Theory Handbook 2022 PDF

Universidad Nacional de Catamarca
Facultad de Humanidades
Departamento de Inglés
Traductorado Público Nacional de Inglés
Traductología II
Theory
2022
Handbook Traductología II Page 1

TRANSLATION-ORIENTED TEXT ANALYSIS
(Taken from Text Analysis in Translation, by Christiane Nord, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1991)
Translation-oriented text analysis should not only ensure full comprehension and correct
interpretation of the text or explain its linguistic and textual structures and their relationship
with the system and norms of the source language (SL), but it should also provide a reliable
foundation for each and every decision which the translator has to make in a particular
translation process. In practice, the translating instructions are usually given to the
translator (or can be inferred by the translator from the situation) before he starts reading
the source language text (SLT). Therefore, his reception will inevitably be influenced by his
knowledge, even though he may do his best to approach the text in as an unbiased way as
possible. The professional translator will aim for a critical, comprehensive, translation-
oriented analysis.
Translation (or “intercultural communication”) is usually initiated by a customer or initiator
(I), approaching a translator because he needs a certain target text for a particular target
addressee or recipient. It may also be that he himself wants to understand in the TL a certain
source text written in a SL by a SL author or text producer or transmitted by a SL sender
under the particular conditions of the source culture.
Being culture-bound linguistic signs, both the source text and the target text are determined
by the communicative situation in which they serve to convey a message. A text is the
totality of communicative signals used in a communicative interaction.
As a product of the author’s intention, the text remains provisional until it is received by its
recipient. It is the reception that completes the communicative situation and defines the
function of the text. The communicative function of the ST, which is represented by the
factors of the communicative situation in which the ST fulfils its function, is of decisive
importance for text analysis. These factors are called “extratextual” or “external” factors (as
opposed to the “intratextual” or “internal” factors relating to the text itself).
Extratextual factors are analysed by enquiring about the author or sender of the text (who?),
the sender’s intention (what for?), the addressee or recipient the text is directed to (to
whom?), the medium or channel the text is communicated by (by which medium?), the
place (where?) and time (when?) of text production and text reception, and the motive
(why?) for communication. The sum total of information obtained may provide an answer
to the last question (with what function?).
Intratextual factors are analysed by inquiring about the subject matter the text deals with
(on what subject matter?), the information or content presented in the text (what?), the
knowledge presuppositions made by the author (what not?), the composition or
construction of the text (in what order?), the lexical characteristics (in which words?) etc.

found in the text, and the suprasegmental features of intonation and prosody (in which
tone?)
ELEMENTS TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT WHEN DEALING WITH TEXT

ANALYSIS
(Taken from Peter Newmark’s A Textbook of Translation.)
The intention of the text

In reading, you search for the intention of the text, you cannot isolate this from
understanding it, they go together. Two texts may describe a battle or a riot or a debate,
stating the same facts and figures, but the type of language used and even the grammatical
structures (passive voice, impersonal verbs often used to disclaim responsibility) in each
case may be evidence of different points of view. The intention of the text represents the SL
writer’s attitude to the subject matter.
Text styles
Following Nida, we distinguish four types of (literary or non-literary) texts:
1. Narrative: a dynamic sequence of events, where the emphasis is on the verbs or
“empty” verbs plus verb-nouns or phrasal verbs (He made a sudden appearance, He
burst in).
2. Description: which is static, with emphasis or linking verbs, adjectives, adjectival
nouns.
3. Discussion: a treatment of ideas, with emphasis on abstract nouns (concepts), verbs
of thought, mental activity (‘consider’, ‘argue’, etc.), logical argument and
connectives.
4. Dialogue: With emphasis on colloquialisms and phaticisms.
(from Discourse and the Translator by B. Hatim and I. Mason)

a) The Argumentative Text Type
In general terms, this style has as a contextual focus the evaluation of relations between
concepts. Beaugrande and Dressler (1981:184) define argumentative texts as: “those
utilized to promote the acceptance or evaluation of certain beliefs or ideas as true vs. false,
or positive vs. negative. Conceptual relations such as reason, significance, volition, value and
opposition should be frequent.”

b) The Expository Text Type
In this type, the contextual focus is either on the decomposition (analysis) into constituent
elements of given concepts, or their composition (synthesis) from constituent elements.
Two important variants of this kind of conceptual exposition are descriptive and narrative
texts. In place of ‘concepts’, description handles ‘objects’ or ‘situations’, while narrative
texts arrange ‘actions’ and ‘events’ in a particular order.
It is important for the translator to distinguish between these two types; the following
check-list of basic features may be helpful:
 Monitoring and managing
In argumentation, the focus is on what is known as situation managing; the dominant
function of the text is to manage or steer the situation in a manner favourable to the
text producer’s goals. In exposition, on the other hand, the focus is on providing a
reasonably detached account, a monitoring of the situation (Beaugrande and Dressler,
1981)
 Tone-setter and scene-setter
The topic sentence in argumentation ‘sets the tone’ and must be substantiated. In
exposition, on the other hand, the topic sentence ‘sets the scene’ and must be
expounded.
Other features which distinguish argumentation from exposition have to do with: reference
to people, the semantics of the verb (perceiving, feeling, saying), frequency of certain
syntactic structures (passivisation, transitivity, etc.), lexical density of themes, modality, etc.
c) The Instructional Text Types

The focus here is on the formation of future behaviour. There is an attempt to regulate
through instruction the way people act or think.
Two sub-types may be recognised: instruction with option (as in advertising, consumer
advice, etc.) and instruction without option (as in contracts, treaties, etc.)
The focus on instructions with option is on influencing options or behaviours and provoking
action or reaction. In this respect, instruction with option and argumentation have a lot in
common. In fact, the two types are treated as one (“operative text”) in the typology
developed by Reiss (1976) which includes the following principles:
1. Comprehensibility (use of short sentences, simple syntax, etc.)
2. Topicality (closeness to life, topical allusions)
3. Memorability (Rhetorical repetition, puns, rhymes, slogans)
4. Suggestivity (manipulation of opinions by exaggeration, value-judgements,
implication)

5. Emotionality (anxieties and fears are played on, threats and flattery used; the
associations of words are exploited)
6. Language manipulation (propaganda is disguised as information)
7. Plausibility (appeals to authorities, witnesses, experts)
The Readership
The average text for translation tends to be for an educated, middle-class readership in an
informal, not colloquial style.
On the basis of the variety of language used in the original, you attempt to characterise the
readership of the original and then of the translation, and to decide how much attention
you have to pay to the TL readers. You may try to assess the level of education, the class,
age and sex of the readership if these are “marked”.
LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS
According to Buhler’s functional theory of language, its three main functions are the
expressive, the informative and the vocative functions: these are the main purposes of using
language.
The Expressive Function

The core of the expressive function is the mind of the speaker, the writer , the originator of
the utterance. He uses the utterance to express his feelings irrespective of any response.
The characteristic expressive text-types are:
1) Serious imaginative literature. Of the four principal types – lyrical poetry, short stories,
novels, plays – lyrical poetry is the most intimate expression, while plays are more
evidently addressed to a large audience.
2) Authoritative statements. These are texts of any nature which derive their authority
from the high status or the reliability and linguistic competence of their authors. Typical
authoritative statements are political speeches, documents by ministers or party
leaders; statutes and legal documents; scientific, philosophical and academic works
written by acknowledged authorities.
3) Autobiography, essays, personal correspondence. These are expressive when they are
personal affusions, when the readers are a remote background.
A translator should be able to distinguish the personal components of these texts:
unusual collocations, original metaphors, “untranslatable” words, particularly adjectives
of “quality” that have to be translated one-to-two or -three, unconventional syntax,

neologisms, strange words – all that is often characterised as “idiolect” or “personal
dialect” – as opposed to “ordinary language”.
The informative function

The core of the informative function of language is external situation, the facts of a topic,
reality outside language. For the purpose of translation, typical “informative” texts are
concerned with any topic of knowledge. The format of an informative text is often standard:
a textbook, a technical report, an article in a newspaper or a periodical, a scientific paper, a
thesis, minutes or agenda of a meeting.
One normally assumes a modern, non-regional, non idiolectal style, with perhaps four
points on a scale of language varieties: 1) A formal, non-emotive, technical style for
academic papers, characterised in English by passive, present and perfect tenses, literal
language, latinized vocabulary, jargon, no metaphors; 2) a neutral or informal style with
defined technical terms for textbooks characterised by first person plurals, present tenses,
dynamic active verbs, and basic conceptual metaphors; 3) an informal, warm style for
popular science and art books characterised by simple grammatical structures, a wide range
of vocabulary to accommodate definitions and numerous illustrations, stock metaphors and
simple vocabulary; 4) a familiar, racy, non-technical style for popular journalism,
characterised by surprising metaphors, short sentences, unconventional punctuation,
adjectives before proper names and colloquialisms.
Two points must be taken into account: “informative” texts constitute the vast majority of
the translator’s work in international organisations, multi-nationals, private companies and
translation agencies. Secondly, a high proportion of such texts are poorly written and
sometimes inaccurate, and it is usually the translator’s job to “correct” their facts and their
style.
The vocative function

The core of the vocative function is the readership, the addressee. The term “vocative” is
used in the sense of “calling upon” the readership to act, think or feel, in fact to “react” in
the way intended by the text. For the purpose of translation, the typical “vocative” texts are
notices, instructions, publicity, propaganda, persuasive writing (requests, cases, theses) and
possibly popular fiction, whose purpose is to sell the book/entertainment the reader.
Key here: identifying the relationship between the writer and the readership, which is
realised in various ways.
Elements of vocative texts: infinitives, imperatives, subjunctives, indicatives, impersonal,
passives; tags, such as “please”, all play their part in determining relationships of power or
equality, command, request or persuasion.

These texts must be written in a language that is immediately comprehensible to the
readership. Thus for translation, the linguistic and cultural level of the SL text has to be
reviewed before it is given a pragmatic impact.
Few texts are purely expressive, informative or vocative: most include all three functions, with an
emphasis on one of the three.
Expressive Function Informative Function Vocative Function

(or self-expressive, creative, (or cognitive, denotative, (or social, injunctive,
subjective) representational, emotive, rhetorical,
intellectual, referential, affective, excitatory,
descriptive, objective) dynamic, directive,
imperative, connotative,
seductive, suggestive,
persuasive).
Expressive Informative Vocative

Typical example Literature Scientific and Polemical writing, publicity,
Authoritative texts technical reports notices, laws and
and textbooks regulations, popular
literature
“Ideal” style Individual Neutral, objective Persuasive, imperative
Text emphasis SL TL TL
Focus Writer (1st person) Situation (3rd Reader (2nd person)
person)
Method Literal translation Equivalent-effect Equivalent-effect translation
translation
Type of language Figurative Factual Compelling
Loss of meaning Considerable Small Dependent on cultural
differences
STYLISTIC SCALES
Scales of Formality

 Official: Official language; the vocabulary used in legal documents; more sophisticated
type of language.
“The consumption of nutriments is prohibited”
 Formal: language not normally found in everyday expressions and colloquialisms; use of
words from Latin origin rather than phrasals.
“You are requested not to consume food in this establishment”
 Neutral: type of language that is normally understood by the reader in general, that is,
by the average reader. Yet, some of the language use might not be found in every day
expressions.
“Eating is not allowed here”
 Informal: abundant use of phrasal verbs and expressions informally delivered; use of
contractions and everyday language
“Please, don’t eat here”
 Colloquial: type of language normally used among peers, friends, people who know one
another very well; very informal, profound use of colloquial expressions.
“You can’t feed your face here”
 Slang: more than profound use of colloquialisms and slang expressions; language used
by a very particular type of social class; may sound rude and impolite to many people”.
“Lay off the nosh”
 Taboo: “Lay off the fucking nosh”
Scale of Difficulty
 Simple: very simple language to read and to understand; simple vocabulary and choice
of words; simple structures; easy to follow and interpret.
“The floor of the sea is covered with rows of big mountains and deep pits”
 Neutral: basic vocabulary only, understood by the average reader; neutral expressions,
structures and vocabulary.
“A graveyard of animal and plant remains lies buried in the earth’s crust”
 Educated: use or words from Latin origin; not accessible to the uneducated and
unprepared reader.
“The latest step in vertebrate evolution was the tool-making man”.
 Technical: use of technical words; known to experts and specialized people; difficult to
understand if there is not any previous knowledge of the subject under treatment.
“Critical path analysis is an operational research technique used in management”.
Emotional Tone: (the tone and mood of the text)

 Intense: profuse use of intensifiers; ‘hot’ language in the sense of the abundance of
adverbs, adverbial phrases, adjectives, etc.
“Absolutely wonderful… ideally dark bass… enormously successful… superbly
controlled”
 Warm: use of intensifiers to denote the presence and feelings of the author towards the
subject treated but not in the same number as in the previous stage. “Gentle, soft,
heart-warming melodies”
 Factual: (‘cool’) “Significant, exceptionally well judged, personable, presentable,
considerable”
 Understatement: (‘cold’) “Not... undignified”
Apart from this, it is important to consider

- Attitude towards the subject dealt with (sometimes this is not overtly stated).
- Setting: where was the ST published?/Where is the translation going to be
published? (What happens when they are not similar contexts? Should you make
any changes/adaptations?)
- The quality of the writing
- Connotations and denotations: lexis, the text’s “underlife”
- Cultural aspect: ST neologisms, metaphors, cultural/institutional words, terms
peculiar to the SL or to a third language, proper names, technical terms,
‘untraslatable’ words.

