HISTORY OF TRANSLATION

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLINE

Several translators in the past have been hailed for their work, due in part to the scarcity of
translators and likewise because what they translated made a huge impact on religion, politics,
education and other fields.

SAINT JEROME

⊹ Patron saint of translators

⊹ translated the Bible written in Hebrew and Greek into Latin, which became the official
version of the Bible used by Catholics.

ANCIENT ERA

The Western World regards the Bible translation from Hebrew to Greek as the first translation work
of great importance. The translation is called the Septuagint, getting its name from the 70 individual
translators who separately worked on the

translation in the 3rd

In the 3rd century, it is believed that the ‘sense for sense’ term was made up by St. Jerome.
According to records, St. Jerome said that the translator should translate sensibly instead of word for
word.

The same thought was echoed by Roman writer and philosopher, Marcus Tulluis Cicero. He said that
translation should not be ‘verbum pro verbo’ (word for word) in his work, “De Oratore” or “On the
Orator.”

Another famous translator from antiquity is the translator, scholar and Buddhist monk, Kumārajīva.
He is famous for translating Buddhist texts in Sanskrit into Chinese in the 4th century.

MEDIEVAL AGE

During the 5th century onwards, very few translations of works in the Latin language were available
in common languages because Latin was the popular language.

Alfred the Great, who was the king of England during the 9th century, commissioned the Latin to
English translation of The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius and Ecclesiastical History by Bede.
The translations contributed to the development of English prose during the time of King Alfred

The foundations of the modern Spanish language was established with the help of a group of
translators from the Escuela de Traductores de Toledo or the Toledo School of Translators in the
12th and 13th centuries.

During the 13th century, Roger Bacon, an English linguist, determined that a translator must be fully
knowledgeable in the source and target languages to be able to produce an accurate translation.

In the 14th century, the first translation of the Bible from Latin to English was done by John Wycliffe.
It was also during this century that Geoffrey Chaucer, an author, poet and translator, translated the
works of Boethius from Latin into English and the French work, ‘Roman de la Rose’ into English.
LATE MEDIEVAL TO EARLY RENAISSANCE

The Platonic Academy translated all the works of Plato, Plotinus’ ‘Enneads’ and several other works
into Latin. The works of Ficino and Erasmus of Rotterdam, who translated a new version of the
Bible’s New Testament in Latin, helped develop translation work further, as readers demand more
accuracy in the rendering of religions and philosophical works.

Another major translation work during the 15th century is the free adaptation and/or translation by
Thomas Mallory of ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’ that consists of the tales of King Arthur and the other
characters such as the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin, Lancelot and Guinevere.

THE RISE OF THE WEST

This is the period when an English scholar named William Tyndale led a group to work on the
translation of the New Testament in 1525. It was also the first time that the portion of the Bible was
directly translated from Greek and Hebrew texts into English.

Theology professor Martin Luther produced a German translation of the Bible, and in the process
claimed that only in the translator’s own language can one achieve a satisfactory translation.

The Bible was likewise translated into Polish by Jakub Wujek in 1535. The English version of the
Bible, known as King James Bible and the other translated versions had a long-lasting effect on the
culture, language and religion of the countries where it was used.

EARLY MODERN ERA

English translator and poet, John Dryden tried to translate Virgil’s work in the way the Roman poet
would write it if he was from England. However, he said it was not necessary to imitate the
conciseness and subtlety of Virgil.

It was an opposing view to what Alexander Pope, an English poet and translator, believed.

Pope was known for the translation of Homer’s Iliad.

Faithfulness means the extent of the translation’s accuracy in rendering the source text into the
target language while considering the context and features of the original.

Transparency in the translation equates to idiomatic translation or how close the text appears as if it
was written in the target language while conforming to the target language’s idiom, syntax and
grammar.

EARLY Modern PERIOD OF FRENCH AND AMERICAN REVOLUTIONSERA

German translator, poet, theologian and philosopher, Johann Gottfried Herder further reaffirmed
the earlier statement of Martin Luther that a translator should translate into his native language
instead of the other way around. In this century, the concern of many translators focused on making
reading the translated material easier. Accuracy was not yet a big issue for the translators.

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Translation in this century is all about style and accuracy, with the translation policy centered on
text. Because it is the Victorian era, bawdy language was the exception to the rule. Explanations in
footnotes were also deemed necessary and translators aimed to tell readers that the text or book
they were enjoying were translations of foreign originals.
On the other hand, the Chinese translator and scholar Yan Fu, developed a three-facet translation
theory in 1898, based on his extensive experience in the English to Chinese translation of social
sciences documents. The theories are faithfulness (being close to the source material in context),
expressiveness (accessibility of the translation to the intended audience) and elegance (availability
of the translation in a language that the target accepts as educated).

END OF THE 2ND MILLENNIUM

Translation became more prominent and structured in the 20th century, where interpreting the
context of the written text became important.

Polish translator Aniela Zagórska, who translated every work of Joseph Conrad into Polish was given
a great advice. Joseph Conrad was her uncle, and Conrad viewed translation as an art form that gives
translators choices, which meant interpreting some of the text, instead of just translating them.

Jorge Luis Borges of Argentina, who translated the creations of Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, Edgar
Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, Franz Kafka, Hermann Hesse, André Gide and William Faulkner into
Spanish also believed that translation is an art.

Literal translations were confined to scientific, academic, historic and religious materials.

Interpreting, which was previously recognized only as a special type of translation was established as
a different discipline in the middle of the 20th century.

THE PRESENT

END OF THE 2ND MILLENNIUM

Translation Studies, which first started in the latter part of the 20th century is already an academic
course today. Contemporary translators helped improve languages through loanwords and
borrowing terms from source languages into target languages. Technology and the Internet created
a global market for language services, including the creation of translation software and localization
services.

