Chapter Two
2.1 Past and present of translation process
In this section we will conduct number of researchers in the past and present who
developed translation in these years. First one Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (809–873)
was an influential Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist.
During the apex of the Islamic Abbasid era, he worked with a group of translators,
among whom were Abū 'Uthmān al-Dimashqi, Ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhti, and Thābit ibn
Qurra, to translate books of philosophy and classical Greek and Persian texts into
Arabic and Syriac.[1]
Ḥunayn ibn Isḥaq was the most productive translator of Greek medical and scientific
treatises in his day. He studied Greek and became known as the "Sheikh of the
translators".[2] He mastered four languages: Arabic, Syriac, Greek and Persian.
Hunayn's method was widely followed by later translators. He was originally from alHira, the capital of a pre-Islamic cultured Arab kingdom, but he spent his working life
in Baghdad, the center of the great ninth-century Greek-into-Arabic/Syriac translation
movement. His fame went far beyond his own community.[3]
In time, Hunayn ibn Ishaq became arguably the chief translator of the era, and laid the
foundations of Islamic medicine.[4] In his lifetime, ibn Ishaq translated 116 works,
including Plato's Timaeus, Aristotle's Metaphysics, and the Old Testament, into Syriac
and Arabic.[5][6] Ibn Ishaq also produced 36 of his own books, 21 of which covered the
field of medicine.[6] His son Ishaq, and his nephew Hubaysh, worked together with him
at times to help translate. Hunayn ibn Ishaq is known for his translations, his method
of translation, and his contributions to medicine.[5] He has also been suggested by
François Viré to be the true identity of the Arabic falconer Moamyn, author of De
Scientia Venandi per Aves.[7] Hunayn Ibn Ishaq was a translator at the House of
Wisdom, Bayt al-Hikma, where he received his education. In the West, another name
he is known by his Latin name, Joannitius.[2] It was the translations that came from
administrative and legal materials gathered that lead to understanding of how to build
up Arabic as the new official language.[8]
In his efforts to translate Greek material, Hunayn ibn Ishaq was accompanied by his
son Ishaq ibn Hunayn and his nephew Hubaysh. Hunayn would translate Greek into
Syriac, and then he would have his nephew finish by translating the text from Syriac
to Arabic, after which he then would seek to correct any of his partners' mistakes or
inaccuracies he might find.
Unlike many translators in the Abbasid period, he largely did not try to follow the text's
exact lexicon. Instead, he would try to summarize the topics of the original texts and
then in a new manuscript paraphrase it in Syriac or Arabic. He also edited and redacted
the available texts of technical works by comparing the information included therein
with other works on similar subjects.[9] Thus, his renditions may be seen as
interpretations of medical, astronomical, and philosophical texts after researching the
topics over which they range.[10] Some scholars argue Hunayn's approach differed from
previous translators through his commentaries on the subject and was influenced by
Galen's ideas along the way.[11]
His Works
- Kitab Adab al-Falasifa, original Arabic lost, known in medieval translation
- Libro de Los Buenos Proverbios (Castilian Spanish)
- Sefer Musré ha-Filosofim (Book of the Morals of the Philosophers), Hebrew
translation of the Judeo-Andalusian poet, Juda ben Shlomo Al-Jarisi (1170–
1235).[12]
Second one, Eugene A. Nida (1914 –2011) was an American linguist who developed
the dynamic-equivalence Bible-translation theory and one of the founders of the
modern discipline of translation studies. Nida has been a pioneer in the fields
of translation theory and linguistics.
His Ph.D. dissertation, A Synopsis of English Syntax, was the first full-scale analysis
of a major language according to the "immediate-constituent" theory. His
textbook Morphology: The Descriptive Analysis of Words was one of the major works
of American Structuralism. It remained the only thorough introduction to the field for
decades and is still valuable for its many examples and exercises.
His most notable contribution to translation theory is Dynamic Equivalence, also
known as Functional Equivalence. For more information, see "Dynamic and formal
equivalence." Nida also developed the componential analysis technique, which split
words into their components to help determine equivalence in translation (e.g.
