THEORY OF TRANSLATION (Outline)

1. What is the translation?

Translation is the communication the meaning of the source language to the
receptor language. Translation is basically the change of the form. When we speak
the form of the language, we remember about the words, phrases, sentences,
clauses, and paragraph. It is called surfaced structure of the language.
The purpose of the text is to show that translation consists of transferring the
meaning of the source language into the receptor language. And that is done by
going from the form of the first language to the second language. It is meaning
which is to be changed and must be held constant. The form of the source language
changes from which translation is made and the form of the receptor language
changes into which it is to be changed.
Translation, then, consists of studying the lexicons, grammatical structures,
communication situations, and cultural context of the source language text,
analyzing it in order to determine its meaning, then transferring this same meaning
using the lexicons and grammatical structures which is appropriate in the receptor
language and its cultural context.
2. What is form-based translation and meaning-based
translation?
According to Larson, translation is classified into two main types, namely form-
based translation and meaning-based translation.
Form-based translation attempts to follow the form of the source language and
it is known as literal translation.
Meaning-based translation makes every effort to communicate the meaning of
the source language text in natural forms of the receptor language.
 3. What are five characteristics language that affects translation?
There are five characteristics language that affects translation, meaning
component, the same meaning component, form, meaning, and skewing.
+ Meaning components are “packaged” into the lexical items and they are
“packaged” differently in a language than in another language. For example, in
English, the word “boy” has three components, human, male, and young.
+ The same meaning components will occur in surfaced structure or lexical
items (forms). For example, in English, these word “ram”, “lamb”, “ewe” include
the same meaning “sheep”. However, they also include the additional meaning
young (in ram), adult and male (in lamb), adult and female (in ewe).
+ One form can be used to represent several alternative meaning. For example,
in English, the word “run” as fifty-four meaning in dictionary. When we talk “The
boy runs”, using the primary meaning. We can also talk “His nose runs”, using the
secondary sense with different meaning.
+ A single meaning can be expressed in various forms. For example, in English,
the possessive phrase “my phone” can be indicated in “the phone I buy”, “the
phone I borrow”, or “the phone I own.”
+ Skewing is that the diversity or the lade of one-to-one correlation between
form and meaning. For example, in English, the sentence “His heart is cold”
meaning that ‘he is unfeeling’ or ‘he has no emotion sympathy.’
4. What are four types of translation? Briefly describe them.
There are four types of translation, literal translation, idiomatic translation,
modified literal translation, and unduly free translation.
+ Literal translation is known as form-based translation which attempts to
follow the form of the source language. Literal translation is very useful for
purpose related to studying the source language. It sounds like nonsense and has
little communication value. For example,
Chinese: Nǐ hǎo ma?
Literal translation: you fine or not?
 + Idiomatic translation is known as meaning-based translation that makes every
effort to communicate the meaning of the receptor language in natural forms of the
receptor language. For example,
Chinese: Nǐ hǎo ma?
Idiomatic translation: How are you?
+ Modified literal translation: Most translators who tends to translate literally
actually make a partially modified literal translation. They modify the order and
grammar enough to use acceptable sentence structure in the receptor language. For
example,
Chinese: Tā ài shàngle tā.
Modified literal translation: He fastened her in his heart.
+ Unduly free translation is considered not acceptable translation for most
purpose. They are unduly free translation if they add extraneous information not in
the source language text, they change the meaning of the source language text, and
they distort the historical and cultural setting in the source language text. For
example,
Chinese: Nǐ hǎo ma?
Unduly free translation: Hello! Long time no see! How are you? The phrase
“Hello” and “Long time no see” is the extraneous information that is added in the
translation.
5. How many semantic propositions are there in this sentence
“The dog treed the cat?”. Write the proposition (s) out. Then,
translate the sentence into Vietnamese.
There are two semantic proposition in the sentence “The dog treed the
cat”. The first semantic proposition is “The dog chased the cat” and the
second is “The cat went up to a tree”
Translate this sentence into Vietnamese: Con chó đuổi con mèo chạy
tót lên cây.
