TÀI LIỆU THI HỌC PHẦN LÝ THUYẾT DỊCH (EHOU)

ĐẠI HỌC MỞ HÀ NỘI

ĐỀ CƯƠNG THI HỌC PHẦN

LÝ THUYẾT DỊCH

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HÀ NỘI, 2022

The concept of translation (Khái niệm dịch thuật)
Often, though not by any means always, it is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way
that the author intended the text. Common sense tells us that this ought to be simple, as one ought to be able to
say something as well in one language as in another. On the other hand, you may see it as complicated,
artificial and fraudulent, since by using another language you are pretending to be someone you are not.
Hence in many types of text (legal,
administrative, dialect, local, cultural) the temptation is to transfer as many SL (Source Language) words to
the TL (Target Language) as possible. The pity is, as Mounin wrote, that the translation cannot simply
reproduce, or be, the original. And since this is so, the first business of the translator is to translate. A text may
therefore be pulled in ten different directions, as follows:
(1) The individual style or idiolect of the SL author. When should it be (a) preserved, (b) normalised?
(2) The conventional grammatical and lexical usage for this type of text, depending on the topic and the
situation.
(3) Content items referring specifically to the SL, or third language (i.e. not SL or TL) cultures.
(4) The typical format of a text in a book, periodical, newspaper, etc., as influenced by tradition at the time.
(5) The expectations of the putative readership, bearing in mind their estimated knowledge of the topic and the
style of language they use, expressed in terms of the largest common factor, since one should not translate
down (,or up) to the readership.
(6), (7), (8) As for 2, 3 and 4 respectively, but related to the TL.
(9) What is being described or reported, ascertained or verified (the referential truth), where possible

independently of the SL text and the expectations of the readership.
(10) The views and prejudices of the translator, which may be personal and subjective, or may be social and
cultural, involving the translator's 'group loyalty factor', which may reflect the national, political, ethnic,
religious, social class, sex, etc. assumptions of the translator.
Needless to say, there are many other tensions in translations, for example between sound and sense,
emphasis (word order) and naturalness (grammar), the figurative and the literal, neatness and
comprehensiveness, concision and accuracy.
Translation as a profession has to be seen as a collaborative process between translators, revisers,
terminologists, often writers and clients (literary works have to be checked by a second native TL reviser and
desirably a native SL speaker), where one works towards a general agreement. Nevertheless, finally, only one
person can be responsible for one piece or section of translation; it must have the stamp of one style. The
principle with which this book starts is that
everything without exception is translatable; the translator cannot afford the luxury of saying that something
cannot be translated.
Translation is an instrument of education as well as of truth precisely because it has to reach readers
whose cultural and educational level is different from, and often 'lower' or earlier, than,
that of the readers of the original - one has in mind computer technology for Xhosas. 'Foreign' communities
have their own language structures and their own cultures, 'foreign' individuals have their own way of
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thinking and therefore of expressing themselves, but all these can be explained, and as a last resort the
explanation is the translation. No language, no culture is so 'primitive' that it
cannot embrace the terms and the concepts of, say, computer technology or plainsong. But such a translation
is a longer process if it is in a language whose culture does not include computer technology. If it is to cover
all the points in the source language text, it requires gn ter space in the target language text. There-fore, whilst
translation is always possible, it may for various reasons not have the same impact as the original.
Translation has its own excitement, its own interest. A satisfactory translation is always possible, but a
good translator is never satisfied with it. It can usually be improved. There is no such thing as a perfect, ideal
or 'correct' translation. A translator is always trying to extend his knowledge and improve his means of

expression; he is always pursuing facts and words. He works on four levels:
translation is first a science, which entails the knowledge and verification of the facts and the
language that describes them - here, what is wrong, mistakes of truth, can be identified; secondly, it is a skill,
which calls for appropriate language and acceptable usage; thirdly, an art, which distinguishes good from
undistinguished writing and is the creative, the intuitive, sometimes the inspired, level of the translation;
lastly, a matter of taste, where argument ceases, preferences are expressed, and the variety of meritorious
translations is the reflection of individual differences.
As a means of communication, translation is used for multilingual notices, which have at last appeared
increasingly conspicuously in public places; for instructions issued by exporting companies; for tourist
publicity, where it is too often produced from the native into the 'foreign' language by natives as a matter of
national pride; for official documents, such as treaties and contracts; for reports, papers, articles,
correspondence, textbooks to convey information, advice and recommendations for every branch of
knowledge. Its volume has increased with the rise of the mass media, the increase in the number of
independent countries, and the growing recognition of the importance of linguistic minorities in all the
countries of the world. Its importance is highlighted by the mistranslation of the Japanese telegram sent to
Washington just before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, when mokasutu was allegedly translated as
'ignored' instead of 'considered', and by the ambiguity in UN Resolution 242, where 'the withdrawal from
occupied territories' was translated as le retrait des territoires occupls, and therefore as a reference to all of the
occupied territory to be evacuated by the Israelis.
Translation has been instrumental in transmitting culture, sometimes under unequal conditions
responsible for distorted and biased translations, ever since countries and languages have been in contact with
each other. Thus the Romans 'pillaged' Greek culture; the Toledo School transferred Arabic and Greek learning
to Europe; and up to the nineteenth century European culture was drawing heavily on Latin and Greek
translations. In the nineteenth century German culture was absorbing Shakespeare.
Translation is not merely a transmitter of culture, but also of the truth, a force for progress. It could be
instanced by following the course of resistance to Bible translation and the preservation of Latin as a superior
language of the elect, with a consequent disincentive to translating between other languages.

The Analysis of a Text before doing the translation (Phân tích một văn bản trước khi
dịch)

READING THE TEXT
You begin the job by reading the original for two purposes: first, to understand what it is about; second,
to analyse it from a 'translator's' point of view, which is not the same as a linguist's or a literary critic's. You
have to determine its intention and the way it is written for the purpose of selecting a suitable translation
method and identifying particular and recurrent problems. Understanding the text requires both general and
close reading. General reading to get the gist; here you may have to read encyclopaedias, textbooks, or
specialist papers to understand the subject and the concepts, always bearing in mind that for the translator the
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function precedes the description - the important thing about the neutrino in context is not that it is a stable
elementary particle, preserving the law of conservation of mass and energy, but that now the neutrino has been
found to have mass, the Universe is calculated to be twice as large as previously thought. 'Chair', chaise, Stuhl,
Sessel, sedia, silla, stul- they all present
somewhat different images, lax bundles of shapes that differ in each culture, united primarily by a similar
function, an object for a person to sit on plus a few essential formal features, such as a board with a back and
four legs. A knife is for cutting with, but the blade and the handle are important too - they distinguish the knife
from the scissors.
Close reading is required, in any challenging text, of the words both out of and in context. In principle,
everything has to be looked up that does not make good sense in its context; common words like serpent (F),
to ensure they are not being used musically or figuratively (sly, deceitful, unscupulous) or technically (EEC
currency) or colloquially; neologisms - you will likely find many if you are translating a recent publication
(for 'non-equivalent' words, see p. 117); acronyms, to find their TL equivalents, which may be non-existent
(you should not invent them, even if you note that the SL author has invented them); figures and measures,
converting to TL or Systeme International (SI) units where appropriate;
names of people and places, almost all words beginning with capital letters - 'encyclopaedia' words are as
important as 'dictionary' words, the distinction being fuzzy. (Words like 'always', 'never', 'all', 'must' have no
place in talk about translation - there are 'always' exceptions.) You can compare the translating activity to an
iceberg: the tip is the translation - what is visible, what is written on the page - the iceberg, the activity, is all
the work you do, often ten times as much again, much of which you do not even use.

THE INTENTION OF THE TEXT
In reading, you search for the intention of the text, you cannot isolate this from
understanding it, they go together and the title may be remote from the content as well as the intention. Two
texts may describe a battle or a riot or a debate, stating the same facts and figures, but the type of language
used and even the grammatical structures (passive voice, impersonal verbs often used to disclaim
responsibility) in each case may be evidence of different points of view. The intention of the text represents
the SL writer's attitude to the subject matter. A piece about floors may be 'pushing' floor polishes; about
newspapers, a
condemnation of the press; about nuclear weapons, an advertisement for them -always there is a point of view,
somewhere, a modal component to the proposition, perhaps in a word - 'unfortunately', 'nevertheless',
'hopefully'. What is meant by 'That was clever of him'? Is it ironical, openly or implicitly? (In a text showing
that BBC Radio 2 is a pale imitation of commercial radio, the irony may only be implicit and obscure to a
non-British reader, and the translator may want to make the point more explicitly.) 'Clemente, notre justice
repressive?',
writes a journalist meaning 'Our repressive judicial system is far from lenient', or is it a bluff, mainly
nonsense, for amusement? It may be 'iceberg' work to find out, since the tone may come through in a literal
translation, but the translator has to be aware of it. Again, in a detailed, confused piece about check-ups on
elderly patients who may have to undergo chemotherapy the author's intention is to show that patients must
have a thorough physical check-up before they start a course of drugs: if physical problems are cleared up
first, there may be no need for psychiatry. A summary of this nature, which uses only a few key words from
the original, appears to be isolated from the language, simply to show what happens in real life, and it is
indispensable to the translator. But he still has to 'return' to the text. He
still has to translate the text, even if he has to simplify, rearrange, clarify, slim it of its redundancies, pare it
down.
THE INTENTION OF THE TRANSLATOR
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Usually, the translator's intention is identical with that of the author of the SL text.
But he may be translating an advertisement, a notice, or a set of instructions to show his client how such