"bachelor" = male + unmarried). This is, perhaps, not the best example of the technique,
though it is the most well-known.
Nida's dynamic-equivalence theory is often held in opposition to the views
of philologists who maintain that an understanding of the source text (ST) can be
achieved by assessing the inter-animation of words on the page, and that meaning is
self-contained within the text (i.e. much more focused on achieving semantic
equivalence).
This theory, along with other theories of correspondence in translating, are elaborated
in his essay Principles of Correspondence,[13] where Nida begins by asserting that
given that "no two languages are identical, either in the meanings given to
corresponding symbols or in the ways in which symbols are arranged in phrases and
sentences, it stands to reason that there can be no absolute correspondence between
languages. Hence, there can be no fully exact translations." [14] While the impact of a
translation may be close to the original, there can be no identity in detail.
Nida then sets forth three factors that must be taken into account in translating:
1. The nature of the message: in some messages the content is of primary
consideration, and in others the form must be given a higher priority.
2. The purpose of the author and of the translator: to give information on
both form and content; to aim at full intelligibility of the reader so he/she
may understand the full implications of the message; for imperative
purposes that aim at not just understanding the translation but also at
ensuring no misunderstanding of the translation.
3. The
type
of
audience:
prospective
audiences
differ
both
in decoding ability and in potential interest.
While reminding that while there are no such things as "identical equivalents" in
translating, Nida asserts that a translator must find the "closest natural equivalent."
Here he distinguishes between two approaches to the translation task and types of
translation: Formal Equivalence (F-E) and Dynamic Equivalence (D-E).
F-E focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content. Such translations
then would be concerned with such correspondences as poetry to poetry, sentence to
sentence, and concept to concept. Such a formal orientation that typifies this type of
structural equivalence is called a "gloss translation" in which the translator aims at
reproducing as literally and meaningfully as possible the form and content of the
original.
The principles governing an F-E translation would then be: reproduction of
grammatical units; consistency in word usage; and meanings in terms of the
source context.
D-E on the other hand aims at complete "naturalness" of expression. A D-E translation
is directed primarily towards equivalence of response rather than equivalence of form.
The relationship between the target language receptor and message should be
substantially the same as that which existed between the original (source language)
receptors and the message.
The principles governing a D-E translation then would be: conformance of a
translation to the receptor language and culture as a whole; and the translation must be
in accordance with the context of the message which involves the stylistic selection
and arrangement of message constituents.
Nida and Lawrence Venuti have proved that translation studies is a much more
complex discipline than may first appear, with the translator having to look beyond the
text itself to deconstruct on an intra-textual level and decode on a referential level—
assessing culture-specific items, idiom and figurative language to achieve an
understanding of the source text and embark upon creating a translation which not only
transfers what words mean in a given context, but also recreates the impact of the
original text within the limits of the translator's own language system (linked to this
topic: George Steiner, the Hermeneutic Motion, pragmatics, field, tenor, mode and
the locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary). For example, a statement that Jesus
"met" someone must be carefully translated into a language which distinguishes
between "met for the first time", "met habitually" and "encounter."
Published Works include the following:
1.
Linguistic Interludes - (Glendale, CA: Summer Institute of Linguistics,
1944 (Revised 1947))
2.
The Bible Translator - (Journal founded and edited by Dr. Nida (retired),
1949- )
3.
Morphology: The Descriptive Analysis of Words - (Univ. of Michigan
Press, 2nd ed. 1949)
4.
Message and Mission - (Harper, 1960)
5.
Customs, Culture and Christianity - (Tyndale Press, 1963)
6.
Toward a Science of Translating - (Brill, 1964)
7.
Religion Across Cultures - (Harper, 1968)
8.
The Theory and Practice of Translation - (Brill, 1969, with C.R. Taber)
9.
