PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CAToLICA DEL ECUADOR

ESCUELA DE LINGISTICA

ENSSAY

Name: Jefferson Imbaquingo

Date: Nov 15, 2017

Describe the debate word-for-word vs sense-for-sense translation. Tell about the pre-linguistic era of translation theory.

Shall we translate literally or change words to convey meaning?

The act of translation is not new, but actually has a long tradition that can be traced back to the IV century and all its exponents

have influenced the different approaches to translation and translation studies. The authors of these various approaches challenged well

grounded and common trend that were established. Since then, free and literal translations have been analyzed from different perspectives.

The beginning of translation dates back to the time when Saint Jerome translated the bible from Old Hebrew to Greek. At these

times, the translations of the bible proliferated and finally the Pope Damasus commissioned an ultimate standardized Latin translation. He

appeals Old Hebrew for the Old Testament, and checked previous Latin translations for New Testament . Nevertheless, Saint Jerome did

something that anyone else would do back at his time; he rendered his bible translation using a revolutionary method: word for word. This

act was controversial since many maintained Greek Septuagint translation as a divine inspiration and was widely accepted among the

Christian community. Jerome compared the Greek Septuagint with Old Hebrew and spotted discrepancies from the ST to the TT. This

method was originally used by Cicero in the II century. Especially in the West, classical authors from the ancient Greece and Rome

remained preeminent, it gave way to the basis of key writings on translations for nearly two thousands years. This new method challenged

the traditional method word-for-word. SInce this time, there has been a debate on what method is the best: word-for-word or sense-for-sense

(literal and free translation respectively).

It was believed that the word-for-word translation delivered an absurd translation and prevented the right message from being

conveyed; however, the sense-for-sense method permitted the message in the ST to be conveyed. Far from western traditions, another

culture faced the same problem in the Chinese translation of Buddhist sutras. The translations of this text were usually word-for-word since

people considered it sacred scriptures and they should not be tampered with and people needed theological background to understand texts..

Later, Kumarajiva pioneered in free translation and translations started to focus on the target language. Finally, Xuan Zang advocated for the

attention to maintain the style of the original text. He also established rules concerning transliteration, and then adopted by successors.

Daoan directed a programme of Buddhist sutras from which a dilema arose: whether to make a free, polished, and shortened version

adapted to the taste of Chinese public, or a faithful, literal, repetitious and therefore unreadable translation (Zurcher 2007: 203). Daoan

lists five elements to change translating into Chinese: (1)the word order (2)Style: from plain to elegant (3)avoid repeated exhortations,

(4)deletion of commentaries from the original and (5)previous discourse is replaced for a new discourse. In modern times, Eva Hung (2005:

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84-5) states the problem of the real identity of the texts (source and target texts) on the grounds that many of the languages that served as

vehicles for the sutras teachings were orally transmitted. In the Arab world, the debate between literal and free translation draw interest, too.

According to Baker and Hanna scientific and philosophical texts were translated into Arabic of Greek, often with Syriac as an intermediary

language utilizing two methods: (1)-Yuhanna Ibn al-Batriq and Naima al-Hamis- translate each Greek word with an equivalent in Arabic (if

not equivalent, used a borrowing), and (2)-Ibn Ishaq and al-Jawahri- convey the meaning of the ST without distorting the language(Munday

2012: 34).

Protestant Reformation also played an important part since they attempted to translate the Bible into vernacular languages. This

could be considered heretical and even prohibited. Tyndale produced an English version of the bible in exile, but it was banned. He was

captured and tried for heresy. Dolet was accused of blasphemy for adding extra information in Plato's dialogue and was later burned at the

stake. According to Munday (2012) Later Martin Luther used his translation into German of the old and new testament as a weapon to

defend himself from the church's accusations of altering the Holy Scriptures. He appeals to the word-for-word translations since he strongly

believed that if he translated literally, the message would have no sense(like in idiomatic expressions). Jerry Munday (2012) recognizes that

Jhon Dryen approached free translation with three categories: (1)metalanguage: word by word (literal translation), (2)paraphrase: translation

with latitude and (3) imitation: forsaking both words and sense. This three categories influenced upcoming writing about translations. As

opposed to Etienne Dolet who set out five principles: (1)the translator must make full sense of the material of the original author, (2)mastery

of SL and TL, (3)avoidance of word-for-word renderings, (4)avoidance of unusual forms and (5)usage of liaise and avoidance of clumsiness

Munday(2012). This, of course, reinforce the sense for sense translation and French language. In 1790 Alexander Freaser Tytler claimed that

a good translation should be oriented to the readers of the target language, and put forward three laws: (1)give a complete transcript of the

idea of the ST, (2)similar style and manner of ST and TT and (3)ease of the ST. Schleiermacher lists two different kinds of translations: (1)

the Dolmetscher and the bersetzer. These were two different approaches to translations since the first concerns commercial text, while the

second, considered to be on a higher creative level, deals with scholarworks and artistic texts. Here, the discussion rises again since the

second type of translation is bound to cultural context and a new way to translate into the TT needed to be found. Thanks to this, he

concludes that the only paths to take by a true translator are either moving towards the reader or the writer. Finally, George Steiner collated

fourteen writers who have significantly contributed to translation including aforementioned authors.

To conclude, we can say that there have been many authors who tried to approach to translation against common trends in their

times setting down rules, laws and requirements to be met. Lately, there have been various attempts to redefine free and literal translations to

avoid vague concepts and describe translation scientifically.

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Bibliography

Munday, J. (2012). Introducing translation studies: theories and applications. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.