matters are formulated and written in the source language rather than how to adapt them in order to persuade
or instruct a new TL reader- ship. And again, he may be translating a manual of instructions for a less educated
readership, so that the explanation in his translation may be much larger than the 'reproduction'.
TEXT STYLES
Following Nida, we distinguish four types of (literary or non-literary) text:
(1) Narrative: a dynamic sequence of events, where the emphasis is on the verbs or, for English, 'dummy' or
'empty' verbs plus verb-nouns or phrasal verbs ('He made a sudden appearance', 'He burst in').
(2) Description, which is static, with emphasis on linking verbs, adjectives, adjectival nouns.
(3) Discussion, a treatment of ideas, with emphasis on abstract nouns (concepts),
verbs of thought, mental activity ('consider', 'argue', etc.), logical argument and connectives.
(4) Dialogue, with emphasis on colloquialisms and phaticisms.
THE READERSHIP
On the basis of the variety of language used in the original, you attempt to characterise the readership of
the original and then of the translation, and to decide how much attention you have to pay to the TL readers.
(In the case of a poem or any work written primarily as self-expression the amount is, I suggest, very little.)
You may try to assess the level of education, the class, age and sex of the readership if these are 'marked'. The
average text for translation tends to be for an educated, middle-class readership in an informal, not colloquial
style. The most common variety of 'marked' error in register among student translators tends to be 'colloquial'
and 'intimate', e.g. use of phrases such as 'more and more' for 'increasingly' (deplus en plus), 'above all' for
'particularly' (surtout); 'job' for 'work'; 'got well' for 'recovered' and excessively familiar phrasal verbs ('get out
of, 'get rid of). The other common error, use of formal or official register (e.g. 'decease' for 'death'), also shows
signs of translationese. These tokens of language typify the student- translators instead of the readership they
are translating for; they may epitomise their degree of knowledge and interest in the subject and the
appropriate culture, i.e. how motivated they are. All this will help you to decide on the degree of formality,
generality (or specificity) and emotional tone you must express when you work on the text.
SETTING
You have to decide on the likely setting: Where would the text be published in the
TL? What is the TL equivalent of the SL periodical, newspaper, textbook, journal, etc?, or Who is the client
you are translating for and what are his requirements? You may have to take account of briefer titles, absence
of sub-titles and sub-headings, shorter paragraphs and other features of the TL house-style. You have to make

several assumptions about the SL readership. From the setting of the SL text, as well as the text itself, you
should assess whether the readership is likely to be motivated (keen to read the text), familiar with the topic
and the culture, and 'at home' in the variety of language used. The three typical reader types are perhaps the
expert, the educated layman, and the uninformed. You then have to consider whether you are translating for
the same or a different type of TL readership, perhaps with less knowledge of the topic or the culture, or a
lower standard of linguistic education. Finally, if you are translating a poem or an important authoritative
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statement, should you consider the TL reader at all, apart from concessions or cultural 'scraps' to help him out
(e.g. translating 'a half- holiday' as un apres-midi libre)?
THE QUALITY OF THE WRITING
You have to consider the quality of the writing and the authority of the text, two
critical factors in the choice of translation method. The quality of the writing has to be judged in relation to the
author's intention and/or the requirements of the subject-matter. If the text is well written, i.e., the manner is as
important as the matter, the right words are in the right places, with a minimum of redundancy, you have to
regard every nuance of the author's meaning (particularly if it is subtle and difficult) as having precedence
over the reader's response - assuming they are not required to act or react promptly; on the contrary, assuming
hopefully that they will read your translation at least twice. Deciding what is good writing is sometimes
criticised as 'subjective' but it is a decision, like many others, not subjective but
with a subjective element (the area of taste) which you have to make, using any experience of literary
criticism you may have had but bearing in mind that the criterion here is meaning: to what extent does the web
of words of the SL text correspond to a clear representation of facts or images? If a text is well written, the
syntax will reflect the writer's personality - complex syntax will reflect subtlety (Proust, Mann) - plain syntax,
simplicity. Words will be freshly used with unusual connotations. A badly written text will be cluttered with
stereotyped phrases, recently fashionable general words and probably poorly structured. Note that
language rules and prescriptions have nothing much to do with good writing. What matters is a fresh reflection
of the reality outside language or of the writer's mind. The authority of the text is derived from good writing;
but also indepen- dently, unconnectedly, from the status of the SL writer. If the SL writer is recognised as
important in his field, and he is making an ex-cathedra or official statement, the text is also authoritative. The

point is that 'expressive' texts, i.e. serious imaginative literature and authoritative and personal statements,
have to be
translated closely, matching the writing, good or bad, of the original. Informative texts, statements that relate
primarily to the truth, to the real facts of the matter, have to be translated in the best style that the translator
can reconcile with the style of the original.

Nida, Eugene A. - Contexts in Translating.
Contexts in Translating combines elements of contextual analysis with areas such as culture and language.
Eugene Nida, author of Towards a Science of Translating, and Componential Analysis of Meaning explains
how strict adherence to context creates a satisfactory translation. The book has a fragmentary, though concise,
format, placing each topic in easily identifiable categories and subcategories. The chapters include: “What is
Translating?” “Language and Culture,” “Words in Context,” “Relations Between Words,” “Translating Texts,”
“Representative Treatment of Translating,” and “Three Major Types of Translation Theories.” The book also
contains a complete glossary, bibliography, and index. Of these seven chapters, chapters three and seven best
define Nida’s ideas. Chapter three, “Words in Context,” focuses strongly on context in translation. It explains
how words are used in diverse contexts, a reference to cultural and geographical origins. Nida summarizes the
ways in which words hold different meanings and levels of significance between distinct cultures and regions,
emphasizing that a word’s origin determines its exact definition. Nida believes that words are strongly linked
to their contexts and proposes that it is the responsibility of the translator to determine what is being addressed
in order to produce a valid translation. The subsection in chapter three entitled, “Contexts involving Cultural
Values,” demonstrates how a word may take on a completely different definition or value from one region or
culture to another. Therefore, the translator must realize these differences to create a meaningful translation.
According to Nida, “Correct technical terminology serves to mark a statement as reliable and the writer as
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knowledgeable.” This is evident in professional language as well as in street language and slang, all of which
Nida incorporates in his study. This knowledge helps to protect the translator from insulting the culture or
group being “decoded.” Nida states that a translator shouldn’t need a dictionary, for if he/she does, then it is
evident that he/she is not a master of the other language and therefore is not an efficient translator. Translating

a work, first and foremost, believes Nida, respects cultural context and value. In chapter three, Nida discusses
how the setting and purpose of discourse define a word’s capacity to assume different degrees of seriousness.
How the word is presented determines the way it is perceived. For Nida, the contextual perception of a culture
is essential to producing an adequate translation from that culture’s perspectives. Chapter seven, “Three Major
Types of Translation Theories,” is divided into three sections: “Theories Based on Philological Insights,”
“Theories Based on Linguistic Insights,” and “Theories Based on Sociosemiotics.” Philological insights are
the primary basis for discussing translations theories and practice and are concerned with the study and
evaluation of written texts, including all aspects from form to cultural influences. Cicero, Horace, Catullus,
and Quintilian are noted for their theories of free translation vs. literal, which reflect written texts in different
manners. He also mentions the analyses that have stemmed from these and other translators, including the
theory of free translation defended by Matthew Arnold. This section then makes reference to the philological
insights of the 20th century, a time when language is looked upon as an integral part of culture as a kind of
code. For a variety of reasons, many philologists have felt that the act of translating is impossible. Linguistic
insights consider the differences between the source and target texts. Nida refers to Vinay and Darbelnet’s
consideration of French and English as a basis for translating. Nida presents Goodnough’s work on Trukese
semantic categories as an example of how cultural anthropology can provide insights into translation. The
“communication theory”, which describes the importance of interlingual communication also appears in this
section. For an in-depth look at linguistic orientation in translating, Nida notes the research of Labov and
Hymes. Theories based on sociosemiotics respect the rules of all systems of signs used by different societies.
It is, in Nida’s words, “the most pervasive and crucial contribution to an understanding of translation”. The
ideas of Plato and Aristotle are important antecedents to this line of thought. Nida gives a great deal of
attention to associative and designative meanings because signs of all types must be recognized in relation to
all other verbal signs within a text or associated expressions. Nida advises translators to seek the advice of
Hofstadter’s concept of isomorphs when problems arise in symbol translation. Nida finishes this section by
stating that the most effective way to learn how to translate is through studying what expert translators have
already accomplished. Nida is concerned with context in regards to effective translating. His principle ideas in
Contexts in Translating are contained in chapters three and seven: chapter three provides insights into Nida’s
theory of the importance of contextual analysis in translating; chapter seven addresses the concepts of
translation, in general, and the influences they may have on each other. Contexts in Translating presents a
wide range of sophisticated, though sometimes overly anecdotal, ideas concerning the role of contexts in the

process of translation. This text is probably most appropriate for use in a graduate college course specializing
in translation studies.
Eugene Nida, on the other hand, used Chomsky's transformational generative grammar in translating. He
claimed that generative grammar was the most effective way to deal with translation problems, provided that
such a grammar made full use of transformations. His approach to translation can be summarized as follows:
a) to reduce the source text to its structurally simplest and most semanticaUy evident kernels;
b) to transfer the meaning from source language to receptor language on a structurally simple level; and
c) to generate the stylistically and semantically equivalent expression in the receptor language. (1964:
68)
In fact, he devised a back-transformation model, consisting of the procedures of analysis, deep-structure
transfer, and restructuring, identifying model kernel sentences as the
transitional stage between SL and TL structures to explain the process of translating.
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Nida's theory of translating consists of the three procedures of analysis, deep structure transfer, and
restructuring. His refined theory (1969) includes one more stage, namely testing. Analysis consists essentially
in back-transformation to a near-kernel level. In this stage, the SLT must be read and studied carefully, and
meaning must be extracted. Nida devises several stages of analysis, though in practice they overlap. They are:
(1) lexicogrammatical features of the immediate units, (2) discourse context, (3) communicative context, (4)
cultural context of the SL, and (5) the cultural context of the receptor language.
After analysing the SLT into its basic kernels, the result of The analysis is transferred into the TL. This
stage is not as simple as it seems to be. In actual practice, the transfer of messages from the SL into the TL
takes place at various sub-surface levels depending on the extent to which the two languages under
consideration have corresponding semantic and grammatical structures. In fact, in the stage of transfer, the
translator continually fluctuates between the stage of analysis and that of restructuring. That is to say there is
no clear-cut division between these stages in the actual process of translating. Preserving the meaning of the
SL message is of top priority to the translator. Nida underlines this point by saying that transfer is not merely
the transference of individual, disconnected kernels, but occurs at a point where these kernels are connected
into meaningful series:

