PROCEDIMIENTOS DE TRADUCCIÓN / TRANSLATION PROCEDURES

by Prof. Fernando Renart, Head Professor of Translation I

1) Transposición / Transposition or Shift:

This translation procedure is the basic, primary technique for translating any given SL
phrase into the TL, since there are no one-to-one grammatical parities between any two
languages. In order to preserve the fluent naturalness of the TL, a translator need change
syntactical patterns from one language into another. A shift or transposition precisely
consists in translating by making grammatical changes from the SL into the TL. For instance:
Translation course (two nouns in a structure of complementation) rendered as “curso de
traducción” (a head noun post-modified by a prepositional phrase.
Homepage  página de inicio / make a payment  pagar / Let it be  amen/que así sea

2) Modulación / Modulation
It should be borne in mind that every case of a modulation implies an example of
transposition, because to translate by modulating a sentence consists in changing its point
of view (whether a passive voice into an active voice, a negative into an affirmative or vice
versa) or geographical, seasonal or referencial approach. Examples:
I was given a book  Me dieron un libro / I like it  Me gusta. / That is unclear Eso no
queda claro / “…like a summer with a thousand Julies”  “…como un verano con miles de
eneros” / “(crime of) battery”  “(delito de) lesiones” / the Northern wind  la Sudestada

3) Transference (loanword) / Transferencia (préstamo)

This is the easiest translation procedure to remember because it consists in failing to
translate by directly “importing” the SL word into the TL. This mostly occurs (or is
convenient to apply) in the case of proper and/or proprietary names, as well as in either
highly technical or scientific contexts or heavily culture-bound settings whenever there is
no fully accurate equivalent term in the TL/TC.
Internet / The Beatles / COVID-19 / iPhone / vegemite / leasing
4) Transliteration / Transliteración
There is a change of alphabet. It never occurs between English and Spanish, because they
share the same alphabetical characters. Transliteration mostly occurs from a SL having
different alphabetical characters from those of the TL (e.g. Arabic into Spanish, Greek into
English, Russian into German, Serbian into Chinese, Japanese into Thai, Korean into French)
5) Naturalization /Naturalización
In order to naturalize a SL term into the TL, you need to adapt the SL term into the TL
orthography and phonology so as to make it sound fluently natural in the TL. It typically
happens in names of games or sports, institutional references and IT terms. Examples:
Fútbol – boxear – tuit – Cámara de los Lores -

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6) Equivalencia funcional, cultural y descriptiva/Functional, cultural and
descriptive equivalence:
To translate by equivalence consists in reaching semantic, communicative and discursive
parity of meaning between the SL and the TL. Such semantic (meaning),
idiomatic/communicative (making pragmatical sense, i.e. suitable for getting the message
across in any given context) and discursive (level of speech subject to context) can be
reached for functional, cultural and descriptive purposes. Thus:
a) Functional equivalence is to be mostly applied in contexts of social use of language. It
is so-called “functional” because the equivalent term/expression proposed to render any
given term/expression in the SL actually fulfills the same communicative function in the TL.
Examples of these cases are idioms, proverbs, phatic or conventional expressions, namely:
You’re welcome! = ¡De nada! Cheers! = ¡Salud! He finally showed his true colours! =
¡Finalmente mostró la hilacha! – Good evening! = ¡Buenas noches! (como saludo de
bienvenida) Oops! = ¡Epa!
As you can see from the strictly semantic and/or linguistic point of view, these renderings
have nothing to do with their respective SL equivalents, but they do respect a fully
communicative/idiomatic equivalent effect that any TL readership/audience could
understand.
b) Cultural equivalence is to be applied when dealing with a heavily culture-bound term,
i.e. a word or expression that only SL native speakers can grasp in its etymological,
historical, geographical, social, political or artistic (i.e. cultural) origins or settings.
Sometimes, and out of any specific context, these renderings may look and feel inaccurate
or even invalid from the strictly semantic viewpoint, but in some professional contexts
(from adaptations of literary writings, plays, cartoons or works of art to academic or
journalistic explanations of equivalent institutional references) cultural equivalents can be,
not only the most suitable translation procedure, but also the best possible rendering to get
the actual SL message across to the TL readership. The translator’s main job is to elicit from
TL readers an analogous cultural feeling and cause them to evoke a similar and closest
possible remembrance of their cultural surroundings. Some examples are:
House of Lords = Senado – Superbowl (final game) = Final de la Copa del Mundo (fútbol
soccer); barbecue = asado; Times Square = (la Plaza de la República donde se encuentra) el
Obelisco (as a popular meeting center for massive celebrations); vegemite = salsa golf;
¡Gracias totales! = Thank you, absolutely!
c) Descriptive equivalence is required when no straightforward equivalent term is
available (due to cultural, scientific, or other reasons) in the TL, since there is no such an
equivalent concept in the TL, thus requiring the translator to describe (i.e. paraphrase)
rather than directly translate the SL term to be rendered.
House of Commons = Cámara baja del Parlamento británico; probation = suspensión del
juicio a prueba; leasing = arrendamiento financiero; common law = derecho
(consuetudinario y jurisprudencial) anglosajón/angloamericano; slowbalization =
ralentización del proceso de globalización mundial

