The Linguistic Theory of Translation is acknowledged as the bible of all translators.

This widely read publication that dates back to the sixties is of enormous importance, since it sets up the keystone to the translators need to determine what is and what is not translation. John Catford (1917-2005) outlines a theory that covers all types of translation with a focus on subtypes such as graphological and phonological translations and transliterations. Since translation is an operation performed on languages (P. 7), the linguistic study of the latter is essential. Catford in his book analyzes the process of translation through a linguistic theory which has the purpose of answering or solving problems that emerge when translation is undertaken.

In the first chapter entitled General Linguistic Theory the writer states that all translation theories must lean on a linguistic theory, for it provides categories that can be used in the description of any language. The investigation conducted examines how language and human social situation, in which it operates, are related, and discusses in detail how those fundamental categories of linguistics can be used.

Language, to him, is a patterned human behavior. He suggests the term language-behavior, to refer to the behavior of interaction in which language is manifested. This activity takes the form of either vocal or hand movements (See Figure1).

Figure 1

The situation, in which this behavior occurs, affects considerably the language, i.e. the performers utterances, although the same differ according to the occasion they have been used on. Catford distinguishes two substances that do have an influence, Phonic substance and situational substance (See figure 2).

FORMAL LEVEL

MEDIUM LEVEL

Operates in combination with grammar & lexis

I Interlevel of language

Interlevel relation between grammar; lexis and situation substance

Figure 2

Foot and tone are also very important language features to focus on, for the foot is the carrier of constructive differences in stress-distribution and the exponent of differences in the grammatical units structure, it is the slight difference in foot-division that leads to meaning divergence or misunderstanding. Here is an example for illustration:

1. II Sam was a I white house I guard II 2. II Sam was a white I house guard II

Tone group

Foot

It is clear that the meaning and the grammatical function of each of the examples shown above are completely irrelevant.

In the second chapter, however, he denotes what translation is and looks-over its general types. From the point of view of this theory, translation is defined as

unidirectional (SL=>TL) and is a replacement of textual material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL), it explains, then, that
translating is not always about finding the equivalent (structure, grammar, lexis .. etc) but sometimes, its about replacing the text material by a non-equivalent one, and in other cases, is but a simple transference of SL material into the TL material. (p.20)

Two major types of translation are being distinguished. To facilitate and simplify things, we grouped them all neatly in a single diagram (See figure 3).

Figure 3

The third chapter deal with the translation equivalences problematic, and highlights the distinction between textual equivalence, and formal correspondence. The first is defined as the possibility to find a TL text (or a portion of a text) that is equivalent in an SL text. Hence, a textual translation equivalent is a portion of a TL text that does change only when a portion
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of a SL text changes. This is found generally when the two languages are genetically and typologically identical, e.g.

- Le th est servi. - Le dinner est servi.

- The tea is served. - Dinner is served.

The second example above demonstrates that sometimes, and in some cases, there is Zero TL equivalent of a given SL item, in this case le, due to the system of articles variation between En and Fr. It is useful to say, then, that to be affective, one must take into account the probability of the occurrence of a SL item into a text and its TL equivalent (X) in every translation case, henceforth, sets translation-algorithms (rules) based on these probabilities.

While the second (formal correspondence), is a TL category occupancy that is said to have the same place as a SL category, i.e. by category compatibility, we mean units, class, structure or even an element of structure that appears in the same place as it does in the SL text. Though it can only be approximate, and is seldom to find two languages that can operate in the same way, it is present in French and English; both languages appear to have five ranks (sentence, clause, group, word, and morpheme) each has them same relationship with the other. So there is a formal correspondence between the French and English hierarchies of units.

In chapter five, meaning is explored in a significant contrastive way to the theory of the transference of meaning. Unlike Dostert, Catfrord refuses the idea wherein a TT carries the same meaning as an ST. Meaning, from his point of view, is a property of

language, means that an SL text has an SL meaning, and a TL text has a TL meaning. He supports his theory by reference to the fact that each language is a formally

Sui generis, thus, formal correspondence is rarely

attained (The formal meanings of SL items and TL items can rarely be the same); the same is true of contextual meaning.

In addition, he objects to the notion of making of transference of meaning and translating the same process. In the sixth chapter, transferences meaning is cleared up and set apart, leading to a distinction between the notions spoken about above. According to A Linguistic Theory of Translation, transference turned out to be a TL text charged with an SL meaning. In translation however, there is a substitution of SL text meaning by another TL text meaning. To sum up, translation is a more complex process, meaning is

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generated by decoding the source language meaning and encoding it again to fit in the target language text by taking into account various levels, viz. grammatical, structural and socio-cultural ones.

Transference might be regarded as bad translation. We will take the example of grammatical items that are deriving their formal and contextual meaning from the SL which the performer represented in the TL text. 1. German : Sie / du - Sie sind ein guter Mensch. - Du bist ein guter Mensch. 2. English: you / you You are a good person.

