• Translation is one of the skills that should be

learned and developed by the students, but

in reality they still have the same problems in
learning it. It is because translation involves
two languages, source language and target
language. In other words, it can be said that
translation requires a transfer from one to
another language, which is different one from
the other in many aspects.
• Furthermore, Nida claims that
translation is as a craft consisting in
the attempt to replace a written
message and/or statement in one
language by the same message
and/or statement in another
language (Nida, 1988:7).
• Furthermore, Martin (1978: vii) says that
“Translation is to change into another
language, retaining the sense”. Each exercise
involves some kind of loss of meaning, due to
a number of factors. It provokes a continuous
tension, dialectic, an argument based on the
claim of each language. The basic loss is on a
continuum between over-translation and
under-translation.
• Translation theory’s main concern is to
determine appropriate methods for the widest
possible range of texts or text categories.
Further, it provides a framework of principles,
restricted rules and hints for translating text
and criticizing translations, a background of
problem solving (Newmark, 1988:19).
• Note that translation theory is concerned with
choices and decisions, not with the mechanics of
either the source language or the target language.
When we gives a lists of words that are
grammatically singular in one language and plural
in another, we may be helping the student to
translate, we are illustrating contrastive
linguistics, but we are not contributing to
translation theory.
• . Lastly, translation theory attempts to
give some insights into the relation
between thought, meaning and
language; the universal, cultural and
individual aspects of language and
behavior, the understanding of cultures,
the interpretation of texts that may be
clarified and even supplemented by way
of translation.
• Thus translation theory covers a wide range
of pursuits, attempts always to be useful, to
assist the individual translator both by
stimulating him to write better and to
suggest points of agreement on common
translation problems (Newmark, 1988:19).
Assumptions and propositions about
translation normally arise only from
practice, and should not be offered without
examples of originals and their translations.
• As with much literature, the
examples are often more interesting
thanthe thesis itself. Further, the
translation theory alternates
between the smallest detail, the
significance (translation) of dashes
and hyphen, and the most abstract
themes, the symbolic power of a
metaphor or the interpretation of a
multivalent myth
• . Consider the problem: a text to be
translated is like a particle in an electric
field attracted by the opposing forces of
the two cultures and the norms of two
languages, the idiosyncrasies of one
writer (who may infringe all the norms
of his own language), and the different
requirements of its readers, the
prejudices of a translator who may be
possibly of its publisher.
• Further, the text is the mercy of a
translator who may be deficient in
several essential qualifications:
accuracy, resourcefulness, flexibility,
elegance, and sensitivity in the use
of his own language, which may save
him from failing in two other
respects: knowledge of the text’s
subject matter and knowledge of the
source language (SL). Let us look
first at the practical problems.
• The translator’s first task is to
understand the text, often to
analyze, or at least make some
generalizations about his text before
he/she selects an appropriate
translation method, so it is the
business of translation theory to
suggest some criteria and priorities
for this analysis..
• For example, an article on ‘personnel
management of multinational
companies’ may really be a defense
of multinational companies, written
in innocuous internationalist, with
contrasting formal to informal
sentences emphasizing innocence
• Next, the intention of the translator is
trying to ensure that the translation has
the same emotional and persuasive
charge of the original, and affects the
reader in the same way as the original.
The first traces of translation date from
300 BC, during the Egyptian Old
Kingdom, in the area of the First
Cataract, Elephantine, where inscription
in two.
• languages have been found. It became a
significant factor in the West in 300 BC,
when the Romans took over wholesale many
elements of Greek culture, including the
whole religious apparatus. In the twelfth
century, the West came into contact with
Islam in Moorish Spain, The situation
favoured he two essential conditions for
large scale translation (Nida, 1988:3). The
twentieth century has been called the “age
of Translation” or “reproduction”.
• . Whereas in the nineteenth century
translation was mainly a one way
means of communication between
prominent men of letters and, to a
lesser degree, philosophers and
scientists and their educated readers
abroad., whilst trade was conducted
in the language of dominant nation,
and diplomacy, previously in Latin,
• was in French, international agreements
between state, public and private
organization are now translated for all
interested parties, whether or not the
signatories understand each other’s
languages. The setting of a new
international body, the constitution of an
independent state, the formation of a
multinational body, gives translation
enhanced political importance
• Translation theory derives from
comparative linguistics, and within
linguistics, it is mainly an aspect of
semantics; all questions of semantics
relate to translation theory.
