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Now that you had this overview of the history of translation, let’s move on. The Tower of Babel is part of a story told in 
the book of Genesis in the Bible as a place where there was one people and one single language. God would have 
dismantled the place and scattered the languages all around the world to prevent them to get organised as a nation, 
and that was when the varied languages were created. 
 
Thus, as you could see, the need of translation has been present in the history of mankind since the very beginning of 
times, and the first attempt to decode messages across language was that of translating the message from God to the 
language of man. There have been many translations of the Bible and the 16th century witnessed many of these 
attempts, all of which were consequences of the attempt to understand the religious controversy of the time. 
 
 
Moving ahead in time, we can see the translation of Latin and Greek texts into many European languages. Humanism 
inspired the translation of many ancient texts and the job of translating a text from a foreign language into one's 
vernacular was seen by many as a noble challenge and a contribution to national literature. Others, however, 
considered it a job of minor importance, which would be performed by diplomats in the beginning of their careers or 
by writers who did not have fruitful careers. 
 
The Renaissance was known as “the great age of translations” and many ancient documents were translated into 
European languages as a way of enriching those peoples with the so-valued knowledge that the great thinkers could 
provide. In the early 16th Century, the French had translated the works of Xenophon, Suetonius, Sallust, Thucydides, 
and Caesar but English translations would only come much later. Nicholas Grimshaw, in the preface to his 1558 English 
translation of Cicero focused on this phenomenon, and criticized the English for not having done for their country 
what Italians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Dutchmen and other foreigners have done for theirs. 
Sir Thomas Hoby, an English Diplomat and translator, declared that it was his duty to his fellow countrymen to make 
available in English a useful guide about Renaissance court life, and translated Castiglione's The Book of Courtier into 
English in 1561. This book is considered to be one of the most important and widespread books of that time. English 
translations gradually increased; indeed, a study of Elizabethan translations is a study of the means by which the 
Renaissance came to England. However, the more translations were made, the more evident it became for the 
translators that in certain areas such as theology or medicine they would not find exact equivalents in English. There 
was a time they would say that English was not fit for the library but for the street (Crystal, 1995). At this time many 
foreign borrowings occurred. Some examples are: 
From Latin and Greek: anonymous, appropriate, autograph, chaos, climax, contradictory, disability, disrespect, 
emphasis, encyclopaedia, excursion, exist, impersonal, lexicon, relevant, scheme, system, temperature, thermometer, 
virus, among others. 
From or via French: anatomy, chocolate, detail, entrance, grotesque, invite, moustache, muscle, passport, ticket, 
tomato, volunteer, among others. 
From or via Italian: balcony, ballot, carnival, design, giraffe, lottery, opera, rocket, volcano, among others. 
From or via Spanish and Portuguese: alligator, banana, canoe, cockroach, guitar, hammock, hurricane, mosquito, 
potato, tobacco, among others. 
Theoretical Issues 
In 1476, William Caxton set up his press in Westminster. This event is considered by many as the key factor that might 
have determined the shift from Middle to Modern English. Caxton was neither a linguist nor a literary scholar; he was 
a merchant who wanted the books he printed to be sold. In order to be successful, he was conscious that the language 
he used had to be understood throughout the country. 
 
At that time he already posed some questions dealt with by many translators in the years ahead: 
- Should he use foreign words in his translation or replace them by native English words? 
 
- Which variety of English should he follow, given the existence of major regional differences? 
 
- How should language be spelled or punctuated, given the scribal variations of the previous centuries? 
 
- In publishing native writers, should he change their language to make it more widely understood? 
 
(Crystal, 1995, p57) 
These are just a few of the issues translators have to face when choosing their way through translations. Other issues 
have arisen as time went by and translations started to bloom. Theories about the nature of translation started to 
emerge. The distinction between metaphase and paraphrase (the former referring to the literal translation (word-by-
word) of the texts and the former to a reformulation of the original text) which had already been brought up by the 
Greeks was only one of them. In general, it has been agreed that translators would seek equivalents in the TL to match 
the meaning in the SL but would borrow terms from the TL if that was the only way to keep faithful to the message 
originally being conveyed. 
Other issues are listed below: 
 
- The grammatical structure: some languages have fixed word order (English, French, Portuguese) whereas others have 
free word order (Latin, Greek). The declinations in Latin and Greek will determine their grammar, whereas in English, 
for instance, the position the words have in the sentence will do so. 
 
