Linguistic Approach to Translation Theory

By Peter Hodges,
French to English Translator,
Tea Gardens, Australia

peterjhodges at bigpond com
http://www.tillermans.com.au

The linguistic approach to translation theory focusing on the key issues of meaning, equivalence and shift began to emerge around 50 years ago. This branch of linguistics, known as structural linguistics, features the work of Roman Jakobson, Eugene Nida, Newmark, Koller, Vinay, Darbelnet, Catford and van Leuven-Zwart. It wasn’t long however, before some theorists began to realize that language wasn’t just about structure – it was also about the way language is used in a given social context. This side of the linguistic approach is termed functional linguistics (Berghout lecture 7/9/05), with the work of Katharina Reiss, Justa Holz-Mänttäri, Vermeer, Nord, Halliday, Julianne House, Mona Baker, Hatim and Mason figuring prominently.

Of course other theorists have contributed to the development of a linguistic approach to translation, but the above mentioned have been singled out for discussion primarily because of their influence, and also because they are perhaps the most representative of the trends of the time.

Douglas Robinson writes that for some translators “the entire purpose of translation is achieving equivalence. The target text must match the source text as fully as possible” (p.73). Linguistic meaning and equivalence are the key issues for the Russian structuralist Roman Jakobson who, in his 1959 work On Linguistic Works of Translation, states that there are 3 types of translation:

1) intralingual – rewording or paraphrasing, summarizing, expanding or commenting within a language

2) interlingual – the traditional concept of translation from ST to TT or the “shifting of meaning from one language to another” (Stockinger p.4)

3) intersemiotic – the changing of a written text into a different form, such as art or dance (Berghout lecture 27/7/05; Stockinger p.4).

For Jakobson, meaning and equivalence are linked to the interlingual form of translation, which “involves two equivalent messages in two different codes” (1959/2000: p.114). He considers Saussure’s ideas of the arbitrariness of the signifier (name) for the signified (object or concept) and how this equivalence can be transferred between different languages, for example the concept of a fence may be completely different to someone living in the suburbs or a prison inmate. He expands on Saussure’s work in that he considers that concepts may be transferred by rewording, without, however, attaining full equivalence. His theory is linked to grammatical and lexical differences between languages, as well as to the field of semantics.

Equivalence is also a preoccupation of the American Bible translator Eugene Nida who rejects the “free” versus “literal” debate in favour of the concept of formal and dynamic equivalence – a concept that shifts the emphasis to the target audience. This was done in order to make reading and understanding the Bible easier for people with no knowledge of it (www.nidainstitute.org). Formal equivalence centres on the form and content of the message of the ST while dynamic equivalence, later termed functional equivalence (Venuti p.148), “aims at complete naturalness of expression” (Munday p.42) in the TT. His 1964 Toward a Science of Translating and his co-authorship with Taber in 1969 of Theory and Practice of Translation aim at creating a scientific approach incorporating linguistic trends for translators to use in their work (Munday p.38). He views Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar as a way of analyzing the underlying structures of the ST in order to reconstruct them in the TT, so that a similar response between the target audience and TT and source audience and ST can be achieved.

His linguistic theory moves towards the fields of semantics and pragmatics, which leads him to develop systems for the analysis of meaning. These include:

1) Hierarchical structures (superordinates and hyponyms), such as the hyponyms “brother” or “sister” and the superordinate “sibling” (Libert lecture 24/3/05). In a cultural context it may not be possible to translate “sister”, so “sibling” may need to be used.

2) Componential analysis, which identifies characteristics of words that are somehow connected, such as “brother” in Afro-American talk does not necessarily refer to a male relation born of the same parents.

3) Semantic structural differences where the connotative and denotative meanings of homonyms are identified, for example “bat” the animal and the piece of sporting equipment (Berghout lecture 14/9/05).

Поиск по сайту: