Notes from Jeremy Munday 4

Transposition: (DEĞİŞTİRİM) This is a change of one part of speech for another (e.g. noun for verb)
without changing the sense. Transposition can be:

* obligatory: French dès son lever [‘upon her rising’] in a past context would be translated by as soon
as she got up; or

* optional: in the reverse direction, the English as soon as she got up could be translated into French
literally as dès qu’elle s’est levée or as a verb-to-noun transposition in dès son lever [‘upon her
rising’].

Vinay and Darbelnet (1995: 94) see transposition as ‘probably the most common structural change
undertaken by translators’. They list at least ten different categories, such as:

verb - noun: they have pioneered 􀁁 they have been the first; adverb 􀁁 verb: He will soon be back 􀁁 He
will hurry to be back.

Modulation: This changes the semantics and point of view of the SL. It can be:

* obligatory: e.g. the time when translates as le moment où [lit. ‘the

moment where’];

* optional, though linked to preferred structures of the two languages: e.g. the reversal of point of
view in it is not difficult to show > il est facile

de démontrer [lit. ‘it is easy to show’].

Modulation is a procedure that is justified ‘when, although a literal, or even transposed, translation
results in a grammatically correct utterance, it is considered unsuitable, unidiomatic or awkward in
the TL’ (2004: 133).

Vinay and Darbelnet place much store by modulation as ‘the touchstone of a good translator’,
whereas transposition ‘simply shows a very good command of the target language’ (ibid.: 246).
Modulation at the level of message is subdivided (ibid.: 246–55) along the following lines:

abstract< >concrete, or particular< >general:

She can do no other > She cannot act differently;

Give a pint of blood > Give a little blood

explicative modulation, or effect- cause: You’re quite a stranger . We don’t see you any more.
whole< >part: He shut the door in my face > He shut the door in my nose

part< >another part: He cleared his throat > He cleared his voice

reversal of terms: You can have it > I’ll give it to you

negation of opposite: It does not seem unusual > It is very normal

active< >passive: We are not allowed to access the internet > they don’t allow us to access the
internet

rethinking of intervals and limits in space and time: No parking between signs > Limit of parking

change of symbol (including fixed and new metaphors): Fr. La moutarde lui monta au nez [‘The
mustard rose up to his nose’] > En. He saw red [‘he became very angry’].

Équivalence, or idiomatic translation: Vinay and Darbelnet use this term (1995: 38–9; 2004: 134) to
refer to cases where languages describe the same situation by different stylistic or structural means.
Équivalence is particularly useful in translating idioms and proverbs: the sense, though not the image,
of comme un chien dans un jeu de quilles [lit. ‘like a dog in a game of skittles’ (BOWLİNG TOPLARI
ORTASINDA KALMIŞ KÖPEK GİBİ) ] can be rendered as like a bull in a china shop.(SERAMİK
DÜKKANINA DALMIŞ BİR BOĞA GİBİ)

The use of équivalence in this restricted sense should not be confused with the more common
theoretical use discussed in Chapter 3 of this book.

(7) Adaptation (1995: 39–40; 2004: 134–6): (uyarlama) This involves changing the cultural reference
when a situation in the source culture does not exist in the target culture. For example, Vinay and
Darbelnet suggest that the cultural connotation of a reference to the game of cricket in an English
text might be best translated into French by a reference to the Tour de France. The authors claim
that a refusal to use such adaptation in an otherwise ‘perfectly correct’ TT ‘may still be noticeable by
an undefinable tone, something that does not sound quite right’ (1995: 53). However, whereas their
solution may work for some restricted metaphorical uses, it would make little sense to change the
domain cricket to that of cycling in phrases such as that isn’t cricket (‘that isn’t fair’) or ‘a sleepy
Wednesday morning county match at Lords [cricket [cricket ground in London]’.

Vinay and Darbelnet (ibid.: 30–1) list five analytical steps for the translator to
follow in moving from ST to TT. These are as follows:
(1) Identify the units of translation. (çeviri birimlerini belirleme)
(2) Examine the SL text, evaluating the descriptive, affective and intellectual
content of the units.(kaynak metni inceleme; birimlerin betimleyici (betimsel), duygusal ve düşünsel
(bilişsel) içeriklerini değerlendirme)
(3) Reconstruct the metalinguistic context of the message.(İletinin/mesajın dil ötesi bağlamını yeniden
yapılandırma)
(4) Evaluate the stylistic effects.(biçemi değerlendirme)
(5) Produce and revise the TT.(Erek metni /hedef metni oluşturma/üretme ve gözden geçirme)

