Word for word and sense for sense

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Sense-for-sense translation is the oldest norm for translating. It fundamentally means translating the meaning of each whole sentence before moving on to the next, and stands in normative opposition to word-for-word translation (also known as literal translation).

History[edit]

Jerome, a Roman Catholic priest, theologian, and historian coined the term «sense-for-sense» when he developed this translation method when was tasked by Pope Damasus to review the existing translations of the Gospel and produce a more reliable Latin version.^[1] He described this method in his «Letter to Pammachius», where he said that, «except of course in the case of Holy Scripture, where even the syntax contains a mystery,» he translates non verbum e verbo sed sensum de sensu: not word for word but sense for sense.^[2] He adopted a framework that corrected the mistakes of previous translators as well as the alterations of critical scholars and the errors made by careless copyists^[3] by collecting the oldest Greek manuscripts, which he compared with the Old Latin versions, and translated the scripture into a version that is close as possible to the original meaning.^[3]

Jerome did not invent the concept of sense-for-sense translation. It is believed that it was first proposed by Cicero in De optimo genere oratorum («The Best Kind of Orator»). In this text, he said that in translating from Greek to Latin, «I did not think I ought to count them out to the reader like coins, but to pay them by weight, as it were.»^[4] Cicero did not mention sense-for-sense in his works but it is considered to be a type of «segmental» theory, which is attributed to him and Horace. This translation approach is based on segmentation, which considers the how long a segment (word, phrase, or sentence) is before moving on to the next.^[5]

Jerome was not the originator of the term «word-for-word» either. It has possibly also been borrowed from Cicero as well, or possibly from Horace, who warned the writer interested in retelling ancient tales in an original way Nec verbo verbum curabit reddere / fidus interpretes: «not to try to render them word for word [like some] faithful translator.»^[6]

Some have read that passage in Horace differently. Boethius in 510 CE and Johannes Scotus Eriugena in the mid-9th century read it to mean that translating literally is «the fault/blame of the faithful interpreter/translator,» and fear that they have incurred it.^[7] Burgundio of Pisa in the 1170s and Sir Richard Sherburne in 1702 recognize that Horace is advising not translators but original writers, but still assume that he is calling all translation literal.^[7] Finally, John Denham in 1656 and André Lefevere in 1992 take Horace to be warning translators against translating literally.^[7]

Similar concepts[edit]

Paraphrase[edit]

In John Dryden’s 1680 preface to his translation of Ovid’s Epistles, he proposed dividing translation into three parts called: metaphrase, paraphrase and imitation.^[8] Metaphrase is word-for-word and line by line translation from one language into another.^[9] Paraphrase is sense-for-sense translation where the message of the author is kept but the words are not so strictly followed as the sense, which too can be altered or amplified.^[10] Imitation is the use of either metaphrase or paraphrase but the translator has the liberty to choose which is appropriate and how the message will be conveyed.^[11]

Leaving the reader in peace[edit]

In 1813, during his “Über die Verschiedenen Methoden des Übersetzens” lecture,^[12] Friedrich Schleiermacher proposed the idea where “[E]ither the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as possible, and moves the reader towards him, or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and he moves the author towards him”.^[13]

Dynamic equivalence[edit]

In 1964,^{[citation needed]} Eugene Nida described translation as having two different types of equivalence: formal and dynamic equivalence.^[14] Formal equivalence is when there is focus on the message itself (in both form and content);^[15] the message in the target language should match the message in the source language as closely as possible.^[16] In dynamic equivalence, there is less concern with matching the message in the target language with the message in the source language;^[17] the goal is to produce the same relationship between target text and target audience as there was with the original source text and its audience.^[18]

Communicative translation[edit]

In 1981, Peter Newmark referred to translation as either semantic (word-for-word) or communicative (sense-for-sense).^[19] He stated that semantic translation is one that is source language bias, literal and faithful to the source text and communicative translation is target language bias, free and idiomatic.^[20] A semantic translation’s goal is to stay as close as possible to the semantic and syntactic structures of the source language, allowing the exact contextual meaning of the original.^[21] A communicative translation’s goal is to produce an effect on the readers as close as possible to that as produced upon the readers of the original.^[22]

Idiomatic translation[edit]

In addition to these concepts, in 1990, Brian Mossop presented his concept of idiomatic and unidiomatic translation.^[23] Idiomatic translation is when the message of the source text is conveyed the way a target language writer would convey it, rather than staying to the way in which it was conveyed in the source text.^[24] Unidiomatic translation is innovative and translates individual words.^[25]

Domesticated translation[edit]

In 1994, also in modern translation studies, Lawrence Venuti introduced the concepts of domestication and foreignization, which are based on concepts from Friedrich Schleiermacher’s 1813 lecture.^[26] Domestication is the adaption of culture-specific terms or cultural context, where as foreignization is the preservation of the original cultural context of the source text (in terms of settings, names, etc.).^[26]

