TECHNIQUES OF TRANSLATION

Borrowing
Borrowing is the taking of words directly from one language into another without translation. Many
English words are "borrowed" into other languages; for example software in the field of technology
and funk in culture. English also borrows numerous words from other languages; abbatoire, café,
passé and résumé from French; hamburger and kindergarten from German; bandana, musk and
sugar from Sanskrit. Borrowed words are often printed in italics when they are considered to be
"foreign".
Calque A calque or loan translation is a phrase borrowed from another language and translated literally
word-for-word. Some calques can become widely accepted in the target language (such as
standpoint, beer garden and breakfast and Spanish peso mosca and Casa Blanca from English
flyweight and White House). The meaning other calques can be rather obscure for most people,
especially when they relate to specific vocations or subjects such as science and law. An
unsuccessful calque can be extremely unnatural, and can cause unwanted humor, often interpreted as
indicating the lack of expertise of the translator in the target language.
Literal represents word-for-word translation which can be used in some languages and not others dependent
Translation on the sentence structure: El equipo está trabajando para terminar el informe would translate into
English as The team is working to finish the report. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.
For example, the Spanish sentence above could not be translated into French or German using this
technique because the French and German sentence structures are different. And because one
sentence can be translated literally across languages does not mean that all sentences can be
translated literally.
Transposition
This is the process where parts of speech change their sequence when they are translated (blue ball
becomes boule bleue in French). It is in a sense a shift of word class. Transposition is often used
between English and Spanish because of the preferred position of the verb in the sentence: English
often has the verb near the beginning of a sentence; Spanish can have it closer to the end. This
requires that the translator knows that it is possible to replace a word category in the target
language without altering the meaning of the source text, for example: English Hand knitted (noun
+ participle) becomes Spanish Tejido a mano (participle + adverbial phrase).
Modulation Modulation consists of using a phrase that is different in the source and target languages to convey
the same idea: Te lo dejo means literally I leave it to you but translates better as You can have it. It
changes the semantics and shifts the point of view of the source language. Through modulation, the
translator generates a change in the point of view of the message without altering meaning and
without generating a sense of awkwardness in the reader of the target text. To change the point of
view, focus or cognitive category in relation to the ST; it can be lexical or structural, e.g., to
translate you are going to have a child, instead of you are going to be a father.
Equivalence a procedure which 'replicates the same situation as in the original, whilst using completely different
wording'. If this procedure is applied during the translation process, it can maintain the stylistic
impact of the SL text in the TL text. Equivalence is therefore the ideal method when the translator
has to deal with proverbs, idioms, clichés, nominal or adjectival phrases and the onomatopoeia of
animal sounds.
Adaptation Adaptation occurs when something specific to one language culture is expressed in a totally
different way that is familiar or appropriate to another language culture. It is a shift in cultural
environment. Should pincho (a Spanish restaurant menu dish) be translated as kebab in English? It
involves changing the cultural reference when a situation in the source culture does not exist in the
target culture (for example France has Belgian jokes and England has Irish jokes). To replace a ST
cultural element with one from the target culture, e.g., to change baseball, for fútbol in a translation
into Spanish.
Compensation
In general terms compensation can be used when something cannot be translated, and the meaning
that is lost is expressed somewhere else in the translated text. Peter Fawcett defines it as: "...making
good in one part of the text something that could not be translated in another". One example given
by Fawcett is the problem of translating nuances of formality from languages that use forms such as
Spanish informal tú and formal usted, French tu and vous, and German du and sie into English
which only has 'you', and expresses degrees of formality in different ways. To introduce a ST
element of information or stylistic effect in another place in the TT because it cannot be reflected in the
same place as in the ST.
Concentration vs. Concentration expresses a signified from the SL with fewer signifiers in the TL. Dissolution
Dissolution expresses a signified from the SL with more signifiers in the TL, e.g., archery is a dissolution of the
French tir a l’arc.

