To non-linguists, translation seems a rather simple
task, merely expressing the meaning of words in one language in another
language. A solid knowledge of grammar and a comprehensive dictionary should suffice
in faithfully rendering the content into a second language. However, in
practice, the term “translation” encompasses a wide variety of text types, from
the most technical to the most creative, and purposes, and from literal
rendering to cultural equivalency. The significance is that the art of faithful translation involves a variety of approaches. For individual translators, these
characteristics may define which projects they should accept.
The use of the term faithful as it applies to
translation naturally poses the question “to what”. In some rare cases, the
translator must rigidly reflect the form and content in the source language into the
target language, mistakes and all. For example, a translation of a court
deposition must show the level of language and evasiveness of the source text as
these elements may have legal significance. For documents submitted to a
foreign court, the translated text must be written in line with the accepted
writing norms of the foreign court while fully reflecting the content of the
original document, no more and no less. Medical documents, due to their
potentially significant role in any lawsuit, must strictly reflect the content
of the original but yet must be understandable to a reader of the target language.
Marketing documents, including travel-related documents, must speak to their
target audience, i.e., flow well in the second language, at the expense of the
form of the original text while referring to the same factual elements.
Finally, literary translation involves the art of expressing the uniqueness of
a writer’s style and message into a second language, which may sometimes
involve radical changes of the syntax and even details. For example, Umberto Ecco wrote in one of his essays that one scene whose core element was swearing
in a holy city took on many different forms in its translations into various
European languages in terms of city and actual curse in order to communicate
the extremity of the act. Thus, the translators’ obligation to be faithful is
far from straightforward.
As a result, translators approach each type of text
differently. On the most basic level, a word-by-word translation with little
consideration of syntax, as typical of some machine translations, involves
little translator input but not a small amount of resoluteness as the resulting
text sounds awful . However, when translators must render the content of the
original text into the form of the target language, they must apply their
knowledge of these forms to produce a natural-sounding document. When the genre
lacks any prescribed form, the translator’s linguistic skills come to the fore
as it is necessary to produce a seamless text, one that does not sound like a
translation. Finally, in a literary translation, the linguist must reproduce
all the nuances of the writer’s style, often when there is no direct equivalent
in the target language. This translation tests not only the ability of the
translator to identify the overt and hidden elements of the original but the
creativity to find their equivalents in the second language. In each case, the translator
calls on a different toolkit of skills.
Consequently, the ability to effectively translate all
or many document styles is far from obvious. Personal tendencies, training and
practice hone certain skills while bypassing others. Some translators are
perfectly at ease handling the most technical texts due to their knowledge of
the content and form but may produce the most unremarkable marketing text
imaginable. By contrast, a translator with the ability and experience to successfully render the effect produced
by one language into another language when given full rein may fail when required to follow strict
rules of syntax and vocabulary, a result of that same creativity. Experienced
professional translators know when the document involves a genre too far.
Thus, translation goes far beyond the formal knowledge
of grammar and vocabulary and involves a comprehensive understanding of how to
translate specific types of documents. Each genre has its approaches and
challenges. Yet, the basic goal remains the same, i.e., to produce a faithful
rendition of the original document into another document, however that fidelity is expressed.