Venuti also described domestication as being fluent and transparent strategies that result in acculturation,^[26] where “a cultural other is domesticated, made intelligible”.^[27] Schleiermacher’s distinction between «bringing the author to the reader» (domestication) and «taking the reader to the author»^[28] (foreignization), dealt with a social concern and Venuti’s distinction between domestication and foreignization deals with ethical principles.^[26]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Gentzler, Edwin (2001). Contemporary Translation Theories. 2nd Ed. London and New York: Routledge.
• Lefevere, André. (1992). Translation/History/Culture: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge.
• Newmark, Peter. (1988). A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall.
• Nida, Eugene A., and Charles R. Taber. (1969). The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: Brill.
• Robinson, Douglas. (2001). Who Translates? Translator Subjectivities Beyond Reason. Albany: SUNY Press.
• Robinson, Douglas, ed. (2002). Western Translation Theory From Herodotus to Nietzsche. Manchester: St. Jerome.
• Steiner, T.R. (1975). English Translation Theory, 1650–1800. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
• Venuti, Lawrence. (1995). The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London and New York: Routledge (Read full version here)

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ABSTRACT For all human beings, a crucial function of language is to draw attention to things in the world. Like most languages, Vietnamese has its set of ‘pointing words’ that fulfil this function, including này ‘this’, đây ‘this/here’ and đấy, đó, kia ‘that/there’, ấy ‘that’, and nọ ‘that’. Though the meaning of these seven words has expanded and changed over time, all of them originally served to orient the hearer’s attention to something proximal or distal to the speaker’s location. These words are termed demonstratives in English or chỉ định từ in Vietnamese. Chỉ định từ currently play a wide range of syntactic and semantic roles. They can occur as the determiner in a noun phrase (nhà này ‘this house’, nhà ấy/kia/nọ ‘that house’) or appear on their own as either pronominals (đây/đấy, đó, kia là nhà tôi ‘this/that is my house’) or as locative adverbs (lại đây ‘come here’, đến đấy/đó/kia ‘go there’). In the appropriate syntactic environments, these terms allow the speaker to ‘point’ not only to specific objects but also to abstract, invisible concepts that are present, distant, remembered or imagined. Despite the wide range of uses of chỉ định từ, an exhaustive analysis of their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic functions has previously been lacking in Vietnamese. Even a cursory analysis of the seven Vietnamese demonstratives reveals that each has not just one meaning or sense, but rather a complex network of related senses, or polysemy network. For example, the demonstrative ấy has thirteen different senses, including the function of indicating the position of a referent in space (a spatial sense), preceding discourse (an anaphoric sense) or in the memory of the speaker and/or hearer (as in recognitional, presentational, place holder, or avoidance usages). In addition, ấy has extended senses indicating person deixis, discourse cohesion, modality and interjective usages. Unquestionably, the form ấy has a wide variety of uses in Vietnamese. Is it coincidence that these uses share the same form ấy? If that were the case, the uses of ấy would be unconnected homonymous meanings. Or are these uses somehow related? If so, then the uses of ấy are polysemous senses, and it should be possible to trace how each sense evolved from another, ultimately tracking the evolution of the polysemy network back to a single ancestral sense. This study analyses the form and function of chỉ định từ as found in a range of written texts, and finds that the various functions of Vietnamese demonstratives are related. The extensions responsible for the current range of demonstrative functions follow recognised paths of metaphoric and metonymic change, so that these changes can be reconstructed from synchronic data even in the absence of direct historical evidence. Although all of the seven demonstratives are argued to be polysemous as the result of semantic extensions, each demonstrative has followed its own path of change and no two demonstratives have identical polysemy networks. These differences are due both to the individual semantics of the different demonstratives, and to the stage of change that each demonstrative has reached. The demonstrative nọ may be the best illustration of this second factor, the stage of development of a demonstrative. The demonstrative nọ once had a spatial sense referring to a distant referent, which is argued to be its oldest and most basic sense. This spatial sense extended to a range of other senses, but over time, the spatial sense itself was lost. The demonstrative nọ is the only one in the system currently lacking any spatial function, though its later, extended senses remain. A logical explanation of the present-day senses of nọ can only be achieved through a reconstructed connection with its now-defunct basic meaning. The polysemy structures of chỉ định từ can only be fully understood via the reconstruction of their earlier senses and the extensions these senses underwent. Without the reconstructed spatial sense of nọ, for example, the demonstrative’s polysemy network looks like a scattered system of unrelated senses, rather than a tidy network of senses related by recognised regular semantic changes. The current study, then, is intended to contribute to the field of linguistics in two ways. First, the study provides an in-depth documentation and analysis of the Vietnamese demonstrative system, which has previously been lacking. This comprehensive documentation and analysis could be used as a resource for diachronic or further cross-linguistic study. Second, the semantic evolution and polysemy of demonstratives has previously received relatively little attention in any language. It is therefore hoped that this research will contribute more generally to the study of universal tendencies of grammaticalisation, language change, and the polysemy networks that can result.