This means that we must modify slightly our diagram, so that after having analyzed the basic
components into their simplest relationships within kernels, we 'back up' to the point where these kernels are
carefully and properly related to each other. (Nida and Taber 1969)
Restructuring the message involves adjustments at different levels: grammatical and semantic. In this
stage, the translator should pay attention to the divergences of the two languages in terms of voice, word
classes, connectors, etc. Other adjustments are required in terms of language varieties or styles. Metaphorical
expressions and idioms must also be modified to fit in with the TL culture. The final stage in the process of
translating is testing. It includes accuracy of rendering, readability, stylistic equivalence, etc. But in Nida's
view, it is dynamic equivalence rather than verbal correspondence which should be the focus of attention
The length of the translation compared to the original is also important. According to Nida (1969: 163),
'there is a tendency for all good translations to be somewhat longer than the originals.' Cultural and linguistic
redundancies are ascribed by Nida to the desire of the translators to include all information stated in the
original communication. Nida applied certain methods to test ease of comprehension, predictability and
readability. One such method is the Cloze technique where the degree of predictability, i.e. to guess the right
word in the appropriate context, and readability of texts are measured, a concept derived from information
theory. Nida also suggested other practical tests such as: reaction to atternatives,
explaining the contents, reading the text aloud, and the publication of sample material, all of which proved to
be very helpful and easy to apply. Nida concludes that the ultimate criterion in distinguishing good
translations from bad translations is dynamic equivalence. In
translations which use the Dynamic Equivalence Method, on the one hand, the form is structured to preserve
the same meaning by deploying different syntax and lexicon. In bad translations which use formal
correspondence, on the other hand, the form is preserved by sticking to the same word classes and word order
while the meaning is lost or distorted. Bad translations also result from using techniques like paraphrase by
addition, deletion, or skewing of the message.
Nida (1976) classifies theories of translating into three main categories:
1- Philological
2- Linguistic
3- Sociolinguistic

The three main categories of Nida’s Theories of Translating.

1 Philological Theories of translating:
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Philological theories of translating (also called 'pre-linguistic) evolved before the development of
modern linguistics, approximately before the Second World War. They were
formulated at a time when philology was the discipline that shouldered the responsibility of studying
language. Philological theories of translation focus primarily on literary texts taking no interest in other fields
such as science and technology, commerce, and law. Philological theories of translating deal with the problem
of the equivalence of literary texts by comparing and contrasting the SL and the TL. They also focus on the
literary quality, i.e. the form
of the text and its stylistic features and rhetorical devices. One of the major preoccupations of philological
theories of translating is the discussion of literary works of high quality such as Shakespeare's works.
Another major issue in philological theories of translating is the problem of equivalence of literary
genres between the SL and the TL. The question whether poetry should be translated as poetry or prose or
whether an epic in the SL should be rendered as such in
the TL was one of the main obsessions of such theories. One can safely include here all the old controversies
on translation, e.g. whether translation is an art or a science, whether it should concentrate on the form or the
content of the message, and the aims of translation. In fact, traditional rules and directives for translators were
on a philological basis.
Nida lists a number of works as representative of philological theories of translation. Nida also regards
most articles published in Babel as philological in perspective.
2. Linguistic Theories of Translating:
According to Nida: Linguistic theories of translation are based on a comparison of linguistic structures of
source and receptor texts rather than on a comparison of literary
genres and stylistic features. (1976: 69)
These theories developed as a result of the great development in modern linguistic theories, and the
tendency to study language. scientifically. The findings of these linguistic theories were applied to other
related areas such as language teaching and translating. However, little benefit came out of these theories,
since they were confined to the study of idealized constructions, with meaning left out of account.

One major difference between linguistic theories of translating and philological theories of translating is
that linguistic theories are descriptive rather than prescriptive. They demonstrate how people translate rather
than how they should translate. This does not imply that all linguistic theories are the same, or there would be
one standard theory only. They differ in terms of focus or perspective.
According to Nida: The principal differences between various linguistic theories (or semi-theories) of
translation lie in the extent to which the focus is on surface structures or
corresponding deep structures. Theories based on surface-structure comparisons involve the use of more-orless elaborate sets of rules for matching roughly corresponding structures. (1976)
3 Sociolinguistic Theories of Translating:
Sociolinguistic theories of translating emerged out of the dissatisfaction with linguistic theories of
translating, and the growing interest in communication. Such interest resulted from
the work of anthropologists who recognized the role of text recipients in the process of translating. Those
changes are demonstrated in Nida (1964). Generally speaking, some linguistic theories of translating have
demonstrated sociolinguistic influences by referring to the context of communication. Sociolinguistic theories
of translating relate linguistic
structures to a higher level where they can be viewed in terms of their function in communication. When
discussing a text, the sociolinguist is concerned particularly with its author, its historical background, the
circumstances involved in its production, and the history of its interpretation, for such elements figure in the
social setting of communication.
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Nida and Taber (1969), for example, have pointed out that the old focus on the form of the message in
translating has shifted to the receptors, i.e. the readers. Therefore, it is the reader's response to the translated
message that determines the correctness of that message. They set the average reader as the only criterion for
measuring correctness in translating. Correctness, in their view, is not only the possibility of understanding the
message by readers but rather the impossibility of misunderstanding it. In their The Theory and Practice of
Translation (1969: 12fl, Nida and Taber are fully aware of certain social factors such as age, sex, educational
levels, occupation, social class, and religious affiliation. Such factors affect linguistic variation and need to be
accounted for in translating. Drawing on Martin Joos's distinction of different styles, Nida and Taber produce
a similar list which comprises the following: technical, formal, informal, casual, and intimate. Formal style,

for example, is designed for a relatively wider audience than that of technical style. Technical style, on the
other hand, is used among specialists; hence it is intended for a restricted audience, because it utilizes
complicated vocabulary and complex grammatical constructions. Therefore, when
translating, one should be aware of the fact that there are several styles at work which must be rendered into
the TL.
In observing different styles in translating, the translator is achieving a near dynamic equivalence.
Accordingly, 'lyric poetry should sound like poetry and not like an essay; letters should sound like letters and
not like some technical treatise on theology.' (Nida and Taber 1969:129) Similarly, to measure this dynamic
equivalence, in Nida and Taber's view:
We can only rightly compare the equivalence of response, rather than the degree of agreement between
the original source and the later receptors, for we cannot presume that the source was writing for this
'unknown audience' or that the monolingual receptors in
the second language have enough background to understand the setting of the original communication. One
difference between sociolinguistic theories of translating
and linguistic ones is that in sociolinguistic theories lan g ue. the language system, is as important as parole
the actual use of language. Like linguistic theories of translating, sociolinguistic theories are descriptive. 'The
response of the receptors must be in terms of the actual response to similar types of texts, and in terms of what
might be regarded as judicial or legal norms.' (Nida 1976: 77)
Nida concludes that such classification of theories of translating does not exist in actual practice. The
translator selects the theory and method of translating that he regards most appropriate to the kind and type of
text he is dealing with. This does not imply that he cannot change to other theories or methods if that is
necessary. For a prospective theory of translating, Nida (ibid.: 78) believes it should be primarily
sociolinguistic 'because translating always involves communication within the context of interpersonal
relations'. Such a comprehensive theory will be reliable, and will be able to deal with all the factors that are
involved in and influence the nature of translating. It might be useful to mention that Nida's classification of
theories of translating is general, since the labels he has adopted to describe these theories cover many
theories. For example, linguistic theories subsume all theories which focus on both deep and surface
structures. The majority of modern linguistic
theories have a communicative dimension (e.g. Catford). By the same token, sociolinguistic theories have a
bearing on linguistic theories.