A Componential Analysis of Meaning – (De Gruyter; Approaches to
Semiotics col. 57)
Third one, Safa Abdul-Aziz Khulusi who was an Iraqi historian, novelist, poet,
journalist and broadcaster. He is known for mediating between Arabic- and Englishlanguage cultures, and for his scholarship of modern Iraqi literature.[15]
Khulusi's work mediated modern European and American developments in
scholarship. He extended the academic tradition of comparative literature,
publishing Dirasat fi al-Adab al-Muqarin wa al-Mathahib al-Adabia (Studies in
Comparative Literature and Western Literary Schools) in 1957, and al-Tarjama alTahlilia (Analytical Translation) in the same year. Although concentrating on literary
and historical scholarship, Khulusi also published novels, short stories and poetry
during this period. In addition, he translated modern Iraqi literature into English,
publishing a number of translations of the work of Atika Wahbi Al-Khazraji.[7] In
Oxford in 1972, he became one of the editors of the Concise Oxford English-Arabic
Dictionary of Current Usage which sought to match new developments in both
languages. He later published A Dictionary of Contemporary Idiomatic Usage. His
books Fann al-Tarjama (The Art of Translation) and Fann al-Taqti' al-Shi'ri wa alQafia (The Art of Poetry: Composition and Prosody) were widely read and went
through many editions. He was also a regular broadcaster on the BBC's Arabic service
and a presenter of cultural programmes on Iraqi television.[15]
He also wrote several articles in English on Shakespeare and Arabian literature for
the Islamic Review, but did not claim Shakespeare himself was Arabian in these
publications. In 1966 he suggested that Romeo and Juliet draws on the "basically
Arabian" concept of Platonic love.[16] In 1970 he summarised his arguments about
Shakespeare's language, but confined himself to the suggestion that the poet was
"under the influence of Arabic style".[17] Khulusi set out to introduce English readers
to contemporary Iraqi poetry by translating the works of some of the most prominent
and influential poets of the first half of the 20th century.
In the way of present, there a number of translation scientists like Ahmed Khaled
Tawfik Farrag (1962 – 2018), also known as Ahmed Khaled Tawfek, was an Egyptian
author and physician [18] who wrote more than 200 books, in both Egyptian Arabic and
Classical Arabic. He was the first contemporary writer of horror, and science fiction in
the Arabic-speaking world, and the first writer to explore the medical thriller genre.[19]
He began writing his stories when he was only ten years old, and he wrote, in all, more
than 500 books.[20] His series Fantasia was the first of its kind; a plot that presents
famous literary works to young people, through an interactive presentation. Fantasia
presented his readers to a wide spectrum of topics from Arthur Conan Doyle and
Sikhism, to Fyodor Dostoevsky and the Mafia's Cosa Nostra.[21]
Other works include:
- An Arabic translation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club.[22]
- Utopia is about Egyptian people living in a dystopian and utopian society, separated
by walls. It's a fictional, political-minded novel, published by Merit, translated into
English by Chip Rosetti. There were plans to make it a major motion picture, with a
scheduled release date of 2017;[23] however, the project did not come to fruition.
Utopia translated into Italian in 2019 by Barbara Benini
- El-Singa (Egyptian slang for The Knife) is an Egyptian politically-flavored novel
published by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing.[24][25]
- Just Like Icarus is a fictional political-minded novel, published by Dar El
Shorouq.[26]
Second one, Ernst-August Gutt’s 1991 publication, Translation and Relevance:
Cognition and Context builds upon prior work by Sperber and Wilson (1986). Gutt’s
work takes a cognitive approach to translation and properly belongs to the field of
psycholinguistics. Although relevance theory is presented here with functional
approaches, some might argue that it is not strictly a functionalist theory—Gutt does
not describe it as such. But it is target culture oriented and in that sense is broadly in
line with functionalism even if its cognitive theoretical basis sets it apart from other
concepts. Vermeer seems to place relevance theory within the functionalist framework,
stating for example that it is best seen as “a subtheory of skopos theory”. In relevance
theory, communication is seen as dependent on inferential processes, unlike Nida’s
theory which saw translation through encoding/decoding processes. A key point in
relevance theory is that communication is seen as inferred and offered through a
principle of relevance: maximum understanding with minimal processing effort.
