LECTURE 3

TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS
as a major concept of
general translation theory
 MAIN CONCEPTUAL ELEMENTS
OF A GENERAL TRANSLATION THEORY

1. Translation universals
2. Translation unit
3. Translator’s competence
4. Equivalence and adequacy of translation
5. Target text as metatext
6. Translation complexity as a rationale of
general translation theory multifacetedness
https://tome.app/translation-and-gtt/untitle
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 As you remember from the first lecture,
general translation theory deals with universal
characteristics (features) of any translation.
Therefore, in this lecture I am going to discuss
the first of the most important notions of this
theory –
TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS,
which are considered as common
features of any translation.
WHY STUDY TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS?

•1) This discussion touches upon the most relevant

general translation theory issues;
•2) They give some general ideas about translation
regularities;
•3) Translation master degree holders must be aware of
this translation fact;
WHY STUDY TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS? – Cnt’d

•4) This is a promising field of general translation theory

research;
•5) research on universals has encouraged translation scholars to
develop better empirical research designs, to be more precise
about their claims, to work with large corpora, to think more in
terms of generating and testing hypotheses, and try to make
generalisations required for a GGT
•6) A final reason to study universals is their pedagogical
relevance because TUs are about typical negative translation
features
SOME QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED ABOUT
TRANSLATION
• Are translations different from non-translated texts? Is translation a
“third code,” different from both the source text and native texts in the
target language? This is the question that research on translation
universals is attempting to answer.
• The idea that translated texts might share “universal” characteristics
stems from the general impression that 1) translated texts differ from
their source texts in regular ways that can’t be attributed to the
interaction of the specific language pair, and 2) translated texts differ
from non-translated texts in the same language in regular ways that,
again, are not related to the interference of any particular source
language.
Approaches to Studying Translation Universals
Currently, there are at least three approaches to researching Translation
Universals:
1)Text Approach: Studying the relationship between the ST and the TT –
what universal is in the result of translation?
1)Translation Process Approach: Studing the process of translation – what
unibersal is in the translation process?
The first approach began in the years 2000s and is predominant now,
while the second approach is only in the nascent state and absolutely
underdeveloped.
The third, current approach is based on transltion corpus study approach,
when massives of paralle texts are analyzed for TUs.
We can also conjecture that there may be other approaches to
researching translation universals, for example, studying the relation
between the translator and the audience of the target text.
 The first concept of translation universals
• The endeavor to discover the general features of the translational
text started fairly early within translation studies. Jiří Levý (1965)
considered it one of the main goals of translation research to
determine the linguistic features characterizing translations – although
he did not use the term “translation universal” – which called for
rational and analytical evaluative methods.
• However, the research into the general phenomena of translation
was launched by Mona Baker’s (1993) acclaimed study, in which she
deemed translation universals the basic principles of the translation
behavior, regarding them to be features that potentially determine
the differences between translations and texts originally written in
the target language.
The concept of translation universal – Cnt’d

• According to Baker, universal features of translation are

linguistic phenomena that typically characterize
translations rather than original texts, and do not emerge
in the translated text as the result of interference
between the different language systems (Baker 1993:
243). Baker adds that these phenomena occur due to
constraints that are inherent in the process of translation,
therefore they can be considered universal.
•
Gideon Tuory’s View
According to Gideon Toury, a universal translation theory can be based on
translation universal, albeit, of a peculiar kind.
• Baker, who was first to research translation universals, suggests that patterns
that are found across all such sets of translated versus non-translated corpora
would suggest a hypothesis for universal features of translation. Baker reflects that
translation universals are cognitive phenomena.
• However, Toury speaks of universals of translational behaviour. Segmentation is
essential in translation and interpreting and it is a kind of segmentation that has no
counterpart in unilingual activity.
• It involves simultaneous suppression and activation of the right features of the
linguistic systems at the right time in the right proportions to each other before
the translator or interpreter can get started on the conscious parts of the
translation process.
• This can be termed as ‘translation unit segmentation’. With the confirmation of
predictions arising from these hypothesized universals, new insights into
translation studies will be gained.
 QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED ABOUT TRANSLATION IN
Search for translation universals
• Are translations different from non-translated texts? Is translation
a “third code,” different from both the source text and native texts
in the target language? This is the question that research on
translation universals is attempting to answer.
• The idea that translated texts might share “universal”
characteristics stems from the general impression that 1) translated
texts differ from their source texts in regular ways that can’t be
attributed to the interaction of the specific language pair, and 2)
translated texts differ from non-translated texts in the same
language in regular ways that, again, are not related to the
interference of any particular source language.
 Universals
• WHAT IS A UNIVERSAL? It is a generalized feature common to all (or
at least a very large group of) objects

