point is typified by two papers, by Giuliana Schiavi and Theo Hermans, that appeared
together in Target in the mid-1990s. Schiavi (1996: 14) borrows a schema from narratology
to discuss an inherent paradox of translation:
• [A] reader of translation will receive a sort of split message coming from two different
addressers, both original although in two different senses: one originating from the author
which is elaborated and mediated by the translator, and one (the language of the
translation itself) originating directly from the translator.
• The mix of authorial and translatonial message is the result of conscious and
unconscious decision-making from the translator. This mix, and the
translator’s ‘discursive presence’, as Hermans (1996) puts it, is conveyed in
the linguistic choices that appear in the TT. Of course, for many TT readers
the TT words not only represent but are the words of the ST author.
• For the analyst, the question is how far the style and intentions of the translator,
rather than the ST author, are recoverable from analysis of the TT choices. Such
analysis has been termed ‘translational stylistics’ by Kirsten Malmkjær (2003). It has
also been advanced by the use of corpus-based methods. These have attempted to
identify the ‘linguistic fingerprint’ of the translator by comparing ST and TT choices
against large representative collections of electronic texts in the SL and TL. So, for
example, Baker (2000) compares the frequency of the lemma (forms of the verb)
SAY in literary translations from Spanish and Portuguese (by Peter Bush) and
Arabic (by Peter Clark), and uses the British National Corpus of texts as a
reference to judge their relative importance. So, she finds that SAY occurs twice
as often in the Clark TTs, and that the collocation SAY that is most common. But
this could simply be because of the influence of the SL; the Arabic “qaal” is
generally more frequent in the language than is English SAY because the
repetition of the same reporting verb in English is frowned upon.
• The interesting point is to hypothesize the motivation behind the
selections. Most crucially, the question is how far the unconscious
(as well as conscious) choices may in fact be due to factors in the
translator’s environment, including education and the sociocultural
and political context in which they operate. May a translator’s
choice reveal a personal ideological orientation? Or one that is
promoted by the society in which they live?
 THE COGNITIVE PROCESS OF
TRANSLATION

1- What is the cognitive process of translation?

2-The Interpretive Theory of Translation (ITT)
3- Nida’s model Vs. Interpretive model
4- Challenges of the interpretive model
5- Relevance theory of translation by Gutt
6- Ways of investigating cognitive processing
7- technological innovations to support think-aloud with other experimental
methods
 WHAT IS THE COGNITIVE PROCESS OF
TRANSLATION?

Definition: The analysis of translation shifts, including stylistic

.shifts
.Goal: Seeking to describe the phenomenon of translation
Methods: by comparing ST-TT pairs ( I call it the traditional
process), and there are other methods we are going to explain
…further
Difficulties : There are some limits to what it can tell us about
the actual cognitive process
Overtime, different models take different approach based on the observation, analysis and/or explanation of *
the cognitive processes of the translators themselves (TT). For example, the interpretive model

As Roger Bell (1991: 43) puts it: ‘focus on the description of the *
:process and/or the translator … form the twin issues which translation theory must address
? How the process takes a place -1
?what knowledge and skills the translator must possess in order to carry it out -2
 FIRSTLY, THE INTERPRETIVE THEORY OF
TRANSLATION (ITT) :

The The Interpretive Theory of Translation (ITT), appeared in Paris from the 1960s onwards by Danica
Seleskovitch and Marianne Lederer and initially applied to the study of conference interpreting, explains
:translation as an (overlapping) three-stage process involving the following

Reading and understanding( comprehension) using linguistic competence and ‘world knowledge’ to grasp the -1
sense of the ST. The linguistic component needs to be understood by reference not only to explicit but also to
.implicit meaning in an attempt to recover the authorial intention
Linguistic competence: refers to the unconscious knowledge of grammar that allows a speaker to use and *
.understand a language

world knowledge according to Lederer, is deverbalized, theoretical, general, encyclopedic and * •

cultural and activated differently in different translators and by different texts
Translators are privileged readers called on to understand the facts in a text and to feel its emotional *
connotations. That is why translators do not feel equally close
to all texts
Deverbalization means translating through sense and not words, therefore it is an essential -2
intermediate stage where translators must avoid transcoding and calques. This was an
explanation developed to explain the cognitive processing of the interpreter. It is clearly visible
.in oral translation, deverbalization is more difficult to observe in written translation
Transcoding: Is the literal transposition of a source language linguistic unit by their *
.corresponding target language unit
.Calque is word-for-word translation *

Re-expression where the TT is constituted and given form based on the deverbalized and -3
.comprehension of sense

verification, where the translator revisits and evaluates the TT, was added by Jean Delisle -4
.(1982/1988, see Lederer 2003: 38)
 * Nida’s model Vs. Interpretive model
In some ways, this model might appear quite similar to Nida’s model of analysis, transfer
and restructuring. However, rather than placing the emphasis on a structural representation
of semantics, the interpretive model stresses the deverbalized cognitive processing that
takes place
Challenges of the interpretive model
While deverbalization is a main stage in the interpretive model, it is really
underdeveloped theoretically partly because of the problems of observing the
process. If deverbalization occurs in a non-verbal state in the mind, how is the
researcher going to gain access to it, apart from in the reconstituted form of the
?verbalized output after the re-expression stage
Relevance theory of translation by Gutt
Ernst-August Gutt (1991/2000) claims that translation is an example of a communication
based around a cause-and-effect model of inferencing and interpretation. Any successful
communication is said to depend on the communicator’s ensuring that his/her ‘informative
intention’ is grasped by the receiver, and this is achieved by making the stimulus (words,
gestures, etc.) optimally relevant to the extent that the receiver ‘can expect to derive adequate
contextual effects without spending unnecessary effort