According to Gutt, “The central claim of relevance theory is that human communication
crucially creates an expectation of optimal relevance, that is, an expectation on the part
of the hearer that his attempt at interpretation will yield adequate contextual effects at
minimal processing cost”.[27]
Gutt identifies two kinds of translation, indirect and direct, which are broadly akin to
the free/literal dichotomy. Direct translation is where a TT “purports to interpretively
resemble the original completely”, whereas indirect translation is more idiomatic and is
seen as translation that “yields the intended interpretation without causing the audience
unnecessary processing effort” [28].Yet given the space devoted to the problems
associated with unnecessary processing effort, one might imagine that Gutt’s
translational preference was for indirect (idiomatic) translation. In fact, he surprisingly
advocates direct translation, even though such a literal-style approach would naturally
invoke more processing cost.
This is a surprising viewpoint but is not in itself a theoretical problem, for a translator
could still adopt the theory with a preference for indirect translation. The problems
come elsewhere, and what seems to be missing in the work is what lies beyond the
psycholinguistic viewpoint of how people tend to communicate. So far as Gutt’s
writings stand, there is little in terms of practical value: he supports direct translation,
but as Smith points out, “to my knowledge he never attempted to spell out what a direct
translation should look like”. Wendland has commented that relevance theory “is
seriously deficient with respect to offering the necessary concrete guiding principles
(and their associated contextual effects) when it comes to dealing with specific
translation problems” [29]. Similarly, it has been said that, “if they [translators] want
direct help with their everyday concerns, they should not expect to find it here”. The
theoretical basis itself has also been questioned where the central concern around
processing effort has been seen as too subjective to measure or assess: “The difficulty
with this entire notion remains: It is a criterion that is itself too relative, for how can it
be assessed and by whom? How does one determine the relative degree of mental effort
involved during communication—and hence ‘relevance’ in this concomitant respect?”
[30]
. Relevance theory enjoys some popularity today among Bible translators—far more
than among their secular counterparts—probably as a result of Gutt’s leading role
within a major Bible translation organization, but a more practical perspective to the
use of the theory would be an advantage to Bible translation work. A helpful advance
from the perspective of Bible translation is that his work has encouraged a more TT
oriented approach to translation, thereby helping to bring about a fundamentally
different approach to the task of translating the Bible.
Translation theory in the twentieth century is marked by the emergence in its early years
of philosophical approaches endorsed by individuals such as Ezra Pound and Walter
Benjamin but by the 1950s, a discernible development emerged from the perspective of
applied linguistics. The golden age of linguisticsbased translation theory then followed,
with a flurry of new terms, concepts and techniques in the 1950s and 1960s; in Bible
translation, the most notable scholar was Eugene Nida whose work gained influence
beyond biblical studies. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, researchers began adopting
ideas from other disciplines in the social sciences, and the “cultural turn” coincided with
the development of functionalist approaches in translation theory. The most notable of
these was skopos theory, subsequently expanded and developed by other scholars
working from a functionalist perspective.
References
1.
Nadim (al-), Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq (1970). Dodge, Bayard (ed.). The Fihrist of alNadim; a Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture. Translated by Bayard Dodge. New York &
London: Columbia University Press. pp. 440, 589, 1071.
2. Osman, Ghada (31 December 2012). ""The sheikh of the translators": The translation methodology
of
Hunayn
ibn
Ishaq". Translation
and
Interpreting
Studies. 7 (2):
161–
175. doi:10.1075/tis.7.2.04osm. ISSN 1932-2798.
3.
Seleznyov, N. "Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq in the Summa of al-Muʾtaman ibn al-ʿAssāl" in VG 16 (2012) 38–
45 [In Russian].
4.
Strohmaier 1993.
5.
