What is a translation
Various people tried to define what a translation really was:
Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else. What is the other text, the original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one catches them in nets of words and swings them shining into the boat ... where in this metaphor they die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches.
Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929), U.S. author. Address, 1983, in Poetry Series, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.. “Reciprocity of Prose and Poetry,” published in Dancing at the Edge of the World (1989).
Translation usually requires more than a simple substitution of one term for another. If you are translating a technical or specialized document for a non expert reader, the process is similar: you want to convey the main ideas without losing or transforming the meaning. You may well need to give a little background information so that the non expert can understand the idea or term in context.
A turn-of-the-century translator said: "Translation is like a woman, if she is beautiful, she is not faithful; if she is faithful, she is not beautiful." Translators must find the balance between fidelity to the source text and readability in the target language. The best translation is the one that no one recognizes as a translation. In other words, the document should read as though it were written in the target language originally. That is, you do your best work when no one realizes you have done anything. Achieving this level of translation is like walking a tightrope blindfolded during a wind storm, with people throwing heavy objects at you and shaking the rope.
There are some people who think that translators and interpreters are at worst a nuisance and at best a necessary evil; many a businessmen and lawyer have asked questions about the possible advent of automated translation and interpreting systems. Yet it is likely that, even with all the recent advances in voice recognition and machine translation, translators and interpreters are here to stay. Why? One of the more notorious examples of machine mistranslation is the computer rendering of the proverb, “Out of sight, out of mind” as “Blind idiot”.
What does the dictionary say?
Translation: The act of rendering into another language; interpretation.
Interpretation: The act of interpreting; explanation of what is obscure; translation; version; construction; as, the interpretation of a foreign language, of a dream, or of an enigma.
Translator: One who translates; esp., one who renders into another language; one who expresses the sense of words in one language by equivalent words in another.
Interpreter: One who or that which interprets, explains, or expounds; a translator; especially, a person who translates orally between two parties.
[Sources: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.]
The word "translate" has its origin in the Latin word, translatus, which means (roughly) "carried across." So what does it mean to translate or "carry across" a document? Well, you want to carry the meaning, but where? Across to what or to whom?
The ancient sense of the Latin words “interpretation” was to interpret, to translate, to give a translation. The terms translator and interpreter are commonly confused, but the distinction between the two is quite simple. Translators work with written material and interpreters render spoken communication.
I think translating is conveying the concept intended by the source writer into the target language.
Everything becomes clear if you understand that.
Please send me your views and considerations.
Paolo Roat
http://www.translation-server.com/ |
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