Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies
English Language and Literature

Hta Komack

Chesterman vs. Newmark:

A Comparison of Two Concepts of
Translation Procedures
Bachelors Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Mgr. Renata Kamenick, Ph. D.

2009

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,

using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
..
Authors signature

Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Mgr. Renata Kamenick, Ph.D. for her help and advice.

Table of Contents
I. Introduction

....................................................................................................................

II. Theoretical Concepts

A. Role of Translation Strategies/Procedures in Teaching Translation......................
1: Strategy or Procedure?...........................................................................
B. Peter Newmarks Translation Procedures............................................................
1: Classification of Translation Procedures..............................................
C. Andrew Chestermans Translation Strategies......................................................
1: Classification of Translation Strategies...............................................
III. Example of Practical Application
A. Introduction..........................................................................................................
B. Analysis and Demonstration of Microtextual Operations
1: Text One: 1956.....................................................................................
2: Text Two: Round Table........................................................................
C. Questionnaire.......................................................................................................
IV. Conclusion
A. Evaluation of Results...........................................................................................
B. Recommendation.................................................................................................
V. Bibliography
A. Works Cited.........................................................................................................
B. Works Consulted..................................................................................................
C. Reference Sources................................................................................................
VI. Appendix
A. Source Text: 1956................................................................................................
B. Target Text 1: 1956..............................................................................................
C. Target Text 2: 1956..............................................................................................
D. Source Text: Round Table....................................................................................
E. Target Text: Kulat stl........................................................................................
F. Questionnaire........................................................................................................
1: Students Statements about Newmarks and Chestermans Concept
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2: Students Examples of Translation Procedures/Strategies...................

I. Introduction
Many concepts of translation strategies/procedures have already been devised in
translation studies. One of their important roles is their use for translator training in
seminars and courses, and as a student I am naturally interested in the applicability of
translation strategies in this field. In order to be really useful for this purpose, the
concepts should fulfil several criteria, but most importantly, they should be apt,
comprehensible and not over-complicated. Overwhelmingly detailed linguistic analysis
of the translation process is something that students do not really need. For them,
translation strategies are mainly means of support and initial guidance; these strategies
should give students the opportunity to choose between various possibilities how to deal
with translation problems by providing advice, suggestions and recommendations.
This thesis concentrates on two different concepts of translation
strategies/procedures, Andrew Chestermans and Peter Newmarks. In the first part of
the thesis, I am going to summarise the major characteristics of these concepts, and
point out similarities and differences between them. In the second part, I want to
demonstrate the applications of the respective strategies/procedures on a sample text in
English, its official Czech (i.e. already published) translation, and my own translated
version. The aim of this research is to find advantages as well as disadvantages of the
respective concepts from the translation trainees point of view.
By comparing the two concepts of translation strategies/procedures mentioned
above both theoretically (definitions, theoretical framework) and practically (application
on sample texts, questionnaire), I would like to answer these questions: Which of the
concepts is more suitable for a students analysis of a translation? Which of the concepts
is more useful and easier to work with for student translation practice? And, perhaps,

which of the concepts would I recommend for the use in translation classes, based on
my research and experience?

II. Theoretical Concepts

A. Role of Translation Strategies/Procedures in Teaching
Translation
Before proceeding to the analysis and comparison of Chestermans and
Newmarks concepts of translation procedures/strategies, it should be clarified what the
first and foremost aim of any such concepts in translator training is. It is important to
bear in mind that I am going to look at this issue from the point of view of a student,
and I am fully aware of the fact that a linguists (or a teachers) opinion may well be
quite different.
For a translation trainee, two areas are of importance: analysis of source and
target texts, and suggested methods of dealing with problems in translation. The first
one because by studying examples (particularly from their own language) students gain
experience and can then use it to draw their own conclusions; the second one because
having some guidelines for tackling basic difficulties helps them deal with the more
serious ones. However, as Jean-Pierre Mailhac suggests in his article Formulating
Strategies for the Translator, linguists and translation theorists propose any translation
strategies only reluctantly, because
[t]he contention is usually that every problem/text/translation situation is
different, which means that generalizations, and therefore reusable
strategies, are out of the question. It is also argued that the concepts TS
relies upon are so complex, esoteric and remote from translation practice
that translators could not even begin to apply them to their tasks.
Mailhac does not agree that generalisations, i.e. strategies, are out of the question, and
he outlines his own concept of translation theory. He also provides his own account of
translation procedures, parameters and strategies, at which I am not going to look in

detail here. Mailhac says that translation procedures are goal oriented and, being part
of the translational output, they are visible. They are defined as a means of translating
a particular element as part of a strategy, and it is claimed that some of the procedures
are limited in scope, while others can apply to wider units, including a whole text.
It is concluded that [a] procedure is thus a tool to be exploited in the broader context of
a strategy in order to solve a translation problem. In that sense, it is more akin to what
Chesterman labels a strategy. Strategy is in Malihacs concept characterised as
method employed to translate a given element/unit (including a whole text) making use
of one or more procedures selected on the basis of relevant parameters, which
constitute decision-making tools based on choices and contribute to translation knowhow. In Mailhacs opinion, applied [translation studies] seeks to provide translation
strategies to guide the translator in his/her task and offer a framework for quality
assessment and developing translation skills. Such strategies will be prescriptive in
nature rather than descriptive and explanatory as such. Still another translation theorist,
Anthony Pym, writes about Translation Techniques. Even this brief excursion is
enough to show that, as far as terminology is concerned, there is considerable
disagreement, and that almost every single theorist would characterise the terms
translation procedure and translation strategy differently, sometimes also adding others
of his or her own. To solve this dilemma is, however, not the aim of this thesis, and
therefore I am going to use only the basic terms, procedure and strategy, according to
the context (see next section).

1. Strategy or Procedure?
One thing to notice is that Chesterman and Newmark differ in terminology: the
first speaks about translation strategies, while the second discusses procedures. This
detail might seem unimportant; however, it indicates different approaches. The term
procedure, on one hand, implies concentration on the process of translation itself, on
what actually happens between the source and the target text. Using a strategy, on the
other hand, is a conscious process; a strategy may for a translator be the best possible
way of dealing with the task of rendering a text from one language into another, and
what is stressed by Chesterman is the purposefulness of this process. In other words,
this term implies that the translator, having encountered a problem, determinedly
chooses between various options to avoid the potentially risky possibilities and find the
most suitable one, finally arriving at the optimal solution. In fact, Chesterman (in his
Memes of Translation) distinguishes between these two approaches:
Comprehension strategies have to do with the analysis of the source text
and the whole nature of the translation commission; they are inferencing
strategies, and they are temporally primary in the translation process.
Production strategies are in fact the results of various comprehension
strategies: they have to do with how the translator manipulates the
linguistic material in order to produce an appropriate target text. (92)
To sum up, it can be said that between Chestermans and Newmarks concept, there is a
difference in the aspect of purposefulness: Chesterman, on one hand, stresses the fact
that working with translation strategies is a conscious and goal-oriented process.
Newmark, on the other hand, proposes a variety of procedures, and once translation
trainees acquire the knowledge of them, they are used more or less automatically. To
cover both strategies and procedures, i.e. mainly for practical reasons, I am going to use
the neutral and also more general term microtextual operations. A more detailed

discussion of this issue follows in the chapters concerned with the theoretical
framework of the respective concepts.

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B. Peter Newmarks Translation Procedures

Peter Newmark provides a complex account of his translating theory in A
Textbook of Translation. In Chapter 3, he describes the process of translating, beginning
with choosing ones approach, and suggesting that the usually preferred method is to
read the whole text two or three times [...] and start translating only when [one has]
taken [ones] bearings (21). Yet he notes that such a method can be mechanical and
that a translational text analysis is useful as a point of reference, but it should not
inhibit the free play of [ones] intuition (21). In my opinion, for a student of translation
without practical experience, this method is better, since it is much more reliable than
trying to translate everything at once, however mechanical the method may be.
Newmark also claims that translation theory broadly consists of, and can be defined as,
a large number of generalisations of translation problems (21). He then comments on
the stages of the translating process, from translating on the textual, referential, cohesive
and natural level of a text to the translation of lexis (with special attention paid to the
translation of proper names), concluding with revision and arriving at the final version
of the target text.

1. Classification of Translation Procedures

Translation procedures as such are described in Chapter 8, and it is claimed that
they are used for sentences and the smaller units of language, and that their use
always depends on a variety of contextual factors (81). Here I provide an outline of
Newmarks procedures; further discussion of examples and individual cases follows in
the section concerned with the analysis of sample translations.
According to Newmark, the most important of the procedures is literal
translation. The others are transference, naturalisation, cultural equivalent, functional

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equivalent, descriptive equivalent, synonymy, through-translation, shifts/transpositions,

modulation, recognised translation, translation label, compensation, componential
analysis, reduction and expansion, paraphrase, notes, additions and glosses, and
deletion.

