TEORIA ŞI PRACTICA TRADUCERII

Lector univ. drd. Doru ENACHE

Semestrele I şi II

Obiective
Obiectul cursului este de a discuta diferitele tipuri de traducere orală şi non-
literară din punct de vedere strategiilor şi procedurilor care stau la baza producerii
şi înŃelegerii de texte-dialoguri, discursuri în comunicarea bilingvă prin intermediul
traducătorului-interpret.
Scopul este de a-i face pe studenŃi să înŃeleagă ce înseamnă la ce foloseşte şi
în ce măsură contează traducerea orală şi non-literară în cultura contemporană,
precum şi de a le oferi câteva tehnici şi modele cognitive utile în acest sens.

1 - INTRODUCTION
We shall start this course by asking three questions, which are essential for
any attempt at understanding the mechanism of translation:
1. What is translation?
2. What is a translator?
3. What is the theory of translation?
We shall soon find out that these questions contain numerous ambiguities and
that the answers to these questions are far from being satisfactory.
Considering that there is evidence that translation has a history well over two
thousand years and that international communication today depends dramatically on
translation, it’s hard to figure out how such a phenomenon can be so ill understood.
From this point of view the study of translation is at odds with that of
sciences such as biology, where direct observation has led to its rapid development.
The theory of evolution is the classic example of the nineteenth century. Things are
not so easy with translation.
2 - WHAT IS TRANSLATION?
The study of translation was and, to a certain extent, still is dominated by debates
as to whether translation should be considered art or science. A linguist will inevitably
approach translation scientifically, trying to make a kind of „objective” description of
the process of translation. On the other hand there will surely exist arguments in favor
of the fact that translation is an art, a craft which requires certain skills, and which
cannot therefore be described and explained scientifically. We are already at a
crossroads. Let’s try to choose the right path.
The definition of translation, as it appears in the dictionary is:
„Translation is the expression in another language (or target language) of what has
been expressed in a source language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences.”
This definition contains the notion of a certain kind of movement between the
two languages, the notion of a certain kind of content, and the obligation to find
„equivalent” terms that should „preserve” the characteristics of the original. We
shall now analyse the notion of equivalence.

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 3 - SEMANTIC AND STYLISTIC EQUIVALENCE
Texts in foreign languages can be equivalent to a certain extent, regarding
various levels of presentation (equivalence concerning the contents, semantics,
grammar, vocabulary, etc.) and regarding various levels of internal structure
(equivalence concerning words, phrases, sentences).
It seems that a complete equivalence is almost impossible. Languages are so
different in structure, having distinct codes and rules that govern their internal
organization. The translation movement from one language to the other implies
modifying the structures. There is always something that is „lost” (or, why not, that
is „gained”) in this process, and translators may be accused of reproducing only
partially the original, betraying thus the author’s intentions, as the well-known
Italian saying goes: traduttore traditore.
If equivalence must be preserved at a certain level at any cost, how does one
decide what that level is? What are our options? The answer may be found in the
dual nature of any language. A language is a formal structure - a code, made up of
elements that can combine in order to convey a meaning. A language is, at the
same time, a means of communication, which uses the elements of the code in
order to refer to certain entities (in the field of the senses or of the mind) and create
signals which have a communication „value”.
The translator has therefore, either the possibility of laying the stress on
finding formal equivalences that should „preserve” the meaning of the text at the
cost of the communication value, or the possibility of finding functional
equivalences that should „preserve” the communication value of the context, at the
cost of the meaning. It is, in other words, a question of choosing between
equivalences at the word level (literal translation) and equivalences at the level of
meaning (free translation). If he chooses the first option, the translator will be
rebuked for the „ugliness” of an „accurate” translation; if he chooses the second, he
will be criticized for the lack of „accuracy” of a „beautiful” one. It results that the
best translation is the one which covers as much as possible of both aspects.
When we are in front of a text in a language that we know, we can understand
not only the meaning of each word and sentence, but also its communication value, its
place in time and space, as well as information about the participants in the discourse,
namely those involved in the production and the reception of the text. We can use as a
model, if you like, the first stanza of a poem by Kipling:
„I keep six honest servingmen
(They taught me all I knew)
Their names were What? and Why? and When?
And How? and Where? and Who?”
Each of the questions above is defining for the process of translation:
What? - refers to the message contained in the text; the content of the signal,
of the statements that form the communication act.
Why? - refers to the intention of the speaker; the purpose for which the text
has been created; the speech acts that form the basic structure of the text: the
discourse. They vary from informing to convincing, to flattering, etc. and, as we
shall see, a text has rarely only one function. Language is generally characterized
by multiple functions, so our task, as receivers of the message, is to try and single
out the main function from the secondary ones.
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 When? - refers to the time of communication and the placing of the text in a
historical context.
How? - refers to the tone, the manner in which the content is rendered, the
attitude resulting from the discourse: grave, frivolous, ironic, etc.
Where? - refers to the place of communication: where exactly happened the
speech act that has become the text.
Who? - refers to the participants, to those involved in the act of
communication: the speaker and the receiver. Both oral and written texts provide
information about the speaker as an individual, about his attitude towards the
receivers of the message and about the message itself.

