TASK119696FUNDAMENTOS DA TRAADUÇÃO EM LÍNGUA INGLESA

Prévia do material em texto

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FUNDAMENTOS DA TRADUÇÃO EM 
LÍNGUA INGLESA
INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF 
TRANSLATIONS AND THE WORK MARKET
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Olá!
Ao final desta aula, você será capaz de:
1. Identify the different types of translation; (identificar os diferentes tipos de tradução;)
2. Evaluate the role of the translator in relation to different types of translation described. (avaliar o papel do
tradutor em face aos diferentes tipos de tradução descritos.)
1 The Meaning of Translation
The word translation comes from the Latin translation, which means “to bring across”. If you think about the
work performed by a translator, this meaning becomes more than evidenced: bringing information from one
language to another so that the speaker/ writer of the second language can understand the message sent by the
speaker/ writer of the first.
The first translator was a hermeneutic who was given the task of interpreting the message sent from God to the
Human beings. As time went by, the need to decode information among different peoples became more and
more needed. Nowadays, there are many different ways and means by which languages can be translated and
technology has come as an invaluable aid to the process of translation. Nevertheless, the process remains the
same: there will be a person who knows both languages and will bridge the gap between the two to make the
message known by the speaker of the second language. Thus, from here on we will call the language in which the
text was originally written as the source language (SL) and the language into which the text will be translated
the target language (TL).
*source language: SOURCE LANGUAGE – Língua de origem.
*target language: TARGET LANGUAGE – Língua de destino.
2 A Brief History of Translation
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
organized as a nation, and that was when the varied languages were created.
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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.
One of the first icons of translation is the Rosetta Stone and dates back from 196 BC. The Rosetta Stone is an
ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele* inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis* on behalf of King Ptolemy V.
The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic
script, and the lowest Ancient Greek. All the three scripts present basically the same text (with minor
differences) and provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
* granodiorite stele: Granodiorite – a plutonic rock composed of black biotite, dark-gray hornblende, off-white
plagioclase, and translucent gray quartz.
Stele – an upright stone monument with inscriptions.
* Memphis: Memphis – Na ancient capital in Egypt, around 3000 BC.
If you want to view more about the Rosetta Stone go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LepXYMy_Fvg.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LepXYMy_Fvg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LepXYMy_Fvg
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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, encyclopedia, 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.
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3 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 issue’s 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:
• some languages have fixed word order (English, French, Portuguese) The grammatical structure: 
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• some languages have fixed word order (English, French, Portuguese) The grammatical structure: 
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.
• eg. the use of cognates (for example: pretend/intend in English and Etymological knowledge: 
pretender/intencionar in Portuguese).
• if a TL text is faithful to the ST it means that it kept its full meaning, without Fidelity or Transparency:
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.
• if a text in the TL is translated back to its SL will it keep the same meaning as in the Back translation: 
original text?
You have probably checked the answers to the exercise above and have confirmed or rejected some of the
answers you have provided. Let’s examine each of the items carefully.
• A competent translator must have very good knowledge (written and spoken) of the SL and an 
excellent command of the TL. Translators have to make choices when transferring information from a 
SL to a TL, and therefore, they must be well aware of the alternatives they have. Moreover, they also have 
to know about the etymological and idiomatic correlates between the two languages so as to make 
informed choices.
• A competent translator does need experience and the more translations he does the more practice will 
he get. It has been suggested that it will take a person about 10 years of practice to become an 
accomplished translator. Simply being able to speak the SL and the TL is not enough.
• A competent translator must be not only bilingual but bicultural as he needs to make use of 
intercultural references so as to be able to make choices in order to make his translation transparent.
• A competent translator must have a profound understanding of the etymological and idiomatic 
correlates between the two languages in order to avoid using equivalents that do not carry the 
meaning being implied by the author.
• A competent translator must never censor the text being translated. The work of a translator is simply 
transferring the information from a SL to a TL as faithfully as possible without placing any sort of 
judgment on what is being said.
• A competent translator needs to be familiarized with the content of the text being translated. 
Kasparek (1983) states that translations inescapably involve choice, and choice implies interpretation. 
Thus, the familiarity with the content is mandatory so translators can make sensible choices while 
translating.
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?
http://estaciodocente.webaula.com.br/cursos/gon206/pdf/aula01_t16.pdf
O que vem na próxima aula
• Next class you will learn about the different types of translation and how to deal with each one of them. 
(Na próxima aula, você aprenderá sobre os diversos tipos de tradução e como lidar com cada um deles.)
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http://estaciodocente.webaula.com.br/cursos/gon206/pdf/aula01_t16.pdf
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CONCLUSÃO
Nesta aula, você:
• Had an overview of the history of translation and how important the work of translators was in 
spreading knowledge among the different cultures; (obteve uma visão geral da história da tradução e o 
quão importante foi o trabalho dos tradutores ao disseminar o conhecimento entre as diversas culturas;)
• Learned a bit about the work of a translator and the opportunities available in the market for this 
professional. (conheceu um pouco do trabalho de um tradutor e as oportunidades disponíveis no 
mercado de trabalho para este profissional.)
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	Olá!
	1 The Meaning of Translation
	2 A Brief History of Translation
	3 Theoretical Issues
	O que vem na próxima aula
	CONCLUSÃO