- Etymological knowledge: eg. the use of cognates (for example: pretend/intend in English and pretender/intencionar 
in Portuguese). 
 
- Fidelity or Transparency: if a TL text is faithful to the ST it means that it kept its full meaning, without distortion; if a 
TL text is transparent, it means that it appears to a native speaker of the TL to have originally been written in that 
language, and conforms to its grammar, syntax and idiom. 
 
- Back translation: if a text in the TL is translated back to its SL will it keep the same meaning as in the original text? 
 
 
Now that you already know a bit about the history of translation and the qualities of a good translator, let’s have a 
quick look at the alternatives available nowadays. Who knows you may find the job of a translator an attractive one 
and may want to venture into it? 
aula01_t16.pdf 
 
Types of Translations 
Miguel de Cervantes in his Don Quixote, once wrote that: 
 
“Translating from one language to another, unless it is from Greek and Latin, the queens of all languages, is like looking 
at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, for although the figures are visible, they are covered by threads that 
obscure them, and cannot be seen with the smoothness and color of the right side.” 
 
This enlightening quotation can illustrate how challenging the work of a translator can be and how important it is in 
giving meaning to a message sent in a SL to a TL. The idea that the meaning proposed by an author can be obscured in 
TL if not translated carefully is strengthened when we come across badly translated texts in which the message is 
totally different from the original one. 
In our previous lesson, we had an overview of the story of translation through times and started studying the role of 
the translator. In this second lesson, we will go through the different types of translation and continue analysing the 
work of a translator, this time comparing the jobs of the translator and the interpreter. 
Types of TranslationsTranslations can be classified into many different categories, depending on the form (oral, 
written), type (literal, non-literal), method (simultaneous, consecutive), the medium (human, computer-assisted, 
mechanic). 
 
 
Observe the following chart. Click on each of the boxes to know more about eachof them: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Types of Translation According to the Level os Analysis and Synthesis 
Another way of classifying the types of translation is related to the level of analysis/ synthesis of the text. They can be: 
 
 
 
Now, click on each of the types of translation below to compare to your version. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
If you want to know more about the work of an interpreter, watch this short documentary about the routine of a 
translator/interpreter: 
Video 
Translation Workflow 
Once the translator has accepted a translation task, there are certain basic stages that should be followed. The process 
of translation may vary from one translator to another but basically the stages include: 
Evaluation: The project is evaluated using the following criteria: Target Language/Audience and Subject Matter 
Glossary Development: A glossary is created to ensure consistency of terminology, so that translations complement 
one another and are consistent. 
Initial Translation: The source document is translated. 
Quality Assurance: After the completion of the initial translation, the translation undergoes a review by a senior 
translator or an editor. The translation is edited and proofread for grammatical and syntactic accuracy and 
appropriateness of style and for possible omissions. The editor then works with the original translator to decide which 
changes to be implemented. 
Client Approval: The first draft of the document is sent to the client for approval. 
Translator Proofreading: The original translator now proofs the formatted text for any discrepancies caused by 
formatting, such as improper hyphenation, omissions, etc. 
Final Delivery to Client: The translated and formatted document is now handed in to the client. 
Below you will find the song SMILE by Charles Chaplin in two different versions: The first one is the original one, in 
English, and the second a version in Portuguese, SORRI, by Djavan 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In the video you just saw some interesting translation related issues were raised. 
 
Among them we can include: 
 
Most of the times there will be lexical correspondences between different languages (parts of the body, family 
relations) 
 
Some languages don’t have words to describe everything (in the video, chrome handlebars in English, for example) 
 
Some languages don’t have words to describe items which would be considered essential to other cultures (left, right) 
as they have different kinds of spatial orientation (cardinal orientation). 
These few issues are enough to give us just a glimpse of the great amount of differences one can find between 
languages, and provide us with an overview of the importance that the study of Linguistics has acquired in helping 
translators cope with such differences. 
We have already studied that translations have been present in the history of man since its early years, however 
translation was not considered a field of studies before the 1980’s. 
Since then, the interest in translation literacy has been evidenced by the proliferation of translation training 
programmes worldwide and nowadays most universities have a department of translation studies interested in 
investigating the differences among languages and how to deal with such diversity when having to translate texts from 
a SL to a TL. 
The more translators investigated into their field the more interdisciplinary the study of translation became and 
contribution from various fields of study such as linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, philosophy and 
anthropology, among others, was welcome into the investigation. 
In this unit we shall focus our attention on some of the contributions linguistics has offered to the study of translation 
and the important insights it has brought to this field of study. 
Jakobson and the Linguistic Aspects of Translation 
Roman Jakobson (1959) was one of the first linguists to consider the contributions of linguistics to the study of 
translation. In his text On Linguistic Aspect of Translation he deals with issues that are crucial in understanding the 
translation process such as interlingual, intralingual and semiotic differences. 
Let’s take for example the word snow. 
Except for the inhabitants of a few cities in the south of Brazil, the concept of snow to the average Brazilian is limited 
to the idea of falling snowflakes taken from movies. 
 