 6. What are three kinds of meaning? Describe them.
There are three kinds of meaning, referential meaning, organizational meaning,
and situational meaning.
+ Referential meaning is a kind of meaning in which the word or the sentence
refers to a certain thing, event, contribution, or relationship that people can
perceive and imagine. Referential meaning is what communication is about. For
example, in English, the word “apple” refers to a fruit that is produced on a certain
tree in the sentence “Mary peeled an apple and Mary ate apple.”
+ Organizational meaning is a type of meaning that puts referential information
together into the coherent text and is expressed by the combination. It may indicate
whether the situation is informal or formal. Organizational meaning is signaled by
deictic, repetition, grouping, or many features of grammatical structure of the text.
For example, the word “apple” has been referred and it is referred again in the
sentence “Mary peeled an apple and another Mary ate it”
+ Situational meaning is crucial to the understanding of the text. The message is
produced in a given communication, the relationship between the speaker, hearer,
and writer will affect to the communication. Where the communication takes
places, age, gender, social status of the speaker and hearer, the relationship of
them, cultural background of the speaker and the addresses, and many other
situational matters result in situational meaning. For example, Lalen Ngo, a
university professor, may be called by her name “Ms. Lalen” by Vietnamese
students, and “Ms. Ngo” by foreign student.
7. What is implicit meaning? Give an example. The translate the
example into Vietnamese.
Implicit meaning is a kind of meaning in which information already exists in
the text which is to be communicated by the translators because it is part of the
meaning intended to be understood by the original writer. It is capable of being
understood from something else though unexpressed, unspoken. For example, in
English, the sentence “When I looked at the boy, I wanted to kiss him
immediately” also means that the speaker is complimenting the boy as cute and
adorable.
 Translate the sentence “When I looked at the boy, I wanted to kiss him
immediately” into Vietnamese: Khi tôi gặp thằng bé ấy, tôi đã muốn hôn ngay lập
tức vì sự dễ thương và đáng yêu của nó.
8. In communication, why do people leave some information
implicit?
When we talk about something, we sometimes leave out some of the
information because the addresses already know these facts and may even be
insulted if they were included. It implies that they were stupid or informal. And so,
in every communication, the information is left implicit in conversation or written
text. All communication is based on share information. The information is share
may include grammatical structure, previous conversation, culture, having read the
same material, and common experience, etc. In every text that one may want to
translation, there will be information which is left implicit. Some information or
meaning is left implicit because of their structure of the source language; some
because it has already been included somewhere in the text; some because of
shared information in communication situation. For example, someone asked
“How many people came?” and another answered that “Ten”. The answer “Ten”
means that “Ten people came”. The information “people” and “came” if left
implicit in this answer.
9. Form what you have learnt in the course, what is a good
translator?
In my opinion, a good translator should have several of the following
qualities. Firstly, one of the important thing is knowledge about language. The
good translators must be fluent in at least the native language and foreign
language. Besides, they have to have deep knowledge of culture of language or two
countries using them. Secondly, they must have a good knowledge of the
principles of translation and always ensure it. Thirdly, good translators acquire
their knowledge about meaning-based translation to have an excellent translation.
To do that, they must analysis the text in order to determine its meaning, then,
transfer this same meaning using lexicon and grammatical structure which is
appropriate in the receptor language and its cultural context. Moreover, they have
to also maintain the dynamic character of the source language text. Next, if they
can involve in a translation project, they must equip some soft skills such as
teamwork, communication and management time skills, and translation skills,
understanding these steps taken to complete a good translation project.
 10. Translation exercises
a. Woman generally get up well before dawn and long before their
husbands to relight the fire and begin making breakfast.
Bản dịch: Hầu hết mọi phụ nữ đề thức dậy sớm trước mặt trời ló dạng và
sớm hơn chồng mình để bắt đầu nhóm lửa và bắt tay vào làm bữa sáng.
b. It is a country where there are vineyards to make wine and grain to
make bread.
