Basic translation theories

2.1. transformational approach

The transformational theories consist of many varieties which may have different names but they all have one common feature: the process of translation is regarded as transformation.

According to the transformationalapproach translation is viewed as the transformation of objects and structures of the source language into those of the target.

Within the group of theories which we include in the transformationalapproach a dividing line is sometimes drawn between transformations and equivalences.

According to this interpretation a transformation starts at the syntactic level when there is a change, i.e. when we alter, say, the word order during translation. Substitutions at other levels are regarded as equivalences, for instance, when we substitute words of the target language for those of the source, this is considered as equivalence.

In the transformationalapproach we shall distinguish three levels of substitutions: morphologicalequivalences, lexicalequivalences, and syntacticequivalences and/or transformations.

In the process of translation:

· at the morphological level morphemes (both word-building and word-changing) of the source language are substituted for those of the target;

· at lexical level words and word combinations of the source language are substituted for those of the target;

· at the syntactic level syntactic structures of the source language are substituted for those of the target.

For example, in the process of translation, the English word room is transformed into Ukrainian words кімната or простір.

The syntactic transformations in translation comprise a broad range of structural changes in the target text, starting from the reversal of the word order in a sentence and finishing with division of the source sentence into two and more target ones.

The most common example of structural equivalences at the syntactic level is that of some Verb Tense patterns. Real translation transformations are complex and often at different levels of languages. This kind of transformation is especially frequent when translation involves an analytical and a synthetic language, e.g. English and Ukrainian.

Thus, according to thetransformational approachtranslation is a set of multi-level replacements of a text in one language by a text in another, governed by specific transformation rules.

2.2. denotative approach

Language thesaurus is a system of our knowledge about the language which we use to formulate a message, whereas subject thesaurus is a system of our knowledge about the content of the message.

Thus, in order to communicate, the message sender formulates the mental content of his or her message using subject thesaurus, encodes it using the verbal forms of language thesaurus, and conveys it to the message recipient, who decodes the message also using language thesaurus and interprets the message using subject thesaurus as well. This is a simple description of monolingual communication.

It is very important to understand that the thesauruses of message sender and recipient may be different to a greater or lesser degree, and that is why we sometimes do not understand each other even when we think we are speaking one and the same language.

So, in regular communication there are two actors, sender and recipient, and each of them uses two thesauruses.

In special bilingual communication (i.e. translation), we have three actors: sender, recipient, and intermediary (translator). The translator has two language thesauruses (source and target one) and perform two functions: decodes the source message and encodes the target one to be received by the recipient.

O.Kade’s communicational theory of translation describes the process of translation as an act of special bilingual communication in which the translator acts as a special communication intermediary, making it possible to understand a message sent in a different language.

One may note that the communicational approach pays special attention to the aspects of translation relating to the act of communication, whereas the translation process as such remains unspecified, and one may only presume that it proceeds, either by a transformational or denotative path.

However, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the communicational aspect in the success of translation.

To understand this better let us consider an example of message formulation (encoding), message translation (encoding/decoding), and message receipt (decoding).

Let the original message expressed by a native speaker of English (encoded using the English language as a code to convey the mental content of the message) be:

Several new schools appeared in the area.

Let us assume then that the message sender, being a fisherman and using relevant subject thesaurus, by schools meant large number of fish swimming together rather than institutions for educating children, and the correct translation then had to be:

У районі з’явились нові косяки риби

whereas the translator who presumably did not have relevant information in his subject thesaurus translated schools as institutions for educating children:

У районі з’явились нові школи,

which naturally lead to misunderstanding (miscommunication).

The above example shows a case of miscommunication based on the insufficiency of extralinguistic information. However, there are also cases of miscommunication caused by the insufficiency of linguistic information. The example clearly illustrates a dividing line between linguistic and extralinguistic information in translation as visualized by the communicational approach to translation.

Thus, the communicational approach to translation, though saying little about translation as such, highlights a very important aspect of translation.

According to communicational approach translation is a message sent by a translator to a particular user and the adequacy of translation depends on similarity of their background information rather than only on linguistic correctness.