CHAPTER 4 - RULES FOR A GOOD TRANSLATION

In an essay written more than two hundred years ago, in 1791, regarding the
principles of translation, a certain Lord Tytler says that in the case of translations
we can adopt the following extremes: either we preserve the sense and the spirit of
the original, or, in addition, we transmit the style and manner of writing of the
author. And he goes on: „According to the first possibility, we are allowed to
improve and embellish the text; according to the second, it is necessary that we
keep also the shortcomings and the flaws…” In view of the above, Tytler gives the
following definition of a good translation:
“A translation is good when the translated work is assimilated and
understood at its true value, namely the value perceived by the speakers of the
language of the original text.”
Tytler then continues by formulating three rules that follow from this
definition:
1. A translation should offer a complete transcription of all the ideas
presented in the original work.
2. The style and manner of writing should correspond to those of the original.
3. The translation should sound as natural as the original.

CHAPTER 5 - WHAT IS A TRANSLATOR?

Before trying to answer this question, we need to make another difference:
that between translation as a process, translation as a product and translation as a
concept. Bearing this in mind, let’s try to define a translator as a „bilingual agent
who mediates the communication process between two communities that speak
different languages”, in other words, a translator decodes messages transmitted in a
certain language in order to encode them again in another language.
The translator, as any other person involved in the communication process,
lives in a world of the senses, where perceptions are assimilated as concepts,
where experiences can be brought to memory and relived by means of the
mechanism of the mind. As any other person, the translator „understands” the
new experiences by connecting them to the previous ones and treats them as
reiterations of the same event.
What happens in the process of translation? At the memory level, the translator
makes the analysis of the source language text, creates a universal semantic

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representation (which is not specific to a certain language), and makes the synthesis
of that semantic representation to obtain the text of the target language.

CHAPTER 6 - WHAT IS THE THEORY OF TRANSLATION?

We have just seen that a theory of translation can be accomplished only by a study
of the process of translation, as this process leads to the product, that is the written
translation, and only by understanding the process can we hope to improve our
translating skills. A part of the theory of translation explains the process of moving from
the original text to its mental representation and how this mental representation differs
from the original text. We have already seen that it is essential to make the difference
between sensations (the reception of external stimuli by means of the senses) and
perceptions (the organization of such impressions into a system). To create a theory, the
scientist studies the sensations which feed the mind and are transformed by perceptions
into a system of information. The explanation of such a system becomes the theory,
which is transmitted to the others under the shape of a model.
A theory is therefore an explanation, a description of an order and of a
system. It only exists in the mind. It is an idea, the idea of the internal
representation of a phenomenon. A model is, on the contrary, the external
representation of the explanation, of the idea expressed by the theory, being a
concrete object (a diagram, a formula, a text, etc.)
In the case of translation we can visualize three possible theories, regarding
what we have in view: the process or the product:
1. A theory of translation as a process (that is a theory of translating), which
should imply a study of processing the information, taking into account three
factors: a) perception, b) memory and c) encoding and decoding messages.
2. A theory of translation as a product (that is a theory of the translated texts),
which should require a study of the texts at several levels: syntactic, semantic,
stylistic, etc., also containing elements of discourse analysis.
3. A theory of translation as both process and product, which should imply
the study of a combination of the two.
At this point we should also mention the aspect of the translation unit,
which is the smallest segment of a source language text that can be translated as a
whole, isolated from other segments. Normally it varies from a word to a sentence
and it can be described as a segment as small as possible and as big as needed. For
instance, the sentence:
The United Nations Secretary General reported substantial progress in the
peace negotiations in Geneva today.
can be divided while it is read in five or six units:
The United Nations Secretary General/ reported/ substantial progress in the
peace negotiations/ in Geneva/ today/. or
The United Nations Secretary General/ reported/ substantial progress/ in the
peace negotiations/ in Geneva/ today/.

CHAPTER 7 - A MODEL OF THE THEORY OF TRANSLATION

To give such a model we shall decompose the process into analysis and
synthesis, and within each of them we shall speak about three distinct operation

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areas: syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Our intention is to use the model in a
translation simulation. Let’s start with the first area of the analysis, the syntactic
analysis, and take a very simple example:
The dog bit the man.
The normal way to follow while processing this sentence would be to pass
through both the usual lexical fund and the usual structure fund, without
activating the lexical search mechanism or the syntactic and morphologic analysis.
A typical example for this would be the direct transfer of the meaning of a
source language sentence into a target language sentence, by means of a fixed
expression, for instance:
Once upon a time there was…
translated directly into Romanian by A fost odata ca niciodata…
Let’s now make a few remarks regarding the usual lexical fund and the usual
structure fund: their function is to free the short term memory from large
quantities of information, avoiding the lexical search mechanism and the syntactic
and morphologic analysis, and directing the information straight towards the
semantic system during analysis and towards the writing system during synthesis.

CHAPTER 8 - THE USUAL LEXICAL FUND

The usual lexical fund is the correspondent of a glossary, or of a database for
terminology, at a mental, psycholinguistic level, in other words, a sort of a
dictionary of the lexical units, which can be activated instantaneously, both for
words and for idiomatic expressions. Such a fund contains frequently used units
and very frequently used units, such as a ,the, I, in, is, this, that, was, etc.
(representing about 20% of the first 20,000 words of an adult’s vocabulary), and
other frequently used units such as all, said, look, who, etc. (238 English words
which form the next 40% of the vocabulary)

