Translation is the process of comprehending the meaning of a text written in one language, referred to as the source text or «output text», in order to create a text written in another language, referred to as the translated text or «target text». The translated text, which is the outcome of this process, is also referred to as a translation. When translation is performed orally, it is referred to as interpretation. Translation science is the discipline that systematically investigates the theory, description, and application of translation and interpretation.

While interpretation is unquestionably older than writing, translation did not develop until after the invention of written literature. There are fragments of the Gilgamesh Epic (about 2000 BC) in Near Eastern languages of the time.

Given the arduous nature of translation, attempts have been undertaken since the 1940s to automate it through the use of machines (automatic translation) or by mechanically aiding the translator ( computer-assisted translation ). 3 All of these processes have resulted in the development of the current language industry, which has been aided significantly by the rise of the Internet, which has spawned new genres of translation such as internationalisation and localization.

Etymology

The phrase translation is derived from the Latin traducto, -nis, “to cause to transfer from one place to another,” and was coined in 1539 by Robert Estienne. As early as 1440, Leonardo Bruni used the verb tradurre in this sense. 5 In Classical Latin, we used to speak of translatio (translation), versio (version), and interpretatio (interpretation), but the distinction between them is not quite obvious. 6 They are connected to the Greek terms o (metaphor, “translation”), (metathesis, “transposition”), and o (metathesis, “transposition”) (metaphrasis, “restatement”). 7 The majority of current European languages, such as German übersetzen, make use of some of these roots or related constructs (“to cross over to the other shore”). 8 The term trujamán, of Arabic origin, was used in mediaeval Castilian to refer to both the translator and the interpreter. 9

Definition

Numerous attempts to define “translation” have been made throughout history, although they have accelerated significantly since the 1960s and the emergence of translation studies as a distinct discipline. There have been five distinct techniques taken in search of a comprehensive definition:

“moving from language A to language B in order to express the same reality” is a cross-linguistic activity (JP Vinay and J. Darbelnet), “restate in another language what has been expressed in a source language, while maintaining semantic and stylistic equivalences” ( Garcia Yebra, V. ).

Between texts activity: “transmitting the meaning of the messages contained in a text” (Seleskovitch and Lederer), “replacing a source language text with a semantically and pragmatically identical text in the target language” (House).

Communication act: “reproducing the message of the originating language in the target language using the closest and most natural equivalent, first in terms of meaning, and subsequently in terms of style” (Nida), “a communicative process that occurs in a social environment” (Hatim and Mason).

“analysing the expression of the original language text in terms of prenuclear sentences, translating the prenuclear sentences from the original language into equivalent term language prenuclear sentences, and finally transforming these term language structures into stylistically appropriate expressions” (Ayora Vázquez), 17 “operation consisting in determining the meaning of linguistic signals based on the meaning of a message and then reconstructing the message in its entirety using the signs of another language” (Delisle).

Textual, communicative, and cognitive activity: “the process of reformulating a text using the tools of a language in a social context and for a specific purpose.” (Albir Hurtado)

History

Translation is an extremely ancient practise. The Rossetta Stone is one of the first written examples of translation, as it contains the same text in hieroglyphic Egyptian, Demotic Egyptian, and Greek, which was used to determine the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

A large portion of the Western tradition of translation is devoted to the translation of biblical materials. The first recorded written translations were of the Bible, as the Hebrew language had been lost for a lengthy period of time and the Holy Scriptures needed to be translated so that they could be understood by Jews who did not understand their native tongue. In the third century BC. C., Ptolemy Philadelphus commissioned the translation of the Holy Scriptures from Hebrew to Koine Greek by 72 intelligent men skilled in both languages. This translation is referred to as the Alexandrian, the 1970s, or the Septuagint. Throughout the first and second centuries AD. C., the Bible was translated from Greek to Latin on an irregular basis. This collection of literature is referred to as the Vetus Latina. Around 384 AD, Saint Jerome completed the first systematic translation of the Bible into popular Latin: the Vulgate.