Thus, when having to translate a text about snow, for example, to a Brazilian, the translator will have to make use of 
more explicit language to try and convey the meaning of certain items to a reader/ listener who does not have the 
same linguistic reference as the one who has produced the text. 
Jakobson makes a distinction among three possible types of translation: 
“She was brought up by her grandparents” 
Intralingual translation 
Or rewording refers to the interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs in the same language. For example, 
the intralingual translation of bring up in the sentence She was brought up by her grandparents would be “take care 
for someone until s/he is an adult, often giving this person particular beliefs”. 
Interlingual translation 
Or translation itself refers to the interpretation of verbal signs by means of another language. For example, the 
interlingual translation of the sentence She was brought up by her grandparents into Portuguese would be something 
similar to Ela foi criada e educada por seus avós. 
Intersemiotic translation 
Or transmutation refers to the interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal signs systems (music or 
image). For example, when Edward Munch painted The Scream, he tried to translate into an image his concept of a 
scream: 
The Scream, by E. Munch (1893) 
 
 
Mutual translability 
One of the main concerns in linguistics is the mutual translability between languages: is it possible to find exact 
equivalence in meaning when translating a message from a SL to a TL? 
Nothing can be interpreted without a translation of its signs into other signs in the same language or into signs of 
another language. The picture illustrates the process of translation from a SL into a TL. 
 
Equivalence in difference is one of the main concerns of linguistics. 
 
When translating a text from a SL into a TL, the linguist examines the mutual translability between the two languages 
to try and to find a correspondent in the TL that provides the exact meaning to the text (oral or written) in the SL. 
 
This search for an equivalent will take into account many different aspects of both languages so the receiver of the 
message in the TL can understand the message correctly. 
 
When it comes to grammar, the translator has to be even more careful. 
Eventually one can come across items which have no corresponding grammatical equivalent in the TL. 
In this case the meaning would have to be translated in lexical terms. 
Take for example the sentence Joan had her hair cut. 
The causative have has no equivalent form in Brazilian Portuguese and in order to explain the meaning implied by the 
sentence, the translator would have to make use of other verbal resources to explain the fact that Joan did not 
actually cut her hair herself (in which case the sentence would have to be Joan cut her hair). 
Another interesting example would be the lack of gender marker in English. 
The translation of words with dual gender (friend, teacher, baby, doctor, student) requires a gender marker in Brazilian 
Portuguese. 
For instance, when translating a sentence such as The student decided to study hard for his final tests, the translator 
would have to look for textual clues to help him choose between “o aluno” or “a aluna”. 
 
Similarly, when translating the sentence Meus irmãos vivem perto da minha casa into English, the translator would 
have to look for elements to define if “irmãos” correspondsto brothers (if the speaker has male siblings only) or if 
there is a sister among them, in which case the translation to English would have to make reference to both brothers 
and sisters. 
Register is another aspect to be considered. For example, the word sibling used in the previous paragraph could be 
used as an equivalent to “irmãos” if the text being translated was of a more formal nature, but would not be suitable 
in a more colloquial exchange. 
Pragmatics is another issue worth investigating for the study of translation. It can be defined the study of the purposes 
for which sentences are used. 
 
For instance, let’s imagine the following two scenes: 
Two people in an enclosed room, the weather is cold and the window is opened. One of them says: “It’s cold”. The 
purpose of the sentence is not to say it’s cold, but to suggest that the window be closed. Thus, in this case It’s cold = 
Close the window. 
A mother and a son; the son is leaving home wearing a T-shirt. The mother looks at him and at his clothes. She says: 
“It’s cold”. The purpose of the sentence is not to say it’s cold, but to suggest that son get a coat. Thus, in this case It’s 
cold = Get a coat. 
How would a translator deal with each of the situations? 
 