EQUIVALENCE
(Extracted from: Halliday, M.A.K. et al The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching. Nida,
E., Language Structure and Translation. Kelly, Louis, The True Interpreter. Bell, R. Translation
and Translating)
The occurrence of an item or pattern in a language A and that of another item in language
B in actual use and under similar conditions allows us to refer to these items as ‘equivalent’.
The nature of this equivalence is not formal but contextual. It is not formal correspondence
that we accept as translation. We regard translation as the relation between two or more
texts playing an identical part in an identical situation. But this, like synonymy, is a ‘more or
less’ not a ‘yes or no’ relation, since 'identical part' and 'identical relation' are not absolute
concepts. Two situations in which the language activity is in a different language are ipso
facto not identical: situations vary across cultures.
In practice in normal life we postulate a kind of threshold of acceptability for translations,
at some point along the scale of 'more or less' equivalent. (M.A.K. Halliday et al).
No word or semantic unit ever has exactly the same meaning in two different utterances;
there are no complete synonyms within a language; there are no exact correspondences
between related words in different languages. In other words, perfect communication is
impossible, and all communication is one of degree. The statement of equivalences,
whether in dictionaries or in translations, cannot be absolute. We are faced, therefore, not
with a problem of 'right or wrong' but with 'how right or how wrong'. (Nida, E.)
Among twentieth-century linguists, two types of equivalence, dynamic and formal, were
postulated. Dynamic equivalence is postulated by Nida as “the closest natural equivalent to
the source-language message”, while formal equivalence is the correspondence between
linguistic units independent of any idea of content. The question of social function and
affectivity are the primary elements in Nida's dynamic equivalence. A well-translated text
will produce in its readers the appropriate cognitive and emotional reactions, i.e. the right
'impact'.
Roger Bell holds that definitions of translations share a common feature, the notion of
movement of some sort between languages, content of some kind and the 'obligation' to
find 'equivalents' which 'preserve features of the original'. It is apparent, and it has been for
a long time indeed, that the idea of total equivalence is a chimera. Languages are different
from each other; they are different in form having distinct codes and rules regulating the
construction of grammatical stretches of language and these forms have different meanings.
To shift from one language to another is, by definition, to alter the forms. Further, the
contrasting forms convey meanings which cannot but fail to coincide totally; there is no

absolute synonymy between words in the same language, so why should anyone be
surprised to discover a lack of synonymy between languages?
Something is always 'lost' (or might one suggest 'gained'?) in the process and translators can
find themselves being accused of reproducing only part of the original and so 'betraying' the
author's intentions. Hence the traitorous nature ascribed to the translator by the notorious
Italian proverb; traduttore traditore. (R. Bell.)
NOW: Equivalence has been in and out of fashion in translation studies, due to its
controversial nature. The concept has been evolving and nowadays it covers a range of
definitions which complement this.
INTERFERENCE
(Extracted from: Newmark, P. A Textbook of Translation. Vazquez Ayora, G. Introducción a
la Traductología. García Yebra, V. Teoría y Práctica de la Traducción.)
Interference is the translator's worst problem, as it is the language learner's. Failure to

recognize interferences make him look most foolish. Interference is the chaotic as well as
the dynamic element in a language, continually breaking up the system. There is no even
restricted rule for this problem, but only the translator's one unrestricted rule: mind the
sentence, mind the word, and finally, mind the sentence. Translated words always lie, but
translated texts only lie when they are badly translated.
Linguistic interference is the natural consequence of two languages in contact, in which the
foreign language interferes with the native tongue, for the case being, English and Spanish.
English is characterized by its flexibility, economy and its strong tendency to lexicalization in
concise groups.
Languages are generally divided into two groups: fixed-word-order and free-word-order
languages. English belongs to the first group, whereas Spanish is included in the second one.
A fixed word order language is characterized by the function pointed out through the
specific position of syntagms within the sentence. The objective nature of English is shown
by the restrictions imposed as to the logical order of elements. Spanish, on the other hand,
is quite the contrary regarding the distribution of its constituents. Thus, imitation of order
from English into Spanish brings about an atmosphere of 'foreignness' in the translated text.

The presence of foreign items interfering with the translator's native language get their
names according to their source: anglicism (from English), gallicism (from French),
italianism (from Italian).
Now, consider the following anglicisms and try to provide a solution:
1. “........ trata de exponer los gustos y disgustos del crítico.”

2. “Los dos más connotados maestros de la novela española.”
3. “........ la autor deja observar que.......”
4. “Una parte importante del placer que sacamos de la poesía......”
5. “...... los ciegos de nacimiento, al ganar la vista..........”

FALSE FRIENDS OR FAUX AMIS
(Extracted from: Baker, Mona: In Other Words. Newmark, Peter: Approaches to Translation
and Munday, J.: The Routledge Companion to Translation Studies)
False friends are words or expressions which have the same form in two or more languages
but convey different meanings. An inexperienced translator may confuse English “sensible”
with Spanish “sensible” (meaning “sensato”).
The translator will usually find as many cognates with the same meaning in SL and TL as
those with different meanings, and he must not hesitate to use the appropriate TL cognate.
However, he must never translate any word he has not previously seen without checking,
and this is where cognates are deceptive. The following is a list of some of the most
commonly encountered items:
English word is and is not the Spanish word

actual real actual
application solicitud aplicación
conductor guarda conductor
crude rudo, rústico crudo
discuss tratar, debatir discutir
distracted aturdido, confundido distraído
exit salida éxito
facilities instalaciones facilidades
positive seguro positivo
library biblioteca librería
Spanish word is and is not the English word
decepción (Sp) disappointment deception (engaño)
There are lexical and grammatical false friends, the former being the most frequent and
important type. Grammatical false friends involve (1) countable/uncountable nouns, eg.
advice (U) vs. consejo (C); (2) different parts of speech: Engl. tentative (adj) vs. Sp.
tentativa (noun, attempt), and (3) grammatical collocations: depend on .../depender de ....

AMBIGUITY
I take 'ambiguity' in the sense of a stretch of SL text, normally a word or a syntactic structure,
having apparently more than one meaning, in or in spite of its context; 'vagueness' or
'obscurity' can usually be reduced to ambiguity. I am not here discussing the deliberate
ambiguities of puns or double-entendres.
Grammatical Ambiguity
If a sentence is syntactically ambiguous within its context, it must be poorly written. All the
notorious ambiguous sentences and groups ('the shooting of the hunters', 'John's book',
'slow neutrons and protons', 'flying planes can be dangerous') as well as less obvious ones
('modern language teaching', 'considering my ignorance', 'what he performed at first was of
no interest' (i.e. Ambiguously placed adverbs), 'the larger or largest towns' (absolute or
relative comparatives or superlatives), 'the house was shut' (state or event), 'summer
student's group' (any multiple-noun compound)) – all these can be disambiguated if the
context is reasonably informative. You have to become intensively and selectively sensitised
to the common syntactical ambiguities of the languages you are translating from. These
ambiguities are rather more common in English than in, say, the Romance languages, since
English has fewer grammatical inflections (accidence). Note also the tendency of all
languages to use many present and past participles independently as adjectives with a
slightly different stative meaning and so to give rise to ambiguities (e.g. perdu, 'lost',
“ruined'; désolé, 'sorry', 'distressed'; 'striking' (two senses); and many German past
participles which have independent meanings).
Note that grammatical or functional words are themselves a common source of
ambiguity. Common prepositions often have many senses (e.g. dans, à, unter, gegen, um).
It is sometimes notoriously difficult to identify the referents of pronouns. Connectives
usually have widely differing senses (e.g. aber). Most phrasal verbs but not so many phrasal
nouns have at least two meanings.
Lexical Ambiguity
Lexical ambiguity is both more common and more difficult to clear up than grammatical
ambiguity. Words may have anything from one sense to say 30 (e.g. anlage) and the senses
may be close to or remote (as in puns) from each other. Sometimes a word has two senses
which are both equally effective (pragmatically and referentially) in the relevant stretch of
language, e.g., contrôler, to 'verify' or 'direct'; sometimes, as in the case of the metaphorical
and the literal sense of a word, you may translate with both senses in mind.

Again, it may not be clear whether un rein énervé refers to an 'irritated kidney' or,
using énervé in its obsolete sense, an 'injured' or 'damaged kidney'.
Pragmatic Ambiguity
We all know that 'There's a bull in the field' may 'mean' 'Let's get out', but since these types
of pragmatic signals are similar in all languages, provided they are relatively culture-free, a
literal translation may well be pertinent. We have perhaps been told too often (e.g.,
Seleskovitch, 1985) that 'I just came from New York' will translate as J'en viens, Je rentre à
peine de New York, Je débarque, Je suis New Yorkais depending on the prompting sentence
('Would you like to go to New York?', 'Would you like to go to Boston today?', 'Why do yo
seem/look so out of place?' respectively), but not often enough that it might be translated
as Je viens d'arriver de New York after the rather more obvious question: 'Where have you
come from now?'
Pragmatic ambiguity is inevitably more common in written than in spoken language,
since it arises when the tone or the emphasis in an SL sentence is not clear; e.g., in On
conçoit bien le nombre élevé des protéines différentes qui peuvent être finalement produits
par de telles combinaisons, I suggest that the meaning of on conçoit bien may stretch from
'clearly one can understand' to 'one can't possibly imagine', depending on the tone of the
text. Again, the emphasis of a sentence such as 'I'm working here today', can only be
perceived, if at all, from its context, although italics for one word would help. In the 1985
Eurovision Song Contest, the sense of 'Goodnight' was widely understood as 'Hello' or
'Goodbye', the time of day being irrelevant.
Cultural Ambiguity
In principle, cultural terms should not be ambiguous, as they refer to particular features of
a single culture. However, ambiguity may arise if the function or the substance of a cultural
feature changes at a point of time and the term remains whilst the period background is not
clears in the SL text. Further, many cultural and concept-words that are near-
internationalisms in many languages have different as well as common sense-components
and it may not be clear whether they are being used in the normal SL or in another
language's sense: e.g., 'queen', 'prime minister', 'senate', 'province', 'region', or again
'liberalism', 'anarchism', 'poverty', 'idealism'.
You have to bear in mind that most people use some words in a sense that is peculiar
to themselves, often because they have heard them used in many situations but have never
looked them up in a dictionary, or because they feel a lexical gap in their language or thought

and fill it with an inappropriate word. (Some think 'jesuitical' means 'turning a criticism to
one's own advantage' rather than 'casuistical'.) Wittgenstein's statement 'The meaning of a
word is its use in the language' is sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but it is good advice
to a translator if he can establish the sense in which a misused word is meant from its
context, and translate it accordingly. (If the text is authoritative, he has to add a footnote to
explain the correction he has made.)
Referential Ambiguity
In a sense all ambiguity is referential, since it prompts two or more images of the reality the
translator is trying to describe. Here, however, I have in mind the ambiguous use of proper
names in an SL text, e.g., if a person, a town or a patented product is not unmistakably
identified.
Metaphorical Ambiguity
You can find ambiguities in most sentences if you try hard enough – that is the nature of
language, the inadequate and loose dress of thought. The only too obvious advice I can give
you is to translate the most probable sense, and to put the less probable sense in a footnote
if you judge this sense to be important. Otherwise sensitise yourself to the most common
sets of ambiguities in your foreign languages – in translation, you rarely make the same
mistake twice, particularly if it is a bad one. There is nothing so educative as making a
howler.
HOW TO DISAMBIGUATE
The following are just some suggestions on how to solve ambiguity:
1. Revise segmentation of the text into lexical units, it must be adequately performed.
2. Analyse the different meanings of a lexical item, both at the level of lexis and of
syntax. This analysis consists in: a) identifying semantic features of a term so as to
determine the semantic field in which it operates and if there is any figurative sense
associated with it. b) distinguishing connotative features, and c) analysing range of
collocability.
3. Substitute for a synonym. This is a very old technique that is very often forgotten.
4. Contrast the term with an antonym, particularly in cases of polysemy.