External Factors on Translation activities
Bởi ThS. Nguyễn Thế Hóa - Thứ sáu, 3/09/2021, 3:21 PM
.1 Sender
“The sender of a text is the person (or institution, etc.) who uses the text in order to convey a certain
message to somebody else and/or to produce a certain effect, whereas the text producer writes the text
according to the instructions of the sender, and complies with the rules and norms of text production valid in
the respective language and culture” (Nord, 1991, p. 43). As it has been said before, the categories of sender
and text producer often overlap. The translator then finds himself in a situation comparable to the one of the
10


text producer. He has to produce a text having the same effect on TT recipients as the ST had on ST
recipients, and he will exert himself to produce a text which would be in compliance both with the ST and
the TT norms (unless there exist other instructions from the translation initiator). This, however, is not to
discredit translator‟s creativity in translation.
1.2 Intention
Intention determines structuring of a text (what to mention and what to omit) and its form (e.g. the
choice of a TT text type, non-verbal elements, etc.). It is the sender who defines the intention, and the
translator should exert himself to adhere to it when creating a TT. Christiane Nord (1991) adds, “At the
same time, the particular organization of a text marks the text type and is a pre-signal which tells the recipient
in which function he is expected to use the text” (p. 48). The category of intention is especially important for
literary texts (since a non-literary text, namely a technical one, tends to be as clear as possible, not ambiguous,
without any hidden meanings), which is not the case of the present analysis.
1.3 Recipient
At this stage of the analysis, a text recipient is in question; later (Ch. 5.2.2), it will particularly be the
ST recipient followed by the TT recipient. These two are, according to Nord (1991), different from each other
at least in two aspects – cultural background and linguistic community (p. 52). Though, in the present thesis,
both the ST recipient and the final TT recipient share the same background and community. However, it is
still vital to take their characteristics into account when translating. Adjustments concerning the TT recipient
should be found only in the texts translated into English.

1.4 Medium
This extratextual factor can be defined as a “medium or vehicle which conveys the text to the reader”
(Nord, 1991, p. 56). On the basis of the medium through which the message comes to its recipient, he builds
certain presuppositions (or expectations) which are based on his experience with the medium (e.g. offensive
language certainly has a different effect in a film dubbing, or even in subtitles, and in a textbook). The
translator should thus bear in mind the prospective recipient‟s presuppositions.
1.5 Place
The dimension of place can be ambiguous because not everyone shares the same image when thinking
about the term. On account of this, it ought to be said that the place stands not only for the place of
production, but also for the place of reception (Nord, 1991, p. 60). The place factor is, undoubtedly, closely
connected to the medium since a person would not search for a book in a cinema theatre. Likewise, a close
connection can be found between the place and time because of e.g. the political influence on literature at a
certain time. When considering the place, the translator should account for linguistic aspects as well as
cultural and political conditions. The dimension of place grows in importance when there exist more language
varieties used in different regions
of the same language culture (Nord, 1991, p. 61).
1.6 Time
The time dimension is important for the text analysis performed before every translation for two
reasons, the first of which is generally applicable on literary texts rather than technical ones. Firstly,
summarised by Nord (1991), “Certain text types are linked to a particular period (e.g. oracles and epic poems
as opposed to weather reports and television plays), and, of course, text-type conventions also undergo
change” (p. 63). Secondly, the translator should consider, whether the information given in the source text is
still valid (Nord, 1991, p. 64). If so, it can be considered a “modern” piece of work (e.g. the probability that
the text will contain more than just a few adverbial participles, in case of Czech, is quite low) written by a
“contemporary” author, and its
translation can thus, according to Popovič (1981), be regarded a synchronous one. The translator should also
bear in mind that, especially with technical texts, the field terminology is constantly undergoing minor or
major changes (e.g. computer science). It goes hand in hand with development as it attempts to name new
inventions, events, etc. 23
11

1.7 Motive
The category of motive represents the reasons why a sender decided to establish communication with a
recipient/s. This also includes the occasion for which the text was produced (Nord, 1991, p. 67). The motive
may signal conventions that will “guide the recipient‟s expectations” (Nord, 1991, p. 68).
1.8 Text Function
Assumingly, the most significant of all the external factors, the text function, is the key for an
acceptable translation as “it is only by analysing the ST function that the translator can decide which TT
function(s) will be compatible with the given ST” (Nord, 1991, p. 72). Yet, it is still the recipient who
completes a particular communicative situation and thus defines the text function (Nord 1991, p. 16). This
means that the only limitation to the number of possible text functions is the number of recipients. The text
function can be described, according to Nord (1991), as the communicative function “which a text fulfils in
its concrete situation of production/reception” (p. 70). Two different types of translation – documentary and
instrumental (Nord, 1991, p.72) – may serve as an example of the connection between the text function and a
translation. The more frequent instrumental translation represents conveyance of a message from a ST author
to a TT recipient directly, whereas the documentary translation is only a document of the communication
between a ST author and a ST recipient (which bears some resemblance to House‟s [1981] overt and covert
translation).
Internal Factors on translation activities (1)
Bởi ThS. Nguyễn Thế Hóa - Thứ sáu, 3/09/2021, 3:23 PM
2.1 Subject Matter
Subject matter, in other words the main topic of a text, is vital for the text analysis for several reasons.
First, if the analysis proves that there is a subject which dominates a text then the whole text is, in all
probability, coherent (Nord, 1991, p. 85).
Second, the subject matter can be embedded in a cultural context and indicate some of the readers‟
presuppositions (Popovič, 1981). If so, the translator has to take the fact into account.
Third, as little as the subject matter can give the translator a hint about the content and terminology
– the two deciding factors of whether he possesses the expert knowledge to understand and translate a text
(Nord, 1991, p. 86). It can also give him an initial clue about the amount of research he is about to conduct

(in case he lacks specialised knowledge), and whether it is worth conducting (since a good translator should
be aware of his own professional limits). In the case of students‟ translations, the ability to perform detailed
research will probably be more relevant than possessing expert knowledge, even though the texts were
selected with regards to the students‟ level of competence, and they do not differ much from the texts which
may be, at some point, presented to them in their future professional careers. Really the key ability here
seems to be the risk analysis (Pym, 2004) – to decide which translation units bear a higher degree of risk (as
discussed in Ch. 3.3).
Fourth, from the subject matter analysis, the translator may gain information about the role (function)
of the headline and sub-headlines which differs culture from culture (Nord, 1991, p. 86).
Finally, “the elicitation of the subject matter occasionally yields some
information about certain extratextual factors (e.g., sender, time, text function), where these have not already
been ascertained by external analysis” (Nord, 1991, p. 86). Further, the expectations concerning the subject
matter developed in the course of the external factors analysis may be confirmed or adjusted.
2.2 Content
In most cases, being a translator presupposes a good command of a source language and a target langue
as well as knowledge of the rules and norms governing text production. This leaves little space for possible
misunderstanding caused by ST (content) comprehension. Still, Christiane Nord provides some useful
guidelines for determining the precise content of a text; mostly on the level of lexical items. To start with,
12


she defines content as “the reference of the text to objects and phenomena in an extralinguistic reality”
(Nord, 1991, p. 90), and adds that such reference is generally
expressed by the semantics of the lexical and grammatical structures. These structures work well together
(ideally), complement each other and significantly contribute to the coherence of the text (and also the
coherence of the text and other texts in the same language culture). By the lexical and grammatical structures,
the author means: linking devices (including anaphora, cataphoric reference, substitution, recurrence,
paraphrase, etc.), other logical connections, theme-rheme relationship, functional sentence perspective, words
and phrases, sentence patterns, tense, mood, etc. (Nord, 1991, p. 91). This corresponds (not fully overlaps, for
it contains more than just a mere analysis of cohesion) with the concept of cohesion presented by Halliday

and Hasan (1976) as it takes into account all the five sources of cohesion suggested by the scholars: cohesion
through reference (anaphoric reference, cataphoric reference...), substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical
items (repetition, hyponyms and hypernyms...).
At least two more things ought to be mentioned when describing the category of content – the
denotative vs. connotative meaning of a word and the “internal situation” of a text. Nord (1991) very clearly
states, “The amount of information verbalized in a text includes not only denotative but also connotative (or
„secondary‟) meaning, i.e. the information expressed by a language element by virtue of its affiliation to a
certain linguistic code (stylistic levels, registers, functional style, regional and social dialects, etc.)” (p. 92).
With respect to this fact, the translator should read and understand a source text and then create the target
text accordingly. Last but not least, the information contained in a text can be either “factual” (based on
reality – the one that both the sender and the recipient can agree on) or “fictional” (referring to a fictional
world invented by the author, and therefore separated from the reality of the communicative act) (Nord, 1991,
p. 93). This is assumingly the first factor which may lay some foundations for a quantitative analysis of
translation quality (rather than qualitative, as it was so far). Although, these are only clues since the fact that
e.g. a target text holds the very same number of particular verb forms as the source text, or that the translator
managed to use exactly the same variety of conjunctions, does not ensure a high standard of translation.
Internal Factors on translation activities (2) Các yếu tố nội bộ của hoạt động dịch
Bởi ThS. Nguyễn Thế Hóa - Thứ sáu, 3/09/2021, 3:25 PM
Presuppositions
Pragmatic presuppositions are those “implicitly assumed by the speaker, who takes it for granted that
this will also be the case with the listener” (Nord, 1991, p. 95); such presuppositions usually refer to objects
and phenomena of the source culture (p. 96). Problems arise if the thesis does not work. For example, in cases
when the target reader is not fully aware of the source culture aspects presented in the ST and transferred into
the TT. Therefore, the translator may want to “adjust the level of explicitness to the (assumed) general
background knowledge of the intended TT recipient” (Nord, 1991, p. 98). Nord also suggests that he will take
advantage of the translation procedures of „expansion‟ or „reduction‟. It is vital, to mention the problem of
redundancy, too. The main aim of the redundancy is to assist comprehension by repeated verbalization (e.g.
explanation, repetition, paraphrase, summary, tautology, etc.). Since both texts analysed in the present thesis
are technical ones written by experts for experts or almost experts, the redundancy should be minimal.
2.4 Text Composition

