TRANSLATION

Translation

Translation

As the name suggests, this article, written by Peter Newmark, presents the twenty three rules of translation, which are necessary to be taken care of before doing any kind of translation.

Translation as a pedagogical tool has traditionally not only been restricted to creative writers: generations of European schoolchildren have learned foreign languages by means of translation from about 100 AD until the end of World War Two in order to acquire a feel for the language in the domain where, as Schlegel remarks: “the grammarian's judicial functions cease.”

According to (Newmark, 1973, 9), the first step towards an examination of the processes of translation must be to accept that although translation has a central core of linguistic activity, it belongs most properly to semiotics, the science that studies sign systems or structures, sign processes and sign functions.

Beyond the notion stressed by the narrowly linguistic approach, that translation involves the transfer of 'meaning' contained in one set of language signs into another set of language signs through competent use of the dictionary and grammar, the process involves a whole set of extra-linguistic criteria also.

The translator, in the opinion of the author therefore, operates criteria that transcend the purely linguistic, and a process of decoding and recoding takes place. In the opinion of the author of the article, The translator who makes no attempt to understand the how behind the translation process is like the driver of a Rolls who has no idea what makes the car move. Likewise, the mechanic who spends a lifetime taking engines apart but never goes out for a drive in the country is a fitting image for the dry academician who examines the how at the expense of what is (Newmark, 1973 10).

Clearly, for the purposes of translation, position (1) would be completely inadequate (although many translators of novels in particular have focused on content at the expense of the formal structuring of the text), position (2) would seem an ideal starting point, whilst positions (3) and (4) might be tenable in certain circumstances. The translator is, after all, first a reader and then a writer and in the process of reading he or she must take a position.

The author has also highlighted the responsibilities of a translator with respect to the knowledge of words and the influences of cultures. According to Newmark, Every literary unit from the individual sentence to the whole order of words can be seen in relation to the concept of system. In particular, we can look at individual works, literary genres, and the whole of literature as related systems, and at literature as a system within the larger system of human culture (Newmark, 1973 11).

The failure of many translators to understand that a literary text is made up of a complex set of systems existing in a dialectical relationship with other sets outside its boundaries has often led them to focus on particular aspects of a text at the expense of ...