A Brief History of
Translation Studies
Prepared by: Nabieva Nargiza
Translation Theory Before the
Twentieth Century
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People have been arguing for centuries about
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literal v. free v. faithful translation
word-for-word v. sense-for-sense
For example:
Cicero, St Jerome, St Augustine, Martin
Luther, Étienne Dolet, Alexander Tytler,
Johann, Friedrich Schleiermacher,
See Robinson (1997/2002)
Word-for-word or sense-forsense TR
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TR theory until 20th cent.: a sterile debate over the
triad literal, free, and faithful TR (Steiner 1998)
Cicero (1st cent BC, De optimo genere oratorum(On
the best style of Orators)):
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word for word vs sense for sense TR – chief principles of TR
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word for word (interpreter / literal TLR) - The replacement
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of the age
of each individual word of ST (Greek) with its closest
grammatical equivalent in Latin (
sense for sense (orator) – produce a speech that would
move the listeners
Cicero and Horace
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Cicero and Horace (BCE) underlines the
goals of producing an aesthetically
pleasing and creative text in TL.
St Jerome
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Another period that caused a changing
step in translation development was
marked by St Jerome (fourth century
CE). "His approach to translating the
Greek Septuagint Bible into Latin would
affect later translations of the
scriptures.
St Jerome’s famous statament
on translation process
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“Now I not only admit but freely
announce that in translating from the
Greek-except ofcourse in the case of
Holly Scripture, where even the syntax
contains a mystery-I render not wordfor-word, but sense-for-sense (St.
Jerome 395 Ce/1997:25).
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Later on, the translation of the Bible remained
subject to many conflicts between western theories
and ideologies of translation for more than a
thousand years.
Moreover, these conflicts on Bible translation were
intensified with the coming of the Reformation in the
sixteenth century, when "translation came to be
used as a weapon in both dogmatic and political
conflicts as nation states began to emerge and the
centralization of the Church started to weaken
evidence in linguistic terms by the decline of Latin as
a universal language."
Martin Luther(1483-1546)
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Non-literal or non-accepted translation
came to be seen and used as a weapon
against the church. The most famous of
this is M. Luthers’s crucially influential
translation into East Middle German of
the New Testament.
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His translation of the Bible into the language of the people
(instead of Latin) made it more accessible, causing a
tremendous impact on the church and on German culture. It
fostered the development of a standard version of the German
language, added several principles to the art of translation and
influenced the translation into English of the King James Bible.
His songs inspired the development of singing in churches. His
marriage to Katharina von Bora set a model for the practice of
clerical marriage, allowing Protestant priests to marry.
Much scholarly debate has focused on Luther's writings about
the Jews. His statements that the Jews' homes should be
destroyed, their synagogues burned, money confiscated, and
liberty curtailed were revived and used in propaganda by the
Nazis from 1933 to 1945.
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In response to accusation that he had
altered the holy scriptures defended
himself by writing “Circular Letter of
Translation” (1530).
Early attempts at a systematic
theory of TR
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Dryden (1680): TR categories:
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Metaphrase: corr. to literal, word-forword, line for line
Paraphrase: TR with latitude, words not
so strictly followed as the sense; corr. to
faithful, sense-for-sense TR
Imitation: corr. to free TR and adaptation
Etinne Dolet
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For instance, Etienne Dolet (15091546), whose heretic mistranslation of
one of Plato's dialogues, the phrase
"rien du tout" (nothing at all) that
showed his disbelief in immortality, led
to his execution.
Dolet (1540): principles of
Translators
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TLR must perfectly understand the sense and the
material of the original author, although he should
feel free to clarify obsurities
TLR should have a perfect knowledge of both SL and
TL, so as not to lessen the majesty of the language
TLR should avoid word-for-word renderings
TLR should avoid Latinate and unusual forms
TLR should assemble and connect the words
eloquently to avoid clumsiness
Tytler (1797): laws and rules:
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The TR should give a complete
transcript of the ideas of the original
work
The style and manner of writing should
be of the same character with that of
the original
The TR should have all the ease of the
original composition
1
Schleiermacher
(1813) and
the valorization of the foreign
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17th cent.: TR as imitation
18th cent.: TLR’s duty to recreate the
spirit of ST for the reader of the time
Early 19th cent (Romanticism):
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Translatability vs untranslatability
Schleiermacher (1813) Ueber die
verschiedenen Methoden des
Uebersetzens
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Schleiermacher, ctd.