PUNCTUATION
(This is Professor Gavrich`s contribution. She says that some excerpts were taken from
Catherine Mc Cabbe's lecture in Córdoba on PUNCTUATION and from “La Traducción del
Inglés al Castellano” by Marina Orellana)
Punctuation should always assist and not hinder the flow of thought. Their frequency is
determined by the unit of thought and not the length of sentences. The importance of
punctuation is many times forgotten by writers and translators. However, here we will not
deal with the theory about punctuation, we will only refer to the main differences existing
in punctuation between English and Spanish.
Comma
5. In English, the serial comma is used before the conjunction joining the series, which
is NOT the case in Spanish.
All at one sitting, the boy ate raisins, nuts, corn, and rice.
6. English uses both a comma and a conjunction when separating two complete
sentences. This is NOT the case in Spanish.
The movie ended late, and we went off to dinner.
7. English uses a comma for (a) the serial component of sentences and (b) to separate
complete sentences. Spanish, however, only uses the comma for serial punctuation
and uses a semi-colon to separate the final complete phrase from the preceding
group.
The show at eight was cancelled, dinner was awful, and we had a flat tire, but we were still
in good humour by the end of the evening.
8. English uses a comma to indicate the beginning of a quote, whereas Spanish uses
the colon or dash (dos guiones o raya) for this function.
He was angry when he said, “Just forget about what I told you.”
9. English uses a comma after the salutation at the beginning of a letter while Spanish
uses the colon for this function.
Dear Sir,

Dash
English sometimes uses the dash to explain and complement the previous idea, or to
introduce something unexpected, while Spanish tends to use the colon or comma.
It is not an animal after all – it is a company, an assemblage.
We explode clouds of aerosol, mixed for good luck with deodorants, into our noses,
mouths, underarms, privileged crannies – even into the intimate insides of our telephones.
Hyphen
In technical writings, the use of the hyphen is much more common in English than in Spanish
to bind words together while Spanish tends to use full phrases or sentences.
He was a low-birth-weight child.
A two-meter long cable.
The-state-or-the-art equipment was already out of date.
Quotation Marks
The comma, period, and semi-colon tend to go outside the quotation marks in Spanish,
whereas in English, only the colon and semi-colon go on the outside.
“Why are you always asking so many questions,” I queried.
She responded, “I'm not really sure about that.”
Exclamation Marks and Question Marks
It should not be forgotten that in English they are used at the end of the exclamation or
question, while in Spanish they are used at the beginning and at the end.
Have you seen my new car?
Capitalization
1. In Spanish, only the first word of a title is capitalized (unless it is a proper name),
whereas in English every word is capitalized, except for articles and prepositions.
Gone with the Wind.
The Mythology of South America.
2. Months, days, seasons, nationalities, languages are capitalized in English while they

are not in Spanish.
We were here on September 6, 1994.
The French flag.
Numbers
1. The way they are written varies from country to country. The tendency in English is
to separate every 1000 with a comma and decimal places with a period, whereas in
many Spanish-speaking countries the opposite holds true.
$1,232,000.14 6.4% $1.2
2. It should be remembered that ONE BILLION in US English is equivalent to MIL

MILLONES in Spanish.
3. Ordinal Numbers are used less frequently in Spanish than in English:

Louis the Fourteenth.
We are living in the 20th Century.
The Twenty-Second Conference on the Environment.
Translate the following passages:
1) With the fall of the Soviet state, the Siberian woods – the taiga – have become the
outback version of Moscow's Arbat.
2) In rural Morocco, young people were expected to marry first cousins on the father's
side. Such marriages helped keep landholdings in the family.
3) At the end of every year in Japan, it is traditional within factions for the head to dole
out to members machi dai -rice-cake-money. It is the equivalent of an end of the
year bonus.
4) Spanish women have tried for decades to win the coveted title of matadora de toros,
which requires the killing of a full-grown, 4-year old bull.
5) El incendio en Machu Pichu también llegó hasta los andenes de intihuana, que sería
un observatorio astronómico.
6) San Salvador de Jujuy, también conocida como la tacita de plata – es una ciudad de
150.000 habitantes, con callecitas arboladas donde predomina el árbol nacional, el
ceibo, y casa de líneas arquitectónicas españolas.

REFERENCE BOOKS AND THEIR USES
Introduction
This is the age of reference books. A combination of popular demand and improved
information technology (IT) combines to ensure that a greater variety as well as a greater
number of these books is continually produced, and can now be updated annually without
difficulty (e.g., the Petit Larousse). I remind you there are dictionaries of toponyms, symbols,
idioms, rare words, phrasal verbs, clichés, euphemisms; good dictionaries are including an
increasing number of collocations, but there is still a gap in this area. All these can be useful
if you bear in mind their greatest drawback for language-learners as well as for translators:
information about the current frequency of the items; further, description is sometimes
either confused with function, or function is missing (a knife is for eating, cutting with, as
well as a tool with a (usually) metal blade and a handle).
As a translator you have to know where as well as how to find information. All
reference books, however bad, are potentially useful, provided that you know their
limitations – which include the date of their publication (so, for German, an old Muret-
Sanders is good for translating A. von Humboldt). Multilingual dictionaries give few
collocations, and therefore are only useful as initial clues to a further search; bilingual
dictionaries are indispensable, but they normally require checking in at least two TL
monolingual dictionaries and sometimes a SL monolingual dictionary, to check the status
(i.e., modern currency, frequency, connotations) of the word. Hilaire Belloc once wrote that
the translator should look up every (presumably SL) word, particularly those he is familiar
with; others say translators should mistrust all dictionaries, sometimes assuming that
knowledge of the topic or subject-matter of the text has precedence over questions of
equivalence, or that one cannot translate words, only sentences (or texts) – words alone are
meaningless.
All these remarks, like most about translation, have a partial truth. Bilingual
dictionaries often contain too many 'dictionary words', i.e. words that are rarely used
outside dictionaries (maybe 'posology', 'physiological solution', 'compass declination').
It is useful to look up in dictionaries words you have known by their contexts for
years, because you often find you have missed an essential component of their core
meaning (for 40 years I thought 'mercenary' meant 'mean', for example). In fact the
experience gives the lie to Wittgenstein's notorious 'For a large class of cases (though not
for all) … the meaning of a word is its use in the language', since this is often an excuse for
a translator's vagueness and inaccuracy. From context, you often deduce function rather
than description, and admittedly function is the first element in meaning and translation.

But a fork is essentially an object with between two and four prongs on the end of a handle
as well as something to eat with.

RESOURCES
You need firstly a good English dictionary – Collins English Dictionary, because it is clear, well
arranged and has a high proportion of proper-name head-words. If you can, use also the
Concise Oxford and Longman's Dictionary of the English Language (1984). Secondly, you
must have a Roget, at least the new Penguin; a thesaurus is essential for: (a) bringing up
words from your passive memory; (b) giving you the descriptive words that show up the
lexical gaps in the source language; (c) extending your vocabulary.
Thirdly, you should have a large Webster (three volumes) within reasonable distance.
Often you look up an SL technical term in the English Webster before you look it up in an SL
monolingual or an SL-TL bilingual dictionary. Found your way round the EB (Encyclopaedia
Britannica); the Micropaedia has a surprisingly large number of dictionary as well as
encyclopaedia terms and names. For new words use the two Barnhart Dictionaries of New
English and the Supplements to the Oxford English Dictionary. For word-meanings at various
periods, consult the OED (but its merger of the old OED and the Supplements is bad
lexicography). Buy all the Penguin specialist dictionaries (there are over 30) in your field. A
modern dictionary of collocations is missing – there is only the great A. Reum's Dictionary
of English Style (also for French) (1920). For key-words use Bullock and Stallybrass's Fontana
Dictionary of Modern Thought (also its Biographical Companion by Bullock and Woodings),
Roger Scruton's Dictionary of Political Thought, Raymond Williams's Key Words (2nd edition),
Edward de Bono's Word Power, Antony Flew's Dictionary of Philosophy (which also has
tables of logic, set theory and formal language symbols). But note that many
'internationalisms' in key-words, not only political ones, have different meanings in other
languages (see Newmark, 1982, 1985). For British institutional terms, use the annual Britain
198 – published by the Central Office of Information (COI); Whitaker's Almanack is class-
biased but has useful statistics. Consult Keesing's for current events. Payton's Proper Names
(Warne) is brilliant and essential, as is P. Thody and H. Evans, Faux Amis and Key Words
(Athlone), for English as well as French. Use Longman's dictionary for phrasal verbs, Brewer's
(revised) for sayings, saws and proverbs. For English engineering language, there has been
nothing since Scharf's Engineering and its Language. For jargon, use Jonathon Green's
Newspeak and Kenneth Hudson's Dictionary of Diseased English.
'UNFINDABLE' WORDS
Tracing apparently 'unfindable' words and phrases can be a difficult and time-consuming
task; it is a problem in translation theory which is often considered to lie outside the scope
of theoretical or applied linguistics. The translation theorist should, however, propose a
frame of reference or guidelines – a non-diagrammatic flow chart – for this task. The

purpose of this is to put some order into the translator's search for the meaning of
unfindable words.
Types of unfindable words

There may be at least eighteen types of unfindable words in a source language text:
4. Neologisms, recent and original, including newly coined forms, newly devised
phrases, new collocations, compound nouns, new terminology, old words and
phrases with new senses, acronyms, abbreviations, blends, eponyms, new
combinations of morphemes. Hundreds of these appear every year in non-
specialised periodicals and newspapers for an educated readership and many soon
disappear. Tens of thousands are devised to form part of specialised vocabularies in
every sphere of knowledge.
5. Dialect, patois and specialised language which is spoken more often than written.
6. Colloquialisms, slang, taboo words – now usually recorded, but not in all senses
('non-metropolitan' words, e.g. Canadian French (or joual, its colloquial form));
words commonly used in, say, remote anglophone areas rather than the UK (e.g.
'kelper')
7. Third language or target language words waywardly introduced into a SL text.
8. New or out-of-date geographical and topographical terms and 'rival' alternative
names ('Malvinas', 'Azania', etc.).
9. Names of small villages, districts, streams, hillocks, streets. They may, in novels, be
real (e.g. 'Flatbush') or invented, and may or may not have local connotations; street
plans may have to be inspected.
10. Names of obscure persons.
11. Brand names, names of patented inventions, trademarks – usually signalled by
capitalisation and often more or less standard suffixes.
12. Names of new or unimportant institutions.
13. Misprints, miscopyings, misspellings, particularly of proper names (people and
geographical names) and bizarre transliterations.
14. SL, TL and third language archaisms.
15. Unfamiliar connotations and symbolic meanings of words and proper names.
16. Familiar alternative names or words.
17. Code words.
18. Common words with specific SL or third language cultural senses.
19. Private language or manifestations of 'underlife'. ('Underlife' is the evidence of the
writer's personal qualities or private life which can be indirectly or tangentially
deduced from a reading of the SL text.)
20. Exophoric (or external) reference. The 'unfindable' word may refer to an object or

activity mentioned previously, in or not in the SL text. Thus: Razmishlenya
prodolzhajutsja appears to mean 'My thoughts are still on this matter', but in the
context means 'The lectures on (transcendental) meditation are continuing.' Here
razmishlenya, 'reflections, thoughts, meditations', is the word chosen by the writer
to denote, as a 'synecdoche', lectures on transcendental meditation. The absence of
definite/indefinite articles adds to the difficulty. The proximity of previous reference
to the lectures governs the case of solution, which requires a lateral approach.
21. Dictionary words. These are words that are rarely used but have time-honoured
places in the dictionary. Thus, spasmophilie, 'spasmophilia', and 'haemoscope'. A
good dictionary refers the reader to more common used classifiers or generic words
such as 'proneness to spasms' and 'haematoscope'.
Example
Dans la réponse inflammatoire, les molécules comprennent en particulier
l'histamine, le sérotonine, le système du complexe, groupe complexe de neuf protéines.
In the inflammatory response, the chemical substances consist in particular of
histamine, serotonin and the complement system, a complex group of nine proteins.
The clumsy repetition of 'complex' suggests that its first mention may be a misprint.
It may, however, be mistakenly used by the writer or form part of a local research group's
jargon.
Search Procedure
In his search for the unfindable word the translator will try at some time or other to consult
the SL text writer and, failing that, appropriate technical experts or source language
informants who may well disagree with each other. For the purpose of this chapter, I am
assuming that this step cannot be taken because the writer is dead or inaccessible, the
experts and the informants are unavailable or do not know the answers, or, more likely,
there is not sufficient time available. I now attempt to take the reader through a translator's
search, often assuming that English is the source language.