• TYPES OF UNIVERSALS IN THE HUMANITIES:

• Human universals (adjustment to environment, pain, likes and
dislikes, food preferences, emotions, daily routines, sweets preferred,
females do more direct childcare, preference for own children and
close kin (nepotism), husband older than wife on average, gestures,
murder proscribed, males dominate public/political realm, etiquette,
taboos, leaders, diurnality, tool making, biological mother and social
mother normally the same person)
 UNIVERSALS (cont’d)
• Cognitive universals (symbolism, reasoning or logic, generalization,
comparison, learning habits, assessment of objects, their positions and
motion, making comparisons, memory, choice making (choosing alternatives),
mental maps, anticipation
• Language universals (in any spoken language there are vowels and
consonants, nouns and verbs, color terms, kinship terms, semantic primitives
in words, Languages with dominant VSO order are always prepositional, A
language never has more gender categories in nonsingular numbers than in the
singular
• Speech communication universals (speech in any language consists of
speech units – speech acts; in speech in any language there are
representatives, directives, comissives, emotives, declaratives and
metacommunictive speech acts.
 VIEWS ON TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS
• Frawley proposed a model of the translation language as a third
code—a product of the negotiation of the translator between the first
code of the source text, language, and culture, and the second code of
the target language and culture, a product that differs not just in
obvious ways from its source, but also from native texts of the “second
code.”
• Others, especially Toury, have also proposed that there are particular
laws operating in translating, particular not only because translating is a
different activity from original text production, but also because
translating produces a measurably different kind of text with features
that identify it as a translation. Toury distinguishes between those
features that are the result of conforming to (or deliberately flouting)
culture-based norms and those that evince universal translation
behavior.
 TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS - DEFINITION
• Universals of translation are linguistic features which typically
occur in translated rather than original texts and are thought to be
independent of the influence of the specific language pairs involved
in the process of translation (Baker).
• A number of features considered common to all types of
translated texts have been identified, mainly on the basis of
contrastive analyses of translations and their source texts. These
features concern simplification, avoidance of repetitions present in
the source text, explicitation, normalization, discourse transfer,
and distinctive distribution of lexical items.
 HYPOTHESES
• Hypotheses about translation universals, then, posit the presence of
various linguistic phenomena in translated texts that have a distribution
different from what is found for the same phenomena in non-translated
texts, whether those non-translated texts are the source text of the
translation, or original texts in the target language.
• While much has been observed over the centuries about the nature of
translations with respect to their source texts, those observations, and
the evidence brought forward to support them, have lacked the
statistical bulk necessary to give weight to hypotheses. Little attention
was paid, furthermore, to how translated texts compare to
non-translated texts in general (not just the source text).
 Other Hermeneutic Hypotheses - Stolze
Stolze’s ideas lie in the realm of hermeneutic language
philosophy. She suggests that the translator’s knowledge base is
activated by the source text.
Comprehension of a source text and the ability to “create
presence in translation” depend on the translator’s knowledge base
and its adequacy.
The translator’s task is to “create presence” for target-text
readers, just as in acting on a theatre stage, an idea is “made
present” for an audience.
Translation is an assignment yet to be fulfilled, an open process
towards an optimal solution. It is a cognitive event: as soon as the
message is understood, target-language words and phrases appear
on the cognitive scene on which the message is “present”.
 Cognitive Hypothesis
A final major problem in identifying translation universals has to do
with causality: universals, if they exist, presumably have both causes
and effects. Here, we can currently do little more than speculate as
rationally as possible.
The immediate causes of whatever universals there may be must be
sought in human cognition — to be precise, in the kind of cognitive
processing that produces translations.
Constraints on cognitive processing in translation may also be present
in other kinds of constrained communication, such as communicating in
a non-native language or under special channel restrictions, or any form
of communication that involves relaying messages, such as reporting
discourse, even journalism. It may be problematic, eventually, to
differentiate factors that are pertinent to translation in particular from
those that are pertinent to constrained communication in general.
 Communicative Hypothesis
Other kinds of explanations may be sought e.g. in the nature of
translation as a communicative act, and in translators’ awareness of their
socio-cultural role as mediators of messages for new readers.
Translators tend to want to reduce entropy, to increase orderliness.
They tend to want to write clearly, insofar as the skopos allows, because
they can easily see their role metaphorically as shedding light on an
original text that is obscure — usually unreadable in fact — to their target
readers: hence the need for a translation.
Their conception of their role may give a prominent position to the
future readers of their texts; this may even have been emphasized in their
training. Additionally, economic and technical factors may be relevant,
exerting their own pressure on the translator’s work process. All such
potential non-cognitive factors must eventually take their effect via the
translator’s cognition, though — consciously or unconsciously.
 TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS – GENERALS

