Translation Strategy

Following Munday’s book on translation studies, a guide to translation strategy.

By Vinay and Darbelnet’s translation model (1995/2004), we operate with two main translation strategies. Direct translation and oblique translation (latin: indirect). Direct translation is described as a literal form of translation, while oblique translation allows the translator to take certain freedoms.

Vinay and Darbelnet’s model breaks down into seven procedures. The procedures are individual elements of translation strategy, of which the three first belong to the direct translation strategy, and the remaining to the oblique translation strategy.

(1) Borrowing

Source text words are transferred directly, or “borrowed”. For example, when sushi is translated sushi, and when computer is translated computer.

(2) Calque

Calque, meaning to copy or to trace, is another type of borrowing, sometimes also called a loan translation. A source text word, or an expression, is translated directly. An example would be the Adam’s apple being calque for the French pomme d’Adam.

(3) Literal translation

This procedure, also known as word-for-word translation, where sentence structure and words match in terms of style, content and intent. This procedure is easier to implement when source text and target text are of similar language families, or are closely related culturally, for example German and English. This procedure is harder, and sometimes impossible, to achieve if the languages and the cultures are very different, for example with Chinese into Dutch. The architects of this translation model, Vinay and Darbelnet, emphasize that when literal translation is not possible, oblique translation must be used.

(4) Transposition

Going into the remaining four oblique translation procedures, transposition covers the notion of “changing one part of speech for another”. For example, changing a noun for a verb, a verb for a noun, an adverb for a verb, et cetera. French dès son lever (upon her rising) may be translated, or transpositioned, into the English sentence as soon as she got up.

The adverb soon in the sentence He will soon be back may be transpositioned into a verb-centric sentence such as He will hurry to be back.

(5) Modulation

Modulation is a change in the semantic point of view. While many literal translations may be able to produce grammatically correct sentences, they will often be unusable anyway if they are unidiomatic or culturally improper in the target language. Modulation ensures that the target text is fitting for the target language and understandable for the intended audience.

An example being the time when, which translated into French could become le moment où (the moment where). Here, the key component of the sentence, when, has been changed into where, because of different preferred structures in English and French.

The sentence it is not difficult to show could become il est facile de démontrer (it is easy to show). The negating feature in the English sentence is lost due to other preferred structures in French.

Vinay and Darbelnet stresses that modulation is a key procedure in most translations, and they describe well executed modulation as the “touchstone of a good translator”.

A common problem when translation from Russian to English are active versus passive constructions. Russian language relies heavily on passive constructions, for example pis’mo napisano Ivanom (The letter was written by Ivan) instead of the more active construct Ivan napisal pis’mo (Ivan wrote the letter). This problem is not limited to Russian, as various languages rely on active and passive constructions to varying degree.

(6) Équivalence (or idiomatic translation)

Vinay and Darbelnet describe équivalence as a phenomena “where languages describe the same situation by different stylistic or structural means.”

The French comme un chien dans un jeu de quilles [like a dog in a game of skittles] could for example translates as like a bull in a china shop. The original image has not been recreated, rather a new one has emerged, but which recreates the same type of situation.

(7) Adaptation

An adaptation is changing a cultural reference because it does not exist in the target culture. Vinay and Darbelnet use the example of changing the reference of a game of cricket into une étape du Tour de France because a French audience may perceive a stronger connection to the cycling event.

Adaptations are in many cases very useful, and often strictly necessary. However, depending on context they can also damage an existing point or argument in the source text. The idea of a sleepy Wednesday morning county match at Lords [a London cricket ground] cannot be altered much reference-wise in other languages, let alone into a reference involving cycling.

(Following Jeremy Munday, 2016)