Tuesday 5 January 2010

Myth #2: There are two types of translation

Myth #2: Translation can be easily split into two or three “kinds” or philosophies

After the myth that translation is all about words, the second most commonly heard translation myth is that it can be divided into two or three simple “philosophies” or “types.” Whether these types are called “free and literal” or “formal and functional equivalence” or “domestication and foreignisation,” the whole argument eventually leads to the same place.The end result is that people assume that translators have to choose between sticking to the words of the original or trying to express its ideas, with one side or the other always being seen as better.

The truth is that translation is far too complicated to be reduced to a small number of types. As Bible translators will tell you, differences between languages make it impossible to write an entirely literal translation of anything without committing massive grammatical faults. Similarly, as legal translators might tell you, it is often dangerous to completely forget about the wording of the original as writers always pick certain phrasings for certain reasons. There is therefore no such thing as a literal translation and almost no such thing as a free translation.

In an attempt to allow for this fact, some translation theorists have come up with the idea of “dynamic equivalence” to describe a translation which attempts to find a balance between the two opposite ways of translating. Yet even this is flawed. After all, to a great extent, all translations must use “dynamic equivalence” for the reasons we have already seen.

Now, I do believe that these attempts to simplify translation into a small number of types were done for a good reason. In a world where translations are seen as products, people want to know what kind of product they are buying. They might want to know about the relationship between the translation and the original. They might be interested to know how easy to read the translation will be. They might want to find out how they can use the translation.

The problem is that by splitting translation into types, we could be guilty of false advertising. What would happen if people bought a “literal” translation only to find it wasn’t always literal? What if someone ordered a “functional equivalent” translation only to find out that, horror of horrors, the translator stayed close to the original phrasing in places?

If we are to be honest with the people who buy and read translations, we really have to throw out such over-simplistic terms and try to start again. Maybe the best way to explain the product is to think like advertisers and describe its purpose. Maybe, rather than trying to divide translation into neat categories, we need to spend more time listening to the people who ask for the translations in the first place and trying to give them the “product” they want that can do the things they want it to do. That way we can never be guilty of false advertising and we get to keep people happy at the same time. It’s simple really.

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