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Amplification vs. These procedures are similar to concentration and dissolution. Amplification occurs when the TL
Economy uses more signifiers to cover syntactic or lexical gaps. According to Vinay and Darbelnet,
dissolution is a question of langue and adaptation of parole, e.g., He talked himself out of a job and
Il a perdu sa chance pour avoir trop parlé. The opposite procedure is economy, e.g., We’ll price
ourselves out of the market and Nous ne pourrons plus vendre si nous sommes trop exigeants. To
introduce details that are not formulated in the ST: information, explicative paraphrasing, e.g., when
translating from Arabic (to Spanish) to add the Muslim month of fasting to the noun Ramadan. This
includes explicitation, Footnotes are a type of amplification. Amplification is in opposition to
reduction.
Reinforcement vs. These are variations of amplification and economy that are characteristic of French and English, e.g.,
Condensation English prepositions or conjunctions that need to be reinforced in French by a noun or a verb: To the
station and Entrée de la gare; Shall I phone for a cab? and Voulez-vous que je téléphone pour faire venir
une voiture? Mallblanc (1968) changed Vinay and Darbelnet’s reinforcement for over-characterization,
because he found it was more appropriate for the traits of French and German. He pointed out that
German prepositions, such as, in can be translated into French as dans le creux de, dans le fond de, or,
dans le sein de.
Explicitation vs. Explicitation is to introduce information from the ST that is implicit from the context or the situation,
Implicitation e.g., to make explicit the patient’s sex when translating his patient into French. Implicitation is to allow
the situation to indicate information that is explicit in the ST, e.g., the meaning of sortez as go out or
come out depends on the situation.
Generalization vs. Generalization is to translate a term for a more general one, whereas, particularization is the
Particularization opposite, e.g., the English translation of guichet, fenêtre or devanture by window is a generalization.
Inversion This is to move a word or a phrase to another place in a sentence or a paragraph so that it reads
naturally in the target language, e.g., Pack separately … for convenient inspection and Pour faciliter
la visite de la douane mettre à part ….
Addition Addition is to introduce unjustified stylistic elements and information that are not in the ST. Nida
lists different circumstances that might oblige a translator to make an addition: to clarify an elliptic
expression, to avoid ambiguity in the target language, to change a grammatical category, to amplify
implicit elements, to add connectors. To add linguistic elements. This is often used in consecutive
interpreting and dubbing, e.g., to translate the English expression No way into Spanish as De
ninguna de las maneras instead of using an expression with the same number of words, En absoluto.
It is in opposition to linguistic compression.
Subtractions Nida lists four situations where the translator should use this procedure, in addition to when it is
required by the TL: unnecessary repetition, specified references, conjunctions and adverbs.
Paraphrasing is a lexical change that makes the TT longer than the ST but does not change the meaning.
Omission This is to omit redundancy and repetition that is characteristic of the SL, e.g., to translate The
committee has failed to act by La comisión no actuó, omitting the verb to fail and avoiding over-
translation: La comisión dejó de actuar.
Naturalization it comes from transfer and consists of adapting a SL word to the phonetic and morphological norms
of the TL, e.g., the German word Performanz and the English performance.
Description To replace a term or expression with a description of its form or/and function, e.g., to translate the
Italian panettone as traditional Italian cake eaten on New Year’s Eve.
Generalization To use a more general or neutral term, e.g., to translate the French guichet, fenêtre or devanture, as
window in English.
Transcription or copying the sound form of the source language word by means of the target language letters: eau
de cologne – одеколон, hake - хек;
Transliteration or copying the letters of the source language by the target language letters of another system:
London – Лондон, Washington - Вашингтон.
Word-for-word Here the source language word is translated into another language by their most common meanings,
translation which can also be out of context at times, especially in idioms and proverbs.
Literal Here the source language grammatical constructions are translated to their nearest target language.
Translation However the lexical words are translated singly, out of context.
Faithful Here the translation interprets the exact contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of
Translation the grammatical structures of the target language
Semantic Semantic translation refers to that type of translation which takes into account the aesthetic value of
Translation the source language text.
Adaptation Adaptation refers to that type of translation which is used mainly for plays and poems. The text is
rewritten considering the source language culture which is converted to the target language culture
where the characters, themes, plots are usually preserved.
Free Translation This method of translation produces the translated text without the style, form, or content of the
original text.
Idiomatic It translates the message of the original text but tends to distort the original meaning at times by

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Translation preferring colloquialisms and idioms.
Communicative This method displays the exact contextual meaning of the original text in a manner where both
Translation content and language are easily acceptable and comprehensible to the readers.