In the ninth and tenth century, Baghdad translated into Arabic the writings of the ancient Greeks in the domains of science and philosophy. This knowledge expanded throughout Europe via Spain, which was ruled by Muslims for 400 years, until the Muslims were banished in the fourteenth century. 21

The Toledo School of Translators, which produced translations from Arabic to Spanish and eventually to Latin, contributed to the scientific and technological advancements that enabled the European Renaissance to begin. Latin was the Western world’s language franca throughout the Middle Ages. Alfred the Great, King of Wessex in ninth-century England, was ahead of his time in translating Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy into the Anglo-Saxon vernacular. Meanwhile, the Christian Church disapproved of even partial adaptations of St. Jerome’s Vulgate, the traditional Latin Bible from around 384. 20 Martin Luther later translated the Bible into German during the creation of moveable type printing.

The process of translation

The translation process is the mental process through which a text written in one language is permitted to be communicated via another language’s medium. 22 It has historically been divided into three distinct processes: understanding, deverbalization, and reexpression. 22 According to some authors, deverbalization is an internal process of comprehension, and hence just two fundamental processes are distinguished. 23 24

The comprehension or analysis phase decodes the original text’s meaning by taking into account the context, tone, and tenor and forming the units of meaning (at the level of word , phrase or even one or more sentences ). 25 Until this point, the translator behaves similarly to the monolingual reader. 26 During the deverbalization or semantic representation phase, the translator creates in his head a semantic map (of meanings) that is independent of both the source and target languages’ grammatical relations. 22 The semantic map is poured into the target language during the reexpression or synthesis phase, taking into account, in addition to the purely semantic aspects, the literary or textual genre, the context, the grammatical rules, and stylistic traditions, etc. 27 Certain authors, such as Delisle or Bell, include an additional stage in the translation process when it is conducted entirely in writing: verification or revision. 29 28

These phases are recursive and not necessarily sequential; after the meaning of the original text has been recoded in the translated language, the translator can once again unravel it. 25 It contains both controlled and uncontrolled processes, and it necessitates the identification and resolution of problems, the implementation of strategies, and decision making. 30

Complexity of the process

Although this procedure appears straightforward at first view, it conceals a sophisticated cognitive activity. 31 To fully decipher the source text’s meaning, the translator must carefully and methodically assess and analyse all of its aspects. This approach necessitates in-depth understanding of the source language’s grammar, semantics, syntax, and set or related terms, as well as the culture of its speakers. 25 Additionally, the translator must possess this information in order to recode the meaning in the target language. Indeed, these are frequently more significant and thus more in-depth than those of the parent language. As a result, the majority of translators work in their mother tongue. Additionally, it is critical that the translators are familiar with the subject matter. 25 Untranslatability is a frequent issue with some sorts of literature (case of several poems ).

Competence in translation

Contrary to popular assumption, proficiency in one or more foreign languages is not sufficient for professional translation. Foreign languages are just one of the necessary tools for translation. Translating entails comprehending the meaning and effectively reexpressing it in another language, free of the source language’s grammatical constraints; it is far beyond a simple substitution of one word for another. 25

Translation competency is the umbrella term for a collection of necessary knowledge, abilities, and attitudes for translating. 32 These can be further broken into a variety of sub-competencies that the translator must develop in order to translate effectively: 33

Subcompetence in two languages: Underpinning systems of knowledge and abilities required for communication in two languages. It encompasses pragmatic, sociolinguistic, textual, and lexico-grammatical knowledge. 33

Extralinguistic subcompetence: General and domain-specific knowledge. Composed of encyclopaedic and thematic information from both cultures. 33

Subcompetence for translation knowledge: Understanding of the fundamental principles governing translation (kind of unit, required processes, methods and procedures employed, and types of difficulties) as well as knowledge of the professional practise of translation. 33

Instrumental subcompetence: Knowledge and abilities about the utilisation of documentation sources and information and communication technology in the translation process ( dictionaries , encyclopaedias , grammars , style books , parallel texts, corpus, search engines , etc. 33 )

Strategic subcompetence: Ensures the translation process’s efficiency and problem resolution by connecting the other subcompetences. Its purpose is to plan and develop the translation project, to review the translation process and preliminary outcomes in relation to the final objective, and to establish processes for resolving the issue. 33

Cognitive (memory, perception, attention, emotion), attitudinal (intellectual curiosity, perseverance, rigour, critical spirit, knowledge, confidence, and motivation) and talents components: ( creativity , logical reasoning , analysis , synthesis ). 33

Issues with translation

Lexical-semantic issues include terminological alternation, neologisms, semantic gaps, synonymy or contextual antonymy, semantic contiguity along vertical or horizontal axes, and lexical networks (solved by consulting dictionaries, glossaries, terminology banks, consulting specialists).