THE TRANSLATION OF WEIGHTS, MEASURES, QUANTITIES AND CURRENCIES
The translation of units of the metric system and others (say the Russian verst) will depend
on their setting and the implied readership. Thus in translating newspaper and periodical
articles into English, they are normally converted to the (so-called) Imperial system, i.e.,
miles, pints, pounds, etc. In translating specialised articles, professional magazines, etc.,
they are usually transferred (i.e., the metric system is retained) but for cookery articles they
are both transferred and converted to Imperial system.
For fiction, the decision whether to convert or transfer depends on the importance
of retaining local colour. Unless there are strong arguments (e.g., time in a period novel, as
well as region), I suggest you convert to miles, pounds, acres, gallons, etc. You have to take
care not to confuse long and metric tons (tonnes) when accuracy is important. Note that
12 9 6
'billion', formerly 10 , now usually means a thousand million (10 ); 'milliard' (10 ) is no
longer used.
When approximate figures are given in the SL text, translate with correspondingly
approximate figures (thus 10 km would be 6 miles, not 6.214 miles). Note that figures like
trois dizaines, trois douzaines, etc. can be translated by '(about) three dozen' or 'between
thirty and forty', etc. depending on which sounds more natural.
SL units should be used in all scientific translations and supplementarily, where
appropriate, in others.
Non-English currency is usually transferred when English is the TL. 'Crowns' are
tending to revert to krone (Danish, Norwegian) or kös (Czechoslovak). The British pound
usually has a standard translation.
Newmark, P. A textbook of translation. Prentice Hall, 1988

ACRONYMS
Acronyms are an increasingly common feature of all non-literary texts, for reasons of brevity
or euphony, and often to give the referent an artificial prestige to rouse people to find out
what the letters stand for. In science the letters are occasionally joined up and become
internationalisms ('laser', 'master'), requiring analysis only for a less educated TL readership.
Some enzymes are internationalisms – SGOT, 'SPGT' (cf. 'ACTH' and other important
substances). Acronyms are frequently created within special topics and designate products,
appliances and processes, depending on their degree of importance; in translation, there is
either a standard equivalent term or, if it does not yet exist, a descriptive term. Acronyms
for institutions and names of companies are usually transferred. Acronyms are sometimes
created or move into common language for referents that have been in existence for a long
time, e.g. 'GCHQ'; 'We have to change at TCR' (i.e., Tottenham Court Road) and these are
normally 'decoded' in translation. Further, the translator must look out for acronyms created
simply for the purpose of one text – difficult to locate if he has to translate only an extract.
When acronyms are as important in the SL as in the TL, they may be different in both
languages ('MAOI' – monoamine oxidase inhibiters – becomes IMAO in French.)
Acronyms for international institutions, which themselves are usually through-
translated, usually switch for each language, but some, like 'ASEAN', 'UNESCO', 'FAO', 'CERN',
'ANC', 'UNICEF', 'OPEC' are internationalisms, usually written unpunctuated. When a
national political or social organisation, e.g., a political party, becomes important, it is
increasingly common to transfer its acronym and translate its name, but this may depend
on the interests of the TL readership. Note that if the name of an organisation (and therefore
its acronym) is opaque, e.g., 'OU', 'CNAA', it is more important to state its function than to
decode the initials. Arabic resists most acronyms and explicates them. SL acronyms are often
retained for convenience so that they can be used at other points in the TL text.
EPONYMS
Eponyms, in my definition any word derived from a proper name (therefore including
toponyms), are a growth industry in Romance languages and a more modest one in the
English media. When derived from people's names such words ('Audenesque', 'Keynesian',
'Laurentian', 'Hallidayan', 'Joycean', 'Leavisite') tend to rise and fall depending on the
popularity or vogue of their referent and ease of composition. When they refer directly to
the person, they are translated without difficulty (e.g., partisans de Leavis, critique littéraire
britannique) but if they refer to the referent's ideas or qualities, the translator may have to
add these (idées favorisant l'économique mixte ou concertée de Leynes). In Italian,
'Thatcherism' can sometimes (temporarily) be naturalised as il Thatcherismo without

comment. The 'Fosbury flop', a technical term for a method of high-jumping, can be
transferred for specialists and succinctly defined for non-specialists. When derived from
objects, eponyms are usually brand names, and can be transferred only when they are
equally well known and accepted in the TL (e.g., 'nylon', but 'Durex' is an adhesive tape in
Australian English). Such generalised eponyms as 'Parkinson's Law' (work, personnel, etc.
expands to fill the time, space, etc. allotted to it), 'Murphy's' or 'Sod's Law' (if something can
go wrong, it will) have to be 'reduced' to sense. Brand name eponyms normally have to be
translated by denotative terms ('Tipp-Ex' – blanc pour effacer; pointe Bic – Biro – 'ball point'
– bille). In general, the translator should curb the use of brand name eponyms. New
eponyms deriving from geographical names (the tasteless 'bikini' has not been repeated)
appear to be rare - most commonly they originate from the products (wines, cheeses,
sausages, etc.) of the relevant area – in translation the generic term is added until the
product is well enough known. Many geographical terms have connotations, the most
recent for English being perhaps 'Crichel Down' (bureaucratic obstruction) with further
details depending on context. Since such eponyms are also metonyms and therefore lose
their 'local habitation' (Midsummer Night's Dream) they also lose their 'names' and are
translated by their sense.
Newmark, P. A textbook of translation. Prentice Hall, 1988

IDIOMS AND OTHER FIXED EXPRESSIONS
Baker, Mona (1992), In Other Words
Idioms and fixed expressions are frozen patterns of language, which allow little or no
variation in form and, in the case of idioms, often carry meanings which cannot be deduced
from their individual components. An idiom such as bury the hatchet (to become friendly
again after a disagreement or a quarrel) allows no variation in form under normal
circumstances.
Fixed expressions such as: having said that, as a matter of fact, Ladies and
Gentlemen, all the best, as well as proverbs such as practice what you preach and waste not
want not, allow little or no variation in form. In this respect, they behave very much like
idioms. Unlike idioms, fixed expressions and proverbs often have transparent meaning. The
meaning of as a matter of fact can easily be deduced from the meanings of the words which
constitute it, unlike the meaning of an idiom such as pull a fast one. But in spite of its
transparency, the meaning of a fixed expression or proverb is somewhat more than the sum
of meanings of its words; the expression has to be taken as one unit to establish meaning.
The main problems that idiomatic and fixed expressions pose in translation relate to
two main areas: the ability to recognize and interpret an idiom correctly; and the difficulties
involved in rendering the various aspects of meaning that an idiom or fixed expression
conveys into the target language.
As far as idioms are concerned, the first difficulty that a translator comes across is
being able to recognize that he is dealing with an idiomatic expression. This is not always so
obvious. There are several types of idioms and some are more easily recognizable than
others. Those which are easily recognizable include expressions which violate truth
conditions, such as It's raining cats and dogs, throw caution to the winds, jump down
someone's throat and food for thought. They also include expressions which seem ill-formed
because they do not follow the grammatical rules of the language, e.g. trip the light
fantastic, blow someone to kingdom come, by and large and the world and his friend.
Expressions which start with like (simile-like structures) also tend to suggest that they should
be interpreted literally. They include idioms such as like a bat out of hell and like water off a
duck's back. Generally speaking, the more difficult an expression is to understand and the
less sense it makes in a given context, the more likely a translator will recognize it as an
idiom. Because they do not make sense if interpreted literally.
The very fact that a translator cannot make sense of an expression in a particular
context will alert him/her to the presence of an idiom of some sort.
There are two cases in which an idiom can be misinterpreted if one is not already
familiar with it.
 Some idioms are “misleading”, they seem transparent because they offer a

reasonable literal interpretation and their idiomatic meanings are not easily
signalled in the surrounding text. A large number of idioms in English and many other
languages, have both a literal and an idiomatic meaning, e.g. go out with (have a
romantic or sexual relationship with someone), take someone for a ride (deceive or
cheat someone in some way). A translator who is unfamiliar with the idiom in
question may easily accept the literal interpretation and miss the play on idiom.
 An idiom in the source language may have a very close counterpart in the target
language, which looks similar on the surface but has a totally or partially different
meaning. For example, the idiomatic question: Has the cat had/got your tongue? Is
used in English to urge someone to answer a question or contribute to a
conversation, particularly when their failure to do so becomes annoying.
Apart from being alert to the way speakers and writers manipulate certain features
of idioms and to the possible confusions that may arise from similarities in form between
the source and target expressions, a translator must also consider the collocational
environment that surrounds any expression whose meaning is not readily accessible.
Idiomatic and fixed expressions have individual collocational patterns. E.g. the idiom to have
cold feet, in its idiomatic use has nothing necessarily to do with “winter” or “feet” and will
therefore generally be used with a different set of collocates. The ability to distinguish
senses by collocation is an invaluable asset to a translator working from a foreign language.
The translation of idioms: difficulties
The difficulties involved in translating an idiom are quite different from those involved in
interpreting it. Here, the question is not whether a given idiom is transparent, opaque or
misleading. The main difficulties may be summarized as follows:
 An idiom or fixed expression may have no equivalent in the target language, e.g.
Merry Christmas, Yours faithfully or Yours sincerely. It is unrealistic to try to find
equivalent idioms and expressions in the target language.
 An idiom or fixed expression may have a similar counterpart in the target language
but its context of use may be different; the two expressions may have different
connotations or they may not be pragmatically transferable, e.g. to sing a different
tune is an English idiom which means to say or do something that signals a change
in opinion because it contradicts what one has said or done before.
 An idiom may be used in the source text in both its literal and idiomatic senses at
the same time (cf. go out with and take someone for a ride above).
 The very convention of using idioms in written discourse, the contexts in which they
can be used and their frequency of use may be different in the source language and
target languages.

Idioms are typically constructed on quite normal grammatical patterns of phrase
structure, but the meaning of the whole idiom is not simply the sum of the meanings of the
parts, nor can one segment the meaning (in the many cases in which it is complex) and
assign a definable portion of the meaning to each grammatical piece (e.g. a morpheme). In
other words, idioms are expressions in which the semantic and grammatical structures are
radically different. Hence it is idle to attempt to determine “the meaningful relation of the
parts”....; one must treat the entire expression as a semantic unit, even though in the surface
structure of the grammar it obeys all the rules applicable to the individual pieces. Idioms
cannot be analysed as consisting of the sum total of the meanings of the parts, but must be
treated as separate entities.
Idioms are some of the most obvious candidates for semantic adjustment, for the
very fact that they are idioms means it is unlikely that the same type of distinctive form will
have the same meaning in another language. The adjustments are quite understandably of
three types: a) from idiom to non-idioms; b) from idioms to idioms; c) from non-idioms to
idioms.
Nida, E. The Theory and Practice of Translation
COLLOCATIONS
In Linguistics, a collocation is typically defined as the 'habitual co-occurrence of individual

lexical items' (Crystal). For the translator, for whom the collocation is the most important
contextual factor, collocation, in as far as it usefully affects translation, is considerably
narrower; it consists of lexical items that enter mainly into high-frequency grammatical
structures, viz.:
8. Adjective plus noun
a) 'heavy labour', travail musculaire, schwere Arbeit
b) 'runaway (galloping) inflation', l'inflation galopante, galoppierende Inflation
c) 'economic situation', situation économique, Konjunkturlage
d) 'inflationary pressure', pressions (tensions) inflationnistes, Inflationsdruck
9. Noun plus noun (i.e., double-noun compound)
a) 'nerve cell', cellule nerveuse, Nervenzelle
b) 'government securities', effets publics, Staatspapiere (Staatsanleihen)
c) 'eyeball', globe oculaire, Augapfel
10. Verb plus object, which is normally a noun that denotes an action, as in 'read a paper'
a) 'pay a visit', faire une visite, einen Besuch machen (abstatten)
b) 'score (win) a victory', remporter une victoire, einen Sieg erzielen
c) 'read a(n) (academic) paper', faire une communication, ein Referat halten

d) 'attend a lecture', suivre une conférence, eine Vorlesung hören or besuchen
The above are the most common collocation-types. All three are centred in the noun,
the second component (collocate) of the collocation. The translator asks himself: you have
travail musculaire in French, can you say 'muscular work' in English? A 'cell' is 'nervous' in
French, what is it in English? You 'hold a paper' in German, do you 'hold' one in English? Or
what are the verbs that collocate normally with 'a door'? Recognizing whether or not a
collocation is familiar, natural, or just acceptable, is one of the most important problems in
translation. As usual there are grey areas and choices: you can 'go on' as well as 'pay' a visit.
Note that in (1) and (2) above, English is closer to German than to French. French makes
more use of adjectives which stand for objects not qualities (e.g. adjectives for all towns)
and does not use double-noun compounds; this particularly in scientific-technical language;
in Romance language medical texts, you normally assume that a SL noun plus adjective
group, e.g., radioactivité plasmatique, is going to be switched round to a noun-plus-noun
compound, 'plasma radioactivity', provided the SL adjective is formed from a noun of
substance.
A second useful way of approaching collocations in translation is to consider the
acceptable collocational ranges of any lexical word. This particularly applies to adjectives of
quality, and verbs that describe as well as state an activity; blême collocates with 'face' and
'light'; but not normally with objects; trouble with looks, emotions, liquids ('cloudy') but not
people; grincer with doors ('creak'), teeth ('grind' or 'gnash'), metallic objects ('grate') but
not with animals; keusch with people and their expressions ( 'pure', 'chaste'), not with
objects or foods.
You have to identify unusual SL collocations if you want to render them into similarly
unusual TL collocations (for adverts, poetry – not for the average 'anonymous text').
However, sensitiveness to collocations is most useful when considering SL
collocations and relating them to transparent TL collocations. Maladie grave is 'serious' or
'severe' rather than 'grave' illness; 'grave condition' is état inquiétant rather than grave,
which is not so grave. Contester sa gestion is to 'question' or 'dispute' rather than 'contest
his management'.
Translation is sometimes a continual struggle to find appropriate collocations, a
process of connecting up appropriate nouns with verbs and verbs with nouns, and, in the
second instance, collocating appropriate adjectives to the nouns and adverbs or adverbial
groups to the verbs; in the third instance, collocating appropriate connectives or
conjunctions (the prepositions are already in the adverbial groups). If grammar is the bones
of a text, collocations are the nerves, more subtle and multiple and specific in denoting
meaning, and lexis is the flesh.
I have concentrated on the most frequent collocation-types. Where a word normally
has only one collocate (e.g., the sounds made by common animals, musical instruments,