•2 views on the essence of translation universals: 1) they

are constant objects in the translation process 2) they
are common features of all translated texts
•As all texts are shaped by the particular aims for which
they were produced,
•the particular context in which they were composed,
and by the particular
•readership to which they are addressed, translated texts
must necessarily differ from STs and original TL texts.
 TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS – GENERALS –
Cnt’d

• DEFINITION: These are common features of all target texts which appear
in them as a result of translation
• EXAMPLES: Translations are longer than originals; There are results of the
SL interference in any TT
• FREQUANTALS are common features of most translated texts which
frequently appear in them as a result of translation
• EXAMPLES: The first text translations tend to be poorer in quality than
consequtive translations
• TRANSLATIONESE – the language of translated texts demonstrating
various deviations from the speech norms (tradidtons) of the TT
 CLASSIFICATION OF TRANSLATION
UNIVERSALS

•ABSOLUTE UNIVERSALS vs POTENTIAL UNIVERSALS

•S-UNIVERSALS capture universal differences between

translations and their source texts

• T-UNIVERSALS capture universal differences between

translations and non-translated texts in the same language
 S-Universals and T-Universals
• Chesterman offers a parallel to Toury’s dichotomous model
of translation regularities in the form of “S-universals,” that is,
differences between translations and their source texts,
regardless of language (e.g., interference, standardization,
explicitation); and “T-universals,” that is, differences between
translations and comparable texts in the target language (e.g.,
simplification by less lexical variety, lower lexical density,
under-representation of TL-specific items).
• This distinction recognizes the importance of the fact that
the hypotheses make claims about translated texts both with
respect to their source text and with respect to original texts in
the target language. If it were only one or the other, the claims
would lose their universal punch.
 Types of S-UNIVERSALS
Potential S-universals
•– Lengthening or expansion: translations tend to be longer than their
source texts
• –The law of interference
•– The law of standardization
•– Dialect normalization
•– Reduction of complex narrative voices
•– Explicitation
• There is more cohesion in translations
•– Sanitization or Normalization (there are more conventional collocations
in TTs)
•– Retranslation (later translations) tend to be closer to the source text
 TYPES of POTENTIAL T-UNIVERSALS
•–Simplification
•- Less lexical variety
•- Lower lexical density
•- More use of high-frequency items
•– Conventionalization
•– Untypical lexical patterning (and less stable)
•– Under-representation of TL-specific items
•- Generalization of words
 T-UNIVERSAL: SIMPLIFICATION
• Definition – it is a reduction of language or message in TTs
• Lexical richness (variety of words) – the range of lexical variety is
narrower in TTs
• Lexical density – lexical density constitutes the estimated measure of
content per functional (grammatical) and lexical units in total. Spoken
texts tend to have a lower lexical density than written ones. . The
proportion of high-frequency words vs low-frequency words is relatively
higher in TTs. TTs have a lower percentage of content words versus
grammatical words.
• Sentence length, sentence complexity
• Reduction and omission of repetition, a narrower range of vocabulary,
and a related lower type/token ratio (that is, the number of distinct
lexical items is lower relative to the total number of words than in the
source text and in comparable original texts).
• Less discourse markers
 S-UNIVERSAL: DISCOURSE TRANSFER
• Toury identifies a further universal of translation:
translators, he suggests, tend to produce a translated utterance
not by retrieving the target language via their own linguistic
knowledge, but directly from the source utterance itself.
• The universality of discourse transfer is expressed through
another translational law, the law of interference: 'in
translation, phenomena pertaining to the makeup of the source
text tend to be transferred to the target text'.
• According to Toury, discourse transfer, both negative and
positive, is inherent in the mental processes involved in
translation.
 DISCOURSE TRANSFER – Cnt’d
• From a psycholinguistic perspective, the operation of this law depends
on the particular manner in which the source text is processed, so that 'the
more the make-up of a text is taken as a factor in the formulation of its
translation, the more the target text can be expected to show traces of
interference' (Toury). The extent to which interference is actually realized
depends also on the professional experience of the translator and on the
sociocultural conditions in which a translation is produced and consumed.
• These two factors are built into the law of interference as conditions,
suggesting that even when taking the source text as a crucial factor in the
formulation of its translation, accomplished translators would be less
affected by its actual make-up, and 'tolerance of interference - and hence
the endurance of its manifestations - tend to increase when translation is
carried out from a 'major' or highly prestigious language/culture, especially
if the target language/culture is 'minor', or 'weak' in any other sense'.
 UNIVERSAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

