FEATURES OF

TRANSLATION
By :
Gratiana Sama
Ari Listiani
Agnes
7.1What Influences the translator?
translator

 The potential influence and constraint the

translator and on the process of translation
is often placed on that exerted by the source
language.

 The term ‘translationese’ is a common

description for translated language that
appears to be influenced by the source
language, usually in an inappropriate way or
to undue extent.
 Cont’
For example (pg. 91) :
Johansson and Hofland (2000),
In their study of various aspects of English and
Norwegian modal auxiliaries and modal
particles, observe that the choices made in
translation tend to reflect source-text
influence.
 7.2. Baker’s Features of Translation

. The idea that translators

SIMPLIFICATION subconsciously simplify the
language or message or
both

The tendency to spell things

out in translation, including in
Explicitation its simplest form, the practice
of adding background
information.
 Cont’
Normalisation
The tendency to conform to
or patterns and practices that are
Conservatism
typical of the target language,
even the point of exaggerating
them.

the tendency of translated text

Levelling Out to gravitate around the centre
of any continuum rather than
move towards the fringes
7.2.1. Are Translation Features
Universal?
Baker
(1993)

• explains universal features of translation as being

“features which typically occur in translated text
rather than original utterances and which are not the
result of interference from specific linguistics
systems”.

• The universal features of translation concern

simplification, explicitation, normalization and
levelling out.
 7.2.2. Explicitation
Baker (1993)

Involves adding material in the

target text that is implicit in the
source text.

 It means that the translator

expands the target text by
inserting additional words to be
more explicit on a number of levels
than non-translated texts
 Cont’
 Explicitation is observed in the way in which cultural
information is spelled out for target-language readers who
would not be familiar with the cultural references of the
source text.

 Example of Explicitation:

SL: “Bodies stripped bare, mutilated and left to rot in the sun”.

TL: “Tubuh mereka ditelanjangi dan dipotong-potong dan

dibiarkan membusuk di terik matahari”

 The above sentence demonstrates additional words to
make the meaning clear without altering the
significance;
the word mereka is added to point whose bodies that
are stripped, dipotong-potong as a reduplication word
of Indonesian refers to mutilated, and terik matahari
is to clarify the hotness of the sun where the bodies
left to rot in.
 It was done in order to get a better and exact
perceptive dealing with what actually say in the
scene. Therefore, the TL is in an accurate sense in
such a way.
7.2.3.Normalization or Conservatism
Baker
(1996:176-7)

“ The tendency to conform to patterns and practices

which are typical of the target language, even to the
point of exaggerating them.
In this way, translation uses language in a more
conventional or normalized way than non-
translated texts”
 L. Venuti
(1995:19-20)

Normalization or conservatism refers to

concepts of ‘domesticating’ (keeping
the form) and ‘foreignizing’ (adapting
the meaning) translation.
 Example of Normalization

Concept of Domestication :
SL : “He was killed in the war”
TL : Dia gugur di medan perang

 Concept of foreignization :
SL : as white as snow
TL : seputih salju
7.2.4. SIMPLIFICATION
• This phenomenon is reflected in various strategies
including the breaking up of long sentences, omission
of redundant or repeated information , shortening of
complex collocations, etc.

• Example:
Source language: “…trees will come back to live here.
Young trees, wild trees.”
Target language: “…pohon-pohon muda liar akan hidup
disini.”
7.2.5. LEVELLING OUT
 The tendency of translated text to
gravitate towards the centre of a
continuum rather than move towards
the
fringes (Baker 1996: 184).

Laviosa (1998c) shows low variance in

both translational and non-translational
corpora
 7.2.6. CO-OCCURRENCE OF
FEATURES
Olohan and
Baker (2000)

 Co-occurrence is occurrence of the two terms

from a text corpus along side each other in a
certain order (www.wikipedia.com)

 In their study of the optional reporting that,

Olohan and Baker (2000) state linguistics
literature on use and omission of that with range
of verbs indicates omission to be more likely in
informal contexts
 Cont’
 Olohan (2003) - in the framework of
both explicitation and normalization -
contracted forms in translated fiction and
biography text (a subset of the TEC)
compared with non-translation (a subset of
the imaginative writing section of the BNC).

 BNC text are more likely to omit that

and use contractions; the TEC text are
more likely to include that and not use
contractions.
 CONCLUSION

The universal features of translation is

viewed as a language activity which is
different from original text productions
and translation itself presents features
explicitation, simplification,
normalization and levelling out different
from those of original language as well.