From Babel to Babel Fish

There have been a number of books written recently about the history of translation. What certainly is true is that as we move from the age of the tower of Babel (where the Bible tells us different languages were first introduced) to the age of Babel Fish (and other instant translation services) there is a growing need for translation. As the internet spreads, and globalization moves on - the need for translation increases. Language schools and courses, like St Georges language courses in London, may help you to learn Spanish in London but theorists throughout the ages have insisted that a good translator must not only know the language but understand the culture they are translating.

Early history
The word translation itself derives from a Latin term meaning "to bring or carry across". The Ancient Greek term is 'metaphrasis' ("to speak across") and this gives us the term 'meta phrase' (a "literal or word-for-word translation") - as contrasted with 'paraphrase' ("a saying in other words"). This distinction has laid at the heart of the theory of translation throughout its history: Cicero and Horace employed it in Rome, Dryden continued to use it in the seventeenth century and it still exists today in the debates around "fidelity versus transparency" or "formal equivalence versus dynamic equivalence". The first known translations are those of the Sumerian epic Gilgamesh into Asian languages from the second millennium BC. Later Buddhist monks translated Indian sutras into Chinese and Roman poets adapted Greek texts.

Arabic scholars
Translation undertaken by Arabs could be said to have kept Greek wisdom and learning alive. Having conquered the Greek world, they made Arabic versions of its philosophical and scientific works. During the Middle Ages, translations of these Arabic versions were made into Latin - mainly at the school in Spain. These Latin translations of Greek and original Arab. works of learning helped underpin Renaissance scholarship.

Religious texts
Religious texts have played a great role in the history of translation. One of the first recorded instances of translation in the West was the rendering of the Old Testament into Greek in the 3rd century BC. A task carried out by 70 scholars this translation itself became the basis for translations into other languages. Saint Jerome, the patron saint of translation, produced a Latin Bible in the 4th century AD that was the preferred text for the Roman Catholic Church for many years to come. Translations of the Bible, though, were to controversially re-emerge when the Protestant Reformation saw the translation of the Bible into local European languages - eventually this led to Christianity's split into Roman Catholicism and Protestantism due to disparities between versions of crucial words and passages. Martin Luther himself is credited with being the first European to propose that one translates satisfactorily only toward his own language: a statement that is just as true in modern translation theory.

Modern Theory and Practice

Whilst industrialization has led to the formalization of translation for business purposes since the eighteenth century it is, perhaps, the internet and mechanical translation that has really revolutionized the field. In terms of theory Lawrence Venuti's call for "foreignizing" strategies marks a call for fidelity over transparency in translation. The two poles of meta phrase and paraphrase, however, still set the terms of debate from the age of Babel to that of Babel Fish.

Other meaning of translation.

The word translation derives from the Latin translatio (which itself comes from trans-and fero, the supine form of which islatum, together meaning "to carry across" or "to bring across"). The modern Romance languages use words for translation derived from that source or from the alternative Latin traduc ("to lead across"). The Ancient Greek term for translation, (meta phrases, "a speaking across"), has supplied English with meta phrase (a "literal," or "word-for-word," translation) as contrasted with paraphrase ("a saying in other words", from, para phrases). Meta phrase corresponds, in one of the more recent terminologies, to "formal equivalence"; and paraphrase, to "dynamic equivalence. Strictly speaking, the concept of meta phrase of "word-for-word translation" is an imperfect concept, because a given word in a given language often carries more than one meaning; and

because a similar given meaning may often be represented in a given language by more than one word. Nevertheless, "meta phrase" and "paraphrase" may be useful as ideal concepts that mark the extremes in the spectrum of possible approaches to translation. At the very beginning, the translator keeps both the source language... and target language... in mind and tries to translate carefully. But it becomes very difficult for a translator to decode the whole text... literally; therefore he takes the help of his own view and endeavors to translate accordingly.