CHAPTER 9 - THE USUAL STRUCTURE FUND

This fund is made up of the totality of the structures that appear frequently in
a language, and are stockpiled in the memory as a whole, just like a single lexical
unit such as dog, or eclipse, and to which there is direct access, almost as fast as in
the case of individual words. It is expected that there should be a usual lexical
fund and a usual structure fund for each language known to the translator.
Normally, for every language, the usual lexical fund contains units that represent
the common „property” of the members of a language community, but it is also
true that each individual possesses a unique configuration of the units, which can
be modified in time.
For a speaker of English, the usual structure fund will be formed of
combinations including the subject, the predicate, the object and the adverbial,
which cover most of the options available in the modal system of a language,
combinations that allow the organization of six sentence types in the indicative and
imperative modes:
SP - They ran.
SPP - They are hungry.
SPO - They hit Fred.
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 SPOO - They gave Fred $1,000.
SPOPa - They elected Fred president.
SPOA - They put the plates on the table.
The text goes initially through the usual structure fund, then through the
usual lexical fund. The order is important, as it frequently happens for someone to
be able to analyze the structure of a sentence, but not the meaning of the words that
form it. Let’s suppose that the syntactic structure of the sentence is not found in the
usual structure fund and that the sentence has to pass through the analyzing system.
This system has the role to analyze any sentence if necessary. Once this phase is
completed, we go on with the syntactic processing and we activate the usual lexical
fund. If the lexical units in the sentence match the lexical units stocked in the fund,
the sentence passes on to the semantic phase, and the processing continues. What
could cause a delay would be an extreme situation, as in the following example,
when the structure is clear, but the meaning is not:
The smaggly bognats grolled the fimbled ashlars for a vorit.
The structure of the sentence is quite clear: SPOA, with very clear phrases
(noun, verbal and prepositional), and very clear parts of speech: Art. Adj. Noun.
Vb. Art. Adj. Noun. Prep. Art. Noun. We can also infer some things about the
lexical units: bognats and ashlars are plural nouns and have features conferred by
smaggly and fimbled, while bognats can groll ashlars, either for a certain period of
time (we could ask ourselves how long is a vorit), or maybe for a client (that is in
the name of a vorit). All this information is given by the reader’s knowledge of
syntax. Nevertheless, we still don’t know what is the function of all the elements
(ex. for a vorit), or the meaning of the words. To find out, we have to access the
lexical search mechanism.

CHAPTER 10 - THE LEXICAL SEARCH MECHANISM

The role of this mechanism is to study any lexical unit that does not
correspond to those of the usual structure fund in order to provide it with a
meaning. We could take as an example any lexical unit of the sentence: The
smaggly bognats…but it’s enough to speak about one of them only: ashlar. Except
for the case when the reader knows that the dictionary definition of this word is
„squared stone used for masonry”, the lexical unit cannot pass through the usual
lexical fund and has to be processed by the lexical search mechanism.
Faced with such a difficult situation, the reader can adopt one of the
following strategies: a) to try and provide a meaning to the unit taking into account
the co-text (the words that surround the unit); b) to ignore the unit, hoping to get
more information from the context, which may help him to find a meaning for the
unit; or c) search the memory for similar units, as if he would use an internal
dictionary. The last approach is more like an empirical attempt to find a meaning,
and he can come up with the notion of a combination between two trees, an ash
and a poplar.
We can now move on to the next stage of the analysis process: the semantic
phase. The information that has entered the system of syntactic analysis as a
succession of symbols is now coming out as a syntactic structure (MOOD). The
sentence that we mentioned earlier, for instance, (The dog bit the man), is the result
of three simultaneous syntactic processes. It is, at the same time, a representation of
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an experience, an interactive change, and a message, which now enters the system
of semantic analysis as a second type of information (regarding the MOOD), which
tells us that it is a declarative sentence, with the verb in the indicative. Regarding
the literal meaning, we see that it is a statement. The process ends here. The next
step is to analyze the content of the sentence, through the semantic analysis system,
and the aim of the sentence, through the pragmatic analysis system.

CHAPTER 11 - SEMANTIC ANALYSIS

The semantic processor attempts to „recover the concept”, to re-establish the
TRANSITIVITY relations that form the syntactic structure of the sentence. Just as
the syntactic processor established the structure of the sentence by means of the
visual recognition of the words, the semantic processor aims at establishing the
content, starting from the syntactic structure provided in the previous stage of
analysis. At this level we establish what the sentence is about; what it represents;
what are the logical relations between the participants and the situations; in short,
the idea of the sentence. Going back to our sentence: the dog bit the man, we see
that the structure of the sentence is SPO. The semantic processor sees the sentence
as a sequence of the following elements: Actor - Process - Target, where the actor
corresponds to the subject, the process to the predicate, and the target to the object.
Having established the logical form of the sentence, we can now move on to
analyze its communication function.

CHAPTER 12 - PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS

The pragmatic processor has, just as the syntactic one, two modes of
operating with the information received due to the previous analysis:
1) it isolates the thematic structure of the information.
2) it analyzes the register to which belongs the respective
information.
The second operation is characterized by three elements:
a) the tone of the discourse: the relationship between the transmitter and the
receiver as it results from the text.
b) the channel of the discourse: the selected medium for the transmission of
the text.
c) the purpose of the discourse: what the transmitter intended to
communicate, the communication value of the sentence.
In order to translate the text, the idea, which appears now under the form of
the semantic representation of the sentence, undergoes a reverse process, that of
synthesis. The building of the text in the target language starts at the level of the
pragmatic processor.

