1.
1 The notion of translation
One of the crucial aspects of understanding theoretical background of translation studies
is the definition of translation itself and distinction between different types of
translations. However, because of particular focus of the present M.A which is
challenges in lyrics translation on the example of chosen Led Zeppelin songs, only
written translation, also referred as interpreting or interpretation will be taken into
account to a greater extent, rather than oral translation.
As discussed in Munday (2001), the English term “translation” emerged,
approximately in 1340 and has its root in Latin “translatio” which actually means
transporting. Nevertheless, today the term “translating”, the process of translation
implies completely different meaning. Having two different written texts in their own
verbal languages, the former (the source text or ST) in the original verbal language (the
source language or SL) is accordingly changed into the latter written text (the targed
text or TT) in its verbal language (the target language or TT). Hence, when translating
an article from Polish into English, the ST would be Polish and TT would be English.
What is more, as has been noted in Munday (2001), this particular configuration of
translation from source text into target text is the most prototypical of so-called
“interlingual translation” which was one of different types of translations founded by
Russian-American linguist Roman Jakobson. Different types of translation will be
discussed later in this chapter.
Since the late 1970s, which is the very beginning when translation studies
emerged as a new academic discipline, a considerable amount of literature, publications,
introductory texts has been published on this field. A good example can be Susan
Bassnett's Translation Studies or Jeremy Munday’s Introducing Translation Studies that
is essential introduction to this new subject. Thus, it can be understood that the notion of
translation has been well-understood among researches and scholars thorough the years.
It has been noticed in Jakobson (1959) that the first important point in
understanding the process of translating is the fact that translation has its place in
linguistic interdiscipline called semiotic, which has been founded by Ferdinand de
Saussure in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Semiotic is concerned with the life of
signs and its various behaviours and subsystems. Hence, it has been said that in fact, the
process of translation transfers a meaning of a word encoded in set of signs into
different set of sings with the use of language systems such as grammar. Moreover, it is
implied that beside language, there is a greater number of different sign systems.
Furthermore, Roman Jakobson (1959) in his essay has presented excellent
example that presents connotation between translation and semiotic. Jakobson
contradicted Bertrand Russel’s argument that “no one can understand the word ‘cheese’
unless he has non-linguistic acquaintance with cheese”. In other words the word cheese
itself as a sign, as a lexical item will not be understood unless one knows what cheese is
in real world. However, Jakobson (1959) argued that even if one does not have
acquaintance with an object, it is still possible to understand its meaning signified by a
word. People can understand a word even without the necessity to first see its reference.
It was also presented by the example of the word “ambrosia”. Even if no one has
smelled, seen or tasted ambrosia, the word is still possible to understand.
Having established this fact, Jakobson (1959) proceeds to introduce three
different types of translation:
(1) Intralingual translation (rewording)
(2) Interlingual translation (translation proper)
(3) Intersemiotic translation (transmutation)
Accordingly, the translation (1) is concerned with interpretation of verbal signs by
means of other signs in the same language. This specific type of translation of a word or
phrase uses another, equivalent word which can be more or less synonymous. However,
it has been noticed that the equivalent word cannot be complete synonymous of the
former word. Roman Jakobson (1959) presented accurate example of this reasoning by
the sentence: “every celibate is a bachelor but not every bachelor is a celibate”.
With reference to the inner structure of this sentence, it can be briefly systematized into
so-called code-units. In order to translate this sentence it is necessary to interpret it with
the use of similar combination of code-units, in other words, it is a message that
possibly refers to the particular code-unit. It can be illustrated by following example:
“every bachelor is an unmarried man, an every unmarried man is bachelor”.
2
Translation (2) is concerned with an interpretation of verbal signs by means of
some other language. In fact, it is a process of translation from source language (SL)
into target language (TL) and it is the main type of translation that will be discussed
thoroughly in the next chapters. Similarly, with regards to this type of translation, there
are no completely equivalent code-units that can be translated. It is only possible to use
adequate interpretations of particular units. Even apparent synonymy such as “ugly” and
“unattractive” do not yield complete equivalence because these units contain different
connotations and associations within themselves. Thus, Bassnett (1994) pinpoints
Jakobson’s conclusion that it is technically impossible to translate poems because
complete equivalence cannot take place in any of his categories.
translation (3) is interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal
sign system (Jakobson 1959: 233). This type of translation occurs when a text is
translated into different mode. For instance: painting, music, or movie.
1.2 Skopos Theory
Skopos theory is a translation studies theory introduced by Hans J. Vermeer in the
1970s. In Greek, the word Skopos means “aim” or “purpose”, therefore it can be easily
concluded that this theory is concerned with the purpose of translating a text and also
with the purpose of action.
The foundation of the skopos are following underlying rules:
(1) A translational action is determined by its skopos;
In other words, the target text is determined by its skopos. This is the most important
rule of the skopos theory..
(2) It is an offer of information in a target culture and TL.
concerning an offer of information in a source culture and SL.
It means that source text and target text are accordingly related to their function in their
linguistic and also cultutar context.
(3) A TT does not initiate an offer of information in a clearly reversible way.
It can be explained that there is significant difference between the function of the target
text’s and source text’s culture.
3
(4) A TT must be internally coherent.
(5) A TT must be coherent with the ST.
It should be noted that the rules (4) and (5) are concerned with general skopos theory
rules. It means that possibility of the action and also transfer of the information depends
on the so called functional adequacy, which consists of the coherency rule and the
fidelity rule.
First of all, it has been stated that the coherency rule is concerned with target text
receiver’s context, for instance: circumstance or knowledge
(6) The five rules above stand in hierarchical order, with the skopos rule
predominating.