If both situations were part of written texts, and the texts were being translated from English to Brazilian Portuguese, 
the purpose of the sentence “It’s cold” would be easily understood in both languages. 
If, however, the situations were part of a verbal account, the translator would probably have to make use of other 
clues to make the meaning of the utterance clear for the receiver (describing the setting or the weather, for example). 
 
In other situations, the understanding of the function of certain utterances in communication might constitute of an 
issue for the translator (children understanding the use of irony, for instance). 
Cultural Equivalents in Translation 
The receiver’s cultural background also plays an important role in translation/ interpretation, as part of the role of the 
translator has to do with his ability in making the message clear. 
 
The translator has to be able to speak the receiver’s language so as to make him clearly understand the message being 
sent. 
 
Newmark (1981) suggests a series of strategies to cater for cultural gaps in translation: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Corpus linguistics is a study of language and a method of linguistic analysis which uses a collection of natural or “real 
word” texts known as corpus. Corpus linguistics is used to analyze and research a number of linguistic questions and 
offers insights into the dynamism of languages. 
 
http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/ 
 
allowing access to naturalistic linguistic information (corporal consist of “real word” texts which are mostly a product 
of real life situations, which makes corporal a valuable research source for dialectology, sociolinguistics and stylistics); 
facilitating linguistic research, thus reducing the time needed to find particular words or phrases (a research that 
would take days or even years to complete manually can be done in a matter of seconds with the highest degree of 
accuracy); 
enabling the study of wider patterns and collocation of words; 
allowing analysis of multiple parameters at the same time (researchers can analyze a larger number of parameters 
simultaneously); 
facilitating the use of the second language (study of the second language with the use of natural language allows the 
students/ translators to get a better “feeling” for the language and learn the language like it is used in real rather than 
“invented” situations); 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Have a look at this ad, which was launched roughly at the same time as the one about the videocassette recorder you 
saw in the introductory activity. 
 
If you had to translate this ad to a 21st century teenager, it would definitely be easier than translating the other one. 
a04_t03 
 
The two ads you have seen in this lesson prove to be very useful to start us thinking in the importance of 
Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics in the work of a translator. 
 
How would it be possible to translate the concept of a videocassette recorder or of a video tape for a generation who 
is used to powerful notebooks and who did not have to use any of the equipment advertised? 
Although we may be referring to intralingual translation, the same can be applied to the interlingual environment. 
 
Psycholinguistics will help us evaluate, among other issues, if it is possible to translate everything and the importance 
of a common experience to fully understand a given message. 
 
On the other hand, sociolinguistics will help us deal with different social realities which may involve speakers from 
different cultures and how ready they would be to understand a certain text if they did not share the same experience. 
Think for example, in an african society who has not been exposed to the technological advances of the last decades. 
Would there be any sort of equivalent in their language to all the technical terms a translator would need? What 
about a common human experience? 
Translation and Psycholinguistics 
 
The idea that “all figures are visible [but] covered by threads that obscures them…” is a very powerful metaphor of 
translation and ever present in psycholinguistic theories of translation. 
 
 
 
 
Let’s consider the following sentence: 
 
 
 
If we consider that the use of inversions in English has the purpose of adding emphasis to the meaning provided, may 
be the best option would be sentence (2) due to the strength the word jamais has in the sentence. 
 
But as we are talking about a totally decontextualised sentence, the translator might have to make use of other 
language resources to make the intended meaning clear. 
Another aspect of Quine’s theory has to do with the indeterminacy of reference which accounts for the fact that if one 
has to look for a referential item from a SL to a TL he will find many possible answers which are equally correct. 
Even though Quine’s theory is still cited today it has been prone to inevitable criticism. To our study today we can cite 
the work of Hejwowski (2004) which states that although not any text can be translated, translation IS possible if: 
there is a common human experience which will allow the TL reader relate to the experience being described (this is 
the case of the Apple ad – even though the reader may not have experienced the launching of the Apple computer, 
the fact that this brand of computer sis still on sale, helps the understanding); 
there is similarity of mental and linguistic structures which will cater for the understanding of the message (as is the 
case of the translation of one if the types of snow into Brazilian Portuguese, the possible choice would be simply neve 
due to the lack of specific vocabulary); 
there is empathy (i.e. the message would be interesting enough so as to gain the TL reader’s interest). However, texts 
which would not attract anyone’s attention or which would be translated out of context, would not be likely to be 
translated. 
 
 
Both Quine and Sapir-Whorf showed their uneasiness for the difficulties one can go through when translating between 
languages. 
 
