Contemporary Translation Theories

Gentzler, Edwin Call Number: P 306 G46 2001 FILTRAN

What is translation?
Rewriting of an original text
Ex. Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal, originally written in Spanish.
Angel Salazars Filipino translation of Noli Me Tangere:
Isang Salu-salo: Ang biglaang paghahanda ni Don Santiago de los Santos ng isang hapunan nang mga huling araw ng Oktubre ay naging bukangbibig sa ibat-ibang dako. audience: high school students

Soledad Lacson-Locsins English translation of Noli Me Tangere:

A Gathering: Towards the end of October, Don Santiago de los Santos, popularly known as Capitan Tiago, was hosting a dinner which, in spite of its having been announced only that afternoon, against his wont, wa already the theme of all conversation in Binondo.

What is translation?
All rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain ideology (imaginary or visionary theorization) and a poetics and as such manipulate literature to function in a given society in a given way.

Rewritings can introduce new concepts, new genres, new devices.

It is also a literary innovation; shaping power of one culture upon another. BUT rewriting can also repress innovation, distort and contain.

Five approaches
North American Translation Workshop Simultaneously reinforces and subverts The science of translation Scientific approach. (Nida)

Early Translation Studies Corresponding literary function

Polysystem Theory Aggregate of literary systems from high/canonized forms (poetry) and low/non-canonized forms (childrens literature, popular literature) Deconstruction Challenges limits of language

Translation
Translation investigation is shifting from abstract to specific. Analyzed not by standards such as right/wrong or good/bad. For literary theory, translation theories help us gain increased insight into not only the nature of translation but the nature of language and international communication.

Roman Jakobson George Steiner Noam Chomsky Eugene Nida I. A. Richards

Roman Jakobson
Russian linguist and semiologist. He was a member of the Moscow Linguistic Circle and Prague Linguistic Circle, the source of foundational work in Structuralist Linguistics and Poetics.

Roman Jakobson
Intralingual
Interpretation of verbal signs with signs of the same language "rewording", rephrasing, summarizing, paraphrasing words

Interlingual

Interpretation of verbal signs with another language "translation proper" ex. translation of English to Filipino, Spanish to Filipino, etc.

Roman Jakobson
Intersemiotic
interpretation of verbal signs to nonverbal signs verbal languages to gestures or images ex. traffic light: stop means stop green means go, translation/interpretation of a painting

George Steiner
A writer, philosopher, and literary critic An Emeritus Professor of comparative literature at the University of Geneva

A regular contributor of reviews and articles to some journals and newspapers

His work as a critic has tended toward exploring cultural and philosophical issues, particularly having to do with translation and nature of language and literature.

George Steiner
After Babel (1975), his best-known book, was an early and influential contribution to the field of translation studies. Comparative literature critical scholarship dealing with literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups. Steiner simply characterized the history of Translation Theory as a continual rehashing of the same formal vs free theoretical distinction.

Noam Chomsky
an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

credited for the creation of the theory of generative grammar

Noam Chomsky
Transformational-Generative Grammar
Chomskys model which has been questioned by a lot of creative writers, literary theorists, and translation practitioners It has been adopted by Nida and Wilss in their theories

Made up of several levels:

Initial Element (abandoned after his 1957 book Syntactic Structures, but conspicuous by its very absence) Base Component composed of two kinds of rewriting rules:
Phrase Structure Rules
common to all languages generates the deep structure of a sentence which contained all the syntactic and semantic information that determine its meaning represents the internalized and unconscious workings of the human mind

Lexical Rules derived from universal categories

Noam Chomsky
Transformational Rules modify the deep structure resulting in the surface structures
* A double movement is embedded in his theory
the base to the deep structure via phrase structure rules deep structure to surface via transformational rules

* Deep structure determines meaning underlying sentences * Surface structure determines sound

Eugene Nida
Linguistic and Communication Theory Nidas ideas are more of religious presuppositions. Religious messages often failed to be communicated because of different cultural context and world views. The deep structure of language composed of the sign in context can be inferred through study of the language and culture. The theory emphasize not for much correspondence, but functional equivalence, not literal meaning but dynamic equivalence, not what language communicates but how it communicate.

Eugene Nida
Some examples of different cultural context and world views.
1. Lamb has been translated into seal and pig. 2. Forms or labels in order to spread the word of God.

I. A. Richards
Practical Criticism A unified meaning exists and can be discerned and that a unified evaluative system exists by which the reader can judge the value of that meaning. While discussing, one should compare translations to original text.

The whole apparatus of critical rules and principles is a means to the attainment of finer, more precise more discriminating communication.

I. A. Richards
Among his famous work was when distributed poem to students, and let them analyzed, discover with an approach each has to tackle.

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