tools – miauler, aboyer), there are a few options, and therefore this is a question of
contrasted languages rather than a translation problem though the figurative senses of such
sounds, which are normally onomatopoeic, offer an alternative interpretation.
There is a smaller range of collocations when one seeks a single item for an
uncountable noun: 'cake (piece) of soap', Stück Seife, pain de savon; 'plot of ground', lopin
de terre, Stück Land; 'pat of butter', noix, motte de beurre, 'portion of butter' (here 'piece',
Stück, pezzo, morceau, but not pièce are all-purpose words) or a collective noun for various
countables, e.g.:
'flock of sheep', un troupeau de moutons, Schafherde
'herd of cattle', un troupeau de bétail, eine Herde Rinder
'set of tools', assortiment d'outils, Werkzeug
'pack of cards', jeu de cartes, Kartenspiel
I have listed only the most common collocations. Some verbs, say, assouvir ('satisfy',
'appease'), collocate physically with animate (person, patient, hungry wolf), figuratively with
abstract (desires, passions, greed, anger, etc.) objects. A few verbs ('work hard', 'deeply
regret', 'devoutly hope') and adjectives ('profoundly unnecessary', immensely disturbing',
totally wrong', 'desperately unhappy', etc.) are collocated with adverbs, many of which
degenerate into disposable clichés. Some nouns such as couvercle can be seen as objects
which naturally suggest, prompt, or call for a small range of verbs (fermer, soulever, enlever,
ouvrir, ôter, etc.) Coûter goes with cher or peu. Some words go naturally with idioms.
Collocations should be distinguished from words in a semantic field (colours, ranks,
etc.) or from the frame of a topic which, if they are on the same level, do not immediately
collocate with each other.
The only systematic dictionaries of collocations that I know are the two superb works
by Reum (see Chapter 16). They include synonyms and antonyms, and much other
information.
There are various degrees of collocability. Some words such as 'bandy' and 'rancid'
may only have one material collocate ('legs', 'butter'), but figuratively they open up more
choice (appearance, taste). They are always linked with the concept of naturalness and
usage, and become most important in the revision stages of translation.

THE TRANSLATION OF PROPER NAMES
People's names
Normally, people's first and surnames are transferred, thus preserving their nationality, and
assuming that their names have no connotations in the text.
There are exceptions: the names of saints and monarchs are sometimes translated,
if they are 'transparent', but some French kings (Louis, François) are transferred. The names
of popes are translated. Some prominent figures of classical Greece (Platon (F), Thucydide
(F), Aeschyle (F), Sophocle (F), and Rome (Horace, Livy, Tite-Live, Catulle) and the
Renaissance ( Arioste, Le Tasse, Le Grec) are naturalised in the main European languages.
(See other examples in Newmark, 1981.) Romance languages often translate the first names
of prominent foreigners, if these are transparent. Some Renaissance and eighteenth-
century personalities (e.g.. Copernicus, Spinoza, Linnaeus (von Linné), Melanchthon, which
translates Schwarzerd, his original name) adopted classical names which are then
sometimes naturalised – e.g., Linné, Copernic (F). In some languages, such as Hungarian,
surnames precede first names (e.g., Kádar János). Even now there is no standardised
transliteration system for Cyrillic, and it is a pity that the Soviet (unlike the Chinese)
government has made no recommendations.
There remains the question of names that have connotations in imaginative
literature. In comedies, allegories, fairy tales and some children's stories, names are
translated (e.g., Cendrillon), unless, as in folk tales, nationality is important.
Where both connotations (rendered through sound-effects and/or transparent
names) and nationality are significant, I have suggested that the best method is first to
translate the word that underlies the SL proper name into the TL, and then to naturalise the
translated word back into a new SL proper name – but normally only when the character's
name is not yet current amongst an educated TL readership. Thus 'Miss Slowboy' could
become Flaubub and then 'Flowboob' for German; Lentgarçon then 'Longarson' for French;
note that the procedure is likely to be more effective, particularly for sound-effect, in
German than in French. Michael Holman (1983) has done this effectively with characters
from Tolstoy's Resurrection: Navatov → 'alarm' → 'Alarmov', 'Toksinsky'; Toporov → 'axe' →
'Hackitov', 'Hatchetinsky'; Khororshavka → 'pretty' → 'Belle', 'Chi-Chi'.
Proper names and institutional and cultural terms
Since proper names and institutional and cultural terms shade into each other, I discuss this
important, extensive and virtually undebated subject within one chapter, but I propose to

split it into five parts: proper names; historical institutional terms; international institutional
terms; national institutional terms; and cultural terms.
The basis distinction between proper names and cultural terms is that while both
refer to persons, objects or processes peculiar to a single ethnic community, the former has
singular references, while the latter refers to classes of entities. In theory, names of single
persons or objects are 'outside' languages, belong, if at all, to the encyclopaedia not the
dictionary, have, as Mill stated, no meaning or connotations, are therefore, both
untranslatable and not to be translated.
In fact, while the position is nothing like so simple, the principle stands that unless a
single object's or a person's name already has an accepted translation it should not be
translated but must be adhered to, unless the name is used as a metaphor. If the name
becomes commonly used, it may be modified in pronunciation and spelling; but nowadays,
when people have become as jealous of their names as of their national and linguistic
independence, this is not likely.
The established practices for translating the names of HISTORICAL FIGURES are as
follows. Where sovereigns had 'translatable' Christian names and they were well known,
their names, together with titles (e.g. Richard Cœur de Lion) were and are still usually
mutually translated in the main European countries. However, in English, Lewis has reverted
to Louis and Francis to François, and in French George is now preferred to Georges.
'Christian' names referring to Biblical figures (e.g. all saints in Biblical times and later) remain
translated. Surnames have usually been preserved, but the surnames, first names and
appellative names of some Italian artists have been 'naturalized' in some European
languages (e.g. Titien, Titian, le Tintoret, Raphael, Michelange, le Caravage, Léonard, as well
as Machiavel). Names of classical writers are usually naturalized (Aristote), while the French
translate the first names of some historical and literary figures (Jean Hus, Henri Heine, who
died in Paris). The only living person whose name is always translated is the Pope.
Proper names in fairy stories, folk tales and children's literature are often translated,
on the ground that children and fairies are the same the world over. The names of heroes
of folk tales are not translated if they represent national qualities.
A possible method of translating LITERARY PROPER NAMES that have connotations
in the SL is first to translate the word that underlies the proper name into the TL, and then
to naturalize it back into a new SL proper name. Thus in translating Wackford Squeers into
German, 'whack' becomes prügeln becomes Proogle, and possibly Squeers (squint, queer?)
could become schielen and the name in a German version might be translated as 'Proogle
Squeers' or 'Proogle Sheel'. In other cases the connotations, both of word-images and
general sound-echoes, are similar in German (e.g. Crummles, Wittiterby, Pecksniff (picken,
schnüffeln), Glubb) and the names would, therefore, remain as they are in the German
version, but should be appropriately changed in languages which have different sound

connotations. The attempt must be to reproduce the connotations of the original in the TL,
but to find a name consonant with SL nomenclature, thus preserving the character's
nationality. The translator also has to consider whether a previous translation or
transcription may already be generally accepted, making it inadvisable to introduce a new
one. Further, in translating names of institutions, as opposed to personal names (e.g.
'Dotheboys Hall') he need perhaps be less constrained to reproduce the Englishness, and
could try something like: Internat Schwindeljunge (i.e. 'Swindleboys School').
I have taken Dickens’s names as an example, but his work (and, of course,
Shakespeare's e.g. Belch, Aguecheek) as well as Wilde's and Shaw's is now too well known
in most languages for any re-translation of proper names. The procedure could be tried for
Elizabethan, Jacobean and Restoration Comedy (Pinchwife, Tweekwife (zwicken) for
German, Pinchfarm for French, though the pun on 'pinch' is lost). Sheridan, Thomas Mann,
Günter Grass, J.B. Priestly, Anthony Powell, J.C. Powys could receive the same treatment in
places, but only where the work is virtually unknown in the TL culture, and where the
translator is convinced that the connotations of the proper name is at least as important as
the nationality. (If the work is an allegory without national application, proper names are
translated straight.) These coined names could not be as effective as the originals, and
would have to be more cleverly contrived than my own examples, (Alpert (1979) has rightly
pointed out that Squeers also has a 'squint' component.)
The only types of proper names applied to categories of objects are trademarks,
brand-names and proprietary names. These must not be translated unless they have
become eponyms and are used generically (e.g. refrigerator, countless medical terms), and
many such terms become eponyms before the object goes out of patent – in which case
they must be translated, often by a common noun (hoover = aspirateur, etc.). Numerous
drugs are marketed under different proprietary names in various countries: many are listed
in Martindale’s Pharmacopoeia, but consultation with the makers is usually required.
Thalidomide was Contergan in the Federal Republic of Germany.
GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES share, with the names of some people, the rare
characteristic that some of them (usually the smaller and less important) denote only one
object and have no connotations. In bilingual areas, geographical features usually have two
names, each phonologically or morphologically at home in its language. Further in the past,
nations have tended to naturalize names of towns and provinces they have occupied, visited
frequently or considered important: thus, the features have been renamed partly, to
facilitate pronunciation (Prague, Warsaw, etc.) and spelling (Vienna), or a new word created
partly as an excuse for linguistic chauvinism (Rhodesia). Rhodes, a diamond millionaire,
believed in “British rule throughout the world” and referred contemptuously to
“Negrophiles”. South Africa will become Azania and many other European geographical
names in Africa are likely to have a short life now. There is now a slight tendency to restore

original spellings (Romania, Lyon, Marseille, Braunschweig – no longer British, royal – etc.)
and respect is likely to be shown to any newly-independent country by scrupulously
observing the spelling of its name, however difficult to pronounce. Other geographical
names are likely to remain gallicized, anglicized, italianicized, etc., provided that they are
fairly commonly used and that their additional, translated name has no political (e.g.
irredentist) significance. The translator must check on usage, particularly where a different
name is used (e.g. Lake Geneva / Lac Léman, Lake Constance / Bondesse, Bâlei Basilea Basel
but English Basle) and good atlases which give all possible names my not be helpful.
Names of streets and squares are not usually translated – with the exception,
ironically, of Red Square, Wenceslas Square (Prague), Constitution Square, Athens, which
remain untranslated if they are written as addresses. Public buildings may be partially
translated (e.g. St Giles Kirche) if the generic term is common and transparent.
As for FORMS OF ADDRESS, in September 1939 The Times, having been pro-Hitler for
6 years, suddenly downgraded “Herr Hitler” (and, similarly, his colleagues) to “Hitler”, and
we knew we were at war. The present practice is either to address all and sundry as Mr or
Mrs (with increasing use of the first names, thereby omitting the “handles”) or to transcribe
M., Herr, Signore, Señor, etc. for all western and central European (“civilized”) languages,
allowing all other prominenti a Mr. The first practice will prevail, but the TL house-style
(newspapers, periodicals, etc.) must be respected. Aristocratic and professional titles are
translated if there is a recognized equivalent (Comte, Graf, Herzog, Marchese, Marquis,
Prefesseur, Doktor, etc.); otherwise they are either transcribed (Dom) or deleted
(Staatsanwalt, avvocato, ingeniere) with the professional information added, in considered
appropriate.
Names of FIRMS, PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS, SCHOOLS, UNIVERSITIES, HOSPITALS, etc.,
are in principle not translated since they are related to the SL culture. If they “shine
through”, they may occasionally be translated (Banca Nazionale d’Italia, “National Bank of
Italy”; Kantospital, Basel, “Basle Canton Hospital”), particularly in an informal text.
Multinational companies trade under various names which the translator may have to trace.
In general, the purpose of these names is to identify rather than describe the firm or
institution, and if the TL reader wants to refer to them, he requires the SL name in the
address.
The names of NEWSPAPERS, JOURNALS and PERIODICALS are always transcribed.
Famous WORKS OF ART are usually referred to by their established translated titles
(including the authorized titles of literary works), if they are well known here; but attempts
to translate Cosi fan tutte (even when sung in English) have been abandoned, and Verdi’s
and Wagner’s titles are often transcribed. When a work is not already known, its title is
transcribed. A translator makes his own translation of a title only when he is translating the
whole work or when additional comment is made on the title by himself or in the original