Distinguished between:
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Dollmetscher (commercial texts)
Übersetzer (scholarly and artistic texts):
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On a higher creative plane
Breathing new life into the language
Q: How to bring the ST writer and the
TT reader together?
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Only two paths for the ‘true’ TLR:
Either the TLR leaves the writer alone
as much as possible and moves the
reader to the writer, or
He leaves the reader alone as much as
possible and moves the writer toward
the reader
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Moving towards the writer does not
mean writing as the author (for
example in German) would have done,
but giving the reader the same
impression that he as a German would
receive.
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TLR must adopt an ‘alienating’ method
of TR orienting himself by the language
and content of the ST
TLR must valorize the foreign and
transfer that into TL
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He must communicate the same
impression which he/she receibed from
SLT
A special language of TR is necessary for
compensating the expression that cannot
Schleiermacher’s influence:
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Enormous influence on modern
translation
Consideration of different text types
(Reiss)
Alienating vs naturalizing (Venuti)
‘Language of translation’ (Benjamin)
Hermeneutics (Steiner)
Late 19th and early 20th
cent.
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Focus on the status of the SLT and the form of TLT
Newman (translating Homer): foreignes of the work
(deliberate archaic language)
M. Arnold: advocated a transparent TR of Homer
Elitist attitude: It was thought that TR could never
reach the heigths of the ST, it is preferable to read
the work in the original language
TR Studies since 1970s:
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TR developed into an academic discipline
US: TR workshops, creative writing, Princeton, Iowa;
comparative literature (cultural studies)
Contrastive analysis (TR - subject of research):
Linguistic approach : languages in contrast (1960’s –
1970’s)
 CA: James 1980, Vinay Darbelnet (1958), Catford
1965, Connor, Chesterman (2001)
 CA useful but fails to account for sociolinguistic &
pragmatic factors nor the role of TR as a comm.
act
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LINGUISTIC / SYSTEMATIC APPROACH: (1950’s – 1960’s)
J.P. Vinay & J. Darbelnet (1958) Stylistique comparee du
francais et de l’anglais – contrastive approach
G. Mounin (1963) Les problemes theoriques de la traduction –
linguistic issues
E. Nida (1964) Toward a Science of Translating =
Ubersetzungswissenschaft (W. Wills, Koller, Kade, Neubert)
Candidate names: science, translatology, translatologie,
traductolgia – studies
THE HOLMES – TOURY
‘map’
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J. S. Holmes (1972 / 1988 / 2000)
Paper - 1972: Third International Congress of Applied Linguistics
(Holmes’ founding statement for the field:
limitations by TR being dispersed across other disciplines
need to reach all scholars working in the field (from whatever
background)
cf. ‘map’ of TR studies
Holmes in G. Toury (1995): TR Studies cover:
description of the phenomena of TR (descr. TR theory - DTS)
the establishment of gen. principles to explain and predict such
phenomena (TR theory)
Two important problems in the
development of the discipline (Holmes)
1-Name for this disipline
 The art of translation
 The craft of translation
 Principle of translation
 Fundamentals of translation
 Phiolosophy of translation
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Transtology
Traductology (French)
Translatio (Latin)
Theory of Translation
Towards a Science of Translating (Nida
1964)
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2- The lack of general consensus on the
scope and structure of the discipline.
Terminological, Lexicographical studies
Contrastive Linguistics.
Emprical discipline
“Translation Studies”
– self-perception
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Many people today think that
Translation Studies is mainly:
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Literary theory
Cultural studies
And, possibly:
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Communication studies
Stylistics & Genre analysis
Perspective from Linguistics
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Linguists perceive it as related to:
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Contrastive linguistics
Pragmatics
Discourse Analysis
Stylistics
Once dismissed as useless to TT– all of
these areas have been re-animated by
corpora linguistics
Perspective from Information
Technology
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IT specialists are increasingly fascinated
by human language and:
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Machine assisted translation
Machine Translation
Knowledge Engineering
Artificial Intelligence
Pure Translation Studies have
two main objectives
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1-To describe the phenomena of
translating and translation(s)
2- To establish general principles by
means of which these phenomena can
be explained and predicted.
Acknowledgements
Translation theories
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Descriptive Translation Studies has
three foci:
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Product-orientated DTS – focuses the
translation
Function-orientated DTS – examines the
context and purpose of the translation
Process-orientated DTS– analyses the
psychology of translation and process
Partial theories of translation
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Medium restricted – man or machine?