Lindberg, David C. The Beginnings of Western Science: Islamic Science. Chicago: The University
of Chicago, 2007. Print.
6. Opth: Azmi, Khurshid. "Hunain bin Ishaq on Ophthalmic Surgery. "Bulletin of the Indian Institute of
History of Medicine 26 (1996): 69–74. Web. 29 October 2009
7.
François Viré, Sur l'identité de Moamin le fauconnier. Communication à l'Académie des inscriptions
et belles lettres, avril-juin 1967, Parigi, 1967, pp. 172–176
8.
El Khamloussy, Ahmed. "Commented Translation of an Excerpt from Hunayn Ibn Ishaq's Epistle to
His Patron 'Ali Ibn Yahya on the Translations of Galen." Order No. MM07845 University of Ottawa
(Canada), 1995
9.
"Hunayn Ibn Ishaq". The Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. XV. 1978. Print.
10. Cooper, Glen M. (2014), "Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn: Abū Yaҁqūb Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq alҁIbādī", Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, New York, NY: Springer New York, pp. 1094–
1095, Bibcode:2014bea..book.1094C, doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_704, ISBN 978-1-44199916-0, retrieved 4 December 2020
11.
Vagelpohl,
U
(2011). "'In
the
translator's
workshop,'" (PDF). Arab
Science
and
Philosophy. 21 (2): 249–288. doi:10.1017/S0957423911000038. PMID 24077025. S2CID 25275686.
12.
13.
"Testimonios Árabes de Adab Al-Falásifa"
"Eugene Nida dies | United Bible Societies". Archived from the original on September 29, 2011.
Retrieved August 26, 2011.
14.
Fox, Margalit (3 September 2011). "Rev. Eugene A. Nida, Who Spurred a Babel of Bibles, is Dead at
96". The New York Times. Retrieved Mar 17, 2015.
15.
Nida, Eugene. “Principles of Correspondence”. The Translation Studies Reader. Ed. Lawrence
Venuti. NY: Routledge, 2004. 153-167
16. Nida, Ed. Venuti. p. 153
17. Professor Safa Khulusi, Obituary, The Independent, 5 October 1995.
18. Salih Altoma, Iraq's Modern Arab Literature: A Guide to English Translations Since 1950, Scarecrow
Press, 2010, p.97
19. Safa A. Khulusi, Shakespeare and Arabic Grammar, Islamic Review, Oct/Nov 1970, p.20.
20. "BQFP signs up Ahmed Khaled Taufiq's dystopian novel 'utopia'". The Tanjara. 10 July
2010. Archived from the original on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
21. ^ Jump up to:a b c Yaqoob, Tahira (16 March 2012). "Ahmed Khaled Towfik, Egypt's doctor of
escapism". The National. Archived from the original on 17 November 2016.
22. ^ Jump up to:a b c Byrnes, Sholto (17 September 2011). "Utopia, By Ahmed Khaled Towfik". The
Independent. Archived from the original on 17 November 2016. Retrieved 17 November 2016.
23. Ahmed Khaled Towfik. Al-Singa (The Knife). Bloomsbury Academic; 25 October 2013. ISBN 97899921-95-74-1.
24. ^ "seo.book ‫ السنجة‬pdf by Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq". www.ysk-books.com. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
25. ^ "Just Like Icarus ‫( مثل إيكاروس‬Arabic) Paperback – 2015". Amazon.
26. ^ "Listopia Best of Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq". Goodreads. Archived from the original on 10 July 2017.
27. Gutt, Ernst-August. 1991. Translation and relevance: Cognition and context. Oxford: Blackwell.
28. Gutt, Ernst-August. 1992. Relevance theory: A guide to successful communication in translation.
Dallas: SIL.
29. Malmkjær, Kirsten. 1992. Review: E. A. Gutt, Translation and relevance: Cognition and context.
Mind and Language 7:298–309
30. Wendland, Ernst R. 1996. On the relevance of “Relevance Theory” for Bible translation. The Bible
Translator 47:126–137.