Semestrul II

CHAPTER 13 - PRAGMATIC SYNTHESIS

The pragmatic processor of the target language receives all the information
offered by the semantic representation, and needs to cope with three problems (for
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each of them having to choose between „to keep” or „to change”): a) how to deal
with the aim of the original. The translator may wish to keep it or change it. In
either case he has to decide how to express the aim taking into account the content
available; b) how to deal with the thematic structure of the original; and c) how to
deal with the style of the original.

CHAPTER 14 - SEMANTIC SYNTHESIS

The semantic processor of the target language receives information about the
illocutionary force (the purpose), creates structures which sustain the contents of
ideas in order to produce a satisfactory statement.

CHAPTER 15 - SYNTACTIC SYNTHESIS

The syntactic processor of the target language receives the information
from the semantic level, activates the usual lexical fund in order to find
suitable lexical units and searches the usual structure fund for a suitable type
of sentence to render the statement. If a suitable structure to convey the
meaning is not found, the sentence passes through the morphological and
syntactical processor (which now functions as a synthesizer). Finally, the
writing system is activated in order to create the new sentence as a succession
of symbols. The target language text is born.

CHAPTER 16 - TRANSLATION STRATEGIES

As we said in a previous chapter, the translator can choose from several
strategies, depending on his intentions. There are five such strategies that we are
going to discuss next, choosing for each of them extreme positions:
1. to be faithful either to the form (syntax and vocabulary) or to the ideas
(semantic content) of the original.
2. to keep the style of the original or to adopt a new one; to keep the form of
the text or to change it (for instance, to translate a poem in verse or in prose).
3. to keep the historical color of the original or to choose a modern approach
(for instance, to translate Dante in medieval English or in modern English).
4. to create a text that looks as an original writing or as a translation.
5. to add or to leave out words, phrases, sentences or to transfer the text
completely into the target language.
Once we have chosen the manner in which we are going to do the translation,
we will direct our attention to the methodological options that we have in order to
achieve the transfer. There are several such methods, some of them are based on
contrastive techniques such as close translation versus free translation, suggesting
certain correlations between such methods and certain types of texts, others that
establish several types of techniques. The first three following techniques are
subdivisions of the close (literal) translation; the next four belong to the free
translation:
1) Borrowing. The transfer of lexical units from the source language into the
target language, without any semantic or structural changes; for instance, the word
week-end.

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 2) Loan Translation. The replacement of the elements of one language with
the elements of the other language (usually noun phrases); for instance, hot dog,
translated into Spanish by perro caliente.
3) Literal Translation. The replacement of the syntactic structure of the
source language with a syntactic structure of the target language (usually at
sentence level) which is similar, or almost similar regarding the number and type of
the lexical units, and synonymous regarding the content; for instance, the French ca
va sans dire appears in English as it goes without saying.
4) Transposition. Rendering an element of the source language by means
of elements in the target language, which are semantically but not formally
equivalent; for instance, no smoking, translated into French by defense de fumer.
5) Modulation. Changing the point of view of the speaker; for instance, the
French notice Complet corresponds to the English No vacancies.
6) Equivalence. The replacement of certain fragments of the source language
(especially idioms, clichés, proverbs, etc.) with functional equivalents in the target
language; hi, hello, in English, become pronto (meaning ready) in Italian.
7) Adaptation. Compensating for the cultural differences between the two
languages. Sante in French, has as a functional equivalent cheers in English, while
the only functional equivalent for bon appetit seems to be the silence.

CHAPTER 17 - THE MEANING

The meaning is the most important element in the study of translation. That’s
why a translator should be first of all a specialist in semantics, and when we say
semantics, we don’t mean only words, structures and sentences, but also text. The
key-concept in translation semantics is text meaning.
The translator, just as the one who learns a foreign language, may think at
the beginning that the greatest problems are caused by the lexical unit. The text
may contain words that are quite new to the translator, words that he doesn’t
understand. However, although the meaning of the units may create difficulties
(sometimes, there are no correspondents for certain words), we shall soon
realize that the real problem appears as a result of the relationships among the
lexical units, not because of the meaning of a certain word, separated from the
context.
Language communities operate on the basis that certain language fragments
can be often re-used regarding certain situations which repeat themselves (we are
talking about language schemes). Nevertheless, such uses and suppositions are
specific to a certain culture. It is therefore essential for the translator to understand
not only the obvious meaning of a fragment, but also its communication value.
Regarding the translation model we have proposed, let’s start by discussing
the components of the syntactic processor, in proportion as it understands and gives
sense to the lexical units.
Among the modalities of describing and explaining the meaning of a
word, we distinguish three very interesting approaches: (1) the referential
theory (which describes the relationship between word and concept in the
following terms: „word X refers to concept Y”); (2) the componential analysis
(which describes meaning using an analogy from Chemistry: ”each word
contains a number of atoms of meaning”); (3) the postulates of meaning
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(which establish the relationship among meaning by means of conventions). We
shall next study each of these approaches.