Area restricted – specific
languages/cultures
Rank-restricted – word/sentence/text
Text-type restricted –different genres
Time-restricted – historical view
Problem-restricted – specific problems,
e.g equivalence
Applied Translation Studies
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Translator Training: Teaching
methods, Testing techniques,
curriculum design.
Translation Aid: Dictionaries,
Grammar and IT
Translation Criticism: The evaluation
of translations, translation reviews.
Development since 1970’s
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-Contrastive analysis has fallen by wayside.
-Linguistic –oriented “science” of translation has become effective
(Germany, UK)
-Translation studies is satrted to be seen as an “independent discipline”
(Mary Snell-Hornby, Translation Studies: An Integrated Approach)
-Descriptive Translation Studies (Israel, Belgium)
“The discipline of 1990’s” (Mona Baker, Routledge Encyclopedia of
Translation, 1997).
Proliferation of specialized translating and interpreting courses at both
graduate and postgraduate level.
Proliferation of books, conferences and journals on translation studies.
SITUATION IN ARAB WORLD
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The early translations used in Arabic are dated back
to the time of Syrians (the first half of the second
century AD), who translated into Arabic a large
heritage that belongs to the era of paganism
(Bloomshark 1921: 10-12, qtd by Addidaoui, 2000)
(7). Syrians were influenced in their translations by
the Greek ways of translation. Syrian's translations
were more literal and faithful to the original
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The time of the prophet Mohamed is of paramount
importance for translation history. The spread of
Islam and the communication with non-Arabic
speaking communities as Jews, Romans and others
pushed the prophet to look for translators and to
encourage the learning of foreign languages. One of
the most famous translators of the time is Zaid Ibnu
Thabet, who played a crucial role in translating
letters sent by the prophet to foreign kings of Persia,
Syria, Rome and Jews, and also letters sent by those
kings to the prophet.
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According to Ben Chakroun (2002) (9), the early
translators of the Koran focused on its meaning.
Salman El Farisi, for instance, translated the meaning
of Surat Al Fatiha for Persian Muslims, who didn't
speak Arabic. Ben Chakroun (2002) (10) states that
Western libraries still preserve many translations of
the Koran, and that some of them such as the Greek
translation of the philosopher Naktis belong to the
third century. Besides, the Holy Koran received a
special interest from the translators. It was translated
into Persian and into Turkish language.
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Besides, the core of the conflicts that existed and still
exist in the translation of Koran is related to the
reason behind translation itself, i.e., whether to use
the translation as a way to teach the principles of
Islam or to use it in praying and legislation was the
difficult choice that faced translators. In general,
translation of Koran knows various changes, the
fact that led to the creation of special committees
that took the responsibility of translating it in a way
that preserves it from falsification.
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The Arab history of translation is also characterized
by the name of Al-Jahid (868-577), one of the
greatest theorists in translation. His theories and
writings in the domain of translation are still used
today by many professional Arab translators.
According to Al-Jahid (1969), "the translator should
know the structure of the speech, habits of the
people and their ways of understanding each other."
(12)
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In translation studies it is in religious
discourse where Arabic translation reaches
its peak. Translation of Koran received
much interest from Arab translators. Today,
translation in the Arab world knows a sort
of progression, especially with its openness to
Western theories and theorists, but it is still
suffering from many problems and difficulties.
TURKISH TRADITION
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Turkish Language -11th century by
Seljuk Turks-Official Lang. of Ottoman
Emp.
13-19th century pre-Ottoman
and Ottoman Perid
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Seljuk State,Capital city-Konya
(Tercüman, dragoman)
Status of dragomans?
16th century
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İntitutionalized status-16th century
Offical function-18th century
Who are they?
Their tasks?
Predomiance of Islamic
Sources
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-Translation of Persian and Arabic
sacred texts, religious writing.(13th14th century)
-Quran Translations
-other texts?
Contact with non-Islamic
Cultures
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Mehmet II
Conquest of Constantinople
18th century
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Ahmed III
Non-literary works.
İbrahim Müteferrika
Tanzimat Period
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Translation of scientific and literary
works,
Revival of literary works in Turkish.
Scientific institutions
Translations of European Classics
Tercüman-i Ahval,, Tasvir-i Efkar
Republican Period
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Westernizing Program
World classics
Quran Translation into Turkish
Translation Committee
Contemporary Journals
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Academic institutions and publications
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Thank You…