This document discusses translation studies as a field that examines the theory, description, and application of translation between languages and texts. It traces the history and development of translation from ancient times to modern developments. Key debates in the field include whether translation should prioritize the source or target language/culture, and how concepts like equivalence, invisibility of the translator, and ethics are approached. The document also examines challenges in translating different text types like literature, poetry, legal texts and the Quran. Methods of translation discussed include word-for-word, dynamic equivalence, paraphrasing, and the linguistic approaches of Roman Jakobson.

1. Translation Studies
Theory ,description and application :
of interpretation , of translation and
,of localization of text

2. • Appeared first in James S Holmes paper in
‘’The name and nature of translation study’’
Tracing from antiquity :
Always been prescriptive (from Greek to Roman
times) Greek texts ____ into Latin
Buddhist sutras were translated in China (began
discussion on how to translate)

3. • Debate arose regarding literary trend vs
linguistic trends in translation (1980’s -1990’s)
Whether scientific theory could be applied to
cultural product?? Facts of the target culture??
1984___Skopos theory paradigm shift to
‘’purpose to be filled rather than prioritizing’’

4. New developments :
Gender, post-colonialism , cultural studies
Globalization , trend of the use of new
technologies
A lot of emerging trends and paradigms:
possible source of conflict in the discipline

5. • Trends and paradigms:
Target language Source language
Inter-change in culture through transformation
Homi Bhaba_ Post-colonial texts ‘’Humour: can
you translate?’’
Is it ethically doubtful or translator and the
writer share an inter-personal relationship?

6. • How to act ethically independent from own
judgements?
• Translating and interpreting as bearing social-
political influence

7. • Translation :(to bring across-carry across)
equivalence of meaning-source language text
and target language text.
Spill over of language usage into the target
language (enriched language/ translators have
shaped the languages)
Meta-phrase vs para-phrase (word to word
/meaning to meaning)

8. • If translation be an art, it is no easy one.
• [T]ranslation... is in fact an art both estimable
and very difficult, and therefore is not the
labor and portion of common minds;
ISLAMIC TRADITION: ARABIC/GREEK TEXT INTO
PERSIANTEXT

9. • FAITHFUL VS BEAUTIFUL :
Trnasparency(syntax,grammar ,idiom) ---
Idiomatic nature
Word to Word translation of machines :

10. • Tributes of competent translators
Interpreting, or "interpretation," is the
facilitation of oral or sign-language
communication, either simultaneously or
consecutively, between two, or among more,
speakers who are not speaking, or signing, the
same language.( a translator- interpretor)

11. Machine-translation: computer , internet –
through dictionaries.
Speed up and facilitate human translation
(communication in human language is context
embedded) ignores that

12. Literary pieces Vs poetry in translation:
Jewish scriptures in Alexandria ( to Greek)
Arabs Greek texts (deciphering knowledge)
Chaucer’s work takes themes from Italian poets
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Edward Fitzgerald-
1959)

13. Poetry : Challenging
• a good translation of a poem must convey as
much as possible of not only its literal
meaning but also its form and structure
(meter, rhyme or alliteration scheme, etc.)
Semiotician Roman Jakobson went so far as to
declare that "poetry by definition [is]
untranslatable".
Robert Frost was equally pessimistic: "Poetry is
that which is lost in translations."

14. Terms to follow:
Literal translation
Language transfer
Linguistic validation
Technical translation
Skopos theory
Translating for legal equivalence

15. Translation of the Quran
• Miraculous: shades of meaning in Arabic,
Hebrew , Armanaic…
• Possible interpretations, translation of the
meanings…

16. • Some methods of translation:
1. paraphrase:"...a paraphrase is guided by the
translators' skill in simplifying , also by the
clarity of his understanding of what the author
meant
2. Dynamic equivalence method: to translate
what they think the writer of the original
meant (in sentence form) and then restructure
the result of that process to what they think
the person reading it will be able to
understand .

17. Translators silence an illusion?
“reading like a piece originally
written in the target language” is
regarded as what translators should
aim for …
that his/her choices and strategies
when producing the text are not
apparent and the reader is not aware
of them.

18. Historically inferior status of
translator/translated work
• Illusion of transparency:
Claims for having read Kafka Or Dostoevsky?
Can the differences in culture or language be
neutralized?...or all interpretative possibilties be
exhausted in one text?
"creative versus derivative work, primary versus
secondary, art versus craft.” (debate)

19. Linguistic approach to translation
• Structural linguistics and functional linguistics:
Linguistic meaning and equivalence are the key issues for
the Russian structuralist Roman Jakobson who, in his
1959 work On Linguistic Works of Translation, states that
there are 3 types of translation:
1) intralingual – rewording or paraphrasing, summarizing,
expanding or commenting within a language
2) interlingual – the traditional concept of translation
from ST to TT or the “shifting of meaning from one
language to another”
3) intersemiotic – the changing of a written text into a
different form, such as art or dance