CHAPTER 18 - THE REFERENTIAL THEORY

This theory seeks to find an answer to the question „What is the relationship
between the phenomena observed by the senses and the words that describe
them?”. Ever since ancient Greece people have tried to find a solution to this
problem. There are two traditional theories which contradict each other: (1) the
relation between the word and „the object” it describes is natural and necessary,
determined by the structure of the Universe (Plato); (2) this relation is arbitrary,
imposed by social convention (Aristotle).
Unfortunately, it’s obvious that the first opinion (the naturalist theory) is not
correct, although there are many onomatopoeic words in every language (in
English, for example: cuckoo, hoot, thud, tinkle) which imitate natural sounds. It’s
clear that there is no one-to-one relationship between word, meaning and object.
Conventionalists will thus maintain that the relation between the form of the
words and the objects they refer to is undoubtedly the creation of man, not that of
nature, forming a convenient system of signs arbitrary chosen and accepted by the
society.
Modern linguistics has adopted for some time, as a starting point for every
discussion concerning meaning, the conventionalist theory, which states the fact
that the relation between word and „object” is an indirect one, mediated by
concept.
Starting from this supposition, Saussure offers a more explicit model of this
relation, where the link is made between the linguistic sign and the „object”, the
linguistic sign itself being formed of two inseparable elements, the concept and the
acoustic image, as we can see in the following diagram:
concept
Linguistic sign = object
acoustic
image
We can illustrate this by the following concrete example:
TREE
„Tree” =
[ tri: ]
The value of such a model is given by the fact that it offers suggestions as to
the way we can make connections between the linguistic models of the lexical and
semantic structures of languages and the psychological models of the conceptual
structure of memory.

CHAPTER 19 - COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS

Componential analysis is based on the supposition that the meaning of a word
is given by the sum of a number of meanings the respective word has (its

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distinctive semantic features), and that these features are part of a binary system
(they are either present or absent, + or -).
We can take as an example a series of English words such as man, woman,
boy and girl, and use componential analysis in order to display the lexical
information for each of them. In the first place, it is obvious that the four words (or
rather, the four concepts which these words represent) form a set of units. They all
have in common the feature human. Man and woman have in common the feature
adult, while man and boy are both characterized by the feature male.
The above-mentioned features are sufficient for defining the four elements
without any ambiguity. The lexical information for each of them are: Man [
+human +adult +male ]; Woman [ +human +adult -male ]; Boy [ +human -adult
+male ]; Girl [ +human -adult -male ].
However, in order to have all the information, we should include: a) the
written form and the pronunciation of the word; b) syntactical data; c)
morphological information; d) semantic value. Thus enriched, the information
concerning each unit would include the elements of the linguistic sign (acoustic
image and concept), and a series of syntactic information, essential for the case
when the word is part of a certain sentence, being used in the communication
process. As a result of the modifications we have mentioned, the information
referring to the word man appear in this way: Man [ ‘man’ / / noun +count
plural = ‘men’ +human +adult +male ]

CHAPTER 20 - THE POSTULATES OF MEANING

This is a simple theory, which has two basic notions, inclusion and
exclusion, the first one referring to what the concepts have in common; the second
to what differentiates them. We can point out three major types of relationships
among concepts (and consequently among words). On one hand there is inclusion
(hyponymy), on the other, exclusion (antonymy). As it is normal, there is a third
term between the two, and that is synonymy, a middle concept, which has to do
with both inclusion and exclusion.
B A B A B A
The first relation is that of total inclusion: a concept (or the meaning of a
word) includes another. For instance, animal includes tiger or wine includes
Riesling, and we can thus make the difference between class and individual.
The second relation, synonymy, is extremely problematic, as it presupposes a
partial inclusion or exclusion, and consequently, we can choose, in principle, any
of the lexical units. 100% synonymy is, of course, very rare, even impossible; it
would mean that the terms could be interchanged in any context, to be part of the
same collocations. Let’s take as an example two synonyms in English, two words
whose meanings are very close: hide and conceal. Although theoretically they are
interchangeable, in no circumstances could we talk about conceal-and-seek;
however, not only the co-text is different, but also the context of their usage,
conceal being used in a more formal style, while hide in an informal one.

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 Regarding antonymy, we are talking about exclusion, about lexical units
which are in opposition, and in some cases, in gradual opposition, belonging to
the following types:
1) Taxonomic; sets of lexical units presenting three kinds of opposition:
a) binary: when the set is formed of a pair of two units which
exclude each other, and we cannot state both of them without being in
contradiction. If a sentence is true, then it cannot be false at the same time.
If we say that someone is „dead”, the same person cannot be „alive” at the
same time. If someone is a „man” he cannot be a „woman”, too.
b) multiple: when the set is formed of several units whose order is
not pre-established. For instance, the differences among a set of hats
(beret, bonnet, bowler, cap, sombrero, top-hat, etc.).
c) hierarchical: when the set is formed of units arranged as an
organized taxonomy, which is not limited (numbers, colors) or which is
cyclic (the days of the week, the months of the year)
2) Polar; when the terms are different, but the difference is gradual. For
example, while we cannot say that someone is „more alive”, or „this gold is more
gold than before”, we can state that „it’s warmer than before”.
3) Relative; when there are relations of reciprocity among units (social:
doctor - patient; familial: father - son; even temporal and spatial: before - after, on
- under)
4) Reverse; when the terms can become perfect synonyms if one word
replaces the other and we move the negative. For instance some and all:
Some students don’t study linguistics.
Not all the students study linguistics.

