Translation, Types of Translation

Translation (or the practice of translation) is a set of actions performed by the translator while rendering the source (or original) text (ST) into another language. Translation is a means of interlingual communication. The translator makes possible an exchange of information between the users of different languages by producing in the target language (TL or the translating language) a text which has an identical communicative value with the source (or original) text (ST). This target text (TT, that is the translation) is not fully identical with ST as to its form or content due to the limitations imposed by the formal and semantic differences between the source language (SL) and TL. Nevertheless the users of TT identify it, to all intents and purposes, with ST – functionally, structurally and semantically. The functional identification is revealed in the fact that the users (or the translation receptors-TR) handle TT in such a way as if it were ST, a creation of the source text author. The structure of the translation should follow that of the original text: there should be no change in the sequence of narration or in the arrangement of the segments of the text. The aim is maximum parallelism of structure which would make it possible to relate each segment of the translation to the respective part of the original. Of major importance is the semantic identification of the translation with ST. It is presumed that the translation has the same meaning as the original text. No exchange of information is possible if there is discrepancy between the transmitted and the received message. The presumption of semantic identity between ST and TT is based on the various degrees of equivalence of their meanings. The translator usually tries to produce in TL the closest possible equivalent to ST. The translating process includes two mental processes – understanding and verbalization. First, the translator understands the contents of ST, that is, reduces the information it contains to his own mental program, and then he develops this program into TT. The translating process has to be described in some translation models. A model is a conventional representation of the translating process describing mental operations by which the source text or some part of it may be translated, irrespective of whether these operations are actually performed