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C. Andrew Chestermans Translation Strategies

Chapter 4 of Andrew Chestermans book Memes of Translation begins with the
discussion of strategies. First, he summarises the general characteristics of translation
strategies and provides some basic categories: there are language learning strategies,
and communication strategies, aimed at dealing with problems in communication, both
of which are relevant to translation, since translators have to solve communication
problems, and have to learn the language they work with well (87). Translation
strategies can also be divided into global, which come into operation on the more
general level (such as the level of the source text), and local, which are used on the
more specific level (such as the level of words, clauses, or sentences), and Chesterman
notes that his concern is with the local ones (90-91). In the second part of this chapter,
he proposes a classification of translation strategies, commenting on the difference
between comprehension and production strategies (as quoted earlier). Generally, his
focus is on change; he claims that the most basic, overall strategy is [c]hange
something, i.e. if [one is] not satisfied with the target version that comes immediately
to mind [...] [he or she should] change something in it, adding that change as a
strategy begins to apply beyond the scope of [the] obvious change from one language
into another (92). It is important to note that concerning literal or close translation, i.e.
the target version that comes immediately to mind, Chestermans approach
corresponds with Newmarks. In A Textbook of Translation, Newmark claims that
[accuracy in translation] represents the maximum degree of correspondence,
referentially and pragmatically, between, on the one hand, the text as a whole and its
various units of translation [...] and, on the other, the extralinguistic reality, which may
be the world of reality or of the mind (30). After the explanation of the basis of his
concept, Chesterman characterises his classification as one that seems to work in
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practice, seems to differentiate enough, but does not get bogged down in unportable
detail, and is flexible and open-ended (93).

1. Classification of Translation Strategies

According to this classification, there are three basic groups of translation
strategies: syntactic or grammatical, semantic and pragmatic. Again, I am going to
provide only a brief outline of these strategies; I will focus on them in the section
discussing similarities and differences between Newmarks and Chestermans concept,
and I want to look at specific examples more closely in the analysis of sample
translations.
The syntactic strategies involve purely syntactic changes and primarily
manipulate form (94). In other words, they are concerned with the organisation of units
of a text, not with their meanings. The main ones are literal translation, loan/calque,
transposition, unit shift, phrase structure change, clause structure change, sentence
structure change, cohesion change, level shift, and scheme change.
The semantic strategies are kinds of changes which mainly have to do with
lexical semantics, but also include aspects of clause meaning, and which manipulate
meaning (101) here comes a shift from focusing on the form to focusing on the sense
of language units. These strategies are synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, converses,
abstraction change, distribution change, emphasis change, paraphrase, trope change, and
other kinds of modulation.
The pragmatic strategies are concerned with the selection of information in the
[target text], which is governed by the translators knowledge of the prospective
readership of the translation. They tend to involve bigger changes from the [source
text], typically incorporate syntactic and/or semantic changes as well, and
manipulate the message itself (107). It can be said that from the three basic categories,
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pragmatic strategies are the most complex and probably the most difficult to classify,
too. They are cultural filtering, explicitness change, information change, interpersonal
change, illocutionary change, coherence change, partial translation, visibility change,
transediting, and some other pragmatic changes.

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III. Example of Practical Application

A. Introduction
In this section, I want to demonstrate how the concepts of translation procedures
and strategies can be used for an analysis of a sample translation. I attempt here to put
myself in the place of a student of translation who is acquainted with Newmarks and
Chestermans theoretical concepts and who is supposed to translate a text with the help
of these concepts. To make this research more objective, I have devised a short
questionnaire to be filled in by a group of students of translation from the Department of
English and American Studies, and the results of this questionnaire are discussed in
section III.C. The text that I work here with is an excerpt from the book Art since 1900,
a publication concerned with the development of art and art theory in the course of the
twentieth century. It is divided into short chapters, each covering one year; there are also
other, specialised sections, discussing e.g. leading artists, art critics, or works of art. As
a source text (ST) for my analysis, I have chosen the introductory part of the chapter
1956, which focuses on the young generation of British postwar artists and on the
beginnings of pop-art. The book Art since 1900 has already been published in Czech
under the title Umn po roce 1900, and the first target text (TT1) has been obtained
from this version. My own translation of the sections in question is the second target
text (TT2). The analysis of this text focuses on demonstration of Newmarks and
Chestermans translation procedures/strategies on typical examples from the excerpt, on
their characterisation, and on drawing basic parallels and showing differences between
these two concepts. The analysis of the second translation, Round Table, is more
concerned with the practical application of microtextual operations in the translation

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process, and the procedures/strategies are not further examined in this section. Full
versions of all the excerpts can be found in the Appendix.

B. Analysis and Demonstration of Procedures/Strategies

1. Text One: 1956
The opening sentence of chapter 1956 summarises the key issues discussed on
the following pages; thus, its main aim is to introduce the reader to the topic, while
remaining brief and succinct. To preserve these characteristics in translation is not as
easy and straightforward as it may seem, mainly because of differences in word order
and information structure in Czech and English sentences; and microtextual operations
concerning sentence structure is what I want to begin with. In the following discussion,
I am going to consistently use the order ST TT1 TT2. The ST sentence is:
The exhibition This is Tomorrow in London marks the culmination of
research into postwar relations between art, science, technology, product
design, and popular culture undertaken by the Independent Group,
forerunners of British Pop art (Art 385)
The TT1 version of this sentence is:
Vstava This is Tomorrow v Londn je vyvrcholenm vzkumu
povlench vztah mezi umnm, vdou, technologi, designem a
populrn kulturou, kter uskutenila Independent Group, pedchdkyn
britskho pop artu (Umn 385)
The TT2 version is:
Zkoumn povlench vztah mezi umnm, vdou, technikou,
designem a masovou kulturou, ktermu se vnovala Independent Group,
skupina pedchdc britskho pop-artu, vrchol v Londn vstavou
This is Tomorrow.
In the English sentence, the thematic part the culmination [...] popular culture, already
known to the reader and serving as a connection to the previous chapter, is framed by

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two pieces of new information, two rhematic parts, a) about the exhibition, b) about the
group. This information structure is not as common in Czech as in English; Czech
sentences usually preserve the theme-rheme sequence, keeping the newest information
at the end. The TT1 version does not reflect this rule, preserving the word order of the
original; according to both Newmarks and Chestermans theory, this sentence is an
example of literal translation. Not only that the individual words correspond one to one,
but they are also organised in the same way within the sentence. On the other hand, the
TT2 version has a different structure, where both rhematic elements have been shifted
towards the end. This can be identified, according to Chesterman, as the strategy of
sentence structure change. At this point, I want to note the first difference between
Newmarks and Chestermans concept: Newmark does not include changes in word
order in his list, while Chesterman does. In my opinion, the notion of sentence (clause,
phrase) structure change is important for the English-Czech translation, and I would
therefore suggest that it is one of the advantages of Chestermans theory.
In both concepts, there appears a group of closely related microtextual
operations, all of which are concerned with the translation of recognised terms. They are
transference, through-translation and naturalisation (Newmarks terms), and loan
translation with the subcategory of loan-based neologisms and calque (Chestermans
terms). Words and phrases such as This is Tomorrow and Independent Group have
become institutionalised within the field of art history, and therefore they are not usually
translated into Czech, perhaps only in non-specialised texts. Therefore, they can serve
as examples of transference or loan translation, together with all male names which
appear in the text in the first case.1 As has already been mentioned, Newmark

Female names are in Czech morphologically marked in all cases, and they are usually
naturalised as soon as they first appear in a Czech text. Concerning male names, these are
naturalised as well, but the naturalisation becomes visible only when they appear in other than
the first case.

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establishes a separate category called naturalisation for the step succeeding the
borrowing of a word, unlike Chesterman, who calls the result of this process a loanbased neologism. The phrase pop art can be regarded as an example of this
procedure/strategy, because it is already commonly known and has been fully
incorporated into morphological and grammatical structures of Czech. Examples of
through-translation or calque are the translations of institutional terms such as
Nezvisl skupina, Institut souasnho umn, and Muzeum modernho umn.2
On the basis of the preceding comparison, it can be concluded that both Chestermans
and Newmarks concepts are in this area corresponding, save the minor difference in
categorisation.
Another parallel between Newmarks and Chestermans theory is the concept of
neutralisation or cultural filtering. In this area, Newmark establishes three categories:
cultural equivalent and two subcategories of neutralisation, functional and descriptive
equivalent. Chesterman subsumes all these procedures under the heading of a strategy
called cultural filtering. Unfortunately, no example of these microtextual operations can
be found in the 1956 text. The main reason is probably that cultural filtering is
thought to be inappropriate for specialised texts and is therefore not used; the risk of
information loss and oversimplification is in this case considered greater than the risk of
unreadability. Although these microtextual operations do not appear in the analysed
text, they are nevertheless very useful in other kinds of translations, i.e. those with
expressive and/or vocative function.
Both Chesterman and Newmark establish the same category of microtextual
operations called synonymy, and they also characterise it similarly. This
2

It should be noted here that as far as the last two examples are concerned, it is debatable
where they are translation labels, through-translations/calques or already recognised
translations. I would opt for the second possibility, because different art historians and
theorists work with these terms differently, and agreement about this issue has not been
reached.

