Requirements for a theory of translation

Orientation towards different approaches to investigate the process of translation.

Our orientation has to be towards the objective specification of the steps and stages through which the translator works as the source text in the original language is transformed into the target text; a focus on the process which creates the translation rather than on the translation itself.

Translation studies must:

1) be re-oriented towards description, whether of process or product, and away from prescription and

2) the most revealing way of dealing with the product is within the conventions of text-linguistics.

A theory is an explanation of a phenomenon, it exists in the mind, it has no tangible manifestation, it is an idea which constitutes the internal representation of a phenomenon.

A model, in contrast, an external rather than an internal representation of the explanation; a realization of the theory.

Given the ambiguity of the word “translation”, we can envisage three possible theories depending on the focus of the investigation; the process or the product:

1. A theory of translation as process (i. e. theory of translating). This would require a study of information processing and such topic as: a)perception, b) memory, c) the encoding and decoding of messages and would draw heavily on psychology and on psycholinguistics.

2. A theory of translation as product (i. e. theory of translated texts) would require a study of texts not merely by means of the traditional level of linguistic analysis (syntax and semantics) but also making use of stylistics and recent advances in text-linguistics and discourse analysis.

3. A theory of translation as both process and product (i. e. a theory of translation and translating). This would require the integrated study of both. Ideally, a theory must reflect four particular characteristics:

1) empiricism; (it must be testable)

2) determinism; (it must be able to predict)

3) parsimony; (it must be simple)

4) generality; (it must be comprehensive). (Bell, 1985).

Inside or between languages human communication equals translation. A study of translation is a study of language. And we would go along with a programme of work based on the following assumptions and approaches:

Probabalistic models are more adequate and realistic than deterministic ones. Dynamic accounts of structure-building operations will be more productive than static description of the structures themselves. We should work to discover regularities, strategies, motivation, preferences and defaults rather than rules and laws.

Dominances can offer more realistic classifications than can strict categories.

Acceptability and appropriateness are more crucial standards for texts than grammaticality and well-formedness. Human reasoning processes, are more essential to using and conveying knowledge in text than are logical proofs. It is the task of science to systematize the fuzziness (неясність)of its objects of inquiry, not to ignore it or argue it away.

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