text. Titles of paintings, if they have no established translation, should be transcribed as well
as translated, so that the reader can look for further references if he wishes. Titles of
untranslated books must be transcribed, with a translation in parenthesis, particularly for
non-literary books when the title describes the content. Some paintings such as the “Mona
Lisa” have “different” titles in the original – La Gioconda or La Joconde. Titles of musical
works have to be treated cautiously – neither the “Emperor” not the “Elvira Madigan”
concertos exist in other languages, and references to opus or Köchel numbers are
recommended.
Most international institutional terms have official translations, made by translator
teams, at the appropriate international organization. These are often through-translations
(calques, “loan-translations”), e.g. Organisation internationale du Travail, “International
Labour Organization”, which are usually known by their relevant acronyms, e.g. OIT, “ILO”,
AID, (IDA, OIPC, “ICPO”, CIDST, “STIDC” (see European Communities Glossary, F-e, 5th
edition)). Other organizations have international acronyms, e.g. “CERN”, “Interpol”, “ISO”,
“OTA”, “OAU”. “Comecon” (German RGW) is officially translated as CEMA since the Council
considers that “Comecon” has pejorative connotations. Institutional terms are increasingly
known by the initial letters of their component words whether these form natural syllables
or not, and only rarely, as initially after the Russian Revolution, by the first syllable of the
words (e.g. Komsomol). Many institutions form themselves into acronyms or give
themselves titles which can be turned into easily remembered acronyms.
Although some organizations are “through-translated”, many are reformulated in
translation (and offer obvious traps): Direction du contrôle de sécurité d’Euratom,
“Directorate for Euratom Safeguards”; Group “harmonisation douaniére”, “Working Party
on Harmonization of Customs Rules”; comité specialisé, “committee of experts”; comité
permanent, “standing committee”.
Positions and institutions in the Roman Catholic Church (and Vatican State) are
always (a dangerous word to translation theory) intertranslatable (Saint-Siége, “Holy See”,
Päpstlicher Stuhl), although curé is usually transferred (local colour). In the case of
Communist Parties, the titles differ but are made up of internationally transparent Marxist
collocations (“People’s Democracy”, “Workers’ and Peasants’ State”, etc.) whilst positions
and hierarchies are intertranslatable. Certain words, most of them “originally” French, tend
to become associated with international institutions; harmonize, concurrent, concertation,
conjunctural (“originally” German), convention, informatics, important, intervention,
degressivity.
Other, such as conjoint, collegialité, conversion (retraining), conjuncture, contitulaire,
engagement (commitment, liability), homologue, modalité, nuisance, régime, ventilation,
action, cadre (skeleton), évolution, exploitation, organigramme (only for patents),
organisme, orientation, Sozialpartner, patrimoine (assets), plafond (ceiling, platform?),

possibilité (option), prestation (a sociological term already), sectoriel, subvention, valoriser,
transformation, sone, have still not penetrated official English in their usual “European”
senses, but the basically French inspiration of Common Market language is evident,
although the lingua franca or koine is inevitably English and the English influence is
becoming stronger in Brussels. (The influence of Russian is more apparent in Comecon).
However, an individual translator’s main task is to find the authorized translation, not to
make his own.
In considering how the translator handles national institutional terms, the mass of
modern political, financial, administrative and social terms, I propose first to list the relevant
translation procedures and then to offer some general criteria of reference.
(a) Translation procedures

(i) Transcription (adoption, transfer, “loan-words”), e.g. (often) Bundesrat, Conseil
d’État. This may be described as the basic procedure.
(ii) Literal Translation. This is a “coincidental” procedure, used when the SL term is
transparent or semantically motivated and is in standardize language: e.g.
“Senate” (F), Präsident, “president” – note also semi-institutional termn in the
same lexical field: agglomération, “conurbation”; la Chambre, “the chamber”;
investor, “vote in”.
(iii) Through-translation (“loan-translation”, calque), e.g. “National Assembly” (F),
Chambre des Pairs, “People’s Army” (GDR), “People’s Chamber” (GRD) (only for
important institutions).
(iv) Recognized translation. The FRG Ministry for Education and Science has
produced the following: Bundestag, “Federal German Parliament”; Bundesrat,
“Council of Constituent States”, Fachbereich, “university department”;
Richtergesetz, “Law on Judges”; Zivilschutzkorps, “civil defence corps”. These
translations should be used for administrative texts. Länder is transferred as a
couplet with “State”. Note also: Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft,
Confederazione Svizzera. When an official SL body produces a TL version of one
of its own institutional terms, the TL translator should “support” it unless he
disagrees with the version. (Footnote then required).
(v)
Minister), depending on the degree of cultural correspondence. Examples are:
recteur, Rektor, “vice-chancellor”; PDG, “chairman of board”; conseil de fabrique,
“church council”; syndicat professionel, “trade association”; conseil de révision,
“army medical board”. Technische Hochschule, “Technological university” (e.g.
Bath, Brunel); Gesamtschule, école polyvalente, “comprehensive school”.

(vi) Translation label. A translation label is an approximate equivalent or a new term,
usually a collocation, for a feature peculiar to the SL culture. A new collocation
would normally be put in inverted commas, which could be dropped on later
occasions, in the hope that the term is accepted. Examples: promotion sociale,
“social promotion”; HLM, “social housing”, Gastarbeiter, “guest worker”;
autogestion, “self-management”; congestion, “codetermination”;
aménagement du territoire, “regional” or “national planning”.
(vii) Translation couplets. The most common forms of translation couplet consists of
the transcription of an institutional term followed by its translation (which may
be a literal translation, a cultural equivalent or a translation label) in brackets;
here one would assume that the SL term would be retained for the remainder of
the text and in the relevant TL literature. Example: Knesset (the Israeli
Parliament); Folketing (the Danish Parliament); Conseil d’État (Council of State);
Gemeinde (German unit of local government). Occasionally the translation has
precedence, followed by the original in brackets – the procedure may be referred
to as a TL translation couplet. Here one assumes that the TL term is important
for the TL literature, both now and in the future, but may not be sufficiently well
known; for example, “Parliament Commissioner for Administration”
(ombudsman), or, in a bilingual area, such as Quebec, “witness post” (piquet
indicateur), “legists” (hommes de loi), “purchaser” (adjudicataire) (Russell,
1979).
(viii) Translation triplets. A politically coloured term such as Schandmauer may require
a literal translation (“wall of shame”), a transcription and the denotation (Berlin
Wall).
(ix) Through-translation. (i.e. loan-translation). Important national institutional
terms are “transparent” may be translated literally: Assemblée Nationale:
National Assembly; Staatstrat, State Council; Volkskammer, People’s Chamber.
(x) Deletion. A term of little importance in the TL culture, e.g. Staatsrat or Avvocato
in front of a surname, or Jugendweihe ceremony in the GDR or Habilitation may
be deleted in translation, provided it is marginal to the text, and some indication
of function given where required.
(xi) Naturalization. The process of “anglicizing” foreign names, e.g. Aristotle, by
supplying them with English suffixes is no longer current, although any SL term
(e.g. names of towns), which is frequently used and/or considered important, is
usually pronounced as an English word. Note difference in pronunciation
between “Hamburg” and “Klagenfurt”.
(xii) Acronyms. It is common practice to retain the acronym of an SL institution (e.g.
SPD, CDU, FNLA), where necessary adding the translation of the title (e.g.

Christian Democrats, etc. – most but not all European political parties have
“transparent” titles) or the function, if the term is obscure and less important,
e.g. CNAA, “national body awarding degrees of colleges and polytechnics”. KG,
Knight of the order of the Garter, highest order of British Knighthood. Where an
institutional acronym already has a recognised translation equivalent, it must be
used, due attention being paid to the official equivalent (e.g., GDR, CMEA) rather
than the more “popular” equivalent (East Germany, Comecon) where
appropriate. When an acronym forms a derivative (cégétiste, smicard, énarque,
onusien) the derivative is usually split into two or thee words depending on
context.
(xiii) Metaphor. Metaphor is not usually associated with institutional terms, but the
name of an institution may be personified to refer to its leadership or director(s)
whilst the building or street where it is accommodated may also denote the
institution or its director(s) (e.g. the Pentagon). Proust was already satirizing this
fashion in A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleur (vol. 1, p. 45). Un cri d’alarme partit
de Montecitorio…, Italian Parliament; L’émotion fut grande au Pont aux
Chantres…, pre-war Russian Foreign Office, Leningrad; Le double jeu dans la
maniére du Bellplatz = Kballhausplatz, Habsburg Foreign Ministry. Note also
l’Elysée French President; hotel Matignon, Prime Minister; Quai d’Orsay, Foreign
Ministry; Rue de Rivoli, Ministry of Finance; Botteghe Oscure, Italian Communist
Party; Piazza del Gesú, Italian Christian Democrats.
(xiv) Lastly, I suggest that alternative or supplementary information can be supplied
by the translator in three ways: (a) within the text, (b) as a footnote to the page,
the chapter or the book, or (c) as a glossary. The first method is the best provided
it can be supplied briefly and unobtrusively without holding up the flow of the
narrative: as an alternative term, in brackets, as a one-word definition (i.e.
scilicet, etc.), as a paraphrase, participial phrase, defining adjectival clause, etc.

TRANSLATION OF METAPHORS
Extracted from Newmark, P. A Textbook of Translation. Duff, Alan. The Third Language.
By metaphor I mean any figurative expression: the transferred sense of a physical word
(naître, esp. “nacer” as “to originate”), the personification of an abstraction (“modesty
forbids me”), the application of a word or collocation to what it does not literally denote,
i.e. to describe one thing in terms of another. Metaphor is in fact based on a scientific
observable procedure: the perception of a resemblance between two phenomena, i.e.
objects and processes. Sometimes the image may be physical (e.g. a “battery” of cameras),
but often it is chosen for its connotations rather than its physical characteristics (e.g. “she is
a cat”).
All polysemous words (a “heavy” heart) and most English phrasal verbs are
potentially metaphorical. Metaphor may be “single” – viz. one word – or “extended” (a
collocation, an idiom, a sentence, a proverb, an allegory, a complete imaginative text).
The purpose of the metaphor is basically twofold: its referential purpose is to
describe a mental process or state, a concept, a person, an object, a quality or an action
more comprehensively and concisely than its possible in literal or physical language; its
pragmatic purpose, which is simultaneous, is to appeal to the senses, to interest, to describe
“graphically”, to please, to delight, to surprise. The first purpose is cognitive, the second
aesthetic. In a good metaphor the two purposes fuse like (and parallel with) content and
form; the referential purpose is likely to dominate in a textbook, the aesthetic often
reinforced by sound effect in an advertisement, popular journalism or a pop song.
Note also that metaphor incidentally demonstrates a resemblance, a common
semantic area between two or more or less similar things – the image and the object. The
image is the picture conjured up by the metaphor, which may be universal (a “glassy” stare),
cultural (a “beery” face), or individual (a “papery” check). The object refers to what is
described or qualified by the metaphor, the sense in the literal meaning of the metaphor,
the resemblance or the semantic area overlapping object and image.
Idiom and metaphor are similar in that both involve the figurative use of language.
And, in most instances, metaphor, like idioms, has a meaning that cannot be directly
equated with the cumulative meaning of the words in the expression. The difference
between them lies in the strength of the imagery: in idiomatic expressions the words convey
rather than illustrate the meaning; in metaphorical expression the words colour the
meaning. Thus, for instance, to fall in love is idiomatic, the four words must be taken
together, and in this combination they have a figurative meaning. Whereas an expression
such as get down to brass tacks is metaphorical, here the figurative meaning is far stronger,
but the bond between the words is weaker. Metaphor differs from idioms mainly because it