What Nord means by the text composition is, in short, the structuring of a text; whether it consists of
several shorter texts or whether it is a part of a bigger text, etc. She builds upon Thiel‟s aspects of text
composition: “She [Thiel] suggests that the text has an informational macrostructure (i.e. composition and
order of information units) consisting of a number of microstructures” (Nord, 1991, p. 100); where the
macrostructure is marked by chapters and paragraphs, and the microstructure by syntactic structures, lexical
devices, or suprasegmental features. Both the micro and macrostructure are of great importance for the
translation-oriented analysis because, firstly, a text can be comprised of smaller text segments with different
functions which may thus require different translation strategies. Secondly, the beginning and the end of
13


a text may play special part in its comprehension, and they thus deserve to be analysed in greater detail (e.g.
do they somehow guide the reception or change the effect of the whole text?). Thirdly, some text types may
be subject to culture-specific conventions concerning text composition (e.g. a letter). Fourthly, if a text is very
complex or incoherent in its nature, the analysis of microstructure can yield some information about the
subject matter (Nord, 1991, p. 101).
2.5 Non-verbal Elements
Non-verbal elements are various signs which do not belong to any linguistic code and which are used as
supplements to them. By using such signs, the author aims to illustrate, disambiguate, or even intensify the
message contained in a text or a discourse (Nord, 1991, p. 108). Among these are, as for the texts, photos,
illustrations, emblems, special types of print, etc. The translator‟s task is not only to find such signs, but also
to reveal their specific function within a particular text. The non-verbal elements should not be mistaken for
suprasegmental features (punctuation, capitalisation...), discussed
later in the chapter (Ch. 4.2.8).
2.6 Lexis
The category of lexis is quite large. It may refer to the affiliation of a word to stylistic levels and
registers, word formation, connotations, rhetorical figures (metaphors, repetition of lexical element,
metonymy, metaphor), parts of speech, morphological aspects (suffixes, prefixes, compositions, acronyms,
abbreviations, etc.), collocations, idioms, addressing, selection of words (with respect to the sender‟s
intention, time, place, medium, occasion...), degree of originality (words invented by the author, phrases

coined by him, intentional violation of norms), etc. Nord (1991) also states that “the choice of lexis in a
particular text is determined by both extratextual and intratextual factors” (p. 112), and Crystal and Davy
(1969) add, “In any text, the stylistically
significant characteristics of lexis clearly reflect the extratextual factors of the situation in which the text is
used, including the participants using it for communication” (p. 81).
2.7 Sentence Structure
Is the sentence structure mainly paratactic or hypotactic? Are the sentences simple or complex? Are
there any deviations from functional sentence perspective? Does the text flow with syntactic figures of speech
such as aposiopesis (which may indicate certain presuppositions), parallelism, chiasm, rhetorical question,
parenthesis, ellipsis, etc. (Nord, 1991, p. 118-120)? What is their function in the text? Such and other
questions should be asked and hopefully answered during this part of the analysis. The extratextual factors
may contribute to the image about the sentence structure which the translator builds throughout the course of
the analysis in a way that e.g. the author‟s intention may be realized through various syntactic figures. In other
words, as soon as
the intention is analysed, it may indicate the presumable sentence structure. Likewise, in all probability, the
more complex the subject matter, the more complex the sentence structure.
2.8 Suprasegmental Features
The author of the model says about suprasegmental features that they “serve to highlight or focus
certain parts of the text and to push others to background” (Nord, 1991, p. 80), and adds that they possess both
an informative (i.e. denotative) and a stylistics (i.e. connotative) function. Simply said, the suprasegmental
features are those which do not fall into any of the previous categories of lexical or syntactical segments,
sentences, paragraphs, etc. In writing, they are signalled by e.g. italics, spaced or bold type, quotation marks,
dashes, parentheses, underlining, affirmative words (actually, in fact), emphatic evaluations (fantastic, great),
clefts (It was John who...), ellipsis, aposiopeses,
„when [...] the speaker breaks off his speech before the sense is completed, in order to aggravate the purpose
of his address“ (Boyd, 1860, p. 281/282) 28
asyndetic enumerations (higher tempo), theme-rheme structures (e.g. stress the most important one by putting
it at the end), selection of words, word order, onomatopoeia, and so forth (Nord, 1991, p. 120-124). From the
above list and from other additional aspects, such as rhythmicity, melody, alliteration, rhyme, and tone, it
14

seems that the suprasegmental features play a bigger role in poems and spoken discourses than in strictly
technical texts.
THE LEVEL OF NATURALNESS
Bởi ThS. Nguyễn Thế Hóa - Thứ sáu, 3/09/2021, 3:51 PM
With all that, for all texts for the vast majority of texts, you have to ensure: (a) that your translation
makes sense;
(b) that it reads naturally, that it is written in ordinary language, the common grammar, idioms and words
that meet that kind of situation.
Normally, you can only do this by temporarily disengaging yourself from the SL text, by reading your
own translation as though no original existed.
A word on 'naturalness'. A translation of serious innovative writing may not sound natural, may not be
natural to you.
A still new patient, a thin and quiet person, who had found a place with his equally thin and quiet fiancee
at the good Russian Table, proved, just when the meal was in full swing, to be epileptic, as he suffered an
extreme attack of that type, with a cry whose demonic and inhuman character has often been described, fell
heavily on to the floor and struck around with his arms and legs next to his chair with the most ghastly
contortions.
When you are faced with an innovatory expressive text, you have to try to gauge the degree of its
deviation from naturalness, from ordinary language and reflect this degree in your translation. Thus in
translating any type of text you have to sense 'naturalness', usually for the purpose of reproducing, sometimes
for the purpose of deviating from naturalness.
In all 'communicative translation', whether you are translating an informative text, a notice or an advert,
'naturalness' is essential. That is why you cannot translate properly if the TL is not your language of habitual
usage. That is why you so often have to detach yourself mentally from the SL text; why, if there is time, you
should come back to your version after an interval.
You have to ask yourself (or others): Would you see this, would you ever see this, in The Times, The
Economist (watch that Time-Life-Spiegel style), the British Medical Journal, as a notice, on the back of a
board game, on an appliance, in a textbook, in a children's book? Is it usage, is it common usage in that kind

of writing? How frequent is it? Do not ask yourself: is it English? There is more English than the patriots and
the purists and the chauvinists are aware of.
Naturalness is easily defined, not so easy to be concrete about. Natural usage
comprises a variety of idioms or styles or registers determined primarily by the 'setting' of the text, i.e. where
it is typically published or found, secondarily by the author, topic and readership, all of whom are usually
dependent on the setting. It may even appear to be quite 'unnatural', e.g. take any article in Foreign Trade
(Moscow): To put it figuratively, foreign trade has become an important artery in the blood circulation of the
Soviet Union's economic organism', or any other example of Soviet bureaucratic jargon; on the whole this
might occasionally be tactfully clarified but it should be translated 'straight' as the natural language of
participants in that setting.
Natural usage, then, must be distinguished from 'ordinary language', the plain non-technical idiom used
by Oxford philosophers for (philosophical) explanation, and 'basic' language, which is somewhere between
formal and informal, is easily understood, and is constructed from a language's most frequently used syntactic
structures and words - basic language is the nucleus of a language produced naturally.
All three varieties - natural, ordinary and basic – are formed exclusively from modern language.
However, unnatural translation is marked by interference, primarily from the SL text, possibly from a third
language known to the translator including his own, if it is not the target language.
15


'Natural' translation can be contrasted with 'casual' language, where word order, syntactic structures,
collocations and words are predictable. You have to pay special attention to:
(1) Word order.
In all languages, adverbs and adverbials are the most mobile components of a sentence, and their placing
often indicates the degree of emphasis on what is the new information (rheme) as well as naturalness. They
are the most delicate indicator of naturalness:
He regularly sees me on Tuesdays. (Stress on 'regularly'.)
He sees me regularly on Tuesdays. (No stress.)
On Tuesdays he sees me regularly. (Stress on 'Tuesdays'.)
(2) Common structures can be made unnatural by silly one-to-one translation from

any language, e.g.:
(a) Athanogore put his arm under that of the young man: ('under the young man's').
(b) After having given his meter a satisfied glance: ('after giving').
Both these translations are by English students.
(c) The packaging having a sufficiently clear label, the cider vinegar consumer could not confuse it with . . . :
('as the packaging had. . .').
(3) Cognate words.
Both in West and East, thousands of words are drawing nearer to each other in meaning. Many sound
natural when you transfer them, and may still have the wrong meaning: The book is actually in print'. Many
more sound odd when you transfer them, and are wrong - avec, sans supplement, le tome VII, 'with, without a
supplement, Vol.7' ('without extra charge'). Thousands sound natural, have the same meaning, are right.
(4) The appropriateness of gerunds, infinitives, verb-nouns (cf. 'the establishment
of, 'establishing', 'the establishing of, 'to establish').
(5) Lexically, perhaps the most common symptom of unnaturalness is slightly old-fashioned, now rather
'refined', or 'elevated' usage of words and idioms possibly originating in bilingual dictionaries,
Note (a) the fact that the SL expression is now old-fashioned or refined is irrelevant, since you translate
into the modern target language; (b) however, if such expressions appear in dialogue, and are spoken
(typically or say) by middle-aged or elderly characters, then a correspondingly 'refined' translationis
appropriate; (c) naturalness has a solid core of agreement, but the periphery is a taste area, and the subject of
violent, futile dispute among informants, who will claim that it is a subjective matter, pure intuition; but it is
not so. If you are a translator, check with three informants if you can. If you are a translation teacher, welcome
an SL informant to help you decide on the naturalness or currency (there is no difference), therefore degree of
frequency of an SL expression.
(6) Other 'obvious' areas of interference, and therefore unnaturalness, are in the use of the articles; progressive
tenses; noun-compounding; collocations; the currency of idioms and metaphors (cultural factors); aspectual
features of verbs; infinitives.
How do you get a feel for naturalness, both as a foreigner and as a native speaker? The too obvious
answer is to read representative texts and talk with representative TL speakers (failing which, representative
TV and radio) - and to get yourself fearlessly corrected. Beware of books of idioms - they rarely distinguish
between what is current (e.g. 'keep my head above water') and what is dead (e.g. 'dead as a door nail') .

