A TRANSLATION always represents an original text (or “Source Text”, or “text of Departure”); in this, it involves a certain degree of equivalence, although the concept of strict equivalence between the languages is now exceeded in Translation Studies. The concept of translation refitting since long on dichotomies such as “fidelity” versus “freedom”, “fidelity to the letter” versus “fidelity to the Spirit”, etc.
The translation takes account of a number of parameters (context, grammar, etc.), in order to make it understandable to people with no knowledge of the source language and not having the same culture or the same knowledge2. Translate involves controlling the source language but also the target language (or recipient), which is usually the mother tongue. The good translator has more than language skills: it must be able to analyze the text, and himself to possess the qualities of writing. To translate the texts scientific and technical, it must also possess a strong technical knowledge and master the jargon in the two languages.
The translation is still essentially human, but of computer tools of automatic translation appear (computer-assisted translation).
The discipline that is interested in the translation is called the translation process.
Role of the translation and languages in the circulation of ideas and information
In space and in time, the intensity of the intercultural communication and exchanges exogamous depends in large part on the quantity and quality of information translated from one language to the other, but history has shown that the movement and the “notoriety” of ideas are not to be confused quantitatively with the more widely spoken languages. In particular, the number of speakers of a language spoken is not a good predictor of the ability of a message created in this language (or circulating in this language) to then be translated and to circulate in the world; according to the linguist David Crystal,” which explains that a language becomes a global language has little to do with the number of people who speak, but much more with “who” these speakers speak “. The network of bilingual speakers and translators6 therefore has a great importance from this point of view.
Since the nineteenth century and with the globalization and the regulation of “intellectual property right” and translation, a number of languages and cultures are more or less well “translated”, or even go off more quickly than previously or are already dead or forgotten (a dead language like Latin may continue to be translated).
Some authors describe the emergence of a new Network and Global System of languages, where English plays a role become preponderant and central. The hegemony culturo-linguistics of the English could however be little by little contained by the improvement and the generalization of the automatic translation software on the Internet and by the novel approach wikimédienne which encourages and facilitates “Translations and exchanges inter-linguistic in Wikipedia and its projects-brothers (in 287 languages as possible at the end of 2013, whose languages say “dead” and Esperanto, with several major projects Bilateral language).
Analyze the relative situation of the languages of the world is long remained impossible due to a lack of relevant data, note Mark Davis (Chairman and co-founder of the Unicode Consortium that produces standards for the encoding of characters for all computers and mobile interfaces of the planet using the writing), while the one senses yet the importance of the structure of this network; it is long remained impossible to study quantitatively the structure of the global network of exchanges between languages but this becomes more easy thanks to the constitution of large open databases of “sites” of global trade such as Wikipedia or Twitter and while it knows better and better the proportion of languages spoken on the Internet.
In 2014, an international team American-French has used the science of networks to create the maps to visualize how information and ideas are circulating in the world (according to the language of the original message, according to the average GDP of the countries where the language is spoken15), depending on the language of the first translations and those who will convey the information or according to the Medium (book, Wikipedia, Twitter). To compile this “Map” These researchers have studied on the one hand the data available on the Literary Translation (based on 2.2 million translations of books published in more than 1000 languages) and on the other hand the two major global networks of exchanges by the language11,16 that are:
The tweets bilingual (from the study of 550 million tweets, 17 million users in 73 languages, selected for the study), which has been possible thanks to the open database and because it allows you to associate a tweet to a language and the person who Tweet to one or several communities linguisitiques; of different language versions of Wikipedia pages (without taking into account the work of the robots in Wikipedia), including the database is open (DBPedia)
The analysis of these data shows that:
There is an important prioritization of languages of “interfacage” in this network, with nuances according the media studied.
Without surprise, English is the most important and effective in terms of interface between other languages to disseminate an idea or information in the world (it is in the network mapped the hub the more central). Secondarily, particularly in
Methods of translation vs techniques of translation
What a difference there is between a method and a technique of translation? Well, it is very simple: the method of translation concerns the whole of the text to be translated, while the technique of translation will vary on a case by case basis in the interior of the same text, in function of the verbal elements ad hoc basis to translate. The classical taxonomy of processes of translation goes back to the year 1958, and that is to J.-P. Vinay and J. Darbelnet that it must. It has seven categories:
1. The Borrowing
Borrowing is a translation process to use a word or expression in the source text in the target text. The loan note generally in italics. It is in fact to reproduce such what an expression of the original text. In this sense, it is a technique of translation that does not translate…
Example: The gaucho was wearing a sombrero black and a bombacha worn by the time.
2. The layer
When a translator uses the lexical layer, it creates or uses a neologism in the target language by adopting the structure of the source language.
Example: the German handball translated to Spanish handball, or English skyscraper translated into French skyscrapers.
3. The literal translation
is what is conventionally called the Translation métaphrastique, or métaphrase. It is a translation word-for-word leading to a text in the target language, both correct and idiomatic. According Vinay and Darbelnet, the literal translation is only possible between languages for the benefit of a large cultural proximity. It is acceptable only if the translated text keeps the same syntax, the same meaning and the same style as the original text.
Example: What time is it? ⇒ What time is it?
4. The transposition
transposition is to move from a grammatical category to another without that for as much the meaning of the text does not change. This technique introduced a change of grammatical structure.
Example: The President thinks that ⇒ according to the President
5. The Modulation
Modulation is to change the shape of the text by a modification semantics or perspective.
Example: Tal vez tengas razón ⇒ hast thou not perhaps not wrong.
6. Equivalence
The equivalence is a translation process by which a reality equivalent is rendered by an expression entirely different. This technique can be used to translate the names of institutions, the interjections, expressions, all made or proverbs.
Example: once bitten, twice shy ⇒ él that se quemó con leche ve the vaca y llora.
7. The Adaptation
Adaptation, also called cultural substitution or cultural equivalent, is to replace a cultural element of the original text by another, more suited to the culture of the target language. This will make the text more familiar and understandable.
Example: baseball ⇒ football
from the 1960s, different authors (Michel Ballard, Hélène Chuquet, Michel Paillard, etc.) have reported other translation procedures such as the explication (on provides clarifications in the text of the target language), the collocation (the use of a suite of words usually used together in the target language) and the compensation (do not make a reference or a connotation in a part of the text and compensate in making it appear later).