Translation is the communication of meaning from one

language (the source) to another language (the target).

Translation refers to written information, whereas
interpretation refers to spoken information.

Source language (SL) → Target Language (TL)

Source text (ST) → Target Text (TT)

Levels of translation (P. Newmark)
(1)the SL text level, the level of language;
(2)the referential level, the level of
meaning;
(3)the cohesive level
(4) the level of naturalness.
The process of translation may be represented as
consisting of three stages:
1. analysis of the ST, situation and background
information;
2. synthesis of the translation model;
3. verification of the model against the source and
target context (semantic, grammatical, stylistic),
situation and background information resulting in
the generation of the final TT.
"At the first stage the chips На першому етапі стружку
are put on the conveyer" (щебінь) (смажену
картоплю) (нарізану
сиру картоплю) (чіпи)
кладуть на конвеєр".

"At the first stage the chips "На першому етапі

are put on the conveyer. нарізану сиру картоплю
Then they are transferred to кладуть на
the frying oven" конвеєр".
 TRANSLATION STRATEGIES:
• FOREIGNIZATION: Preservation of culture-
specific elements of the original text, adaptation
of the translation to the original.
• DOMESTICATION: adaptation of the original to
the recipient culture; replacing foreign elements
with nationally specific elements.
• COMPROMISING STRATEGY: balancing between
domestication and foreignization in each
specific situation.
 A transformational approach to
translation
Translation is performed by means of translation
transformations:
- grammatical;
- lexical;
- stylistic.
 Grammatical transformations:
• Transposition (the change of the ST sequence of
elements): country music → музика кантрі
• Substitution (the change of the grammatical category to
which the source language unit belongs): we should have
broken ten minutes before → ми мали зробити перерву
ще 10 хвилин тому
• Omission (some structural elements can be regarded
redundant from the TL grammatical or stylystic
perspective): I left the bar and went out where the
telephones were → Отож я оплатив рахунок і пішов з
бару до телефонних будок
• Addition (new elements non-existent in the
original appear in the TT): The new American
Secretary of State has proposed a conference on
food supplies → Новий державний секретар
США запропонував скликати конференцію з
питань продовольчих ресурсів
• Partition (converting a SL sentence into two or
more in the TT).
• Integration (joining-up of 2 or more sentences
of the ST into a single syntactical structure in the
TT.
 Lexical transformations
1) Lexical substitution
• Specification (substituting words with a wider meaning with
words of a narrower meaning): I was in his office for about two
hours, I guess → Гадаю, я просидів у нього в кабінеті дві
години.
• Generalization (substituting words of a narrower meaning with
those of a wider meaning): Then this girl gets killed, because
she's always speeding → А потім ця дівчина гине, тому що
вона постійно порушує правила.
• Modulation (a logical development of the notion expressed by
the word): But outside it was raining →  Але надворі падав
дощ. 
• Compensation (a deliberate introduction of some additional element in the
target text to make up for the loss of a similar element in the source text): You
could tell he was very ashamed of his parents and all, because they said 'he
don't' and 'she don't' and stuff like that... → Зразу було видно, що він
соромиться своїх родичів, тому що вони говорили "нима" і "отуво" і
всяке таке.
• Antonymic translation (sentences in the affirmative are changed into the
negative or vice versa): I'm not kidding Я вам серйозно кажу.  They gave me
the wrong book, and I didn't notice it till I got back to my room → Я тільки
вдома помітив, що мені дали цю книгу.  
• Loan translation (a form of borrowing where a word or phrase is transferred
from one language into another by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root
translation): кандидат наук  → Candidate of Science, skyscraper →
хмарочос, self-cooling → самоохолодження.
• Descriptive Translation (translation by means of explication: The
candidate won by a landslide Кандидат переміг з великим відривом): борщ
→  beetroot soup, out of the blue → раптом, зненацька, with flying colours –
успішно, тріумфально etc.
• Transliteration (representing written characters of one
language by the characters of another language): Good
Smeagol comes → Добрий Смеаґол прийшов.
• Transcription (an interlinguistic operation as it deals
with two languages: the sounds of the source
language word are rendered by the letters of the
target language): “I’ll give you Sharkey, you dirty
thieving ruffians!” says she, and ups with her umbrella
and goes for the leader, near twice her size → «Я вам
покажу Шаркі, ви, злодюги паршиві!» ‒ закричала
вона і з парасолькою поперла на них, просто на
ватажка, а він удвічі вищий за неї
 A denotative approach to
translation
• the translator reads (hears) a message in the SL;
• the translator finds a denotatum (an actually
existing object referred to by a word, sign, or
linguistic expression) and a concept that
correspond to this message;
• the translator formulates a message in the TL
relevant to the above denotatum and concept.
The communicational theory of translation (O. Kade)

