2025/1 Translation

Hatim & Munday (2004: 14) state that literal translations often fail to take into account that not all texts or text users are the same. Not all texts are as ‘serious’ as the Bible or the works of Dickens, nor are they all as ‘pragmatic’ as marriage certificates or instructions on a medicine bottle. Similarly, not all text receivers are as intellectually rigorous or culturally aware as those who read the Bible or Dickens, nor are they all as ‘utilitarian’ as those who simply use translation as a means of getting things done. Ignoring such factors as text type, audience or purpose of translation has invariably led to the rather pedantic form of literalism, turgid adherence to form and almost total obsession with accuracy. The problem with many published TTs is essentially one of impaired ‘comprehensibility’, an issue related to ‘translatability’. Translatability is a relative notion and has to do with the extent to which, despite obvious differences in linguistic structure (grammar, vocabulary, etc), meaning can still be adequately expressed across languages. But, for this to be possible, meaning has to be understood not only in terms of what the ST contains, but also and equally significantly, in terms of such factors as communicative purpose, target audience and purpose of translation. Thus, while there will always be entire chunks of experience and some unique ST values that will simply defeat our best efforts to convey them across cultural and linguistic boundaries, translation is always possible and cultural gaps are in one way or another bridgeable. To achieve this, an important criterion to heed must be TT comprehensibility.

The translation strategies ‘literal’ and ‘free’ are linked to different translation units, ‘literal’ being very much centred on adherence to the individual word, while ‘free’ translation aims at capturing the sense of a longer stretch of language.