The fact is that languages are really different and it really takes a skilled translator to transfer information from one 
code to another keeping the message as similar as possible to the original one. The more invisible the translator, the 
better the translation. 
 
Apparently, seeing from a very broad overview, sociolinguistics, just like translation studies, is an interdisciplinary area 
in which the stress is laid either on the linguistic or on the social, and its purpose is to examine the relations between 
both of them. 
Let’s focus on three aspects studied by sociolinguistics which can be applied to translation:Variation 
Languages vary according to location, age, style, ethnic group and social class. 
 
Besides, they should also be connected to social relations and, more precisely, who the other is and how we interact 
with him. 
For example: 
If we adopt a formal style, for example, we establish a particular type of relationship with the reader/ receiver. 
If we resort to a more casual tone, the relationship is completely different. 
Because of that, the level of formality of a text will depend on the social relationship involving all those involved in the 
communication, author/ translator and reader. 
Write the words formal, informal, high class, lower class under each of the ads and say how the translation of both 
texts would be affected by language variation: 
 
 
 
The interference between languages has to be carefully examined during translations. 
 
In some text-types and functions, this interference must be kept to a minimum, but must reflect the contact between 
the languages to be faithful to the SL text. 
Take for example the translation of Harry Potter into French in which the French text keeps the British school 
organisation: houses, prefects, 7 years in the same school (in the French educational system there are colleges and 
lycées. 
Language as action 
Sociolinguists have observed how language works in and across communities and realized that language use does not 
simply represent but also contributes to the definition of oneself, the other and those to whom they relate. 
Interaction is the means by which society is able to produce, and it occurs solely by the use of language. 
 
By speaking English or Brazilian Portuguese or any (variety of a) language, by mixing or switching codes, by borrowing 
or refusing new terms and constructions, we, speakers of our own languages, contribute to what we are and, often in 
a small way, what society is. 
 
1. 
Answer the three questions below using the following ad as reference: 
 
(Fonte: http://www.therecordofwilkes.com/newsa.asp?edition_number=680&pg=F ) 
When translating the above ad to Brazilian Portuguese, the translator 
 
 
 
Articles 
The uses of the definite article in English and BrP are very similar: in both languages, as a rule, it refers to a specific 
situation, as opposed to the indefinite article, which is used to refer to more general situations. 
 
In more practical terms, however, one has to be very careful with the use of articles when translating texts into BrP 
for, unlike English, nouns cannot head sentences. 
 
Generic nouns also need special attention and the use of countable and uncountable nouns will influence the 
translation into BrP. For example: 
 
 
 
 
The differentiation between a/an does not affect the translation of the sentence in BrP but special attention must be 
paid to the use of uncountable nouns, which are considered singular in English and must be preceded by a determiner, 
usually some, as it represents an indefinite quantity. This, however, does not affect the translation into BrP: 
 
 
So far we have studied the translation from English to BrP. 
 
Now, think of sentences in BrP in which the articles are used and translate them into English. How would the 
translation from one language into the other change? 
The formation and basic use of the passive voice in English and BrP are basically the same, being its use preferred 
when the speaker wants to emphasize the person who suffers the action rather than the one who performs it. 
 
As a rule of thumb, the use of the passive voice should be kept in the translation if it is to keep the author’s original 
message. 
 
In BrP there is a distinction between two types of passive voice: the “analítica” and the “sintética”, which does not 
occur in English. 
 
Analyse the following sentence and the way in which the passive voice was employed: 
 
 
 
 
So far we have studied the translation from English to BrP. 
 
Now, think of sentences in BrP in which the passive voice is used and translate them into English. 
 
How would the translation from one language into the other change? 
 
The infinitive is the form of the verb preceded by to (to visit, to study, etc). 
 
If the verb is not followed by to it is called the bare infinitive (or, as some prefer, the infinitive without to). 
The gerund is the verb form in which the verb is followed by the -ing (visiting, studying). 
 
In English some verbs may be followed by the gerund and some others by the infinitive. 
Pass the mouse on the following arrows in order to see that like a substantive, the gerund may 
 
Like a substantive, the gerund may: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Pass the mouse on the following arrows in order to see that like a verb, the gerund may 
 
Like a verb, the gerund may: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So far we have studied the translation from English to BrP. 
 
Now, think of sentences in BrP in which either the gerund or the infinitive is used and translate them into English. 
 
How would the translation from one language into the other change?