The first four steps are also followed by Vinay and Darbelnet in their analysis of published
translations. As far as the key question of the unit of translation is concerned, the authors reject the
individual word. They consider the unit of translation to be a combination of a ‘lexicological unit’ and
a ‘unit of thought’ and define it (ibid.: 21) as ‘the smallest segment of the utterance whose signs are
linked in such a way that they should not be translated individually’. In the original French version
(1958: 275–7), an example is given of the division of a short ST and TT into the units of translation.
The divisions proposed include examples of
individual words (e.g. he, but), grammatically linked groups (e.g. the watch, to look), fixed
expressions (e.g. from time to time) and semantically linked groups (e.g. to glance away). In the later,
English, version of the book, new analysis gives units that are rather longer: for example, the
groupings si nous songeons > if we speak of and en Grande Bretagne, au Japon > in Great Britain,
Japan are each given as a single unit (1995: 321).
To facilitate analysis where oblique translation is used, Vinay and Darbelnet suggest numbering the
translation units in both the ST and TT (for an example, see Table 4.1 in the case study section at the
end of this chapter). The units which have the same number in each text can then be compared to see
which translation procedure has been adopted. ( önemli olan metnin çevirmene dayattığı unsurlar ve
yöntemler değil isteğe bağlı işlemlerdir)

**One criticism of Vinay and Darbelnet’s model is that it can less easily be
applied to non-European languages.

Catford and translation ‘shifts’

Translation shifts are linguistic changes occurring in translation of ST to TT. Although Vinay and
Darbelnet do not use the term, that is in effect what they are describing. The term itself seems to
originate in Catford’s A Linguistic Theory of Translation (1965), where he devotes a chapter to the
subject. Catford (1965: 20) follows the Firthian and Hallidayan linguistic model, which analyses
language as communication, operating functionally in context and on a range of different levels (e.g.
phonology, graphology, grammar, lexis) and ranks (sentence, clause,

group, word, morpheme, etc.).5 As far as translation is concerned, Catford makes an important
distinction between formal correspondence and textual equivalence, which was later to be developed
by Koller (see Chapter 3):

A formal correspondent is ‘any TL category (unit, class, element of structure, etc.) which can be said
to occupy, as nearly as possible, the “same” place in the “economy” of the TL as the given SL
category occupies in the SL’ (Catford 1965: 27).

* A textual equivalent is ‘any TL text or portion of text which is observed on a particular occasion . . .
to be the equivalent of a given SL text or portion of text’ (ibid.).

Thus, formal correspondence is a more general system-based concept between a pair of languages
(e.g. the noun belongings and the Spanish efectos personales [‘personal effects’]) while textual
equivalence is tied to a particular ST–TT pair (e.g. he searched through my belongings translated as
examine mi bolso [‘he examined my bag’]). When the two concepts diverge (as in efectos personales
and bolso), a translation shift is deemed to have occurred.

*****In Catford’s own words (1965: 73; 2000: 141), translation shifts are thus ‘departures from
formal correspondence in the process of going from the SL to the TL’.

Catford considers two kinds of shift: (1) shift of level and (2) shift of category.
(1) A level shift (1965: 73–5; 2000: 141–3) would be something which is
expressed by grammar in one language and lexis in another. This could, for
example, be:
* aspect in Russian being translated by a lexical verb in English: e.g. igrat’ (to play) and sigrat’ (to
finish playing); or
* cases where the French conditional corresponds to a lexical item in
English: e.g. trois touristes auraient ete tues [lit. ‘three tourists would have been killed’] = three
tourists have been reported killed.

(2) Most of Catford’s analysis is given over to category shifts (1965: 75–82;
2000: 143–7). These are subdivided into four kinds: (a) Structural shifts: These are said by Catford
to be the most common and to involve mostly a shift in grammatical structure. For example, the
subject pronoun + verb + direct object structures of I like jazz and j’aime le jazz in English and French
are translated by an indirect object
pronoun + verb + subject structure in Spanish (me gusta el jazz) and in Italian (mi piace il jazz).
(b) Class shifts: These comprise shifts from one part of speech to another.
An example given by Catford is the English a medical student and the French un etudiant en
medecine. Here, the English pre-modifying adjective medical is translated by the adverbial qualifying
phrase en medecine
(c) Unit shifts or rank shifts: These are shifts where the translation equivalent in the TL is at a
different rank to the SL. ‘Rank’ here refers to the hierarchical linguistic units of sentence, clause,
group, word and morpheme.
(d) Intra-system shifts: These are shifts that take place when the SL and TL possess approximately
corresponding systems but where ‘the translation involves selection of a non-corresponding term in
the TL system’ (1965: 80; 2000: 146). Examples given between French and English are number and
article systems – although similar systems operate in the two languages, they do not always
correspond. Thus, advice (uncountable)
in English becomes des conseils (plural) in French, and the French definite article la in Il a la jambe
cassee [‘he has the leg broken’] corresponds to the English indefinite article a in He has a broken leg.