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From the example like the forgoing, it should be clear that the two systems values or meaning are different. The formal dimension is absent in English whether we can find in the German language as honorific

Sie. French do contain the familiar/unfamiliar dimension

as well, and without any misleading terms, the meaning is understood right away. 3. French: vous/tu -Vous tes une bonne personne. - Tu es une bonne personne.

In order to solve such problems during translation from German/French to English, we may use the archaic English word thou as transference of Sie. Occasionally, this is cannot be possible and other procedures impose themselves. Catford, therefore, demonstrates the different processes that might be involved (See figure 4).

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Lexical (partial) transference

sputnik with its several meaning in Russian has only one implented lexical meaning in English

Grammatical translation
sputnik as exponent of the Russian word-class noun is replaced by 'sputnik' as a non identical equivalent

Phonological translation
e.g. the Russian phonological form /sputn'ik/ is replaced by the graphological adapted equivalent phonological form /sptnik/

Graphological transliteration
e.g. => sputnik and not the grammatical translation cnymhuk

Figure 4

As previously mentioned, SL and TL items rarely have the same meaning (p49), and all levels of SL txt in total translation are replaced by TL translation equivalent items (See figure 3) but how and when can we state that SL and TL texts or items are translation equivalents?

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The seventh chapter answers to this very question concisely and accurately. Whenever the items or texts are interchangeable in a given situation, it is agreed that they are translation equivalents. For this reason, translation equivalence cannot be assured at sentence-rank, the TL text must be relatable to some of the SL text situational features, we often see three elements common to several languages, and these are namely a speaker, an arrival and a prior event. The greater number of the common features the better translation is (Chapter 5). The translator ought to examine the distinctive features (which distinguish the contextual meaning) and select TL textual equivalents that overlap the greatest situational range possible.

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Example: Prior event feature - Mohamed has arrived. - Mohamed has left.

In this example, the situational features present which are arrival, prior event are situational distinctive features that help the reader to understand and differentiate between two different contextual meanings: the departure and the arrival of Mohamed.

Example: Phonological distinctive feature

/m/, /n/, / /

Nasal, Alveolar, Velar are the distinctive features that makes a difference between the three phonological units stated above.

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Catfords analysis led to the conclusion that situational substance features are semantically categorized, this means that words change according to the context, autrement dit, the cultural background of the situation (7.4, P.50).

In the second part of this chapter, the questions of the limits of translatability for restricted translation is raised and answered. The limits are summed up in two generalizations (P. 53). First, the translation between media is impossible (Revise Figure 2). Second, the translation between the medium level and the formal level is impossible.

Chapter eight and nine elaborates on phonological and graphological translations as of restricted type in which SL X is replaced by TL Y, and adds, the basis for equivalence is relationship to the same substance of the
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same type. Taking poetry as an example, the translator tends to preserve the SL texts sounds or tries to find a matching sound in the TL phonology (labial=>labial) and this is phonological translation.

Moreover, graphological transliteration tends to transliterate graphic substance. In Russian, the example shown in figure 4 is translated graphically to cnymhuk, but this cant stand as the words equivalent in English, so came the idea of transliterating it to become sputnik and implement it in the English lexis to serve the meaning of satellite.

Sometimes during the transliteration process a phenomenon prevents the graphical equivalence from being identical, here is an illustration:

Example :

=) l (- mc (mxc/HC)
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The graphic substance has no close equivalent so it has to be redistributed into two letters because the writing systems make use of restricted range of graphic substance. Occasionally, this type of translation is used to give exotic flavor to written texts; this is called a graphological semi-translation. The following picture demonstrates what we mean:

Figure 5

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It would be wrong to think that they are alike. Now the difference between transliteration (which does not require the TL to be a language or a writing system of a language) and graphological translation is visibly notable. Transliteration in the tenth chapter is defined as the replacement of SL units by TL units. Still, this doesnt mean that the SL and TL are related to the same graphic substance, e.g. Cyrillic=>Latin (P. 67). The process of setting up a transliteration-system involves three steps:

1- The conversion from the written to the spoken medium: SL letters are replaced by SL phonic units (one language is involved). 2- The SL phonological units translated into TL phonological unit (two languages are involved). 3- The TL phonological units converted to TL graphological units (one language is involved).

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UNITS

SL graph

/b/
SL phon

/b/
TL phon

B
TL graph

1 => 3 is a Translation 1 => 4 is a Transliteration

Figure 6

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The other point that has to be clarified before passing to the next chapter is the difference that Catford makes between transliteration and transcription. He defines Transcription as a representation of phonological units. Transliteration, however, is a graphological units representation, with a preservation of the visual relatedness between forms.