CHAPTER 21 - ROGET’S THESAURUS

The three approaches we have studied in the previous chapters provide us
with only a part of the elements we need in order to cover the subject of meaning.
Something is missing: we have to admit that a word „attracts” another, as concepts
(and words for that matter) are not stored in the memory at random, but in a way
that allows to form certain connections among themselves. With the help of these
connections, the storage system becomes more effective, and the accessing and
processing of units, more easy to achieve.
The thesaurus offers a model of storing groups of words and phrases in
various ways. Thus we can form groups of (a) synonyms, (b) antonyms or (c)
words linked by other relationships. Roget’s thesaurus, published in 1852
represented a real progress in lexicology and semantics. The intention of its author
was to create a „system of word classification”. In the thesaurus, the words and
phrases are presented not only from the point of view of the ideas they express, but
also regarding the relationships that exist among them. Here is a typical article for
such a dictionary: optimism n. hopefulness, HOPE, CHEERFULNESS,
encouragement, brightness, enthusiasm; confidence, assurance. Ant. PESSIMISM.
The capitals are used in order to send us to the respective articles within the
dictionary: under HOPE we find (i) nouns (forty-four in four groups), (ii) verbs
(thirty-six in four subgroups) and (iii) adjectives (twenty-eight in two subgroups)

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and, in addition, the antonym dejection. So we see that Roget was quite right when
he stated that „nothing else could be more helpful to a translator”.
Here we are then, a step further on our way to understand the nature of a
word’s meaning, but there are still some unsolved problems. We have gone beyond
the constraints imposed by the binary componential analysis, and we can say that
certain units are grouped inside the thesaurus because of common semantic
features. For instance, lexical units such as hike, march, pace, parade, promenade,
ramble, saunter, step, stroll, tramp, tread are all listed under the heading WALK,
because of certain common features: (a) human agent, (b) use of legs, (c)
alternating movement of the legs, etc. However, it is not easy to say what
differentiates them from lexical units such as crawl, jump, run…, with which they
share many semantic features.
That is why it is necessary that we enlarge the suggested model with the help
of the semantic or lexical field.

CHAPTER 22 - SEMANTIC AND LEXICAL FIELDS

The range of a semantic or lexical field is bigger than that of a thesaurus,
because the former establishes connections between words starting not only from
the postulates of meaning such as hyponymy, synonymy and antonymy, but also
from the syntactic relations they can form (collocations), and the phonological
characteristics (starting sound, rhyme, etc.). As we have discussed about the
postulates of meaning earlier, let’s now deal with collocations.
Collocations are formal relationships among lexical units. Generally, we can
anticipate various possible combinations among lexical units; some nouns appear
in the vicinity of certain adjectives or verbs, some verbs combine with certain
adverbs, etc. The famous Chomskian sentence:
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
shows how the collocation rules have been broken because the lexical units
have been selected from incompatible sets, and so, a grammatically correct
sentence, made up of equally correct individual units, becomes an unacceptable
text. On the other hand, we can keep the same syntactic structure and form an
acceptable sentence by selecting units that can form a correct collocation:
Homeless black cats mew pitifully.
Let’s see now what differentiates the notions of semantic field and lexical
field. Any discussion about word meaning leads inevitably to establishing
relationships among concepts (the outcome of their perception and their
organization within the long-term memory) and lexical units (elements which form
a part of the linguistic code structure). We shall find the difference between the
lexical field and the semantic field if we go back to the starting point of the
descriptive process: the lexical unit, or the concept.
In this chapter we have focused on the atoms of meaning which the words
contain and the extent to which we find them in various concepts. The next step
leads from word meaning to sentence meaning. Before taking it, however, we shall
expand our discussion concerning the meaning of the lexical unit as to include also
the examination of contrasts that appear not only in the case of the denotative
meaning (referential), but also in that of the connotative meaning (affective).

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 The first term points to the referential, objective, cognitive meaning, and is
therefore shared by all those who use the respective language. The second shows a
non-referential meaning, but an associative, subjective, affective one. This kind of
meaning, being personal, may not be shared by the whole community. For instance,
the denotative meaning of the word dog is quite clear, and can be considered
common property. Its connotations, however, vary from one speaker to the other,
and from one society to the other, ranging from servitude to total aversion.
It’s important to note that theoretically, every word has both a denotative and
a connotative meaning; the few exceptions are represented by words that have not a
full lexical meaning, being just grammatical instruments, like the, and, may, etc.,
which may have a certain denotative meaning, but definitely no connotative sense.
On the other hand, it’s difficult enough to define objectively words like democracy,
love, patriotism, etc., which are loaded with profound emotional significance.
What we need to do next is to move on, from the meaning of the individual
words to that of the sentence, as we cannot really describe a word if we take it out
of the context offered by the sentence where it appears.