Sociolinguistics, which investigates
the social registers of language and
the problems of languages in contact
in the same or neighbouring
countries, has a continuous bearing
of translation theory.
• A translator requires knowledge of literary
and non-literary textual criticism, since he
has to assess the quality of a text before he
decides how to interpret and translate it. All
kinds of false distinctions have been made
between literary and technical translation.
Translation is a craft consisting in the
attempt to replace a written message and/or
statement in one language by the same
message and/or statement in another
language (Nida, 1988:7).
• In addition, Leonard in Martin (1978:
1) defines “translation as the
transference of the content of a text
from one language into another,
bearing in mind that we cannot
always dissociate the content from
the form”. FurthenTlore, Martin
(1978:vii) says that “Translation is to
change into another language,
retaining the sense”.
• Each exercise involves some kind of
loss of meaning, due to a number of
factors. It provokes a continuous
tension, dialectic, an argument
based on the claim of each language.
The basic loss is on a continuum
between over-translation (increased
detail) and under- translation
(increased generalization).
• 2.2 The Types of Translation Method The
central problem of translation has always
been whether to translate literally or
freely. . Furthermore, Newmark (1988:
45-47) suggests that there are some
types of translation method which can be
used for teaching and learning activity.
They are as follows:
• 1. Word-for-word Translation This method
is often demonstrated with the target
language (TL) immediately below the
source language (SL) word. The SL word
order is preserved and the words
translated singly by their most common
meanings, out of context. 2. Literal
Translation The SL grammatical
construction are changed to their nearest
TL equivalent, but the lexical words are
again translated singly, out of context.
• 3. Adaptation It is the ‘freest’ form of
translation. It is used mainly for plays
(comedies) and poetry. The SL culture
changed to the TL culture and text
rewritten. 4. Free Translation It
reproduces the matter without the
manner or the context without the form
of the original. It is usually a paraphrase,
much longer than the original.
• 5. Idiomatic Translation It reproduces
the message of the original, but
tends to distort nuances of meaning
and idioms where these do not exist
in the original. 6. Communicative
Translation It tries to render the
exact contextual meaning of the
original in such way that both
content and language are accepted
and comprehended by the reader.
• In addition, in his article On Linguistic Aspects of
Translation’, Roman Jakobson distinguishes three
types of translation: 1. Intralingual translation, or
rewording (an interpretation of verbal signs by
means of other signs in the same language). 2.
Interlingual translation or translation proper (an
interpretation of verbal signs by means of some
other language). 3. Intersemiotic translation or
transmutation (an interpretation of verbal signs by
means of signs of nonverbal sign systems). Having
established these three types, of which
• (2) translation proper describes the process
of transfer from SL to TL, Jakobson goes on
immediately to point to the central problem
in all types: that while messages may serve
as adequate interpretations of code units or
messages, there is ordinarily no full
equivalence through translation. Even
apparent synonymy does not yield
equivalence, and Jakobson shows how
intralingual translation often has to resort to
a combination of code units in order to fully
interpret the meaning of a single unit.
• . Hence a dictionary of so-called synonyms may
give perfect as a synonym for ideal or vehicle as a
synonym for conveyance but in neither case can
there be said to be complete equivalence, since
each unit contains within itself a set of non-
transferable associations and connotations (Susan
Bassnett, 2002:23). 2.3 The History of Translation
No introduction to Translation Studies could be
complete without consideration of the discipline in
an historical perspective, but the scope of such an
enterprise is far too vast to be covered adequately
in a single book, let alone in a single chapter.
• What can be done in the time and space allowed
here is to look at the way in which certain basic
lines of approach to translation have emerged at
different periods of European and American
culture and to consider how the role and function
of translation has varied. So, for example, the
distinction between word for word and sense for
sense translation, established within the Roman
system, has continued to be a point for debate in
one way or another right up to the present, while
the relationship between translation and
emergent nationalism can shed light on the
significance of differing concepts of culture.