Theories and paradigms

Cultural translation
This is a new area of interest in the field of translation studies, deriving largely from Homi Bhabha's reading of Salman Rushdie in The Location of Culture. Cultural translation is a concept used in cultural studies to denote the process of transformation, linguistic or otherwise, in a given culture. The concept uses linguistic translation as a tool or metaphor in analyzing the nature of transformation and interchange in cultures.

Ethics
In the last decade, the interest among theorists and practitioners in the issue of ethics has grown remarkably due to several reasons. As Anthony Pym, professor of sociolinguistics and sociological scholar of translation and intercultural studies, points out, a shift within the field from descriptivism towards tendencies of globalization can be observed that draw the attention to questions of crosscultural communication.In the course of the cultural changes due to the consciousness of the problem of conflicting worldviews and valuesbetween the author and reader, and their relationship to social, economic and political power has been sharpened.

Research
Although there has been some work in the field regarding this topic, the definition of ethics is still unclear when applied to translation studies. Much discussed publications have been the essays of Antoine Berman and Lawrence Venuti that differed in some aspects but agreed on the idea of emphasizing the differences between source and target language and culture when translating. Both are interested in how the cultural other can best preserve that otherness.In more recent studies scholars applied Emmanuel Levinas philosophic work on ethics and subjectivity on this issue. As his publications have been interpreted in different ways, various conclusions on his concept of ethical responsibility have been drawn from this. Some have come to the assumption that the idea of translation itself could be ethically doubtful, while others receive it as a call for considering the relationship between author or text and translator as more interpersonal, thus making it an equal and reciprocal process. Parallel to these studies the general recognition of the translator's responsibility has increased. More and more translators and interpreters are being seen as active participants in geopolitical conflicts, which raises the question of how to act ethically independent from their own identity or judgment. This leads to the conclusion that translating and interpreting cannot be considered solely as a process of language transfer, but also as socially and politically directed activities.

Code of practice
There is a general agreement on the need of an ethical code of practice providing some guiding principles to reduce uncertainties and improve professionalism, as having been stated in other disciplines (for example Military medical ethics or Legal ethics). However, as there is still no clear understanding of the concept of ethics in this field, opinions about the particular appearance of such a code vary considerably.

Antoine Berman insists on the need to define a translation project for every translation; the translator
should stick to his own project, and this shall be the sole measure of fidelity when translating.

If, according to the traditional rendering of Proverbs. The work of translating the Bible presents special difficulties. Since the Scriptures are a source of both information and inspiration, Bible translations must be accurate as well as felicitous. They must be suitable for rapid scanning as well as for detailed study, and suitable for ceremonial reading aloud to large and small audiences. AQUILA Early in the Christian era, a Jewish scholar named Aquila was dissatisfied with the Septuagint translation and undertook to produce a Greek rendering of the Hebrew Scriptures that would represent each Hebrew word with a corresponding Greek word. SYMMACHUS Toward the end of the second Christian century another Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures was prepared. This was by Symmachus, an Ebionite Christian of Jewish background. His theory and method were the opposite of that of Aquila, for his aim was to make an elegant Greek rendering. To judge from the scattered fragments that remain of his translation, Symmachus tended to be paraphrastic in representing the Hebrew original. He preferred idiomatic Greek constructions in contrast to other versions in which the Hebrew constructions are preserved. Thus he usually converted into a Greek participle the first of two finite verbs connected with a copula. He made copious use of a wide range of Greek particles to bring out subtle distinctions of relationship that the Hebrew cannot adequately express. In more than one passage Symmachus had a tendency to soften anthropomorphic expressions of the Hebrew text. JEROME Jerome's approach is puzzling. On the one hand in his letter to Sunnia and Fretela, Jerome declared that the work of a good translator consists in rendering idiomatic expressions of one language into the modes of expression native to the other.3 In another letter, addressed to Pammachius, he discussed the best method of translating literary works in general, and stated, "From my youth up I have always aimed at rendering sense not words.... A literal translation from one language to another obscures the sense."4 At the same time, however, Jerome made an exception when it came to the Bible. He added a qualification, "In translating from the Greek I render sense for sense and not word for word-except in the case of the Holy Scriptures, where even the order of the words is a mystery.