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procedure/strategy is used quite frequently in translating from English into Czech, and
abundant examples can be found in the target texts, such as in the following excerpts
(the examples of synonymy are underlined):
And its signal achievements its ambitious series of lectures and
extraordinary run of exhibitions, the latter abetted by innovative
designers in the group like the Brutalist architects Alison Smithson
(1928-93) and Peter Smithson (1923-2003) were discursive and
curatorial (Art 385)
Pozoruhodnch spch doshli na poli diskurzu a kurtorstv
uspodali ambicizn srii pednek a vjimench vstav, kter
podntili prkopnit designi skupiny, napklad brutalistit architekti
Alison Smithsonov (1928-1993) a Peter Smithson (1923-2003) (Umn
385)
Jej mimodn spchy se odehrly na poli umleck teorie a
vstavnictv napklad ambicizn cyklus pednek nebo ojedinl
srie vstav, na kter se velkou mrou podlelo nkolik novtorskch
designr, zejmna tvrci brutalistn architektury Alison Smithsonov
(1928-93) a Peter Smithson (1923-2003).
Even in this short excerpt there are several instances of synonymy. The reason why
synonymy is so common in English-Czech translations is that the most straightforward
option often sounds unnatural or does not correspond with the original meaning, and it
is therefore better to replace it with its near equivalent, and furthermore, it is often
difficult to decide what the most stratightforward option is. Thus, this
procedure/strategy can be really helpful to Czech students of translation.
Translation procedures/strategies called shifts and transpositions (by Newmark)
or shifts and structure changes (by Chesterman) are also very well applicable in
translations from English into Czech. Particularly the phrase/clause/sentence structure
changes constitute an almost inextricable part of the English-Czech translation process,
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mainly due to differences in syntax and word order, but because this has been discussed
earlier, I am not going to return to this issue here. However, there are other kinds of
shifts, basically the minor ones. Chesterman establishes for these a distinct category
of unit shifts, while Newmark subsumes them under the more general label
shifts/transpositions. In the following examples, the relevant parts are again underlined.
The exhibition This is Tomorrow in London marks the culmination of
research into postwar relations between art, science, technology, product
design, and popular culture undertaken by the Independent Group,
forerunners of British Pop art (Art 385)
Vstava This is Tomorrow v Londn je vyvrcholenm vzkumu
povlench vztah mezi umnm, vdou, technologi, designem a
populrn kulturou, kter uskutenila Independent Group, pedchdkyn
britskho pop artu (Umn 385)
Zkoumn povlench vztah mezi umnm, vdou, technikou,
designem a masovou kulturou, ktermu se vnovala Independent Group,
skupina pedchdc britskho pop-artu, vrchol v Londn vstavou
This is Tomorrow.
In the Czech translation, relative pronouns have been added, because literal translation
(with past participle construction) sounds odd in this case.
The Independent Group was less a tight artistic movement than a
multifarious study group. Its leading members were artists (Art 385)
Sp ne pevn umleck hnut byla skupina Independent Group
(Nezvisl skupina) rozmanitou studijn skupinou. Mezi jej vedouc
pedstavitele patili umlci (Umn 385)
Independent Group (Nezvisl skupina) byla spe ne jednotnm
umleckm hnutm nesourodou studijn skupinou. Jejmi elnmi
pedstaviteli byli umlci

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The shift/transposition in this case affects gender. In English, gender concerns mainly
personal pronouns and possessive adjectives, and the Independent Group is referred
to with the word it. In Czech, on the other hand, all words have gender, which has to
be reflected in the reference. Although the phrase Independent Group appears in the
text as a loan term, its through-translation suggests feminine gender, and appropriate
relative pronouns have been used.
The history of the Independent Group proper (1952-5) is bound up with
that of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, which it
served as an unruly research-and-development arm (Art 385)
Historie samotn Independent Group (1952-1955) je spojena s Institutem
souasnho umn (ICA) v Londn, ktermu slouila jako neukznn
prodlouen ruka vzkumu a vvoje (Umn 385)
Historie Independent Group jako takov (1952-5) je svzna s Institutem
souasnho umn (ICA) v Londn, jemu slouila jako neukznn
vzkumn-vvojov prodlouen ruka.
This example is similar to the previous one as it is also concerned with gender. English
uses the relative pronoun which whenever the reference is not to a person; but in
Czech, there are more kinds of relative pronouns, and gender has thus to be made
explicit in the reference. As I have suggested at the beginning of this chapter,
Newmarks dealing of this whole issue is not sufficient as far as English-Czech
translations are concerned, and Chestermans concept is in this area more helpful.
Another area where there are prominent differences between Newmarks and
Chestermans concept is the group of semantic changes. The microtextual operations
that have been discussed so far all manipulate primarily form, are relatively easy to
understand and use, and sometimes are even inevitable (particularly grammatical shifts).
The semantic changes, on the other hand, are usually complex and there are often more

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options to choose from. In Newmarks theory, almost all procedures of this kind are
subsumed under the category of modulation. In A Textbook of Translation, he notes that
the general concept, since it is a super-ordinate term covering almost everything
beyond literal translation, is not useful as it stands (88), and that the categorisation of
modulation by the translation theoreticians Vinay and Darbelnet seems to him
unconvincing (89). Despite that, he discusses Vinay and Darbelnets categories and
does not propose any of his own. In his opinion, some of these types of modulation are
themselves distinct translation procedures, or are potentially available, but [one]
should only use [them] when the translation is not natural unless [one does] so (88)
in other words, the translator should always opt for literal translation first. Chestermans
opinion on this issue is not so rigid, and unlike Newmark, he does not call for preferring
literal translation whenever possible. Some of his categories of semantic strategies
correspond with some of Newmarks (or more precisely those of Vinay and Darbelnet)
categories of modulation. They are antonymy/negated contrary, abstraction
change/abstract for concrete, converses/reversal of terms, and hyponymy/one part for
another. Unfortunately, none of these procedures has been used in the translation of
1956, and therefore I cannot demonstrate them on any example here. The reason is
probably that any semantic shifts are preferred to be avoided in informative texts.
However, this concept can prove useful in translating expressive and vocative texts,
because it can help to achieve the desired effect. To sum up, Newmark discusses the
procedure of modulation only briefly, while Chesterman divides the semantic changes
into clearly defined categories, which are much easier to work with. In my opinion,
since literal translation is often not applicable, it is better to classify the other
possibilities than to pretend they can be avoided.

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Reduction and expansion/distribution change are one of the few semantic

changes, where a parallel between Newmarks and Chestermans concept can be drawn.
Newmarks reduction and expansion correspond with Chestermans subcategories of
distribution changes, compression and expansion. Reduction/compression can be
illustrated by the following sentence (the relevant phrases are underlined), where the ST
version is The ICA was set up in 1946 [...] in order to champion modernism (Art 385),
and the TT1 version is ICA byl zaloen v roce 1946 na podporu modernismu (Umn
385). In this translation, the same semantic components have been distributed over
fewer units, whereas in TT2 there is no reduction: ICA byl zaloen roku 1946 [...]
s clem propagace modernismu. Two other sample sentences illustrate expansion. The
first ST example is But its prime movers were critics (Art 385). In TT1, no expansion
has been applied, unlike in TT2: Ale jejmi hlavnmi hybateli byli kritici (Umn 385)
vs. avak tmi, kdo urovali jej smovn, byli kritici. The second ST example is
And its signal achievements [...] were discursive and curatorial (Art 385). In both
translations not only expansion, but also modulation has been used; however, since
modulation has already been discussed, I want to focus only on the expanded parts. The
TT1 version is Pozoruhodnch spch doshli na poli diskurzu a kurtorstv (Umn
385), and the TT2 version is Jej mimodn spchy se odehrly na poli umleck
teorie a vstavnictv. In this case, the distribution change cannot be avoided, because
literal translation does not work; literal translations of the respective words simply do
not collocate with each other. Since this is not an uncommon situation, and particularly
due to nominal tendencies and condensation, which are typical of English, but can be
rarely reproduced in Czech, I would suggest that the notion of distribution change is
important for an English-Czech translator.

