3.1 Types of translation
Roman Jakobson claims that “all cognitive experience
and its classification is conveyable in any existing
language’ (Jakobson 1959:238). While modern British
English concepts such as the National Health Service,
congestion charging, or in the USA, Ivy League
universities, Homeland Security and speed dating, might
not exist in a different culture, it should not stop them
being expressed in some way in the target language
(TL). Jakobson goes on claiming only poetry ‘by
definition is untranslatable’ since in verse the form of
words contributes to the construction of the meaning of
the text. Such statements express a classical dichotomy
in translation between sense/content on the one hand and
form/style on the other.
Literal translation: style/form-based
Free translation: sense/meaning-based
Literal translation is more oriented to the style and
form of the source language (form-based translations),
while free translation or idiomatic translation is more
oriented to the sense or meaning of the source text to
be rendered into the target text. Idiomatic translations make every effort to communicate the meaning of the
source language text in the natural forms of the
receptor language (meaning-based translations).
The following is the types of translation according to Larson (1984:15). An interlinear translation is a completely literal translation. A literal translation sounds like nonsense and has little communication value especially between two languages which are culturally and linguistically distant, such as between English and Indonesian. For example: Indonesian: Selamat pagi! Literal translation: Safe morning!
When greeting someone in English using “Safe morning,” it would invite frowns. It simply makes no sense in English. The appropriate greeting is “Good morning!” Being uncommon, a truly literal translation is partially modified. Translators modify the order and grammar enough to use acceptable sentence structure in the receptor language, while the lexical items are translated literally. In a modified literal translation, the translator usually adjusts the translation enough to avoid real nonsense and wrong meanings, but the unnaturalness still remains (p.16). For example:
English: It is fun to watch fireworks. Indonesian: Ini adalah menyenangkan untuk menonton kembang api. Idiomatic translations, according to Larson (1984:16), use the natural forms of the receptor language, both in the grammatical constructions and in the choice of lexical items. A truly idiomatic translation does not sound like a translation.
Unduly free translation contains ideas which are not
included in the original text and change historical
and cultural facts of the original text.
Ideally, translation is a process of transferring meaning
from the source language to the target language by
abiding the rules of the target language.
So, where should the translator’s goal be? The goal of
translators should be to reproduce in the receptor
language a text which communicates the same message
as the source language but using the natural
grammatical and lexical choices of the receptor
language (Larson, 1984:17).