still clings to its power of imagery. This is perhaps why the translation of a metaphor is often
more problematic than that of idioms. The translator is not an editor. He cannot cut the text.
But he does have the right to avoid using figurative language, which in the target language
would sound incorrect: better no metaphor at all than one which strikes us as being
incorrect.
Translating Metaphors
Whenever you meet a sentence that is grammatical but does not appear to make sense, you
have to test its apparently nonsensical element for a possible metaphorical meaning, even
if the writing is faulty, since it is very unlikely that anyone is suddenly going to write
deliberate nonsense. There are several methods for translating metaphors: transferring the
image, finding an equivalent image, converting the metaphor to a simile or sense plus the
simile; finally, most frequently, converting the image to sense, which may involve analysis
into several components, including figurative and concrete elements. Further, the translator
has to consider, cultural, universal and personal elements in the metaphor.
Types of Metaphor
I propose to discuss three types of metaphor: dead (fossilized), standard (stock) and original
(creative).
Dead metaphors, viz. metaphors where one is hardly conscious of the image,
frequently relate to universal terms of space and time, the main part of the body, general
ecological features and the main human activities: for English, words such as: “space”,
“field”, “line”, “top”, “bottom”, “foot”, “mouth”, “arm”, “circle”, “drop”, “fall”, “rise”. They are
particularly used graphically for concepts and for the language of science to clarify or define.
Normally, dead metaphors are not difficult to translate, but they often defy literal
translation, and therefore, offer choices.
Stock (or standard) metaphor is an established metaphor which in an informal
context is an efficient and concise method of covering a physical and/or mental situation
both referentially and pragmatically, it has a certain emotional warmth. Stock metaphors
may have cultural (cultural distance or cultural overlap), universal (or at least widely spread)
and subjective aspects. In making a decision, the translator has to weigh each option against
the relative frequency (and therefore, naturalness) and currency of the TL equivalent within
the appropriate language variety. The first and most satisfying procedure for translating a
stock metaphor is to reproduce the same image in the TL, provided it has comparable
frequency and currency in the appropriate TL register, e.g. “keep the pot boiling”, “earn a
living”, “keep something going”, “throw a new light on”. But a more common procedure for

translating stock metaphors is to replace the SL image with another established TL image, if
one exists that is equally frequent within the register, e.g. “widen the gulf between them”.
The third and obvious translation procedure is to reduce it to sense or literal language, the
problem is that the emotive or pragmatic impact will be impaired or lost.
Original metaphors are those created or quoted by the SL writer. In principle in
authoritative or expressive texts; these should be translated literally, whether they are
universal, cultural or obscurely subjective. Original metaphors (in the widest sense): (a)
contain the core of an important writer’s message, his personality, his comment on life, and
though they may have more or less cultural elements, these have to be transferred neat; (b)
such metaphors are a source of enrichment for the target language. However, if an original
cultural metaphor appears to you to be a little obscure and not very important, you can
sometimes replace it with a descriptive metaphor and reduce it to sense. Original or odd
metaphors in informative texts are open to a variety of translation procedures, depending,
usually, on whether the translator wants to emphasize the sense or the image. The choice
of procedure in expressive or authoritative texts is much narrower, as is usual in semantic
translation.
Nevertheless, in principle, unless a literal translation “works” or is mandatory, the
translation of any metaphor always offers choices in the direction either of sense or of an
image or a modification of one, or a combination of both, and depending as always, on the
contextual factors, not least on the importance of the metaphor within the text.

INTERTEXTUALITY and INTENTIONALITY
Extracted from: Discourse and the Translator, Hatim, B. and I. Mason (1990), G. Britain,
Longman.
Intertextuality is the way in which we relate textual occurrences to each other and recognise
them as signs that evoke whole areas of our previous textual experiences. Thus, texts are
recognised in terms of their dependence on other relevant texts.
Intertexts are viewed, in one sense, as reference to a previous text, but, in retracing
the path to this reference, we are aware of a host of associations from our previous
experience.
The concept of intertextuality is used to refer to the existence of prior discourses as
a precondition for the act of signifying, almost regardless of the semantic content of a given
text, i.e. one needs to have experience of a body of discourses or texts which make up
certain belief systems within Western culture.
The phenomenon is seen as a sort of intertextual chain that moves from the
“ideologically neutral” denotation of language (i.e. usage) to the volume of “signification”
which underlies use. It is the interlocking of various strands of reference to previous
knowledge enshrined in texts we have encountered which confronts us translators with a
real challenge – successful translations are bound to be problematic.
Intertextuality is no static property of texts; on the contrary, intertextuality is best
viewed in terms of semiotic systems of signification.
Active intertextuality is found when the intertextual link is strong. There are passive
forms of intertextuality which amount to little more than the basic requirement that texts
be internally coherent, e.g. to establish continuity of sense. Translators have to learn to cope
with the more passive forms of intertextuality, e.g. repetition of terms.
Intertextuality becomes more of a challenge when cultural connotations and
knowledge structures are incorporated into an intertextual reference. In this broader
definition, intertextuality exercises an active function and entails the view that texts are
never totally original or particular to a given author. They are always dependent on the prior
existence not only of clearly identifiable texts but also of general conditions of
appropriateness that may, for example, govern entire genres. Intertextuality in this sense
makes it impossible for us to situate a text in a system of relevant codes and conventions. It
may take the form of imitation, plagiarism, parody, citation, refutation, or transformation of
texts. In the words of Kristeva (1969:146): “every text is constructed as a mosaic of citations,
every text is an absorption and transformation of other texts”.
There are two types of intertextual reference: 1) the one that appears within the
same text or 2) between distinct texts.

What intertextuality is not
It would be wrong to consider intertextuality simply as a mechanical process. Intertextuality

is neither an amalgamation of “bits and pieces” from other texts not the mere inclusion of
occasional reference to other texts. Rather, citations, references, will be brought into a text
for some reason. The motivated nature of this intertextual relationship may be explained in
terms of such matter as text function or overall communicative purpose. That is, one does
more than just quote Shakespeare. One uses the Shakespearean utterance for one’s own
purpose.
In assessing translations, the insight which all this provides is that it will be important
to assess the extent to which the different codes have been maintained and how. Readers
of translations need to be able to recognise what the reviewer’s satirical stance is, especially
in cases where reviewer is less inclined to reveal his intentions. Such important issues as the
translation of metaphor and irony can also be seen in this light. We consider intertextuality
to be a powerful tool for the analysis of all such problems.
Contratextuality
Social interaction by means of texts ensures that texts are related to each other in the
cultural life of a community. Relationships are established and maintained, perpetuating
socio-semiotic structures such as myth and ideologies. Systems that are capable of this
“assimilating” function, however, are also capable of doing the opposite: of preventing a
particular text or group of texts from being seen as related to one another in a particular
way. Thus, a politician may borrow an element from the discourse of opponents’ ideology
in order to strip it of what it genuinely stands for.
Translators and interpreters must always be aware of the motivation behind this kind
of device. It is an important aspect of intertextual reference and can be referred to as
Contratextuality. The term covers all instances where speakers or writers systematically
employ opponents’ discourse (terms of reference) for their own purposes.
To sum up, the theory of intertextuality seems to be taking us in two different
directions. On the one hand, it underlines the importance of the prior text, advocating that
a text is not to be considered as an autonomous entity but as a dependent intertextual
construct. On the other hand, by focussing on communicative intent as a precondition for
intelligibility, intertextuality seems to indicate that the status of a prior text may only be
seen in terms of its contributions to a code that evolves as the text unfolds.

A typology
Intertexts are said to belong to one of the following categories:

1. Reference, when one discloses one’s sources by indicating title, chapter, etc.
2. Cliché, a stereotyped expression that has become almost meaningless through
excessive use.
3. Literary allusion, citing or referring to a celebrating work.
4. Self-quotation.
5. Conventionalism, an idea that has become source-less through repeated use.
6. Proverbs, a maxim made conventionally memorable.
7. Meditation, or putting into words one’s hermeneutic experience of the effects
of a text.
 These categories do not, however, give the complete picture.
It should also be remembered that the chain from pre-text to host text is to be
extended in the case of translating to include a target host text, into which the intertextual
reference is to be rendered.
Recognition and Transfer of Intertextual Reference
Translators encounter first of all what we will here term intertextual signals. These are
elements of texts which trigger the process of intertextual search. An important property of
these signals is that they are all tangible elements in a text.
Having identified an intertextual signal, translators embark on the more crucial
exercise of charting the various routes through which a given signal links up which its pre-
text, or, as these routes are two-way systems, a given pre-text links up with its signal.
In tracing an intertextual signal to its pre-text, the semiotic area being traversed is
what we have called the intertextual space. It is here that text users assess the semiotic
status of the intertextual reference. Answers to the following questions might form the basis
of an inter-semiotic translation of intertextual reference:
1. What is the informational status of a This question relates to the “form” of the
given reference in the communicative intertextual signal.
transaction (features of field, mode,
tenor, time, place, etc.)?
2. What is the intentional status of the This relates to the “function” of the signal.
reference in the question as action?

3. What is the semiotic status of the This assesses the priority of one over he
reference as a sign “interacting” with other in the production of the sign.
other signs?
It is on the sign entity as a semiotic construct, however, that the ultimate decision bears:
should the translator relay on form, content or both, and in what proportions?
The principal aim is to evaluate which aspects of the sign are to be retained and
which aspects must be left aside in the act of transferring that sign into another language.
A translator’s first responsibility is to the intertextual reference, which by definition involves
intentionality.
The process is completed when the sign is subjected to a final, crucial procedure: a
reappraisal of the contribution that particular sign makes to the semiotics of the source text.
This includes the description of the sign in terms of membership of a particular genre,
discourse, or text, which must be preserved as far as possible. If feasible, even the functional
status of the reference as an item in the linguistic system must also be retained. The
translator, in according priority to intentionality will also make adjustments according to the
different background knowledge and belief systems different text users bring to their
processing of texts. These are the issues which lie behind the translators decisions.

GLOSSARY
In some cases, I give terms a special sense which is I think appropriate, transparent an
operational for translation. These terms are indicated with an asterisk.
*ACRONYM: A word formed from the first letters or first syllables of its component words
(e.g. UNO, BTT, (q.v.), Komsomol).
*ACTUAL: The sense used in the particular context, as opposed to “potential”.
*ADJECTIVAL CLAUSE (or RELATIVE CLAUSE): Subordinate clause qualifying or describing a
noun or pronoun (e.g. “the man who came in”; “the house (that) I saw”; “the man
(who/whom) I saw”).
*ADJECTIVAL NOUN: Noun formed from an adjective (e.g. “kindness”, “redness”).
*’ANONYMOUS’ TEXT: (Delisle’s (1981) term). A text where the name and status of the
author is not important. Usually a run-of-the-mill “informative” text.
*AUTHORITATIVE TEXT (or STATEMENT): An official text, or a text where the status of the
author carries authority.
BACK-TRANSLATION TEST (BTT): Translating a stretch or lexical unit of TL text back into the
SL, for purposes of comparison and correction. A useful test for assessing the semantic range
of the SL passage. If the retranslation doesn’t corresponds with the SL text, a translator can
justify his version: (a) if it shows up a SL lexical gap; (b) the wider context supports a non-
corresponding version. However, if the SL lexical unit has a clear one-to-one TL equivalent,
a different version is usually hard to justify.
BLEND (or “PORTMANTEAU” WORD): The fusion of two words into one (e.g. “motel”,
“brunch”, and common technical language).
CASE-GAP: Where a “CASE-PARTNER” (q.v.) is missing.
CASE-PARTNER: A noun GROUP (q.v.) or pronoun dependant on a verb, adjective or noun;
it may be the subject, object, indirect object, etc., of a verb; in the possessive or genitive
case (e.g. “a row of books”, “a student group”) or dependent on a VERB ADJECTIVE (q.v.)
(e.g. “responsible to me”). In translation, case-partners are sometimes added to fill SL “case-
gap”.
CLASSIFIER: A generic or general or superordinate term sometimes supplied by the
translator to qualify a specific term (e.g. “the city of Brno”).
CLAUSE: A complete stretch of words including a subject and a verb. A main clause can be
used on its own in a sentence; a subordinate clause can only be used with a main clause and
is often introduced by a subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun.
COLLOCATIONS: Two or more words (“collocates”) that go “happily” or naturally with each
other (see pp. 212-3).
COMMUNICATIVE TRANSLATION: Translation at the readership’s level.
COMPENSATION: Compensating for any semantic loss (e.g. undertranslation, metaphor,
pun, sound effect) in one place at another place in the text.

