subject: Defining Translation In India [print this page] Viewing translation as a transaction between two languages, the dominant linguistic paradigm has treated it merely
as a matter of grammatical and lexical transfer form the source language to the target language.
The work of Jakobson, Catford, Nida and Newmark exemplify, with minor variations, this approach to translation.
Drawing from the Firthian model of functional theory and Hallidays rank-scale grammar, Catford (A Linguistic
Theory of Translation, 1965) defines translation as the replacement of textual material in one language by
equivalent textual material in another language.
Catfords model is disappointing in that it does not move beyond the sentence to incorporate the text as a unit of
meaning. Newmark (Approaches to Translation, 1981) offers a more inclusive model which takes in the contextual
factors.
Nidas (Towards a Science of Translation, 1964) concept of dynamic equivalence is a further refinement of the
notion of equivalence within the linguistic framework.
By focusing the translation process on the target readership, which differs from the source language readership in
culture and history, Nida makes us see how translation is a process of adapting the source text to a different
social group.
Jakobson (On Linguistiv Aspects of Translation, 1966) offers a framework of three kinds of translation -
interlingual, intralingula and intersemiotic, which is useful.
In a move to overcome the limitations of these approached based on merely word and phrase level taxonomies,
linguists such as Hatim and Mason, Bell and Baker have broadened the scope to the text linguistic level of
register analysis, discourse analysis and pragmatics which includes a consideration of speech acts, Gricean
principles, and language and text functions.
Translation is not one thing. Like the elephant in the story of The Six Bling Men and the Elephant, it has meant
different things to different people, at different times, in different cultures and histories.
