Most language dictionaries will refer to translation
simply as changing words from one language to another. I am however of a
different school of thought, there’s more into translation than changing words
from a language to another. Translation is
about changing meaning into a form that is not only fathomable by the speakers
of the target language but also acceptable in the target language; it is about
transporting cultural elements from one language to another in a way that they
will be compatible with the culture of the target group. In translation it is
imperative that you transport all linguistic and cultural parallels in the
target language, so that the message can be as original as possible.
Let’s take for instance the following:
He’s married.
She is married.
When the above sentences are translated to let’s say
French, they will be as follows:
Il
est marié.
Elle
est mariée.
There is no much change apart from ensuring that the
past participle mariée in the second
sentence agrees with the feminine subject elle.
However if the same sentences are translated into an African language they will
have to metamorphose more than they would when being translated into a European
language. Let’s use the Kiswahili example which will respectively translate as
follows:
Ameoa.
Ameolewa.
The third person singular in this case is the
syllable A which is the same for
masculine and feminine. However we can be able to identify the gender of the
subject by looking at the nature of the sentence. Loosely translated into
English from Kiswahili, the sentences will translate as follows:
He has married.
She is married.
Why this discrepancy? In most African cultures, it
is the man that marries and the lady gets married thus the variation. If one
translates without taking this into consideration, it is likely to raise
eyebrows in African target audience making the man seem inferior, or the lady
look defiant perhaps because of gender roles. There are many other such sentences
in which you have to consider more than the words to make a perfect
translation.
There are many such paralinguistic features as well
as linguistic ones that determine someone’s translation. As such renowned theoreticians,
translators and scholars have come up with theories to help translators. In
fact, translation has evolved from a simple practice to a major field of study.
The skopos theory of translation looks at translation from a functional point
of view; the action of translating is determined by its skopos(purpose) or more directly, it implies that the end justifies
the means. With this approach, the source language is just a point of departure
after which the translator has the freedom to transform the text in a way that
it will pass the intended message in the target language.
Danica seleskovitch’s interpretative theory of
translation has a different approach. It divides the process of translation
into three stages: comprehension, “deverbalization” and re-expression.
According to Jean Delisle in his book La
Traduction Raisonée, we can only translate well, what we’ve well
understood. The translator has to understand (comprehend) the text to be
translated well before translating. At the comprehension stage the translator
thus needs to know what type of a text he’s dealing with, the register, when
and where was the text written and by who and more importantly the message and
how it is coded. These among others are the questions would be important to end
up with a perfect translation.
The deverbalization phase passes fast in the
translators mind. This is the stage where words are stripped off, and you’re
left with the message only; think of language as cloths dressed on message.
This stage is important to avoid translating simply word to word. As such one
might end up using homographs like eventuellement
in French and eventually in
English which don’t really mean the same thing.
The final stage according to the interpretive theory of translation is
re-expression, where meaning is now "dressed" in words of the target language.
This level is important because of the differences between language for
instance in syntax.
Evidently there’s more into translation than just
transcoding words from one language into another. At the end of the day, it is about the culture aspect,
register, and context, type of text among other linguistic or paralinguistic
aspects just as much as it is about language. All these parallel aspects should be put into consideration in order
to end up with a perfect translation that will pass the intended message, so
that if a text is based in a very liberal society and it is being trans-created
in a remotely located, conservative society, the parallels should be identified
and considered. It is because of this, bilingualism doesn't make us translators; you need to get a professional translator for all your needs in translation.
The author of this article works works with Kenya French Speakers, Kenya's premier language experts