Thesaurus:
• language thesaurus (language thesaurus is a system of our
knowledge about the language which we use to formulate a
message)
• subject thesaurus (subject thesaurus is a system of our knowledge
about the content of the message).
The translator has two language thesauruses (source and target one)
and performs two functions: decodes the source message and
encodes the target one to be received by the recipient (end user of the
translation).
Translation is 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.
Several new schools 1) У районі з’явились
appeared in the area. нові косяки риби.
2) У районі з’явились
нові школи.
Translation Type ↔ Translation Method
Oral Consecutive Denotative,
Communicational

Oral Simultaneous Transformational,

Communicational

Written (general & Transformational

technical)

Written (fiction & Denotative

poetry)
 TYPES OF TRANSLATION:
general translation; literary translation

administrative translation; certified translation

commercial/business translation media translation

technical translation software localization

scientific translation; multimedia localization

financial translation; website localization

legal translation;

judicial translation;
 Translation equivalence
Equivalence is a similarity of meaning observed in
the units of different languages and used for
translation. The units of the target language with
meanings similar to the relevant units of the source
language are called translation equivalents.
Full Translation Equivalents (complete coincidence
of pragmatic meanings of the source and target
language units): гідроген ↔ hydrogen,  ссавець ↔
mammal, екватор ↔  equator
Partial equivalence: the absence of one or more
of equivalence aspects, i.e. of syntactic, semantic
or pragmatic aspect
carry coal to Newcastle возити вугілля до
Ньюкасла

measure twice, cut once сім разів

одміряй, один раз відріж
 Types of equivalence (E. Nida)
• Formal equivalence ― fidelity to the lexical details and
grammatical structure of the original language, word-for-word
translation.
• Dynamic equivalence ― “the quality of a translation in which the
message of the original text has been so transported into the
receptor language that the response of the receptor is essentially
like that of the original receptors." The desire is that the reader of
both languages would understand the meanings of the text in a
similar fashion.
• Functional equivalence focuses on the concept of function. The
reader of a translated text should be able to comprehend it to the
point that they can conceive of how the original readers of the
text must have understood and appreciated it. That is to say the
effect of the text on readers in different cultures should be the
same.
The Skopos Theory (H. Vermeer, Ch. Nord, K. Reiss)

Three guiding rules in the Skopos theory: skopos rule,

coherence rule & fidelity rule.
• Skopos rule: translation strategies are determined by the
Skopos (the purpose) of the target text.
• Coherence rule: translators should produce a text that is
likely to be meaningful to the receiver of the target culture.
• Fidelity Rule (the faithfulness of the target text to the
source text): the translation should be a representation of
the source text at least in one of the aspects of content,
form or effect.
Factors influencing the choice of equivalents

• context:
 immediate
 general
 extralinguistic
• background information
 Translation of Non-Equivalents
• by borrowings: the borrowed words may be either
transliterated or transcribed, e.g. ale → ель, roastbeef →
ростбіф, sweater → светр (transliterated borrowings).
Parliament → парламент, speaker → спікер, know-how
→ ноу-хау.
• by translation loans: House of Commons – Палата
Общин
• by descriptive translation: landslide → перемога на
виборах з великим відривом; a conservationist
(environmentalist) – людина, яка переймається
забрудненням чи знищенням навколишнього
середовища