There is a natural tendency to merge three of the senses of the word 'idiom':
(a) a group of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from the meanings of their constituent words (e.g.
dog in the manger);
(b) the linguistic usage that is natural to native speakers of a language;
(c) the characteristic vocabulary or usage of a people, a group of people.
The danger of this procedure is that it tends to devalue literal language at the expense of 'idiomatic'
language, as though it were unnatural. If anything, the reverse is the case.
16


Certainly, idiomatic language can, being metaphor, be more pithy and vivid than literal language, but it
can also be more conventional, fluctuate with fashion, and become archaic and refined ('he was like a cat on a
hot tin roof) , and, above all, it can be a way of avoiding the (literal) truth. In translating idiomatic into
idiomatic language, it is particularly difficult to match equivalence of meaning with equivalence of frequency.
Check and cross-check words and expressions in an up-to-date dictionary (Longmans, Collins, COD).
Note any word you are suspicious of. Remember, your mind is furnished with thousands of words and proper
names that you half take for granted, that you seem to have known all your life, and that you do not properly
know the meaning of. You have to start checking them. Look up proper names as frequently as words: say you
get Dax, die de peiiles H.L.M. - 'Dax, a small council flat estate' may sound natural, but looking up Dax will
show you it is incorrect, it must be 'Dax, a town of small council flats' - always assuming that 'council flat' is
good enough for the reader.
Naturalness is not something you wait to acquire by instinct. You work towards it by small progressive
stages, working from the most common to the less common features, like anything else rationally, even if you
never quite attain it. There is no universal naturalness.
(7) Naturalness depends on the relationship between the writer and the readership and the topic or situation
(context).
What is natural in one situation may be unnatural in another, but everyone has a natural, 'neutral'
language where spoken and informal written language more or less coincide.
It is rather easy to confuse naturalness with:
(a) a colloquial style;

(b) a succession of cliched idioms, which some, particularly expatriate teachers, think is the heart of the
language;
(c) jargon;
(d) formal language.
Two approaches to translating Hai cách tiếp cận để dịch
Bởi ThS. Nguyễn Thế Hóa - Thứ sáu, 3/09/2021, 3:55 PM
There are two approaches to translating (and many compromises between them): (1) you start translating
sentence by sentence, for say the first paragraph or chapter, to get the feel and the feeling tone of the text, and
then you deliberately sit back, review the position, and read the rest of the SL text; (2) you read the whole text
two or three times, and find the intention, register, tone, mark the difficult words and passages and start
translating only when you have taken your bearings.
Which of the two methods you choose may depend on your temperament, or on whether you trust
your intuition (for the first method) or your powers of analysis (for the second). Alternatively, you may think
the first method more suitable for a
literary and the second for a technical or an institutional text. The danger of the first method is that it may
leave you with too much revision to do on the early part, and is therefore time-wasting. The second method
(usually preferable) can be mechanical; a translational text analysis is useful as a point of reference, but it
should not inhibit the free play of your intuition. Alternatively, you may prefer the first approach for a
relatively easy text, the second for a harder one. From the point of view of the translator, any scientific
investigation, both
statistical and diagrammatic (some linguists and translation theorists make a fetish of diagrams, schemas and
models), of what goes on in the brain (mind? nerves? cells?) during the process of translating is remote and at
present speculative. The contribution of psycholinguistics to translation is limited: the positive, neutral or
negative pragmatic effect of a word (e.g. affecter, 'affect', 'brutal', befremden, drame, comedie, favoriser,
denouement, extraordinaire, 'grandiose', grandioznyi, 'potentate', pontif, 'pretentious', 'arbitrary/arbitration',
17


proposer, exploit, hauteur, 'vaunt') e.g. Osgood's work on semantic differentials is helpful, since the difference
between 'positive' and 'negative' (i.e. between the writer's approval and

his disapproval) is always critical to the interpretation of a text. The heart of translation theory is translation
problems (admitting that what is a problem to one translator may not be to another); translation theory broadly
consists of, and can be defined as, a large number of generalisations of translation problems. A theoretical
discussion of the philosoph; and the psychology of translation is remote from the translator's problems.
Whether you produce a statistical survey through questionnaires of what a hundred translators think they think
when they translate, or whether you follow what one translator goes through, mental stage by mental stage, I
do not see what use it is going to be to anyone else, except perhaps as a corrective of freak methods - or ideas
such as relying entirely on bilingual dictionaries,
substituting encyclopaedia descriptions for dictionary definitions, using the best-sounding synonyms for
literary translation, transferring all Graeco-Latin words, continuous paraphrasing, etc. But there is never any
point in scientifically proving the obvious
Levels of translation approaches
Bởi ThS. Nguyễn Thế Hóa - Thứ sáu, 3/09/2021, 3:58 PM

THE TEXTUAL LEVEL
Working on the text level, you intuitively and automatically make certain 'conversions'; you transpose
the SL grammar (clauses and groups) into their 'ready' TL
equivalents and you translate the lexical units into the sense that appears immediately appropriate in the
context of the sentence. Your base level when you translate is the text. This is the level of the literal
translation of the source language into the target language, the level of the translationese you have to
eliminate, but it also acts as a corrective of paraphrase and the parer-down of synonyms. So a part of your
mind may be on the text level whilst another is elsewhere. Translation is pre-eminently the occupation in
which you have to be thinking of several things at the same time.
THE REFERENTIAL LEVEL
You should not read a sentence without seeing it on the referential level. Whether a
text is technical or literary or institutional, you have to make up your mind, summarily and continuously, what
it is about, what it is in aid of, what the writer's peculiar slant on it is: Usually, a more specific reference is
desirable in the translation: the tumour's swelling, deterioration, etc. Thus your translation is some hint of a
compromise between the text and
the facts. For each sentence, when it is not clear, when there is an ambiguity, when the

writing is abstract or figurative, you have to ask yourself: What is actually happening here? and why? For
what reason, on what grounds, for what purpose? Can you see it in your mind? Can you visualise it? If you
cannot, you have to 'supplement' the linguistic level, the text level with the referential level, the factual level
with the necessary additional information (no more) from this level of reality, the facts of the matter. In real
life, what is the setting or scene, who are the actors or agents, what is the purpose? This may or may not take
you away temporarily from the words in the text. And certainly it is all too easy to immerse yourself in
language and to detach yourself from the reality, real or imaginary, that is being described. Far more
acutely than writers wrestling with only one language, you become aware of the awful gap between words and
objects, sentences and actions (or processes), grammar and moods (or attitudes). You have to gain perspective
(distacco, recut), to stand back from the language and have an image of the reality behind the text, a reality for
which you, and not the author (unless it is an expressive or an authoritative text), are responsible and liable.
The referential goes hand in hand with the textual level. All languages have polysemous words and structures
which can be finally solved only on the referential level, beginning with a few multi-purpose, overloaded
prepositions and conjunctions, through dangling participles ('reading the paper, the dog barked loudly') to
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general words. The referential level, where you mentally sort out the text, is built up out of, based on, the
clarification of all linguistic difficulties and, where
appropriate, supplementary information from the 'encyclopaedia' - my symbol for any work of reference or
textbook. (Thus in pour le passage de Flore, you find that Flore/Flora was an Italic goddess of flowers and
gardens. As it is in Claudel you translate: 'for the goddess Flora to pass' and leave the rest to the reader.) You
build up the referential picture in your mind when you transform the SL into the TL text; and, being a
professional, you are responsible for the truth of this picture.
Does this mean, as Seleskovitch claims, that 'the (SL) words disappear' or that you 'deverbalize the
concepts' (Delisle)? Not at all, you are working continuously on two levels, the real and the linguistic, life and
language, reference and sense, but you write, you 'compose', on the linguistic level, where your job is to
achieve the greatest possible correspondence, referentially and pragmatically, with the words and sentences of
the SL text. However tempting it is to remain on that simpler, usually simplified layman's level of reality (the
message and its function) you have to force yourself back, in as far as the readership can stand it, into the

particularities of the source language meaning.
THE COHESIVE LEVEL
Beyond the second factual level of translating, there is a third, generalised, level
linking the first and the second level, which you have to bear in mind. This is the 'cohesive' level; it follows
both the structure and the moods of the text: the structure through the connective words (conjunctions,
enumerations, reiterations, definite article, general words, referential synonyms, punctuation marks) linking
the sentences, usually proceeding from known information (theme) to new information (rheme); proposition,
opposition, continuation, reiteration, opposition, conclusion - for instance - or thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
Thus the structure follows the train of thought; determines, say, the 'direction' ofd'ailleurs ('besides', 'further',
'anyway') in a text; ensures that a colon has a sequel, that ulterieur has a
later reference; that there is a sequence of time, space and logic in the text. The second factor in the cohesive
level is mood. Again, this can be shown as a dialectical factor moving between positive and negative, emotive
and neutral. It means tracing the thread of a text through its value-laden and value-free passages which may be
expressed by objects or nouns (Margaret Masterman (1982) has shown how a text alternates between 'help'
and 'disaster'), as well as adjectives or qualities. You have to spot the difference between positive and neutral
in, say, 'appreciate' and 'evaluate'; 'awesome' and 'amazing'; 'tidy' and 'ordered'; sauber
and rein; 'passed away' (indicating the value of the person) and 'died'. Similarly you have to spot differences
between negative and neutral in say 'potentate' and 'ruler'. These differences are often delicate, particularly
near the centre, where most languages have words like 'fair', 'moderate', passable, assez ban whose value
cannot always be determined in the context. My third level, this attempt to follow the thought through the
connectives and the feeling tone, and the emotion through value-laden or value-free expressions, is,
admittedly, only tentative, but it may determine the difference between a humdrum or misleading translation
and a good one. This cohesive level is a regulator, it secures coherence, it adjusts emphasis. At this level, you
reconsider the lengths of paragraphs and sentences, the formulation of the title; the tone of the conclusion.
This is where the findings of discourse analysis are pertinent.
Phúc đáp | Sao chép
Procedures for translation 1
Bởi ThS. Nguyễn Thế Hóa - Thứ sáu, 3/09/2021, 4:00 PM
Direct and oblique translation
Generally speaking, translators can choose from two methods of translating, namely

