2025/1 Translation

Translation is often confused with interpreting, which is strictly speaking ‘oral translation of a spoken message or text’ (1997:83). Translation covers broad issues. Roman Jakobson (1959/2000) makes a very important distinction between three types of written translation: 

1. Intralingual translation – translation within the same language, which can involve rewording or paraphrase; 

2. Interlingual translation – translation from one language to another; this is called ‘translation proper’. 

3. Intersemiotic translation – translation of the verbal sign by a non-verbal sign, for example music or image.

Benevuti! may be what many people expect as a translation of Welcome! (BE), but how do we explain Hi (AmE)!? Sama-sama is understood as the equivalent for You’re welcome, although Australians prefer to say ‘No worries’ to respond to thanking. What about the flag symbol being understood as a country, nationality or language? Such visual phenomena are seen on a daily basis: no-smoking or exit signs in public places or icons and symbols on the computer screen, such as the hour-glass signifying ‘task is under way, please wait’ or as it sometimes seems, ‘be patient and don’t touch another key!’ Can you think of any other visual phenomena around you and what they stand for? (in Hatim & Munday, 2004: 3)

Task: Look again at the examples. Think how they correspond to the three types of translation. The case of intralingual translation:

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter children’s books have been translated over 40 languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. It is interesting that a separate edition is published in the USA with some alterations. The first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Bloomsbury 1997), appeared as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the USA (Scholastic 1998). As well as the title, there were other lexical changes: British biscuits, football, Mummy, rounders and the sweets sherbet lemons become American cookies, soccer, Mommy, baseball and lemon drops. The American edition makes a few alteration of grammar and syntax, such as replacing got by gotten, dived by dove, and at weekends by on weekends, and occasionally simplifying the sentence structure. (Hatim & Munday, 2004)

How do you translate apartemen, lantai satu, televisi, kereta bawah tanah, trotoar, jalan masuk, dan keran air into American English, British English and Australian English?

Concept box: The Scope of translation. In conclusion, translation involves the following.

The process of transferring a written text from SL to TL, conducted by a translator, or translators, in a specific sociocultural context. 2. The written product, or TT, which results from that process and which functions in the socio-cultural context of the TL. 3. The cognitive, linguistic, visual, cultural and ideological phenomena which are an integral part of 1 and 2. Note: SL = Source Language, TL = Target Language, TT = Target Text, ST = Source Text (Hatim & Munday, 2004:6)