Grammatical issues include temporality, aspectuality, pronouns, correlative negations, and subject pronoun explanations (they are resolved by consulting French and Spanish grammars, contrastive grammars, syntax and writing manuals in both languages).

Syntactic issues include syntactic parallelisms, the principle of direction, passive voice, focalization, hyperbaton, anaphora, and other rhetorical construction figures (they are solved by consulting grammars of both languages, contrastive grammars , syntax and writing manuals in both languages).

Rhetorical issues include the recognition and replication of figures of thought (simile, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, oxymoron, and paradox, among others) and diction (they are solved with rhetorical and poetic dictionaries in both languages, reference works on rhetoric).

Differences in the use of t and t, idiomatic phrases, locutions, proverbs, irony, humour, and sarcasm are all examples of pragmatic difficulties (resolved by consulting dictionaries of idiomatic phrases and phrases, anthologies of proverbs, reference works on pragmatics topics).

Cultural issues: discrepancies in cultural references, date writing, cuisine names, holidays, and general cultural implications (they are resolved with various documentary sources: books, magazines, movies, videos).

Techniques of translation

A translation technique is a specific spoken procedure with the purpose of achieving translation equivalences. It is distinct from the translation process in that the latter would effect the entirety of the text, whereas the application of various strategies is targeted. 34 JP Vinay and J. Darbelnet established the first classification of technical processes to translate in 1958, 11 and it has undergone only minimal revisions since then. In general, the following translation techniques are distinguished: 35

Adaptation

Adaptation, cultural replacement, or cultural equivalent refers to the process of substituting a cultural feature from the original text for one from the receiving culture that is more familiar and understandable. For instance, in an English-Spanish translation, substitute soccer for football. 35

Extension of the linguistic domain

Linguistic extension is the process of adding linguistic features to a text for structural reasons or to resolve ambiguity caused by certain aspects in the original text. It is particularly useful when dubbing and consecutive interpretation are involved. For instance, translate no way from English to Spanish as in no manner rather than at all, which has the same number of words. It is opposed to verbal comprehension.

Reduction

It is the inverse of expansion. It is a strategy for removing superfluous components from a translation in order to make it more brief or for structural or stylistic reasons, i.e. to prevent difficulties such as repetition, lack of naturalness, or even misunderstanding. Additionally referred to as omission.

Compensation

Translators employ this strategy in the event of a loss of nuance or the inability to find a sufficient correlation. Compensation enables the usage of expansion and contraction. The following line serves as an illustration: ‘Boy, it began to pour like a bastard. I swear to God, in buckets,’ which was translated as ‘Jo! Suddenly, it began to rain! I swear to God, a deluge.’ This way, an attempt is made to recreate the effect created by the original text.

Trace

Lexical tracing is a type of translation that entails the creation of neologisms based on the structure of the source language. A clear example of this is the word basketball, which derives from the English word basketball.

Website translation or multilingual translations

In recent years, there has been an increase in the need to publicise more and more products and services on websites with different languages, both to increase the target of national consumers (see websites translated into co-official languages which ones, Basque , Catalan , Galician ), than in different international languages. Translations of websites or translations of multilingual internet pages have also contributed more directly to the hiring of web and digital marketing specialists .

Translations in the medical and health industry

Translations of reports, studies and other similar medical documents, as well as technical medical texts (such as auxiliary devices for surgical use) or pharmaceutical texts, must absolutely be carried out by specialised medical or pharmaceutical translators or have prior training in the field of medicine or healthcare. They are split into: medical translations , pharmaceutical translations , translations for general healthcare , translations of medical and surgical instruments .