Jumping forward to grammatical and lexical translation (Chapter 11), the first point to be made is that this partial translation does not affect lexis, i.e. the SL grammar of a text is replaced by equivalent TL grammar, without replacing lexis and vice versa. (See P. 72)

EN - I loved the food. AR - Ahbabtu el ta3am. Grammatical change => Ahbabtu el food. Lexical change => I loved el ta3am.

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While translating from one language to another, the source language text (henceforth SL text) often undergoes changes at various linguistic levels, also called level shifts that are introduced and defined by Catford in the twelfth chapter as follows: departure from

formal correspondence in the process of going from SL.

Shifts are quite frequent in translation; they generally occur at grammatical and lexical level, when there is no formal correspondence between two linguistic codes, as either complete or incomplete category shift, or rank-bound or unbounded translation. By unbounded d translation we mean the translation equivalents are usually set up at whatever ranks appropriate, so the rank-bounded translation means that the equivalent has to be limited to ranks bellow the sentence and this leads to bad translation= i.e. the TL text is either not a normal

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TL form or the TL text is put in a SL texts situational substance.

CATEGORY SHIFTS

NB: Structure-shifts entail class-shifts.

Figure 7

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Structure-shifts:

The man is riding the boat

Class-shifts:

This is a white house. blanche.

Voici une maison

Unit-shifts: Le dinner est servi. served. Dinner is

Intra-system-shifts:

Information Informations

Books

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The controversy over the problem of untranslatability stemmed from the lack of consensus over the definition of translation and the agreement upon the nature of language. Catford mentions in the thirteenth chapter of this book that the concept of a whole language is vast and is not operationally useful (P. 83); for this matter, he designed a framework of categories for the classification of varieties within a total language. These varieties are presented in a form of diagram to avoid drowning into details:

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LANGUAGE VARIETY
TRANSIENT
PERMANENT
characteristic of the performer related to immediate situation change

REGISTER
IDIOLECT personal lang young/adult DIELECT provenance lang

MODE
related to medium

STYLE
addressee/perfo rmer

social role

Witten PROPER geographic al SOCIAL class, status Spoken

TEMPORAL when produced

Figure 8

The intimate relationship between language and culture makes the shift between two languages a very demanding task (Sapir-Whorf, 1985), in view of the fact that cultural factors may interfere and affect the translators choice of the proper style by dedicating the use of a non corresponding equivalent, even if two

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languages possess a roughly corresponding set of style. What engendered the debate over the translatability and untranslatability has been repeatedly tackled throughout history. Thence, Catford suggests the limits of translation (Chapter 14).

When we say that the SL text/item X is translatable, it generally means that a certain degree of equivalence of the SL text can be achieved in the TL. Contrarily, when X is said to be untranslatable, this means that it is impossible to find an equivalent in the TL, and this happens for two reasons: either because of linguistic difficulty, i.e. where formal correspondence is not existent, or because of cultural disparity.

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The final chapter returns back to the notion of relevance and provides a detailed explanation about how translation depends primarily on the sameness of the linguistic relevant features between the two texts in question, i.e. TL text linguistic features are bound to the SL text linguistic features which are themselves bound to the SL. Two texts must share (at least some of) the

same features of [situational] substance (P. 50).

Situational features
FR: relevence to

communicative feature of the txt in the situation.

Linguistically Relevent

Functionally relevent

SE: Gram/lexis items have the same phonological or graphological form. (final 's' in nouns and verbs). Policemy: one word with several contextual meanings (bank, P.95).

Shared exponence
Figure 9

Policemy

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Ambiguity as a cause of linguistic untranslatability can occur also because of another variant called Oligosemy. If an SL item has a restricted range of meaning, it may not be possible to find a matching restriction in the TL. This is illustrated in the following example:

- En: He flew to Algeria. - Ar : . - Ar: .

The lexical item of the SL has no lexical item with a corresponding range of contextual meaning in the TL. Still, it doesnt preclude from being a translation equivalent for flew.

On the other hand, ambiguity, as a cause of cultural (functional) untranslatability, occurs on account

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of an absence of a functionally relevant situational feature in an SL from the TL.

To talk of cultural untranslatability maybe just another way of talking about collocational untranslatability: the impossibility of finding an equivalent collocation in the TL (P. 101)

Catford illustrates this type using the word sauna, which is derived from Finish, as an example of a cultural translation failure, i.e. using bathroom would certainly be inappropriate because it is a non-English institution, and the two have no features in common, and even if it has been adopted for having an approximate meaning, the result would be an unusual collocation in the eyes of the reader.

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List of abbreviations:

Ar: Arabic En: English FR: functionally relevant Fr: French Gram: Grammar GS: Graphic substance Lang: Language PS: Phonic substance SE: Shared experience SL: Source language SL graph.: Source language graphology SL phon.: Source language phonology ST: Source text TL: Target language TL graph.: Target language graphology TL phon.: Target language phonology TT: Target text Viz.: Videlicet (namely)

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