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At the moment, only a few translation procedures and strategies remain where at
least some correspondences between Newmarks and Chestermans concept can be
discerned. They are all tightly context-bound and situation-specific, and translators have
the possibility to opt for them only in some kinds of texts, which is the main reason why
they cannot be illustrated by any examples from the analysed excerpt. Therefore, I am
going to briefly comment on them in this paragraph. First of these microtextual
operations is paraphrase, and both authors agree, that this very loose and free kind of
rendering is on the very margin of what can be called translation. Also deletion or
omission (being a subcategory of Chestermans information change) is to be used only
rarely, usually only in non-authoritative texts and when there is some serious reason to
do that, because like paraphrase it is sometimes considered an encroachment upon the
writers work. Finally, Newmarks category of notes, additions and glosses corresponds
with Chestermans information change (or more precisely addition) and visibility
change. These microtextual operations, if used, have to be admitted in other words,
the added stretches of text tend to be highlighted or otherwise indicated. As has already
been mentioned, no examples of these microtextual operations appear in 1956,
particularly because this text is so concise, but also very informative, that the translator
does not need to add or omit anything.
Now I have arrived at the point where I can no more discuss Newmarks and
Chestermans concepts in parallel, yet there still remain microtextual operations that
have not been talked about so far. One of them is compensation, which is regarded by
Newmark as a distinct translation procedure, while Chesterman claims that it can be
only motivation for application of some strategy. It is used mostly in translation of
expressive and vocative texts, where the loss of pragmatic or other effect constitutes a
problem and has therefore to be compensated for in another place in the target text.

25

Another category established by Newmark, but not discussed by Chesterman, is

componential analysis. This procedure may be very helpful not only in the case of
literary translation, but also when translating some newly coined term, which happens
in the field of art theory relatively often. However, the analysed text concerns an era that
has been discussed by art historians for quite a long time, and therefore the terminology
is relatively extensive and stable, and no neologisms or untranslatable words appear
in the text. Hence, there has been no need to use componential analysis to render such
expressions into Czech.
So far I have gone through all translation procedures listed and characterised by
Newmark; now I want to focus on the rest of Chestermans translation strategies. The
most obvious difference between Newmark and Chesterman is that Chestermans
categorisation is much more detailed. However, when one looks on the classifications
and compares them more closely, it can be said that it is not as simple as that:
Chesterman does not establish more narrowly defined categories, he creates a whole
distinct group of translation strategies pragmatic changes. But before I move on to
these, I want to briefly look on some not yet examined syntactic and semantic changes.
The first of them is cohesion change, of which there is no example in the analysed text.
Although there are several re-formulations, in fact all of them have been of the kind of
phrase/clause/sentence structure changes, and have not affected the intra-textual
reference. The second is level shift; this strategy is probably more typical of free
translation. In informative texts, level shift is usually optional and can be avoided by
using other strategies. The third is emphasis change, which can also be considered part
of free translation, and is thus also avoided in informative texts. Finally, there are two
kinds of strategies that apply almost exclusively to translation of literary texts,
particularly poetry scheme and trope changes. These can prove helpful when

26

translating rhetorical schemes and tropes, respectively, but I am not going to discuss
them further here.
Now I want to return to the above-mentioned pragmatic changes. The only
parallels between this concept of Chestermans and Newmarks theory are cultural
filtering (basically Newmarks cultural, descriptive and functional equivalent) and
information change (reduction and expansion), which have been examined earlier.
Except these two, no other changes of message are discussed by Newmark; the reasons
are in my opinion two. First, he always prefers literal translation, and any pragmatic
changes are far from close rendering of the original; second, if such changes are
acceptable, it is only in very specific contexts, and an account of them would be
redundant in a textbook aimed at beginning translators. Even Chesterman himself
admits that pragmatic changes are in some way specific: since they tend to involve
bigger changes from the ST, and typically incorporate syntactic and/or semantic changes
as well (Memes 107), it can be said they work at a different, higher level than the other
two types. Nevertheless, I want to provide a complete account of Chestermans concept,
and therefore have to at least briefly consider them.
Apart from cultural filtering, explicitness change is one of the most commonly
used translation strategies, and also one of the pragmatic changes that manipulate
message only slightly (of course only if used sparsely). Its two subcategories are
explicitation and implicitation, where particularly explicitation is often used by
translators who want to clarify the text for readers and make it more understandable
similarly when they decide to opt for paraphrase or information change. Both these
strategies have already been discussed, therefore I want to move on to another
translation strategy, which is interpersonal change. This strategy is used in other than
vocative texts only rarely, because the relationship between text and reader is very

27

important particularly in this type of texts and less in the other. In fact, it is so important
that the form of the target text often has to be changed to make the translation affect the
audience in the desired way. With the next strategy, illocutionary change, one comes to
the most radical alterations of the source text. Change of speech act, similarly as
coherence change, is tightly context-bound, and if used much too often and/or without
good reason, the translation can almost cease to be a translation.3 If I characterise
illocutionary and coherence change as radical alterations, then the last two pragmatic
changes, partial translation and transediting, may not even be called translation
strategies. Partial translation, e.g. summarising a source text, can serve as a preliminary
stage of translating or as a supplement to it; but as such it is so big an alteration that the
result cannot, in my opinion, be called translation proper. And finally, transediting can
be considered the most extreme translation strategy. It is certainly a question why
should anyone translate a badly written original text, but apart from that, my personal
belief is that drastic re-ordering [and] rewriting at a more general level than the kinds
of changes covered by the strategies so far mentioned (Chesterman 112) is not
translating. However, I am aware of the fact that this issue is rather debatable and that
not everyone would agree with my opinion. To conclude, in this account of
Chestermans pragmatic changes I have proceeded from the basic and relatively
common ones to the most radical ones. It is certainly important to mention strategies
such as partial translation or transediting, but otherwise I think that translation trainees
are not experienced enough to decide when it is feasible to use them. Yet I would
definitely not dismiss the whole concept of pragmatic changes; rather suggest, that if
Chestermans complex concept of translation strategies is to be worked with in

I am well aware of the fact that is a matter of opinion, and that no two translators would
probably agree on the difference between a translation and a remake of a source text. Still I
do not think that everything depends on the context, and that some guidelines have to be set,
however debatable.

28

translation courses, pragmatic changes should be discussed last, when students have
mastered the more basic strategies, and that special attention should be paid to them to
make sure that the students understand them and their use properly. It can be also said
that the complexity of Chestermans concept, i.e. its quantity of categories and their
stratification, is probably its biggest disadvantage, and the reason why Newmarks
concept is preferred for classroom use.

29

2. Text Two: Round Table

In the previous section, I have attempted to demonstrate Newmarks and
Chestermans translation procedures/strategies on typical examples from source and
target texts, examine them and their use more closely and discuss the most striking
similarities and differences between them. In this section, I want to focus on the
practical application of translation procedures/stategies on another excerpt from Art
since 1900/Umn pro roce 1900. This text, an excerpt from the section called Round
Table, is a transcribed discussion of the four authors of the book, which is concerned
with the development of modern art in the first half of the 20th century. I mention this,
because it naturally affects the form of the text. While the text remains informative, it
acquires a vocative aspect; in other words, the reader is drawn into the discussion, and
this characteristic has been preserved in translation as well.
In the following analysis, I am not going to be concerned with the most basic
microtextual operations, such as literal translation, grammatical shifts and phrase/clause
structure changes, since literal translation is relatively straightforward and has been in
my opinion sufficiently examined earlier, and grammatical shifts together with changes
in word order are applied almost automatically and continuously. Therefore, I want to
concentrate on problematic or debatable parts. In the following discussion, I am no
longer going to work with two TT versions, only with the official translation (TT1). The
reason is that the aim of the following analysis is different from the aim of the previous
one (see above), and I deem one TT version sufficient for this purpose.
The first paragraph serves as an introduction, where one of the authors, Hal
Foster, outlines the itinerary of the discussion. The ST version is:
First, lets address a few of the important narratives of prewar art that
emerge in the postwar period, and clarify our historical differences from

30

them. Second, we might take up the problem of antimodernism, and why

this was long a difficult topic to discuss adequately. And third, we should
grapple with the question of World War II as a caesura, and how different
stories of twentieth-century art negotiate this break, either marking it as
definitive, denying it in the interest of continuity, or bridging it in the
name of reconstruction. No doubt we will stray from this itinerary but
lets begin with the account of prewar modernism developed by Alfred H.
Barr, Jr., the first director of the Museum of Modern Art (Art 319)
The TT version is:
Pojme nejprve uvaovat o nkolika dleitch problmech
pedvlenho umn, kter se vynoily v povlenm obdob, a
objasnme na nich rozdly v historickch postojch. Dle bychom se
mohli zabvat otzkou antimodernismu a pro byl dlouho pli
sloitm problmem, ne aby mohl bt adekvtn uchopen. A zatet
bychom se mli vypodat s otzkou druh svtov vlky jako czury a
se zpsobem, jak rzn historie umn 20. stolet uchopily toto peruen:
bu je oznaily za rozhodujc, nebo je popely v zjmu kontinuity, i je
pemostily ve jmnu obnovy. Nen pochyb, e se od tohoto itinere
odklonme ale zanme popisem pedvlenho modernismu, jak jej
podal Alfred H. Barr ml., prvn editel Muzea modernho umn (MoMA)
(Umn 319)
The first interesting point to notice is that a cohesion change has occurred here: the
numerals first, second and third have been translated as nejprve, dle and
zatet, where only the last can be considered a literal translation. The English version
appears to be more carefully planned than the Czech one, but on the other hand, the
chosen equivalents sound more natural and evoke spoken discourse better. Other
changes that have probably been made chiefly for the sake of naturalness are two minor
changes of punctuation the comma in problem of antimodernism, and why...
replaced by a dash, and the comma in negotiate this break, either marking... replaced
by a colon. Both these changed punctuation marks in the ST precede condensed phrases

