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When a target language has lacked terms that are found in a source language, translators have borrowed those terms, thereby enriching the target language. Except for some extreme metaphrasers in the early Christian period and the Middle Ages, and adapters in various periods (especially pre-Classical Rome, and the 18th century), translators have generally shown prudent flexibility in seeking equivalents-"literal" where possible, paraphrastic where necessary-for the original meaning and other crucial "values" (e.g., style, verse form, concordance with musical accompaniment or, in films, with speech articulatory movements) as determined from context.
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ĭespite occasional theoretical diversity, the actual practice of translation has hardly changed since antiquity.
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TRANSLATION TESSELLATION PRO
This general formulation of the central concept of translation- equivalence-is as adequate as any that has been proposed since Cicero and Horace, who, in 1st-century-BCE Rome, famously and literally cautioned against translating "word for word" ( verbum pro verbo). he has no privilege to alter features and lineaments."
TRANSLATION TESSELLATION LICENSE
Theories Western theory ĭryden cautioned, however, against the license of "imitation", i.e., of adapted translation: "When a painter copies from the life. Nevertheless, "metaphrase" and "paraphrase" may be useful as ideal concepts that mark the extremes in the spectrum of possible approaches to translation. Strictly speaking, the concept of metaphrase-of "word-for-word translation"-is an imperfect concept, because a given word in a given language often carries more than one meaning and because a similar given meaning may often be represented in a given language by more than one word. "Metaphrase" corresponds, in one of the more recent terminologies, to " formal equivalence" and "paraphrase", to " dynamic equivalence". The Ancient Greek term for "translation", μετάφρασις ( metaphrasis, "a speaking across"), has supplied English with " metaphrase" (a " literal", or "word-for-word", translation)-as contrasted with " paraphrase" ("a saying in other words", from παράφρασις, paraphrasis). The Romance languages, deriving directly from Latin, did not need to calque their equivalent words for "translation" instead, they simply adapted the second of the two alternative Latin words, trāductiō. The West and East Slavic languages (except for Russian) adopted the translātiō pattern, whereas Russian and the South Slavic languages adopted the trāductiō pattern. The remaining Slavic languages instead calqued their words for "translation" from an alternative Latin word, trāductiō, itself derived from trādūcō ("to lead across" or "to bring across")-from trans ("across") + dūcō, ("to lead" or "to bring"). Some Slavic languages and the Germanic languages (other than Dutch and Afrikaans) have calqued their words for the concept of "translation" on translatio, substituting their respective Slavic or Germanic root words for the Latin roots. Thus translatio is "a carrying across" or "a bringing across"-in this case, of a text from one language to another. The English word "translation" derives from the Latin word translatio, which comes from trans, "across" + ferre, "to carry" or "to bring" ( -latio in turn coming from latus, the past participle of ferre). Rosetta Stone, a secular icon for the art of translation More recently, the rise of the Internet has fostered a world-wide market for translation services and has facilitated " language localisation". īecause of the laboriousness of the translation process, since the 1940s efforts have been made, with varying degrees of success, to automate translation or to mechanically aid the human translator. Translators, including early translators of sacred texts, have helped shape the very languages into which they have translated. On the other hand, such "spill-overs" have sometimes imported useful source-language calques and loanwords that have enriched target languages. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between translating (a written text) and interpreting (oral or signed communication between users of different languages) under this distinction, translation can begin only after the appearance of writing within a language community.Ī translator always risks inadvertently introducing source-language words, grammar, or syntax into the target-language rendering.
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Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Third and fourth squares show the finished translation being brought to, and then presented to, the King. First square shows his ordering the translation second square, the translation being made. King Charles V the Wise commissions a translation of Aristotle.
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