CHAPTER 23 - SENTENCE MEANING

Most linguists agree to the fact that the purpose of semantics is (1) to show
how connections between words and sentences are established by synonymy,
implication or contradiction, and (2) to explain how sentences are understood and
interpreted within a language and how the connection between these and the states,
processes and objects of the universe is made.
One of the aims of our discussion about word meaning was to point out the
relations of inclusion and exclusion which are established among concepts and
consequently between the words which express them. Similar relations can be
identified at sentence level. Our next step leads us to establish a connection among
sentences, using the notion of equivalence, and to admit the fact that sentence
meaning depends essentially of the communication context of the sentence.
When we are in front of a text, we have to understand both the sense of the
words and the sense of the sentences which form the text. It’s important to realize
whether what is asserted in a sentence is true or false, whether the sentence has one
or several meanings, leading to ambiguity, etc.
At the same time, a proper reading (which is essential for a good translation)
depends on identifying the connections existing among the sentences of a text; this
is achieved by deduction, as the meaning of a text cannot be given solely by the
sentences that form it. There are sentences that imply others, sentences that bring to
mind certain implications and are based on certain suppositions made by the writer
regarding the knowledge and the expectations of the reader.
For the start, just as we did with individual units, we can interpret the
meaning of a sentence from the perspective of inclusion and exclusion, by finding
sentence equivalents for the relations of hyponymy, synonymy and antonymy.
Let’s analyze the following examples:
1. Tigers are animals.
2. Tigers are fierce.
3. Tigers are birds.
4. They found him a good friend.
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 5. Semantics killed the students.
6. a) He wrote a book on linguistics.
b) He wrote a book.
7. a) What is his book about?
b) It’s not about athletics!
8. Can you lend me Leech’s semantics?
It is easy to notice that the se examples can be grouped in various ways. The
first three can be subjected to the polygraph test, and made to answer the question:
„Is the statement of the sentence true or false?”
1. True, because of the meaning of the words forming it.
2. Neither true nor false; we need further information.
3. False, because of the meaning of the words forming it.
For the next two sentences, we shall put aside their truth-value, although we
are still interested in the meaning of the words, and we shall discuss the grammar
relations of the lexical units.
4. Ambiguous, as we don’t know whether him is object to the verb found,
with the meaning got, or adjunct to the verb found, with the meaning discovered
that he was…
5. Nonsensical; „semantics” is something abstract, it cannot „kill”
anyone, unless metaphorically. The verb „kill” requires an animate subject. At
first sight, this sentence seems similar to the one at number 3, namely a false
sentence, because of the meaning of the words forming it. However,
considering the notions of encyclopedic and lexical type, we realize that the
situations are different. The two examples differ by the nature of the anomaly
of the information regarding the respective concepts. In the first case we are
confronted with a purely conceptual anomaly, as we cannot find in any
dictionary a statement of the kind that is made in sentence no. 3, namely that
bird is a hyponym of tiger. It is therefore false that the tiger is a kind of bird,
and our knowledge of the outside world certifies the fact. The second example
is a case of a double anomaly: conceptual and syntactic; (a) for the word
semantics, the explanation offered by the dictionary shows that the
information contained in sentence no. 5 is out of the question and (b) the
lexical data would include features like [noun, abstract], while in the case of
kill we would have [agent, animate]. Thus, by giving the function reserved for
the animates to a concept having the feature inanimate we create a pragmatic
nonsense; at the same time, by using an abstract, inanimate noun, as subject
of the verb kill, we break the rules of selection, creating a grammatical
nonsense.
The three remaining examples share a different type of connection. So far we
have dealt with the co-text, establishing relations among the meanings of the words
in the sentences, with no reference to the functional context of the sentences. We
need to do exactly that for the examples no. 6, 7 and 8.
In each case, those who take part in the communication process can draw
certain conclusions and make deductions based on the text: they can understand
that A implies B (in sentence no. 6); they can understand what is implied in
sentence no. 7; they can make assumptions about the „normal” context of a
statement, in sentence no.8.
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 6. A includes B, namely if he wrote a book on linguistics that means he wrote
a book, while B does not imply A.
7. From B we infer that the speaker is not sure about the subject of the
book.
8. The speaker supposes that the listener has a copy of the book, that he
would be willing to lend it and that the request would not bother him.
In short, the eight sentences represent as many types of relationships:
1. Analytical sentence.
2. Synthetic sentence.
3. Contradiction.
4. Ambiguity.
5. Nonsense.
6. Implication.
7. Deduction.
8. Supposition.

CHAPTER 24 - THE CONTENTS OF A TEXT. TRANSITIVITY

It is obvious that a text cannot be translated unless it is „understood”. But
what does „understanding” a text mean? What exactly we need in order to
understand a text? And finally, what exactly „is” a text? To explain this, we need a
multi-level approach, which will interpret the text as a product resulted from three
types of options, expressing the contents, the purpose and the organization of the
speech. We shall now deal with the first aspect: the contents of the text; let’s use
the following examples:
1. When the Treaty of Rome was signed on behalf of the Six in 1950, it gave
Europe a long-term goal to aim at: unity.
2. After the horrors of the war, the nations of Europe hoped for peace and
believed that it could be ensured by a united Europe.
3. The USA, the USSR and China were all single political units and held
major positions in the world.
4. There were, of course, opposition groups but they were not, said the
Europeans, significant.
1. Cand, in 1950, s-a semnat tratatul de la Roma in numele celor Sase,
acesta a oferit Europei un tel care nu putea fi atins imediat: unitatea.
2. Dupa ororile razboiului, natiunile Europei sperau ca va fi pace si
credeau ca numai o Europa unita putea sa le-o asigure.
3. SUA, URSS si China reprezentau fiecare o putere politica si ocupau
pozitii importante in lume.
4. Bineinteles ca existau si grupari care se opuneau, dar care, spuneau
europenii, nu reprezentau o problema.
What does the reader (or translator) know about this text? First, it seems
to be a fragment from an article or a textbook presenting the beginnings of the
European Community. Second, the text is written in a simple language, with
few unusual words and complex grammatical structures. For the moment, we
shall deal with the contents. We shall ask ourselves who? does what? to