31

which have been in the TT rendered as clauses. Without replacing the commas with
better noticeable punctuation marks, the sentences would seem disordered. Next, there
is an example of explicitation, expansion and paraphrase in the following sentence:
Second, we might take up the problem of antimodernism, and why this
was long a difficult topic to discuss adequately.
Dle bychom se mohli zabvat otzkou antimodernismu a pro byl
dlouho pli sloitm problmem, ne aby mohl bt adekvtn uchopen.
The implicit information that the topic was too difficult, and was therefore discussed
only inadequately, is made explicit in the translation; the condensed phrase is expanded
into a clause; and the whole second part of the sentence is reformulated to make it
sound more natural. Paraphrase has been used also in the following clause:
First, lets address a few of the important narratives of prewar art that
emerge in the postwar period, and clarify our historical differences from
them.
Pojme nejprve uvaovat o nkolika dleitch problmech
pedvlenho umn, kter se vynoily v povlenm obdob, a
objasnme na nich rozdly v historickch postojch.
Here, the paraphrase has led to a shift of meaning: in the ST, the differences discussed
are between us, i.e. our era, and them, i.e. the important narratives of prewar art
that emerge in the postwar period, but the TT version suggests that the attitudes of
prewar and postwar art were different which is true, too, but the translation of this
sentence is, I think, incorrect. Information has been changed, or more precisely added,
also in the phrase Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the first director of the Museum of Modern Art.
In the Czech version, Alfred H. Barr ml., prvn editel Muzea modernho umn
(MoMA), the abbreviation has been supplemented, because it is used repeatedly in the
following discussion (for the sake of brevity), and the Czech reader might not know
what it stands for. I am going to finish the analysis of the first paragraph with further

32

three noticeable points, concerning unit shift, synonymy and recognised translation. The
strategy of unit shift has been used in the clause [n]o doubt we will stray from this
itinerary, which has been translated as [n]en pochyb, e se od tohoto itinere
odklonme the underlined phrase has become a clause. In this case, the choice is only
a matter of opinion, since this version is as stylistically suitable as other possible options
such as bezpochyby or nepochybn. Synonymy is used relatively frequently, for
example in address uvaovat, narratives problmech, and negotiate
uchopily, because exact equivalents of the words exist, but are inappropriate in this
context. And finally, the word antimodernismus is the recognised translation of the
English term antimodernism. I think that this is a typical example of the situation
when a transferred expression is naturalised and later becomes a recognised term.
The following response of Yve-Alain Bois to Hal Fosters introduction
constitutes the second paragraph:
One thing that strikes us now is the difference between Barrs
enthusiastic encounter with the Russian avant-garde on his trip to the
Soviet Union in 1927-8 and the way Russian Constructivism was later
melted down at MoMA to a production of abstract paintings and
sculptures. Even if Barr was specifically searching for painters and
sculptors on his visit (I must find more painters, he noted in his diary
after a visit to Rodchenko, who told him he had stopped painting in
1922), he was impressed by all the work done by Constructivist artists in
what we could call the realm of propaganda or the ideological front
(theater design, film sets, typography, exhibition design, etc.). Even if he
was critical of the antiart concept of factography in the end, he spent a
considerable amount of time with its theoretician, the writer Sergei
Tretyakov, trying to understand it. Barr admired the brilliant
Konstantin Umansky, who at the age of 19 had written the book Neue
Kunst in Russland (it long remained the only synthetic study of Soviet
art), and he was particularly struck by Umanskys comment that a

33

proletarian style was emerging from the wall newspaper with its
combined text, poster, and photomontage: an interesting and acute
suggestion, Barr noted. In short, he was extremely curious about the
transformations made in the aesthetic realm by the Soviet avant-garde,
trying to gauge their consequences for the future. But then he seems to
have forgotten all this almost as soon as he left Russia: he couldnt take
it into consideration in the history of modern art he was constructing (Art
319)
The TT version is:
Jedna vc, kter ns te zar, je rozdl mezi Barrovm nadenm
setknm s ruskou avantgardou pi jeho nvtv v Sovtskm svazu
v letech 1927-1928 a zpsobem, jak byl rusk konstruktivismus pozdji
v MoMA roztaven na produkci abstraktnch obraz a soch. I kdy Barr na
sv cest clen hledal male a sochae (Musm najt vc mal,
Poznamenal si do svho denku po nvtv Rodenka, kter mu ekl, e
pestal malovat v roce 1922), byl zaujat vekerou prac
konstruktivistickch umlc v oblasti, eknme, propagandy nebo
ideologick fronty (divadeln nvrhy, filmov vprava, typografie,
design vstav atd.). Pestoe byl nakonec kritick vi antiumleckmu
konceptu faktografie, strvil hodn asu s jeho teoretikem,
spisovatelem Sergejem Trejakovem, ve snaze mu porozumt. Barr
obdivoval brilantnho Konstantina Umanskho, kter v devatencti
letech napsal knihu Neue Kunst in Russland (je dlouho zstala jedinou
syntetickou studi sovtskho umn), a byl zvl zaujat Umanskho
komentem, e proletsk styl se svou kombinac textu, plaktu a
fotomonte vynoil z nstnnch novin: zajmav a pesn posteh,
poznamenal Barr. Krtce eeno, velice jej zajmala transformace estetiky
podncen sovtskou avantgardou a snail se odhadnout jej nsledky pro
budoucnost. Ale pak jako by to vechno ve chvli, kdy opustil Rusko,
zapomnl: nedokzal to vzt v vahu v historii modernho umn,
kterou vytvel (Umn 319)
This paragraph contains more terms and factographical information than the previous
one, and also a few citations which means specific kind of problems. As far as

34

terminology is concerned, the translator is supposed to use the recognised renderings,

such as ideologick fronty, antiumleckmu, or faktografie, to fulfil the criteria of
a specialised text from the field of art history. Further, there are a few transferred
personal names, but in this case not from English, but from Russian: Rodenka,
Sergejem Trejakovem and Konstantina Umanskho. The translator correctly used
the Czech transcription, not as is becoming more and more common nowadays the
English one. Concerning the book called Neue Kunst in Russland, the original title has
been used as a loan from German, because the work has never been translated into
Czech. The strategy of sentence structure change has been applied to the sentence a
proletarian style was emerging from the wall newspaper with its combined text, poster,
and photomontage, which has been rendered as proletsk styl se svou kombinac
textu, plaktu a fotomonte vynoil z nstnnch novin, where the reformulated
Czech version sounds more natural than close literal translation. In this sentence, the
word fotomont is another good example of naturalisation or loan-based neologism.
Also the strategy called distribution change, or more precisely reduction, has been used
by the translator, namely in the phrase transformations [...] in the aesthetic realm. It
has been translated as transformace estetiky, chiefly for the sake of brevity and
naturalness, because versions such as transformace e estetiky or similar sound too
pathetic.The last issue I want to mention is the translation of the way Russian
Constructivism was later melted down at MoMA to a production of abstract paintings
and sculptures as zpsobem, jak byl rusk konstruktivismus pozdji v MoMA
roztaven na produkci abstraktnch obraz a soch. I think that the literal translation of
melted down, roztaven, is rather inappropriate here, because the reader might not be
sure what the sentence means: Russian Constructivist art was simplified, so that it

35

seemed that the only works were abstract paintings and sculptures. I would suggest
words like zjednoduen or okletn to better preserve the original meaning.
In my opinion, this demonstration is enough to show that translation procedures
and strategies are useful not only when translating, but also when the results are
examined. Translation analysis like this one, together with the discussion of the
translators choices, helps translation trainees get acquainted with the options from
which they may choose. Therefore, I believe that exercises of this kind are one of the
most important parts of education of future translators.