*CONFLATE or *COLLPSE: To bring two or more SL words together and translate by one TL
word.
CONNECTIVES: Words used to connect two sentences to secure cohesion: conjunctions,
pronouns, adverbs, such as “further”, “yet”, etc. Also called “link(ing) words” or
“connectors”.
CORRESPONDENT: Corresponding stretch of text in SL and TL text.
CULTURAL EQUIVALENT: A cultural word translated by a cultural word, e.g. bac by ““A”
level”. Always approximate.
CULTURE: objects, processes, institutions, customs, ideas peculiar to one group of people.
*CURRENCY: The status of a word, idiom or syntactic structure at the period of writing (SL
or TL), either within or outside the context, as exemplified first in its frequency of use, and
also in its degree of novelty, validity and obsolescence. (A more comprehensive account is
offered by STATUS (q.v.)).
DEICTIC WORD: A word indicating time or space like a pronoun: e.g. “the”, “this”, “my”,
“your”, “here”, “there”.
*DELETE, *DELETION: Means “omit, don’t translate”.
*DICTIONARY WORD: A word only found in (usually bilingual) dictionaries and therefore to
be avoided by translators.
*EMPTY VERB: (a) A verb such as “do”, “give” (an order), “deliver” (a speech), “take”
(action), collocated with a verb-noun, to which it gives greater force; (b) any verb that can
be deleted in translation ( see “HOUSE-ON-HILL” CONSTRUCTION).
*EPONYM: Any word derived from a proper name.
EQUAL FRENQUENCY RULE: Any corresponding features of the SL and TL text should be
approximately equally frequent in the appropriate language register. Features include
words, metaphors, collocations grammatical structures, word order, proverbs, institutional
terms.
EQUATIVE or EQUATIONAL VERB or COPULA: A verb that expresses equivalence or change,
such as “be”, “seem”, “become”, “grow”, “turn”, “get”, which has adjective or noun
complements.
FALSE FRIENDS or FAUX AMI: An SL word that has the same or similar form but another
meaning in the TL; therefore a deceptive cognate.
FREAK EXAMPLES: An exceptional example, often inadequately offered as evidence.
*FUNCTIONAL TRANSLATION: A simple natural translations that clarifies the purpose and
meaning of the SL passage (in the best sense, a “paraphrase”).
GENERAL WORD: A noun, verb, or adjective with a wide referential range, e.g., “thing”, “do”,
“good”, “development”, “affair”, “business”, phénomène, élement. Al called “hold-all-
words”.

GRAECO-LATINISM: A modern word derived from a combination of Latin and/or ancient
Greek words.
GRAMMATICAL (or FUNCTIONAL) WORD: A word indicating relations, .g. a preposition,
pronoun, connective, a PRE-NOUN (q.v.), a DEICTIC WORD (q.v.). A component of a limited
or “closed” language system, that includes or excludes “grey area” words such as “in respect
of”, dans le cadre de, “to the point that”, etc.
GROUP, also called PHRASE: A constituent part of a clause or a sentence; there are noun
groups (“a (nice) lad”), verb groups (“went to see”, “would have done”), adverbial groups
(“extremely well”, “in the morning”). Groups initiated with a preposition, like the last
example, are often called “propositional groups”.
*“HOUSE-ON-HILL” CONSTRUCTION: An SL structure that uses an EMPTY VERB (q.v.),
usually a participle or an adjectival clause, or a preposition to qualify a noun, usually
translated into English by “noun plus prepositions plus noun”.
*HOUSE-STYLE or FORMAT: The conventions of format peculiar to a publication or a
publisher, including titling or sub-titling, punctuation, capitalisation, spelling, footnotes,
length of paragraphs, dates, illustrations, arrangements.
*“ICEBERG”: All the work involves in translating, of which only the “tip” shows.
*INTENSIFIERS: Adverbs or adjectives used, usually in clichéd collocation, to intensify or
stress meaning; e.g.: “totally”, “highly”, “incredible”, “deeply”, “immensely”, “profoundly”.
Often deleted in natural usage.
INTERFERENCE: Literal translation from SL or a third language that does not give the right
or required sense (see TRANSLATIONESE).
INTERNATIONALISM: Strictly a word that keeps the same meaning and the same form in
many languages, therefore normally a technical term. (Concept-words such as “liberalism”
could be described as “pseudo-internationalism”).
JARGON: Here used in the sense of overblown and pretentious groups and words, e.g.
Graeco-latinisms with double or triple suffixes or multi-noun compounds used unnecessarily
to replace simple words – not in its other sense of “technical Language”.
LEXICAL WORD: A descriptive word referring to objects, events or qualities, usually a noun,
verb, adjective or adverb. Unlimited (an “open set”) in number in any language.
LEXIS: The sum of the “lexical words” in a language.
LINGUISTIC SYNONYMS: Two or more words that resemble each other in meaning; e.g.
unlawful, illicit, illegal.
METALANGUAGE: Language used to describe language about language, or to exemplify one
of its features (cf. metalingual).
METAPHOR: A word or phrase applied to an object, action or quality which it does not
literally denote, in order to describe it more accurately or vividly – a degree of resemblance
is therefore implied.

*MODULATION: A translation procedure converting SL double negative to TL positive or vice
versa, qualifying a verb, adjective or adverb (e.g. “not unmindful” → “mindful”). The
procedure is available as an option for any clause, though “in principle” (i.e. out of context)
it produces either a stronger or weaker TL equivalent.
MONOSEMOUS: Having only one sense. Also called “univocal” or “monosemantic”.
MORPHEME: A minimal unit of language that has meaning. Includes roots, prefixes, suffixes
and inflections (“endings”).
NATURALIZE: Means either “convert to natural usage” or “convert to normal TL spelling or
pronunciation”.
NEGATIVE: Lexically, a word used in an unfavourable or pejorative or disparaging sense; a
“snarl” word.
NEOLOGISM: A newly formed word or an old word in a new sense.
NO-EQUVALENT WORD: An SL word for which there is no clear one- (word) to one- (word)
equivalent in the TL, that shows up a lexical gap in the TL. Often has no cognate in the TL.
Often translated, after componential analysis, into two or more TL words.
NOUN COMPOUND: The combination or tow or more nouns, usually unhyphenated,
referring to one concept.
NOUN GROUP: See GROUP.
ONE-TO-ONE: one word translated by one word.
OPAQUE: SL form whose TL meaning is not apparent from its morphology, etymology, etc.
OVER-TRANSLATION: A translation that gives more detail than its corresponding SL unit.
Often a more specific word.
PHATIC LANGUAGE: Used to establish social contact and to express sociability with
interlocutors or readers rather than referential meaning. All communication has a phatic
element.
*PHATICISM: (neolog); A standard phatic phrase.
POSITIVE: Used in a favourable, approving “ameliorative” sense (opposed to “negative”). A
“purr” word,
POTENTIAL: possible or latent, of meaning, only out of context, as opposed to “actual” in
context.
PRAGMATIC: Affecting the readership; the communicative, emotive element in language, as
opposed to the referential, informative element (cf. the contrast between “mind” and
“reality”). The two elements are always present in language, but in varying degree. (Note
that “pragmatic” has other senses).
*PRE-NOUN: All the functional or grammatical words that are used to qualify a noun, e.g.
articles, deictic and possessive adjectives, “other”, “some”, etc.
REFERENT: The object, event or quality that a word denotes in the context of an utterance.

REFERENTIAL SYNONYMS: Two or more words that refer to the same things or person, e.g.
Disraeli, the 19th Century Tory Prime Minister, the first Earl of Beaconsfield, he, etc.
REGISTER: A variety of “social” language at one period, characterised by a particular degree
of formality, emotional tone, difficulty, dialect and social class; occasionally by other factors
such as age and sex.
ROMANCE LANGUAGES: Portuguese, Spanish (Catalan, Castilian), French, Italian, Romansh,
Romanian.
*“SACRED” TEXT: (contrast with “anonymous” text): An authoritative or expressive text
where the manner is as important as the matter.
SCRAP EXAMPLE: A small example, illustrative rather than demonstrative.
SEMANTIC TRANSLATION: Translation at the author’s level.
*SETTING: The place where the SL text appears and the TL text is likely to appear: i.e. name
of periodical, publisher, type of client, etc. The setting dictates de HOUSE-STYLE (q.v.).
SL (SOURCE LANGUAGE): The language of the text that is to be or has been translated.
*STATUS: (of a construction, idiom or word): A more comprehensive term than CURRENCY
(q.v.); a complete statement for the translator, including frequency, acceptance, milieu,
degree of formality, technicality, emotional tone, favourableness (positive/negative), likely
future – in and outside the context!.
SUB-TEXT: the thought under the text, sometimes in contradiction to what is stated
(“subtext” appears to be an actor’s term popularised by the translator and biographer of
Ibsen and Chekhov, Michael Meyer). A dangerous concept. Every translator likes to think
that he has just occasionally translated what the author meant rather than what he wrote.
TL (TARGET LANGUAGE): The language of the translated text.
TOPIC: Always used in the sense of the subject-matter or are of knowledge of a text.
TRANSFERENCE: (called “TRANSCRIPTION” in Newmark, 1981): The transfer of an SL word
or lexical unit into the TL text, as a translation procedure.
TRANSLATIONESE: (sometimes called “TRANSLATORESE”): A literal translation that does not
produce the appropriate sense. Usually due to INTERFERENCE (q.v.) if the TL is not the
translator’s language of habitual use, or to automatic acceptance of dictionary meaning.
*TRANSPARENT: An SL word whose meaning “shines through” in the TL, owing to its form,
etymology, etc. Therefore usually a non-faux ami, a faithful friend. Used also of SL
compounds whose components translate literally into the TL, sometimes referred to as
semantically motivated words.
TRANSPOSITION (or SHIFT): A change of grammar in the translation from the SL to TL.
*UNDERLIFE: The personal qualities and private life of a writer that can be deduced from a
close reading of the SL text.

UNDER-TRANSLATION: Where the translation gives less detail and is more general than the
original. Most translations are under-translations, but their degree of under-translation is
too high.
“UNFINDABLE” WORD: A word that cannot be found in reference book or be identified by
an informant.
UNIT OF TRANSLATION (UT): The smallest segment of an SL text which can be translated,
as a whole, in isolation from other segments. It normally ranges from the word through the
collocation to the clause. It could be described as “as small as is possible and as large as is
necessary” (this is my view), though some translators would say that it is a misleading
concept, since the only UT is the whole text.
VERBAL ADJECTIVE: An adjective derived from a verb, with the force of a verb; e.g.
“responsible”, “dependent”, “helping”.
VERB-NOUN (“VERBAL NOUN”, “DEVERBAL”): A noun formed from a verb, e.g.
“establishment”, “promotion”, “progress”, “cry”, “laugh”. Often collocated with an EMPTY
VERB (q.v.). One verb-noun sometimes indicates state or process, active or passive, or a
concrete object: thus five possible meanings. Animate verb- nouns (e.g. “eater”) may have
no one-to-one equivalents in other languages.

BIBLIOGRAFÍA
Baker, M. (1992). In Other Words. London: Routeledge.

Bell, R. (1991). Translation and Translating. London: Longman.
Brinton, E. et al (1981). London: Macmillan.
Campbell, S. (1998). Translation into the Second Language. New York: Longman.
De Beaugrande, R. and W. Dressler (1981). Introduction to Text Linguistics. London:
Longman.
Duff, A. (1981).The Third Languag. London: Pergamon Press.
Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan (1993). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
Hatim, B. and T. Mason. (1990). Discourse and the Translator. London: Longman.
Hatim, B. and T. Mason . (1999). The Translator as Communicator. London: Routledge.
Hurtado Albir, A. (ed). (1996). La Enseñanza de la Traducción. Castel1ó: Universitat
Jaume I.
Hurtado Albir, A. (ed). (1994). Estudios sobre la Traducción. Castelló, Universitat Jaume
I.
Kussmaul, O.(1995). Training the Translator. Vol. 10. Amsterdam: Benjamins Publishing
Co.
Newmark, P. (1988). A Textbook of Translation. London: Prentice Hall.
Newmark, P. (1991). Approaches to Translation. London: Prentice Hall.
Nida, E, and C, Taber. (1982). The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden, E.J. Brill.
Nord, C. (1991). Text Analysis in Translation. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Snell-Hornby, M. (1995). Translation Studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
The Translation Journal (2012). Disponible http://translationjournal.net/journal
Vazquez Ayora, G. (1977). Introducción a la Traductología. USA: Georgetown University.
Wills, W. (1988). La Ciencia de la Traducción. México: Universidad Autónoma.

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Handbook Traductología II Page 1

Handbook Traductología II Page 2

ELEMENTS TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT WHEN DEALING WITH TEXT

The intention of the text

(from Discourse and the Translator by B. Hatim and I. Mason)

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c) The Instructional Text Types

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The Expressive Function

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The informative function

The vocative function

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Expressive Function Informative Function Vocative Function

Expressive Informative Vocative

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Emotional Tone: (the tone and mood of the text)

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Apart from this, it is important to consider

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Interference is the translator's worst problem, as it is the language learner's. Failure to

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1. “........ trata de exponer los gustos y disgustos del crítico.”

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English word is and is not the Spanish word

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The following are just some suggestions on how to solve ambiguity:

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Exclamation Marks and Question Marks

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2. It should be remembered that ONE BILLION in US English is equivalent to MIL

3. Ordinal Numbers are used less frequently in Spanish than in English:

Translate the following passages:

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Types of unfindable words

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Newmark, P. A textbook of translation. Prentice Hall, 1988

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Newmark, P. A textbook of translation. Prentice Hall, 1988

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The translation of idioms: difficulties

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Nida, E. The Theory and Practice of Translation

In Linguistics, a collocation is typically defined as the 'habitual co-occurrence of individual

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