Bản dịch: Đây là một đất nước mà các vườn nho được trồng để làm rượu
vang và ngũ cốc được trồng để làm bánh mì.
c. Rice is grown in Vietnam.
Bản dịch: Ở Việt Nam, người ta trồng lúa.
d. The effects of these landslides can be quite dramatic, sometimes
involving the loss of human life.
Bản dịch: Những trận lỡ đất như thế này có thể để lại những hậu quả lớn
không ngờ, đôi khi chúng còn có thể tước đi tính mạng của con người.
e. Although the development of the downhill skiing has aided the creation
of economic property in many mountain areas, it has also resulted in many
negative consequences for the physical environment.
Bản dịch: Mặc dù sự phát triển của môn trượt tuyết xuống sườn dốc giúp
ích cho sự hình thàn nền kinh tế phồn thịnh ở vùng núi, nhưng nó cũng đồng thời
tạo nên nhiều hậu quả cho môi trường sống xung quanh.
f. The development of mountain tourism requires the construction of
hotels, apartments and associated infrastructure, placing increased pressure
on land resource and animal habitats.
Bản dịch: Việc phát triển ngành du lịch miền núi đòi hỏi việc xây dựng các
khách sạn, các căn hộ cho thuê và các cơ sở hạ tầng liên kết với chúng. Điều này
đã tạo thêm nhiều sức ép lên tài nguyên đất và môi trường sống của các loài động
vật.
g. Just as tourism has resulted in detrimental environment effects in
coastal, it has also caused negative impacts in some mountain ecosystems.
Bản dịch: Cũng giống nhu những hệ quả tiêu cực về mặt môi trường mà
ngành du lịch đã gây ra cho khu vực ven biển, một vài hệ sinh thái miền núi cũng
phải gánh chịu những ảnh hưởng xấu từ nó.
h. Can’t Stand the Quite
A Singaporean Malay friend in Perth recently bought a plot of land and
decided to build his own house on it. When I looked at his plans, I
exclaimed “But why have you chosen to live so close to a highway.” “It’s
 the silence.” Said he “I just can’t stand it. I just have to have more noise,
else I get lonely.” Some call it peaceful, others lonely
Bản dịch: Không thể chịu nỗi sự tĩnh lặng
Một người bạn Singapore gốc Malaysia hiện đang sống ở Perth vừa mua một
mảnh đất và quyết định xây nhà ở đó. Khi nhìn vào bản thế kế của anh ta, tôi đã
thốt lên: “Nhưng tại sao lại quyết định sống gần đường cao tốc?”
“Tại sự tĩnh lặng cả.” – anh ta đáp – “Tôi không thể nào chịu nổi nó. Tôi
phải sống ở nơi nào huyên náo ấy, bằng không tôi sẽ thấy cô đơn lắm.”
Một vài người xem đó là yên bình, nhưng số khác lại chỉ thấy cô đơn.
11. How many steps are there in a translation project?
There are seven steps in a translation project:
1. Establishing a translation 5. Revised draft
project 6. Consultant
2. Exegesis 7. Final draft
3. Translate and initial the text.
4. Evaluation
12. What are the four T’s in the first step? Describe them.
The four T’s in the first step are the text, the target, the team, and the tools.
The text refers to the source language documents which is to be translated by
the translator. Most text often is to communicate certain thing to people speaking
another language and share the enjoyment of the source text.
The target refers to the audience. The form of the translation will be affected by
question or dialect, education level, age level, bilingualism, and people’s attitude
towards their language.
The team refers to people who will involve in a translation project. It may
consist of co-translators, translators with the specialist in the receptor language, the
receptor language matter, an advisor or a consultant, and committee working
together with specific responsibilities to each one.
The tools refer to written source material which will be used by the translators
as help. These include documents to be translated, any dictionaries, lexicons,
grammars, cultural description, etc. both of source language and receptor language.