36

III. C Questionnaire
To make the assessment of the two concepts of microtextual operations more
objective, I devised a short questionnaire for a group of 20 students of translation from
the Department of English and American Studies. They were divided into two smaller
groups 7 people were supposed to work with Newmarks translation procedures, the
other 13 with Chestermans translation strategies. First, all the students translated two
short sections from Art since 1900, which provided them with material to analyse.
Second, their task was to find examples of translation procedures or strategies in their
own translations. Third, they were asked to identify the microtextual operations used to
translate selected phrases from the ST. The major aim of the second and third task was
to show, whether and to which extent the students are able to work with the
translation procedures/strategies and understand them, and whether any of the
microtextual operations are more problematic than others. And finally, the students were
given a list of general characteristics of the respective concepts, and they were supposed
to choose from this list those characteristics which they believed to apply to the concept
they worked with, and comment on their choice. I devised this opinion poll to
compare my own experience and opinions with those of other students (for further
details, see the Appendix, sections F and G).
Since the whole questionnaire serves only as a supplement to the comparison
and evaluation of translation procedures and strategies, I am not going to analyse it here
in great detail. However, an examination of the students responses has introduced some
interesting points. For example, one student says that [translation procedures are] good
for translation analysis, for contrasting various translations etc., but [they are] not very
practical for the translation process, and another adds that [u]sing these procedures is
more time-consuming than when you dont concentrate on them. These remarks in my
37

opinion suggest that the students are not quite sure how to work with the microtextual
operations. They understand the terms relatively well and without problems their
answers in the second and third task have proven that but in fact, many of them
believe that the microtextual operations are not of any particular use and do not help
them when they are translating. However, the solution to this may be hidden in the
following remark: I admit that I use some of them, but not consciously. In other
words, maybe that the students need only motivation: they need to understand the real
purpose of translation procedures/strategies, and it should be emphasized that
translation analysis is supposed to help them get acquainted with their tools, i.e.
microtextual operations, and provide them with a range of options. Another interesting
point is that although a few students admit that Chestermans concept is relatively
complex and difficult to work with, more of them also claim that it is very useful for
students of translation, and that it helped them solve some translation problems. On the
other hand, only one person claims that Newmarks concept proved helpful, and no one
considers it useful for students of translation. This is quite surprising, since Newmarks
A Textbook of Translation has been used in the Department for several years, and all the
students know it quite well, unlike Chestermans theory. It may suggest that the work
with Chestermans translation strategies is easier, in my opinion chiefly because the
classification is much more systematic. In fact, some people think that Newmarks
concept is oversimplified, that the categories often overlap, and that some of the
procedures cover very similar areas. This supports my own impression that Newmarks
classification is rather haphazard. The last point to mention is that people from both
groups note an identical problem: the examples in the accounts of translation procedures
and strategies are in languages few of them know (or at least not well), so that it is
sometimes difficult to see differences between the microtextual operations or

38

understand what the terms mean. The solution to this problem would be easy only to
add examples from Czech texts. To sum up, I think that the questionnaire has been very
useful, since it introduces some issues that I have not noticed, and also confirms some
of my own conclusions.

39

IV. Conclusion
A. Evaluation of Results
The main aim of my thesis has been to decide, on the basis of analysis and
comparison of Peter Newmarks and Andrew Chestermans concepts of translation
procedures and strategies, which of these concepts is more suitable for the use in
translation courses. First, I have briefly introduced both of the theoretical concepts.
Second, I have demonstrated the procedures and strategies on an analysis of a sample
translation, and I have noted the basic parallels and differences between Newmarks and
Chestermans concept. Third, I have shown the use of some of the microtextual
operations on another sample translation, and I have pointed out potential problems.
And finally, for the sake of objectivity, I have devised a short questionnaire to be
answered by a group of students of translation from the Department of English and
American studies.
My research has proven that each of the respective concepts has its advantages
as well as disadvantages. As far as Peter Newmarks concept is concerned, its major
merits are that it has a small number of categories and that it is not overloaded with
detailed information. However, the classification is relatively haphazard and the
categories often overlap. Another problem is that not enough attention is paid to some
aspects of English-Czech translation, chiefly to the constant grammatical shifts and
changes of word order. Generally, I would say that Newmarks concepts is
oversimplified and is therefore suitable only for beginners. Concerning the concept of
Andrew Chesterman, the classification is on one hand exhaustive and relatively
complex, but on the other hand the categorisation is systematic and the strategies are
better applicable on English-Czech translation. Thus, Chestermans concept is more

40

suitable for advanced students of translation and is in my opinion better for the use in
translation seminars at the Department. Concerning the classroom use, I propose some
further suggestions in the following section.

B. Recommendation
There are some conditions which should be fulfilled if Chestermans concept of
translation strategies is to be successfully used in translation training courses. First,
examples illustrating the strategies should be provided in Czech. There is a list of
students examples from the questionnaire in the Appendix, and other examples are
provided in the analyses of sample translations. However, to make the list more diverse,
I suggest that a database of examples is established, the source of which can be the
translations students work on throughout a semester. A classroom project of this kind
would be a relatively easy way to help the students get acquainted with the theory.
Another possibility of utilisation of Chestermans concept in translation courses is to
provide the students with texts annotated with suggested strategies, which they would
be supposed to translate, or vice versa students would annotate texts without
translating them. This method would help the students learn to use the strategies more
or less automatically and to concentrate not on the tools, but on the material. Second,
I suggest that the three groups of translation strategies are taught successively to avoid
overwhelming the students with theory. With fewer strategies to concentrate on, they
would be able to learn them more properly. Finally, and also most importantly, I think
that the purpose of translation analysis and strategies should be clearly explained to the
students. It should be emphasized that translation analysis helps them get acquainted
with the translation strategies. That these strategies are means of support and initial
guidance, that they give the students the opportunity to choose from a range of options

41

how to deal with translation problems, and that they can provide good advice,
suggestions and recommendations, is surely a strong motivation for learning them.

42

V. Bibliography
A. Works Cited
Chesterman, Andrew. Memes of Translation: The Spread of Ideas in Translation
Theory. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1997. 94-112.
Foster, Hal et al. Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism. London:
Thames & Hudson, 2004. 319, 385.
---. Umn po roce 1900: Modernismus, Antimodernismus, Postmodernismus. Praha
[Prague]: Slovart, 2007. 319, 385.
Newmark, Peter. A Textbook of Translation. London: Pearson Educ., 2003. 21, 30, 6976, 81-103.
Mailhac, Jean-Pierre. Formulating Strategies for the Translator. Translation
Directory.com. 29 Dec. 2008
<http://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article1340.php >.
Pym, Anthony. Translation Techniques. Intercultural Studies Group. U Rovira i
Virgili. 29 Dec. 2008
<http://isg.urv.es/publicity/masters/sample/techniques.html>.

B. Works Consulted
Baker, Mona. In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. London: Routledge, 1992.
Chesterman, Andrew. Beyond the Particular. Translation Universals. Ed. Anna
Mauranen and Pekka Kujamki. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004. 33-47.
Davies, Maria Gonzlez, Christopher Scott-Tennent, and Fernanda Rodrguez Torras.
Training in the Application of Translation Strategies for Undergraduate
Scientific Translation Students. Meta 46.4 (2001): 737-744.

43

Gile, Daniel. Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator Training.
Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1995.
Newmark, Peter. About Translation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1991.
---. Paragraphs on Translation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1993.
Nida, Eugene Albert. The Theory and Practice of Translation. London: Brill, 1982.
---. Language Structure and Translation. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1975.
Pym, Anthony. Two Kinds of Macro-strategies. Intercultural Studies Group. U Rovira
i Virgili. 29 Dec. 2008
<http://isg.urv.es/publicity/masters/sample/macrostrategies.html>.
Thunes, Martha. Classifying Translational Correspondences. Corpora and Crosslinguistic Research. Ed. Stig Johansson and Signe Oksefjell. Amsterdam:
Rodopi, 1998. 25-50.

C. Reference Sources
Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary. Cambridge Dictionaries Online. 2008.
Cambridge UP 25 Nov. 2008 <http://dictionary.cambridge.org/>.
Macmillan English Dictionary Online. 2007. Macmillan 25 Nov. 2008
<http://online.macmillandictionary.com/mc_au2/macmil.htm>.
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2008. Merriam-Webster 25 Nov. 2008
<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/>.

44

VI. Appendix
A. Source Text: 1956
The exhibition This is Tomorrow in London marks the culmination of research
into postwar relations between art, science, technology, product design, and popular
culture undertaken by the Independent Group, forerunners of British Pop art.
The Independent Group was less a tight artistic movement than a multifarious
study group. Its leading members were artists: Richard Hamilton (born 1922), Nigel
Henderson (1917-85), John McHale (1922-78), Eduardo Paolozzi (born 1924), and
William Turnbull (born 1922). But its prime movers were critics: architectural critic
Reyner Banham (1922-88), art critic Lawrence Alloway (1926-90), and cultural critic
Toni del Renzio (born 1915). And its signal achievements its ambitious series of
lectures and extraordinary run of exhibitions, the latter abetted by innovative designers
in the group like the Brutalist architects Alison Smithson (1928-93) and Peter Smithson
(1923-2003) were discursive and curatorial. The principal legacy of the Independent
Group might well be its art of discussion, design, and display.