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whom?, and when?, where?, how? and why? In short, we shall try to find out
what are the statements made in the text, which show the logical relations
establishing connections among the participants, the processes and the
circumstances of the text.
Each sentence is made up of two different statements, inside of which there
are relations among Actor, Process, Target, and in some cases, Circumstances:
When the Treaty of Rome was signed on behalf of the Six in 1950, it gave
Europe a long-term goal to aim at: unity.
1.1. Actor [someone]
Process [signed]
Target [the Treaty of Rome]
Client [on behalf of the Six]
Circumstances [in 1950]
1.2. Actor [the Treaty of Rome]
Process [gave]
Beneficiary [Europe]
Target [a long-term goal to aim at: unity]
The processes present in statements 1.1. and 1.2. are clearly of a material
type (illustrating the traditional definition of the verb: „a word expressing an
action”), while the actors and the targets are „objects”. Each of them represent an
instance from our experience, including our inner experience - an entity (person,
creature, object, institution). In both statements there are, in addition to the target,
some secondary targets: the client and the beneficiary of the process.
In statements 2.1. and 2.2. the processes are no longer concrete, material, but
mental; they describe activities of the mind, not of the body, being connected to
sensation (in the wider sense of the word, namely perception, knowledge), and not
to action. Consequently, the relation between actor and target is of a different
nature itself.
In the case of the next pair we also deal with other kinds of participants and a
different type of process: a purely informational one, establishing a relation of
identity between the two participants (the identified and the identifier), in the first
statement, and showing the existence of an attribute by means of a carrier, in the
second.
In the last case we deal with a process which is not really a process (we are
talking about existence), and consequently we don’t have a target; and with a
verbal type of process, where the relations between the participants are of another
type: a sayer and a saying; there is also a target of the message, which is not
present in our sentence.

CHAPTER 25 - STANDARDS OF TEXTUALITY

In this chapter we shall get acquainted with seven defining features of a text,
a set of standard features which are valid for all texts that have a communication
value and function as a speech. All seven characteristics are essential and if any of
them is missing we can no longer speak about a text, but about a sum of words,
sounds, or letters.
The standard features have been suggested as they offer the answer to the
key-questions that appear when the reader (or the translator) is dealing with a text:
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 1. In what way is the connection among sentences established? (cohesion).
2. In what way is the connection among statements established?
(coherence).
3. To what purpose did the speaker/writer produce the text? (intention).
4. How does the reader react? (degree of acceptability).
5. What is the text about? (information)
6. To what purpose is the text created? (relevance).
7. What other texts does it look like? (intertextuality).
Let’s start the analysis of the standard features by a well known definition of
the text: „An event with communication value where we can find the seven
requirements of textuality. If any of these standards is missing, then the
communication value is lost, and any text which loses the character of
communication is considered a non-text.”
We need to specify from the beginning that the standards mentioned
above represent the principles which define the communication value of the
text and that they all have a relational character, concerning the different
ways in which connections are established among the communication events:
through surface grammatical relations (cohesion); through concepts, within
the universe of the text (coherence); through the attitude of the participants
regarding the text (intention and acceptability); through incorporating what is
new and unexpected (information); through the place of the event (relevance);
and through the way the two text are relevant one towards the other
(intertextuality).
The first two standards - cohesion and coherence - are different from each
other, but at the same time they share one essential characteristic: they both have
the function to establish connections within the text by means of sequences of
meaning. What differentiates them is the way they do it and the „nature” of
meaning. Thus, cohesion consists of the connections which are established at the
surface level among the components of the text, through a sequence of sentences,
the process being marked by lexical and syntactical elements, namely what we
choose from the available options within the MOOD system: subject, predicate,
object, adjunct, etc. Coherence, on the other hand, consists in configuring and
assimilating the concepts and the relations within the text, which are established at
the surface level, namely the structures within statements: actor, process, target,
circumstances. Let’s use the following example in order to understand the
difference between cohesion and coherence:
I had a cup of coffee. I got up. I woke up.
This text is characterized by cohesion but, considering our knowledge of the
outside world, is not coherent; normally, people wake up before getting up and
drinking coffee. It is possible for someone to drink coffee before getting up, and
even, although very unusual (it’s called sleep-walking), for someone to wake up
after getting up and drinking coffee. There is nothing wrong with the sentences as
such, but there’s something wrong with the order of the actions.
While cohesion and coherence are standards referring to the text,
intentionality and acceptance refer more to the participants than to the text itself.
Even if a text is cohesive and coherent, it has to be created due to a certain
intention in order to be considered a text, and it has to be accepted as such in
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order to be used in the interactive process of communication; in other words, the
one who produces the text has to do it with a certain purpose (that of
offering/requiring information, goods, services, etc.), which the receiver must
recognize and accept as such. The notions of intentionality (which refers to the
transmitter) and acceptability (referring to the receiver) are reciprocal and similar
to those discussed in the speech act theory.
The last three standards of textuality refer to the structure of the information
and the relevance of the text to the situation in which it was created, as well as to
the connection between that and other texts. A text contains information, and the
amount of information contained gives the informational character of the text.
However we have to take into account notions like choice and probability. The text
is the result of choosing certain options out of a set of possible alternatives. Each
time a selection is accomplished, there are more or less probable options. The less
probable and harder to predict an option is, the more interesting and informational
it becomes. On the contrary, the most predictable versions are not interesting
because they don’t have an informational character.

Bibliography
Roger T. Bell, Teoria şi practica traducerii, Editura Polirom, 2000
Daniela-Corina Ionescu, Translation - Theory and practice, Editura
Universal Dalsi, 2000.
Rodica Dimitriu, Theories and Practice of Translation, Institutul European,
Iaşi, 2002.

Final test, 1st Semester

Choose a paragraph from any of the three texts to be translated and:
a) divide it into translation units
b) recognize as many as the seven translation techniques that you have
studied
c) choose five nouns and do their componential analysis
d) interpret the meaning of the sentences in the paragraph
e) analyse the sentences of the paragraph in point of their standard features

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