Etymology of translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an

equivalent target- language text.

The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language)
between translating (a written text) and interpreting (oral or signed communication between users
of different languages); under this distinction, translation can begin only after the appearance of
writing within a language community.

The English word "translation" derives from the Latin word translatio, which comes from trans,
"across" + ferre, "to carry" or "to bring" (-latio in turn coming from LATUS, the past participle of
ferre). Thus, translatio is "a carrying across" or "a bringing across" – in this case, of a text from one
language to another.
Some Slavic languages and the Germanic languages (other than Dutch and Afrikaans) have calqued
(loan translation) their words for the concept of "translation" on translatio, substituting their
respective Slavic or Germanic root words for the Latin roots.

The West and East Slavic languages (except for Russian) adopted the translātiō pattern, whereas
Russian and the South Slavic languages adopted the trāDUCTIŌ pattern. The Romance
languages, deriving directly from Latin, did not need to cALQUE their equivalent words for
"translation"; instead, they simply adapted the second of the two alternative Latin words,
trādUCTIŌ.,

The Ancient Greek term for "translation", μετάφρασις (metaphrasis, "a speaking across"), has
supplied English with "metaphrase" (a "literal", or "word-for-word", translation)—as contrasted with
"paraphrase" ("a saying in other words", from παράφρασις, paraphrasis).
"Metaphrase" corresponds, in one of the more recent terminologies, to "formal equivalence"; and
"paraphrase", to "dynamic equivalence".

Translation vs. Interpretation

The main difference is that translating refers to written information and interpreting refers to spoken
information.
 Translator Interpreter

 Translator transfer written text from  Interpreter interpret spoken

one language to another language. language

Language skill Language skill

 Deep knowledge of grammar and  Flawless command of spoken

stylistics, ability to play with words. language, proper articulation.

Personality traits Personality traits

 Detailed
 Excellent communication skills
 Perfectionist
 Ability to work under pressure
 Analytical
 Multitasking
 Patient
 Good listener

Work tools Work tools

 CAT tools  Referenced materials
 Referenced materials  Interpretation equipment
 Translation memories (simultaneous interpreting)
 dictionaries
Fidelity and transparency

fi·del·i·ty

/fəˈdelədē/

noun

faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support.

trans·par·en·cy

/ˌtran(t)ˈsperənsē/

noun

the condition of being transparent.

Transparent -having thoughts, feelings, or motives that are easily perceived.

The concept of fidelity and transparency

Fidelity (or faithfulness) and transparency are two qualities that, for millennia, have been regarded
as ideals to be striven for in translation, particularly literary translation.

These two ideals are often at odds. Thus a 17th- century French critic,Gilles Ménage, coined the
phrase "les belles infidèles" to suggest that translations, like women, could be either faithful or
beautiful, but not both at the same time.

Fidelity pertains to the extent to which a translation accurately renders the meaning of the source
text (ST), without adding to or subtracting from it, without intensifying or weakening any part of the
meaning, and otherwise without distorting it.

A model of faithfulness in translation is proposed by A. Hurtado-Albir (1990).

Three in dissociable elements appear in his approach:

 The author’s intention;

 The target language (TL),
 The reader.

Indicators of Fidelity in Translation

 Factual accuracy applies mostly to translations involving facts and figures or numerical codes
as in date, temperature, currency, weight, length, area, volume, distance, etc., especially
when converting from one category of physical system of measurement to another such as
imperial to metric, Roman numeral to Arabic numeral, digital to analogue, etc.
 Correctness
Another important fidelity indicator in translation is the level of correctness achieved by the
translator in the target language text. A faithful translation should be devoid of all avoidable
errors: grammatical, structural, orthographic, etc.
 Harmony
 A translation is said to be in harmony with the original text if no part of it contradicts,
violates or falls out with any part of the original text in terms of the message and style,
especially the message.

 Tonality
Tonality refers to the quality of a person’s voice, which expresses their sentiments, feelings,
attitudes or thoughts, especially in a dialogue situation. For instance, the tone of a person’s
utterance could show that they are happy, afraid, bitter, sympathetic, aggressive, in love,
friendly, etc.

Guralnik (1979), in Webster's English Dictionary, writes that "faithfulness/fidelity" means

"the quality of being accurate, reliable, and exact." In that case, the meaning that best
matches the source text's meaning is the one that best complies with the precision,
accuracy, conformity to the original (adhesion to a fact, or to an idea).

Transparency pertains to the extent to which a translation appears to a native speaker of

the target language to have originally been written in that language, and conforms to the
language's grammatical, syntactic and idiomatic conventions.

The translation caters to native speakers and the target audience, such that idiomatic,
syntactic, and grammatical conventions are followed while cultural, political, and social
context is kept in mind at all times.

Adaptation and localization comes closest to this school of thought, with the caveat that a
bit of sacrifice in terms of the intended message will inevitably happen whenever translators
use this approach in their translation

Meanwhile, transparency pertains to the degree to which a translation caters to native

speakers and the target audience, such that idiomatic, syntactic, and grammatical
conventions are followed while cultural, political, and social context is kept in mind at all
times.

Translations that have high fidelity are

classified as “faithful” translations; in turn, translations that meet the second standard are
referred to as “idiomatic” translations.

What’s More Important? Fidelity or Transparency?

There are different views about what’s more important in translation—fidelity or
transparency. Many people believe that transparency is more important. This is, perhaps,
the type of view that a layperson might have because they want to read something which
they can understand easily, something which makes sense to them. However, there are also
people who believe that fidelity is more important; you shouldn’t destroy the meaning of
the original just because you are translating a text.