This power point shows the differences between communicative and semantic translation and how they are related to overtranslation and undertranslation.

1. COMMUNICATIVE
TRANSLATION

2. FEATURES
O It attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of
the original in such a way that both content and
language are readily acceptable and comprehensive to
the readership.
O Reader-centred.
O Related to speech.
O Easy reading, smoother, more natural.
O Contents more accessible to the reader.
O Equivalence effect.
O It tends to UNDERTRANSLATE.

3. SEMANTIC
TRANSLATION

4. FEATURES
O It attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and
syntactic structures of TL allows, the exact contextual
meaning of the original.
O Is accurate, but may not communicate properly.
O It emphasizes the ‘’loyalty’’ to the original text.
O It is personal and individual.
O It is normally inferior to its original, as there is both
cognitive and pragmatic loss.
O It tends to OVERTRANSLATE.

5. LIMITS ON
TRANSLATION

6. OVERTRANSLATION
- It tends to add more words than in the original.
- It uses more information that is not in the original
text or uses words in a broader way which could
lead to a misunderstanding between the source
language and the target language.
- Sometimes we overtranslate because of LACK OF
EQUIVALENCE.

7. UNDERTRANSLATION
- It tends to use less words than in the original text.
- It is briefer and simpler.
- Overestimates the knowledge reserve of the target
language readers and neglects the comprehensibility
of the translated works, which could lead to a lack
of necessary information that the source language
attempts to convey.

8. To conclude, both overtranslation and under-
translation are deviation from the ideal, faithful
and expressive translation.
And there is one common thing between
overtranslation and undertranslation that both of
the two translations produce non-equivalence in
translated works.