The fine art popular art continuum

The history of the Independent Group proper (1952-5) is bound up with that of
the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, which it served as an unruly
research-and-development arm. This testy relation is suggested by the successive
appellations of the Independent Group: first Young Group, then Young Independent
Group, and finally Independent Group. The ICA was set up in 1946 in emulation of the
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York by established writers like Roland
Penrose (1900-84) and Herbert Read (1893-1968), its first president, in order to
champion modernism. But the ICA version of modernism, a watered-down mix of
Surrealism (represented by Penrose) and Constructivism (represented by Read), was
seen by a new guard of artists, architects, and critics as an academic holdover from the
prewar period (Banham dubbed it an Abstract-Left-Freudian aesthetic). And when a
new director, Dorothy Morland, took office in 1951, these young rebels began to
militate for a forum of their own.

45

B. Target Text 1: 1956

Vstava This is Tomorrow v Londn je vyvrcholenm vzkumu povlench
vztah mezi umnm, vdou, technologi, designem a populrn kulturou, kter
uskutenila Independent Group, pedchdkyn britskho pop artu.
Sp ne pevn umleck hnut byla skupina Independent Group (Nezvisl
skupina) rozmanitou studijn skupinou. Mezi jej vedouc pedstavitele patili umlci:
Richard Hamilton (narozen 1922), Nigel Henderson (1917-1985), John McHale (19221978), Eduardo Paolozzi (narozen 1924) a William Turnbull (narozen 1922). Ale jejmi
hlavnmi hybateli byli kritici: kritik architektury Reyner Banham (1922-1988),
umleck kritik Lawrence Alloway (1926-1990) a kulturn kritik Toni del Renzio
(narozen 1915). Pozoruhodnch spch doshli na poli diskurzu a kurtorstv
uspodali ambicizn srii pednek a vjimench vstav, kter podntili prkopnit
designi skupiny, napklad brutalistit architekti Alison Smithsonov (1928-1993) a
Peter Smithson (1923-2003). Nejdleitjm odkazem Independent Group je zejm
jejich umn diskuse, designu a vystavovn.

Spojitost mezi vtvarnm umnm a populrnm umnm

Historie samotn Independent Group (1952-1955) je spojena s Institutem
souasnho umn (ICA) v Londn, ktermu slouila jako neukznn prodlouen
ruka vzkumu a vvoje. O povaze tohoto neklidnho vztahu napovdaj postupn zmny
pojmenovn Independent group: nejprve Young Group, pozdji Young Independent
Group a konen Independent Group. ICA byl zaloen v roce 1946 na podporu
modernismu po vzoru Muzea modernho umn (MoMA) v New Yorku uznvanmi
spisovateli jako Rolandem Penrosem (1900-1984) a Herbertem Readem (1893-1968),
kter byl tak jeho prvnm prezidentem. Ale verze modernismu, kterou prosazoval ICA,
zedn sms surrealismu (propagovan Penrosem) a konstruktivismu (reprezentovan
Readem), byla novou gardou umlc, architekt a kritik vidna jako akademick
peitek z pedvlenho obdob (Banham ji nazval abstraktn-levicov-freudovsk
estetika). A kdy se funkce v roce 1951 ujala nov editelka Dorothy Morlandov,
zaali se mlad rebelov doadovat svho vlastnho fra.

46

C. Target Text 2: 1956

Zkoumn povlench vztah mezi umnm, vdou, technikou, designem a
masovou kulturou, ktermu se vnovala Independent Group, skupina pedchdc
britskho pop-artu, vrchol v Londn vstavou This is Tomorrow.
Independent Group (Nezvisl skupina) byla spe ne jednotnm umleckm
hnutm nesourodou studijn skupinou. Jejmi elnmi pedstaviteli byli umlci: Richard
Hamilton (narozen 1922), Nigel Henderson (1917-85), John McHale (1922-78),
Eduardo Paolozzi (narozen 1924) a William Turnbull (narozen 1922); avak tmi, kdo
urovali jej smovn, byli kritici: kritik architektury Reyner Banham (1922-88),
umleck kritik Lawrence Alloway (1926-90) a kulturn kritik Toni del Renzio (narozen
1915). Jej mimodn spchy se odehrly na poli umleck teorie a vstavnictv
napklad ambicizn cyklus pednek nebo ojedinl srie vstav, na kter se velkou
mrou podlelo nkolik novtorskch designr, zejmna tvrci brutalistn architektury
Alison Smithsonov (1928-93) a Peter Smithson (1923-2003). Za hlavn odkaz
Independent Group by se dalo povaovat umn diskuse, designu a vystavovn.

Souvislost mezi vtvarnm a masovm umnm

Historie Independent Group jako takov (1952-5) je svzna s Institutem
souasnho umn (ICA) v Londn, jemu slouila jako neukznn vzkumnvvojov prodlouen ruka. Tento ponkud napjat vztah se odr v postupn se
promujcm oznaen skupiny: nejprve Young Group (Mlad skupina), pot Young
Independent Group (Mlad nezvisl skupina) a nakonec Independent Group. ICA byl
zaloen roku 1946 uznvanmi spisovateli Rolandem Penrosem (1900-84) a Herbertem
Readem (1893-1968), kter byl jeho prvnm prezidentem, po vzoru Muzea modernho
umn (MoMA) v New Yorku s clem propagace modernismu. Na verzi modernismu,
kterou ICA pedstavoval krotkou kombinaci surrealismu (reprezentovanou Penrosem)
a konstruktivismu (reprezentovanou Readem) se vak nov generace vtvarnk,
architekt a kritik dvala jako na akademick peitek z pedvlenho obdob
(Banham ji nazval abstraktn-levicov-freudovskou estetikou). A kdy se roku 1951
adu ujala nov editelka Dorothy Morlandov, mlad rebelov se zaali domhat
svho vlastnho fra.

47

D. Source Text: Round Table

HF: First, lets address a few of the important narratives of prewar art that
emerge in the postwar period, and clarify our historical differences from them. Second,
we might take up the problem of antimodernism, and why this was long a difficult topic
to discuss adequately. And third, we should grapple with the question of World War II as
a caesura, and how different stories of twentieth-century art negotiate this break, either
marking it as definitive, denying it in the interest of continuity, or bridging it in the
name of reconstruction. No doubt we will stray from this itinerary but lets begin with
the account of prewar modernism developed by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the first director of
the Museum of Modern Art.

YAB: One thing that strikes us now is the difference between Barrs enthusiastic
encounter with the Russian avant-garde on his trip to the Soviet Union in 1927-8 and
the way Russian Constructivism was later melted down at MoMA to a production of
abstract paintings and sculptures. Even if Barr was specifically searching for painters
and sculptors on his visit (I must find more painters, he noted in his diary after a visit
to Rodchenko, who told him he had stopped painting in 1922), he was impressed by all
the work done by Constructivist artists in what we could call the realm of propaganda or
the ideological front (theater design, film sets, typography, exhibition design, etc.).
Even if he was critical of the antiart concept of factography in the end, he spent a
considerable amount of time with its theoretician, the writer Sergei Tretyakov, trying to
understand it. Barr admired the brilliant Konstantin Umansky, who at the age of 19
had written the book Neue Kunst in Russland (it long remained the only synthetic study
of Soviet art), and he was particularly struck by Umanskys comment that a proletarian
style was emerging from the wall newspaper with its combined text, poster, and
photomontage: an interesting and acute suggestion, Barr noted. In short, he was
extremely curious about the transformations made in the aesthetic realm by the Soviet
avant-garde, trying to gauge their consequences for the future. But then he seems to
have forgotten all this almost as soon as he left Russia: he couldnt take it into
consideration in the history of modern art he was constructing.

48

E. Target Text: Kulat stl

HF: Pojme nejprve uvaovat o nkolika dleitch problmech pedvlenho
umn, kter se vynoily v povlenm obdob, a objasnme na nich rozdly v
historickch postojch. Dle bychom se mohli zabvat otzkou antimodernismu a pro
byl dlouho pli sloitm problmem, ne aby mohl bt adekvtn uchopen. A zatet
bychom se mli vypodat s otzkou druh svtov vlky jako czury a se zpsobem,
jak rzn historie umn 20. stolet uchopily toto peruen: bu je oznaily za
rozhodujc, nebo je popely v zjmu kontinuity, i je pemostily ve jmnu obnovy. Nen
pochyb, e se od tohoto itinere odklonme ale zanme popisem pedvlenho
modernismu, jak jej podal Alfred H. Barr ml., prvn editel Muzea modernho umn
(MoMA).