An example of the communicative clues and how they effect indirect messages:
Hatim and Munday (2004: 57) illustrate this with a discussion of the following example
from the Canadian parliament:
A Canadian MP had to apologize to the House for humming the theme song from ‘The
Godfather’ while Public Works Minister Alfonso Gagliano, who is of Italian descent,
addressed the body.
AN INSTANCE OF FAILED COMMUNICATION , GUT T (2000: 193–4, FOL LOWING
DOOLEY 1989) NOTES A TRANSLATION OF THE CHRISTIAN NEW TE STAME NT
INTO GAURANÍ, AN ORIGINAL LANGUAGE SPOKE N IN SOME PARTS OF
BRAZIL . T HE RE, THE INITIAL, IDIOMATIC T RANSL ATION HAD TO BE
COMPLET E LY REWRITTEN BECAUSE THE GUARANÍ E XPE CTAT ION WAS FOR A
TT THAT MORE CL OSELY CORRESPONDED TO T HE FORM OF T HE
HIGH-PREST IGE PORTUGUESE THAT IS THE OFFICIAL L ANGUAGE OF BRAZ IL .
It is the translator’s responsibility to:

,decide whether and how it is possible to communicate the informative intention -1

,whether to translate descriptively or interpretively -2
.what the degree of resemblance to the ST should be, and so on -3
These decisions are based on the translator’s evaluation of the cognitive environment of the
.receiver
Cognitive environment: It’s the environment infrastructure of a society that allows its *
.people to behave similarly, like, culture traditions..etc
To succeed, the translator and receiver must share basic assumptions about the resemblance
.that is sought, and the translator’s intentions must agree with the receiver’s expectations

Gutt rejects those translation models, such as Register analysis and descriptive studies (will
be discussed in Chapter 6, and 7) , that are based on a study of input–output. He even claims
.that translation as communication can be explained using relevance theoretic concepts alone
 WAYS OF INVESTIGATING COGNITIVE
PROCESSING

think-aloud protocols (TAPs): In this type of study, the translator is asked to verbalize his/her
thought processes while translating or immediately afterwards (the latter being known as
retrospective protocol), often with no prompting on content. The retrospective protocol
depends on recorded demo of a translator verbalizing his/her thoughts in his translation by the
researcher and later transcribed and analyzed.
D ES PI TE TH E A D VA N TA G ES O F TA PS , TH ERE A RE S O ME W E LL - K N O W N
A N D D E BAT E D
L I MI TATI O N S :

1 - D O TA P S A C TU A LLY G I V E U S I N F O R MATI O N O N TH E M E N TA L
P RO CE SS E S AT W O R K ?

2 - A RE T H E Y N O T R EA L LY A REP R ES EN TAT I O N O F A N I N TE RM ED I AT E
S TA G E, I N W H I CH TH E
S U B JEC T R ELAT ES W H AT H E /S H E T H I N K S I S H A P PE N I N G ?

3 - T H E E F FO RT I N V O LV ED I N V ER BA L I Z I N G S LO W S D O W N TH E
T RA N S LAT I O N PR O CE S S A N D
M AY A F F ECT T H E WAY T H E TR A N S LATO R S EG ME N T S TH E TE X T
( J A K O B SE N 2 00 3 ) .

4 - T H E D ATA G ATH ER ED I S TH ER EF O R E I N C O MP L ET E A N D D O E S N O T
G I V E A CCE S S TO
P RO CE SS E S W H I CH T H E T RA N S LATO R D O E S A U TO M AT I C A L LY.
W H AT TO O L S S H O U LD TH E S U B J EC TS BE A LLO W E D TO U S E
( D I CT I O N A R I E S, N O TE S , I N TER N E T
SOME STUDIES INVOLVE TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS TO
SUPPORT THINK-ALOUD WITH OTHER EXPERIMENTAL METHODS.
THESE INCLUDE:

1- THE VIDEO RECORDING AND OBSERVATION OF THE SUBJECTS.

2- THE USE OF PRE- OR POST-TEST INTERVIEWS AND/OR
QUESTIONNAIRES.
3- THE USE OF TRANSLOG SOFTWARE AT THE COPENHAGEN
BUSINESS SCHOOL ( JAKOBSEN
AND SCHOU 1999, HANSEN 2006, CARL 2012), WHICH RECORDS
THE KEY-STROKES
MADE BY THE TRANSLATOR ON THE COMPUTER KEYBOARD;
4- THE USE OF EYE-TRACKERS (O’BRIEN 2011, SALDANHA AND
O’BRIEN 2013: 136–45),4-
WHICH RECORDS THE FOCUS OF THE EYE ON THE TEXT. THE
LENGTH OF SUCH FIXATION
POINTS, AND THE DILATION OF THE PUPIL, MAY INDICATE
THE MENTAL EFFORT BEING
. MADE BY THE TRANSLATOR
Hurtado Albir and Alves (2009: 73) warn that ‘the field needs to put more effort into
refining experimental designs and fostering the replication of studies, thus allowing for
validation or falsification of previous findings’