direct, or literal translation and oblique translation. In some translation tasks it may be possible to transpose
the source language message element by element into the target language, because it is based on either (i)
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parallel categories, in which case we can speak of structural parallelism, or (ii) on parallel concepts, which are
the result of metalinguistic parallelisms. But translators may also notice gaps, or “lacunae”, in the target
language (TL) which must be filled by corresponding elements, so that the overall impression is the same for
the two messages. It may, however, also happen that, because of structural or metalinguistic
differences, certain stylistic effects cannot be transposed into the TL without upsetting the syntactic order, or
even the lexis. In this case it is understood that more complex methods have to be used which at first may look
unusual but which nevertheless can permit translators a strict control over the reliability of their work: these
procedures are called oblique translation methods. In the listing which follows, the first three procedures are
direct and the others are oblique.
Procedure 1: Borrowing
To overcome a lacuna, usually a metalinguistic one (e.g. a new technical process, an unknown concept),
borrowing is the simplest of all translation methods. It would not even merit discussion in this context if
translators did not occasionally need to use it in order to create a stylistic effect. For instance, in order to
introduce the flavour of the source langugae (SL) culture into a translation, foreign terms may be used, e.g.
such Russian words as “roubles”, “datchas” and “aparatchik”, “dollars” and “party” from American English,
Mexican Spanish food names “tequila” and “tortillas”, and so on. In a story with a typical English setting, an
expression such as “the coroner spoke” is probably better translated into French by borrowing the English
term “coroner”, rather than trying to find a more or less satisfying equivalent title from amongst the French
magistrature, e.g.: “Le coroner prit la parole”. Some well-established, mainly older borrowings are so
widely used that they are
no longer considered as such and have become a part of the respective TL lexicon. Some examples of French
borrowings from other languages are “alcool”, “redingote”, “paquebot”, “acajou”, etc. In English such words
as “menu”, “carburetor”, “hangar”, “chic” and expressions like “déjà vu”, “enfant terrible” and “rendez-vous”
are no longer considered to be borrowings. Translators are particularly interested in the newer borrowings,
even personal ones. It must be remembered that many borrowings enter a language through translation, just

like semantic borrowings or faux amis, whose pitfalls translators must carefully avoid. The decision to borrow
a SL word or expression for introducing an element of local colour is a matter of style and consequently of the
message.
Procedure 2: Calque
A calque is a special kind of borrowing whereby a language borrows an expression form of another, but
then translates literally each of its elements. The result is either
i a lexical caique, as in the first example, below, i.e. a caique which respects the syntactic structure of the TL,
whilst introducing a new mode of expression; or
ii a structural caique, as in the second example, below, which introduces a new construction into the language,
e.g.: English-French caique
Compliments of the Season!
Compliments de la saison!
Science-fiction
Science-fiction
As with borrowings, there are many fixed caiques which, after a period of time, become an integral part
of the language. These too, like borrowings, may have undergone a semantic change, turning them into faux
amis. Translators are more interested in new caiques which can serve to fill a lacuna, without having to use an
actual borrowing
Procedures for translation 2
Bởi ThS. Nguyễn Thế Hóa - Thứ sáu, 3/09/2021, 4:03 PM
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Procedure 1: Literal translation
Literal, or word for word, translation is the direct transfer of a SL text into a grammatically and
idiomatically appropriate TL text in which the translators’ task is limited to observing the adherence to the
linguistic servitudes of the TL. In principle, a literal translation is a unique solution which is reversible and
complete in itself. It is most common when translating between two languages of the same family (e.g.
between French and Italian), and even more so when they also share the same culture. If literal translations
arise between French and English, it is because common metalinguistic concepts also reveal physical

coexistence, i.e. periods of bilingualism, with the conscious or unconscious imitation which attaches to a
certain intellectual or political prestige, and such like. They can also be justified
by a certain convergence of thought and sometimes of structure, which are certainly present among the
European languages (cf. the creation of the definite article, the concepts of culture and civilization), and which
have motivated interesting research in General Semantics.
In the preceding methods, translation does not involve any special stylistic procedures. If this were always
the case then our present study would lack justification and translation would lack an intellectual challenge
since it would be reduced to an unambiguous transfer from SL to TL. The exploration of the possibility of
translating scientific texts by machine, as proposed by the many research groups in universities and industry in
all major countries, is largely based on the existence of parallel passages in SL and TL texts, corresponding to
parallel thought processes which, as would be expected, are particularly frequent in the documentation
required in science and technology. The suitability of such texts for automatic
translation was recognised as early as 1955 by Locke and Booth. (For current assessments of the scope of
applications of machine translation see Hutchins and Somers 1992, Sager 1994.)
If, after trying the first three procedures, translators regard a literal translation unacceptable, they must
turn to the methods of oblique translation. By unacceptable we mean that the message, when translated
literally
i
ii
iii
iv
v

gives another meaning, or
has no meaning, or
is structurally impossible, or
does not have a corresponding expression within the metalinguistic experience
of the TL, or
has a corresponding expression, but not within the same register.

Equivalence of messages ultimately relies upon an identity of situations, and it is this alone that
allows us to state that the TL may retain certain characteristics of reality that are unknown to the SL. If there
were conceptual dictionaries with bilingual signifiers, translators would only need to look up the appropriate
translation under the entry corresponding to the situation identified by the SL message. But such dictionaries
do not exist and therefore translators start off with words or units of translation, to which they apply
particular procedures with the intention of conveying the desired message. Since the positioning of a word
within an utterance has an effect on its meaning, it may well arise that the solution results in a grouping of
words that is so far from the original starting point that no dictionary could give it. Given the infinite number
of combinations of signifier s alone, it is understandable that dictionaries cannot provide translators with
ready-made solutions to all their problems. Only translators can be aware of the totality of the message, which
determines their decisions. In the final analysis, it is the message alone, a reflection of the situation, that
allows us to judge whether two texts are adequate alternatives.
Procedure 2: Transposition
The method called transposition involves replacing one word class with another
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without changing the meaning of the message. Beside being a special translation procedure, transposition can
also be applied within a language. For example: “Il a annoncé qu’il reviendrait”, can be re-expressed by
transposing a subordinate verb with a noun, thus: “Il a annoncé son retour”. In contrast to the first expression,
which we call the base expression, we refer to the second one as the transposed expression. In translation
there are two distinct types of transposition:
(i) obligatory transposition, and (ii) optional transposition.
From a stylistic point of view, the base and the transposed expression do not necessarily have the same
value. Translators must, therefore, choose to carry out a transposition if the translation thus obtained fits better
into the utterance, or allows a particular nuance of style to be retained. Indeed, the transposed form is
generally more literary in character. A special and frequently used case of transposition is that of interchange
Procedure 5: Modulation
Modulation is a variation of the form of the message, obtained by a change in the point of view. This
change can be 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.
The difference between fixed and free modulation is one of degree. In the case of
fixed modulation, translators with a good knowledge of both languages freely use this method, as they will be
aware of the frequency of use, the overall acceptance, and the confirmation provided by a dictionary or
grammar of the preferred expression.
Cases of free modulation are single instances not yet fixed and sanctioned by usage, so that the procedure
must be carried out anew each time. This, however, is not what qualifies it as optional; when carried out as it
should be, the resulting translation should correspond perfectly to the situation indicated by the SL. To
illustrate this point, it can be said that the result of a free modulation should lead to a solution that makes the
reader exclaim, “Yes, that’s exactly what you would say”. Free modulation thus tends towards a unique
solution, a solution which rests upon an habitual train of thought and which is necessary rather than
optional. It is therefore evident that between fixed modulation and free modulation there is but a difference of
degree, and that as soon as a free modulation is used often enough, or is felt to offer the only solution (this
usually results from the study of bilingual texts, from discussions at a bilingual conference, or from a famous
translation which claims recognition due to its
literary merit), it may become fixed. However, a free modulation does not actually become fixed until it is
referred to in dictionaries and grammars and is regularly taught. A passage not using such a modulation would
then be considered inaccurate and rejected. In his M.A. thesis, G.Panneton, from whom we have borrowed the
term modulation, correctly anticipated the results of a systematic application of transposition and modulation:
Procedure 3: Equivalence
We have repeatedly stressed that one and the same situation can be rendered by two
texts using completely different stylistic and structural methods. In such cases we are dealing with the method
which produces equivalent texts. The classical example of equivalence is given by the reaction of an amateur
who accidentally hits his finger with a hammer: if he were French his cry of pain would be transcribed as
“Aïe!”, but if he were English this would be interpreted as “Ouch!”. Another striking case of equivalences are
the many onomatopoeia of animal sounds, e.g.:
cocorico
cock-a-doodle-do
miaou
miaow