YAB: Jedna vc, kter ns te zar, je rozdl mezi Barrovm nadenm

setknm s ruskou avantgardou pi jeho nvtv v Sovtskm svazu v letech 1927-1928
a zpsobem, jak byl rusk konstruktivismus pozdji v MoMA roztaven na produkci
abstraktnch obraz a soch. I kdy Barr na sv cest clen hledal male a sochae
(Musm najt vc mal, Poznamenal si do svho denku po nvtv Rodenka, kter
mu ekl, e pestal malovat v roce 1922), byl zaujat vekerou prac konstruktivistickch
umlc v oblasti, eknme, propagandy nebo ideologick fronty (divadeln nvrhy,
filmov vprava, typografie, design vstav atd.). Pestoe byl nakonec kritick vi
antiumleckmu konceptu faktografie, strvil hodn asu s jeho teoretikem,
spisovatelem Sergejem Trejakovem, ve snaze mu porozumt. Barr obdivoval
brilantnho Konstantina Umanskho, kter v devatencti letech napsal knihu Neue
Kunst in Russland (je dlouho zstala jedinou syntetickou studi sovtskho umn), a
byl zvl zaujat Umanskho komentem, e proletsk styl se svou kombinac textu,
plaktu a fotomonte vynoil z nstnnch novin: zajmav a pesn posteh,
poznamenal Barr. Krtce eeno, velice jej zajmala transformace estetiky podncen
sovtskou avantgardou a snail se odhadnout jej nsledky pro budoucnost. Ale pak jako
by to vechno ve chvli, kdy opustil Rusko, zapomnl: nedokzal to vzt v vahu v
historii modernho umn, kterou vytvel.

49

F. Questionnaire
Instructions
The following passages are from a book about art in the 20th century. The first one is the
beginning of a chapter about postwar art in Britain, an account of important artists,
artistic movements, institutions and key events. In the second one, art historians discuss
and explain some important issues in greater detail.
Translate the given passages and answer the following questions (follow the
instructions).
1) Read and translate these passages
A) The exhibition This is Tomorrow in London marks the culmination of research
into postwar relations between art, science, technology, product design, and popular
culture undertaken by the Independent Group, forerunners of British Pop art.
[...]
Its signal achievements its ambitious series of lectures and extraordinary run of
exhibitions, the latter abetted by innovative designers in the group like the Brutalist
architects Alison Smithson (1928-93) and Peter Smithson (1923-2003) were
discursive and curatorial.
[...]
The ICA was set up in 1946 in emulation of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in
New York by established writers like Roland Penrose (1900-84) and Herbert Read
(1893-1968), its first president, in order to champion modernism.
B) HF: First, lets address a few of the important narratives of prewar art that emerge in
the postwar period, and clarify our historical differences from them. Second, we might
take up the problem of antimodernism, and why this was long a difficult topic to discuss
adequately. And third, we should grapple with the question of World War II as a caesura,
and how different stories of twentieth-century art negotiate this break, either marking it
as definitive, denying it in the interest of continuity, or bridging it in the name of
reconstruction. [...]
YAB: One thing that strikes us now is the difference between Barrs enthusiastic
encounter with the Russian avant-garde on his trip to the Soviet Union in 1927-8 and
the way Russian Constructivism was later melted down at MoMA to a production of
abstract paintings and sculptures. Even if Barr was specifically searching for painters
50

and sculptors on his visit [...], he was impressed by all the work done by Constructivist
artists in what we could call the realm of propaganda or the ideological front.
2) Try to find at least one example of each procedure/strategy in the translation
Newmark
literal translation; transference (loan word, transcription); naturalisation; cultural
equivalent; functional equivalent; descriptive equivalent; synonymy; through-translation
(calque, loan translation); componential analysis; shifts/transpositions; modulation;
reduction; expansion; recognised/accepted translation; paraphrase; notes, additions,
glosses
Chesterman
literal translation; loan, calque; transposition; unit shift; level shift;
phrase/clause/structure change; cohesion change; scheme change; synonymy;
antonymy; hyponymy; converses; abstraction change; distribution change; emphasis
change; trope change; other semantic changes; paraphrase; cultural filtering;
explicitness change; information change; interpersonal change; illocutionary change;
coherence change; visibility change; partial translation; transediting
3) Try to identify the translation procedures/strategies that you used to translate
the underlined words/phrases/sentences
4) In the following list of characteristics, tick the statements that in your opinion
apply to the concept of procedures/strategies you worked with
it is too complex
it helped me solve at least some translation problems
it is difficult to work with
it overlooks some issues or possible translation problems
Which ones?
it is very useful for students of translation
it is easy to understand
it did not help me very much
Why?
it is oversimplified

51

 it is good for beginners (i.e. translation trainees without much experience)

it is good for advanced students of translation
I am going to use the procedures/strategies

52

1. Students Statements about Newmarks and Chestermans

Concept
Table 1
Students Statements about Newmarks Concept of Translation Procedures
Statement
It is too complex
It helped me solve at least some translation problems
It is difficult to work with
It overlooks some issues or possible translation problems
It is very useful for students of translation
It is easy to understand
It did not help me very much
It is oversimplified
It is good for beginners
It is good for advanced students of translation
I am going to use the procedures

Agree
1
1
4
0
0
3
4
2
3
0
0

Table 2
Students Statements about Chestermans Concept of Translation Strategies
Statement
It is too complex
It helped me solve at least some translation problems
It is difficult to work with
It overlooks some issues or possible translation problems
It is very useful for students of translation
It is easy to understand
It did not help me very much
It is oversimplified
It is good for beginners
It is good for advanced students of translation
I am going to use the strategies

53

Agree
4
5
4
0
5
2
3
0
1
6
3

2. Students Examples of Translation Procedures/Strategies

Newmarks Translation Procedures
literal translation
forerunners of British Pop art pedchdci britskho pop-artu, ideological front
ideologick fronta, exhibition vstava, science vda
transference
Independent Group, MoMA, This is Tomorrow
naturalisation
modernism modernismus, Pop art pop-art, design, caesura czura, designers
designi, Rodchenko Rodenko
cultural equivalent
Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Alfred H. Barr mlad
descriptive equivalent
as a caesura pedstavujc slyitelnou odmlku v umleck tvorb, ICA institut ICA
synonymy
melted down zjednoduen, in emulation of po vzoru
through-translation
This is Tomorow Toto je ztek, Independent Group Nezvisl skupina
modulation
undertaken by kterm se zabvala
reduction
extraordinary run of exhibitions neobyejn vstavy
recognised translation
Museum of Modern Art Muzeum modernho umn
paraphrase
historical differences zmny, kter se udly v rmci historickho kontextu
notes, additions, glosses
Independent Group (Nezvisl skupina), Institut ICA (Institut souasnho umn)

54

Chestermans Translation Strategies

literal translation
the question of World War II as a caesura otzka druh svtov vlky jako czury,
forerunners of British Pop art pedchdci britskho pop-artu
loan, calque
popular culture Independent Group, populrn kultura, ideological front ideologick
fronta, This is Tomorrow, MoMA, Independent Group, London Londn
transposition
he was impressed by na nj udlali velk dojem, in London londnsk, in New York
newyorsk, after a visit pot, co navtvil, differences liit se
unit shift
The ICA was set up in 1946 in emulation of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in
New York by established writers like Roland Penrose (1900-1984) and Herbert Read
(1893-1968), its first president, in order to champion modernism. ICA vznikl v roce
1946 jako obdoba newyorskho Muzea modernho umn (MoMA) za elem
prosazovn modernismu. Mezi zakldajc leny byli vznamn spisovatel jako
napklad Roland Penrose (1900-1984) a Herbert Read (1893-1968), kter se zrove
stal jeho prvnm prezidentem.
phrase/clause/sentence structure change
why this was long a difficult topic to discuss adequately pro bylo po dlouhou dobu
sloit vst o tomto tmatu plnohodnotnou debatu, product design design vrobk
cohesion change
first, second, third nejprve, pak, nakonec
synonymy
reconstruction obnova, in emulation of jako obdoba, caesura pelom, melted down
- zjednoduen
hyponymy
product design design
converses
difficult topic to discuss adequately o kterm se nedalo pimen diskutovat
distribution change
strikes us povaujeme za dleitou
paraphrase
marks the culmination of research je vyvrcholenm snahy prozkoumat
55

cultural filtering
Herbert Read, its first president prvn editel Herbert Read
explicitness change
discursive umnovdn diskuze, in 1946 v roce 1946, in emulation of the Museum
of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York jeho zmrem bylo vyrovnat se Muzeu
modernho umn (MoMA) v New Yorku
information change
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Muzeum modernho umn (Museum of Modern
Art, dle jen MoMA), postwar po druh svtov vlce, he noted in his diary after a
visit to Rodchenko, who told him he had stopped painting in 1922 poznamenal si
dosvho zpisnku po nvtv Rodenka, kter s malovnm pestal v roce 1922, the
Independent Group nezvisl skupina umnlc a intelektul zvan Independent
Group

56