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7) Compensación por expansión/reducción (Compensation by
expansion/reduction): This procedure consists in making up for any potential
shortage/addition of meaning that might result either from an excessively literal or
straightforward translation. Both in legal and literary translation, compensation by
expansion or reduction becomes crucial, since no two languages are grammatically
equivalent and certain syntactical patterns, in order to achieve naturalness in the TL, badly
need some rephrasing in order to “taste” natural or to balance and/or offset some loss of
the original meaning, especially in phrasal verbs or all those verbs showing miscellaneous
“ways of.. (performing certain actions)”. Some few examples are:
She slammed the door = Cerró la puerta de un portazo. (translation applying compensation
by expansion)
He got away with it = ¡Zafó! (translation applying compensation by reduction)
IMPORTANT NOTE TO THIS PROCEDURE OF COMPENSATION: REMEMBER that
(similarly but not identically or exactly like in mathematical operations of multiplication) in
translation, we can alter factors inasmuch as such alteration does not modify the final
product, i.e. the end-result = meaning originally intended by the SL author and accurately
conveyed to the TL readership.

8) Calco o traducción directa –(calque/through-translation): This procedure is mostly

useful when dealing with institutional, geographical, sports-related and some technological
terms. It consists in either naturalizing the SL term into the TL orthography (i.e. morphology
and phonology) or reproducing the same literal (i.e. basic primary) meaning of the words
composing the institutional term or expression. It is mostly helpful when no such equivalent
institution Some few clear examples are:
Football = fútbol (or almost all the names of every sport); folklore = folklore (you wouldn’t
believe that this term was of English origin, would you? The Spanish version we’ve always
used is just a naturalization of the originally English term); Cape Horn = Cabo de Hornos;
FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation = Oficina/Buró Federal de Investigaciones.

9) Traducción oficial o reconocida/Official or recognized translation: This procedure

has an easy side and a difficult one. The easiest part of this procedure is that the translation
is already done… who by? By some formerly pioneering translator who has already
undergone the intellectual challenge of proposing a final rendering for the term we’re
seeking to translate now, but, the most difficult side of this procedure consists in
re/searching for such official or (widely) recognized translation in the TL. Many a time the
procedure of transference or loan (REMEMBER: to leave the SL term as is in the TL) is
required, and on some other occasions, different versions -especially of literary works of art
translated in different eras- may come up in your research). This is what usually occurs with
names of books (The King of Torts = El rey de los pleitos, by John Grisham), films (“Star
Wars” = “Guerra de las Galaxias”), series* (“Diff’ent Strokes” = “Blanco y negro”),
monuments (Stonehenge = Stonehenge, this term is fully transferred as there is no other
even similar monument worldwide), cities (London = Londres). One excellent source of
reference for geographical equivalents is Google Maps and for literary or artistic works of
art, the corresponding specialized encyclopedias, libraries, historic archives or websites.