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"Translation" defined
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To translate - What is it actually?
In our world, which embraces more than 3000 languages, translations are absolutely essential. International trade relations, diplomatic activities, educational programmes, travel and other activities as well as entertainment media such as films and books, instructions for electric appliances and assembly instructions for furniture all depend on the work of translators - men and women who usually remain unrecognised and unknown and whose job it is to convey ideas and information from one language to another. The task of transmitting this information across language barriers is both difficult and demanding, as languages are living entities, which change on an almost daily basis.
Pitfalls and dangers
Translators have to avoid falling into a great many pitfalls. A good translation requires more than the mastery of two or more languages. Quality work demands comprehensive and in-depth knowledge of a particular field. Language alone offers many opportunities to come a cropper. Simple examples for this are the "false friends", familiar to all those who have learnt a second language. These are words that look the same as those in another language but which have a totally different meaning. When an American talks of filling up with 'gas' he is talking about what English people call 'petrol'. In turn, the English word 'petrol' is not to be confused with the German 'petroleum', which in England is known as 'paraffin'. Meanwhile, Americans understand the word 'paraffin' to mean 'wax'. For most translators, it is relatively straightforward to recognise such concepts and thereby avoid making fundamental errors.
It becomes harder when you consider that there are few words that embrace the full meaning of a word in another language - indeed, sometimes there may not be a single word in the target language that adequately corresponds to the meaning of the original. Often the translator has to choose from various similar words while taking into account the subject matter, the context, the style and many other factors. At times it is essential to choose the correct word or phrase. Moreover, one must never forget what associations a particular word may carry with it.
Idiomatic expressions, proverbs and metaphors are particularly hard to translate well. Where an English person kills two birds with one stone, a German will kill two flies with one flap; when it is raining cats and dogs in England, in Germany there are strings falling from the sky. And when somebody is feeling blue, it has different meanings in English and German.
The most difficult things, however, are often the unspoken facts and illustrations that arise from the cultural background of the source language. How many English, Spanish, Irish or Dutch fairy tales, legends or customs do you know?
To translate - A science and an art
Given these problems, all information must be rendered as accurately as possible but also as freely as necessary. A really good translation - which can only be achieved with great effort and concentration - demands understanding, feeling, soul and experience, and challenges every fibre of the translator's being. That is also the main argument against computerised translations. Today's programmes that offer "fully-automatic" translations are simply not able to recognise and allow for the many nuances and options of a language. Just try out the translation services offered by various websites such as AltaVista. Ask it to translate any sentence - however simple - from your own language to a foreign language and back again a couple of times and you will see my point.
A machine is particularly helpless when the source text has been written by somebody who uses words to paint images and thus instead of merely transmitting information also expresses emotion and provokes a reaction, conveying understanding and motivating the reader. To translate this text faithfully and reasonably takes an equally capable person, perhaps even a writer. This is especially true of poetry, as here it is not just a case of communicating information but also sound images, rhymes, rhythms, vocabulary, word order, grammatical structure and maybe even the flow of the verse on the paper.
The science of translation becomes even more of an art when weighing up the balance of content and form. Inevitable, some things are lost in translation. And however good or bad, simple or complex the source text is there is one basic rule that the translator has to follow: he is not the author and he therefore does not have the right to "improve" on the original. It is his task to reproduce the ideas, the emotions and the mood of the original as closely as possible. But what is he to do when the original message is unclear? He should not simply try to make that which is unclear clear, that which is weak strong and that which is clumsy elegant. In such cases, the exercise of restraint can be a real challenge - and a real art.
Theory and practice
Earlier I quoted some examples from the language combination of German-English and then laid down a rule that not everybody accepts: "Information should be rendered as accurately as possible but also as freely as necessary".I previously gave some examples from the linguistic couple German-English and then wrote a rule that not pass to everyboby: "Information has to be rendered not only as exacly as possible but also as freely as necessary."
How could anyone argue with this statement? It is true that in theory a translation should be rendered as faithfully as possible. In practice, however, there is great debate about what can be understood by faithful. Sticklers for precision see the style, the choice of words, the idiomatic expressions, and the grammatical structure etc of a text as the key issues and demand that these points are meticulously conveyed in the course of the translation. Where this is a prerequisite of the original text and it is a practical possibility I agree completely. However, what would you think if I were to write in a translation that the defendant was sent off to jail by train? I'm sure you would take it literally, as meaning that the defendant was transported to prison by rail. Yet in an English text the phrase "He was railroaded to prison" rather means that the person went to jail on false charges or as a result of some injustice. And how does the phrase "He staked everything on one card" strike you? Rather odd? But when I say "He put all his eggs in one basket" you know exactly what is meant.
That is why I prefer to come down on the side of content and contend that the translator has the right and duty to alter the form where this is necessary in order to render the content and provoke a similar reaction in the reader of the translation as in the reader of the original. At any rate, this is something that every translator has to decide for himself and even I am not entirely dogmatic about it.
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