hi-han
heehaw
These simple examples illustrate a particular feature of equivalences: more often
than not they are of a syntagmatic nature, and affect the whole of the message. As a result, most equivalences
are fixed, and belong to a phraseological repertoire of idioms, clichés, proverbs, nominal or adjectival phrases,
etc. The method of creating equivalences is also frequently applied to idioms. For example, “To talk
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through one’s hat” and “as like as two peas” cannot be translated by means of a caique. Yet this is exactly
what happens amongst members of so- called bilingual populations, who have permanent contact with two
languages but never become fully acquainted with either. It happens, nevertheless, that some of these calques
actually become accepted by the other language, especially if they relate to a new field which is likely to
become established in the country of the TL.
Procedure 4: Adaptation
With this seventh method we reach the extreme limit of translation: it is used in those cases where the
type of situation being referred to by the SL message is unknown in the TL culture. In such cases translators
have to create a new situation that can be considered as
being equivalent. Adaptation can, therefore, be described as a special kind of equivalence, a situational
equivalence.The method of adaptation is well known amongst simultaneous interpreters: there is the story of
an interpreter who, having adapted “cricket” into “Tour de France” in a context referring to a particularly
popular sport, was put on the spot when the
French delegate then thanked the speaker for having referred to such a typically French sport. The interpreter
then had to reverse the adaptation and speak of cricket to his English client.
The refusal to make an adaptation is invariably detected within a translation because it affects not only the
syntactic structure, but also the development of ideas and how they are represented within the paragraph. Even
though translators may produce a perfectly correct text without adaptation, the absence of adaptation may still
be noticeable by an indefinable tone, something that does not sound quite right. This is unfortunately the
impression given only too often by texts published by international organizations, whose members, either
through ignorance or because of a mistaken insistence on literalness, demand translations which are largely

based on calques.
Culture in relation to language
Bởi ThS. Nguyễn Thế Hóa - Thứ sáu, 3/09/2021, 4:08 PM
Culture in this discussion should be seen in a broad sense, as in anthropological studies. Culture is not only
understood as the advanced intellectual development of mankind as reflected in the arts, but it refers to all
socially conditioned aspects of human life (Snell-Hornby, 1988: Hymes, 1964). In practical wordings,
Goodenough (1964: 36) puts:
"As I see it, a society's culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate
in a manner acceptable to its members, and do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves.
Culture, being what people have to learn as distinct from their biological heritage, must consist of the end
product of learning: knowledge, in a most general, if relative, sense of the term. By definition, we should note
that culture is not material phenomenon; it does not consist of things, people, behavior, or emotions. It is
rather an organization of these things. It is the forms of things that people have in mind, their models of
perceiving and dealing with their circumstances. To one who knows their culture, these things and events are
also signs signifying the cultural forms or models of which they are material representation."
It can be summarized that this definition suggests three things:
• culture seen as a totality of knowledge and model for perceiving things,
• immediate connection between culture and behavior and events
• culture's dependence on norms. It should be noted also that some other definitions claim that both knowledge
and material things are parts of culture.
According to Snell-Hornby (1988: 40), the connection between language and culture was first formally
formulated by Wilhelm Von Humboldt. For this German philosopher, language was something dynamic: it
was an activity rather than a static inventory of items as the product of activity. At the same time language is
an expression of culture and individuality of the speakers, who perceive the world through language. Related
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to Goodenough's idea on culture as the totality of knowledge, this present idea may see language as the
knowledge representation in the mind.
In 1973, Humboldt's view was echoed by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf in their Sapir-Whorf

hypothesis. This principle states that thought does not "precede" language, but on the contrary thought is
conditioned by it.
Halliday (in Halliday and Hasan (1985: 5) states that there was the theory of context before the theory
of text. In other words, context precedes text. Context here means context of situation and culture (Halliday
and Hasan, 1985: 7). This context is necessary for adequate understanding of the text, which becomes the first
requirement for translating. Thus, translating without understanding text is non-sense, and understanding text
without understanding its culture is impossible.
Humboldt's idea, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and Halliday's idea have far-reaching implications for
translation. In its extreme, the notion that language conditions thought and that language and thought is bound
up with the individual culture of the given community would mean that translation is impossible. We cannot
translate one's thought which is affected by and stated in language specific for a certain community to another
different language because the system of thought in the two languages must be different. Each language is
unique. If it influences the thought and, therefore, the culture, it would mean that ultimate translation is
impossible.
Another point of view, however, asserts the opposite. This also goes back to Humboldt's idea bout
inner and outer forms of language. Later it is developed into the concepts of deep structure and surface
structure by Chomsky. Inner form and deep structure is what generally known as idea and all ideas are
universal.
Cultural Approach
Bởi ThS. Nguyễn Thế Hóa - Thứ sáu, 3/09/2021, 4:14 PM
It has been long taken for granted that translation deals only with language. Cultural perspective, however,
has been in the last two decade brought into attention in Albanian Translation Studies. This can be seen in
most of the following definitions, even thought starting from middle 20th century.
The first definition is presented by Catford (1965: 20). He states that translation is the replacement of
textual material in one language by equivalent textual material in another language. In this definition, the most
important thing is equivalent textual material. Yet, it is still vague in terms of the type of equivalence. Culture
is not taken into account.
Very much similar to this definition is that by Savory (1968) who maintains that translation is made
possible by an equivalent of thought that lies behind its different verbal expressions. Next, Nida and Taber
(1969) explain the process of translating as consisting of 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.
Brislin (1976: 1) defines translation as the general term referring to the transfer of thoughts and ideas from
one language to another, whether the languages are in written or oral form; whether the languages have
established orthographies or do not have such standardization or whether one or both languages is based on
signs, as with sign languages of the deaf."
Actually Nida and Taber themselves do not mention this matter very explicitly. Following their
explanation on "closest natural equivalent", however, we can infer that cultural consideration is considered.
They maintain that the equivalent sought after in every effort of translating is the one that is so close that the
message can be well transferred. The concept of closest natural equivalent is rooted in Nida's concept of
dynamic equivalent. The inclusion of cultural perspective in the definition of translation unfortunately does
not continue. The later ones keep on not touching this matter. "Translation involves the rendering of a ST to
the TT so as to ensure that:
• the surface meaning of the two will be approximately similar and
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• the structure of the ST will be preserved as closely as possible, but not so closely that the TT structure will
be seriously distorted (McGuire, 1980: 2).
In the following definition, Newmark does not state anything about culture. "Translation is a craft
consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message
and/or statement in another language" (Newmark, 1981: 7). Finally, Wills defines translation more or less
similarly as follows:
"Translation is a transfer process which aims at the transformation of a written text into an optimally
equivalent text, and which requires the syntactic, the semantic and the pragmatic understanding and analytical
processing" (Wills in Noss, 1982: 3).
It is known that definitions above only one take cultural aspects into account, the one by Nida and
Taber. This definition is actually a specific one, rooted from the practice of the Bible translation. By nature, it
is understood that the translation should be done to every language. As the content addresses all walks of life
and culture plays an important role in human life, culture, therefore, should be considered. The other
definitions, however, are meant to explain the experts' view on translation theory to be applied in the

translation of all types of material, including scientific or technical texts which are not deeply embedded in
any culture. Thus, it can be momentarily hypothesized that cultural consideration must be taken if the material
to translate is related to culture. For material that is not very much embedded into a specific culture, cultural
consideration may not be necessary. According to Snell-Hornby (1988: 39), however, this exclusion of cultural
aspect from the discussion of translation theory is due to the view of the traditional approach in linguistics
which draws a sharp dividing-line between language and "extra linguistic reality" (culture, situation, etc.).
Functional Approach
Bởi ThS. Nguyễn Thế Hóa - Thứ tư, 8/09/2021, 9:34 PM

Functionalists view translation as an act of communication that is done for a specific purpose. Although this
idea is held by most functionalists, yet some others go even further in viewing the TT as an independent text.
According to this view Vermeer (in Nord, 1997:12) considers translating as producing a text in a target setting
for a target purpose and target addressees in target circumstances. For the functionalists, the state of the ST is
much lower than that in the equivalence based theory since the formers regard ST as “an offer of information”
that is turned in part or in whole into an offer of information for the target audience the function of the
translation takes priority over the other factors.
Functionalists follow the same line in that function is viewed as a prospective concept that is
determined for each translation by the translation brief and the translator with regards to the use of the TT in
the target culture situation. (Lauscher, 2000:156) It is worth mentioning here that Nida (1964) was one of the
first pioneers, who drew attention to this point since, although he does not set a model, he deals with the fact
that the reader response has its impact on translation and that the purpose of the author and the translation also
play a role in dynamic translation.
Wilss (1982:226) on the other hand mentions what might be considered as new steps towards
functionalism. He first criticizes the old treatment of translation criticism held till the mid 20th century for
demanding ST oriented translation and judging translations accordingly. He affirms that the linguistic
approach if it is based on text-related and text-type related critical framework, may be valid since it helps the
critic to systemize and evaluate the linguistic and situational factors in the process. But he also adds that for
the assessment to be further developed, the translator’s role must be taken into account seriously. He admits
that this could not be achieved without subjectivity but this should not impede the assessment procedure since,
to Wilss, objectivity is necessary but it is pointless to make the assessment procedures more scientific than is

sensible; to him translation, after all, is a science, an art and a skill at the same time
Equivalence Approaches
Bởi ThS. Nguyễn Thế Hóa - Thứ tư, 8/09/2021, 9:35 PM
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