• Universals research uses different types of e-corpora:

parallel corpora are bilingual (or multilingual), and include
source texts and their translations; comparable corpora are
monolingual, and include translated and non-translated texts.
• Both types are needed to rule out or account for the
influence of the source language and of target-language norms.
• Corpus design and quality, the fact that corpora are mostly
limited to western languages, principles governing the
alignment of texts, and methodologies for using corpora are the
subject of much discussion.
 FIRST APPROACHES TO TUs
• Rationalization, clarification, expansion, ennoblement,
qualitative impoverishment, quantitative impoverishment,
destruction of rhythms, of underlying networks of signification,
of linguistic patterning, of vernacular networks, of expressions
and idioms…
• When Berman elaborated this list of “translation
deformations,” he called them “universals of deformation
inherent in translating as such”—part of a system “that operates
in every translation”—and found them all abominable. At the
same time, they were not ahistorical, but “the internalized
expression of a two-millennium-old tradition.”
 S-UNIVERSAL: EXPLICITATION
• Definition – this is introducing overt (explicit) information into the
translation that is covert (implicit) in the source text but can be derived
from the context
• Obligatory explicitation (forced by language specificity)
• Optional explicitation (use of additional information in the TT to avoid
misinterpretation or vagueness of expression
• Textual indicators of explicitation may occur in the form of lexical,
syntactic, or semantic additions, expansions, or substitutions
• Expansion of condensed passages
• Addition of modifiers and conjunctions
• Insertion of explanations
• Increased lexical and grammatical cohesion
 TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS: NORMALIZATION
The definition of normalization - the translator's sometimes conscious, sometimes
unconscious rendering of idiosyncratic text features in such a way as to make them conform to
the typical textual characteristics of the target language.
Another view on normalization – it is a tendency to exaggerate the features of the target
language and to conform to its typical patterns.
- Two poles of normalization -1) systemic constraints of the target language (obligatory
shifts) and 2) normalization resulting from the translator's own preferences (non-obligatory
shifts).
Normalization or conservatism is the tendency to conform to patterns and practices which
are typical of the target language, even to the point of exaggerating them), It is compared to
leveling out (a hypothesis that translated language and translated texts ‘steer a middle course
between any two extremes, converging towards the centre’, meaning that we may encounter
less variance in textual features in a corpus of translations than in a corpus of
non-translations) .
Examples of normalisation may be replacing a source text metaphor with a metaphor that
is canonized in the target language, preferably a metaphor that carries much the same
meaning. Or if the punctuation in the source text is odd, or maybe perfectly natural for the
source culture, but odd for the target culture, the translator may ‘decide’ to adapt these to
the target language norms
 LEVELING OUT
• Leveling out was a term applied by Schlesinger to “shifts that take
place along the oral-literate or any similarly pre-defined continuum in
either interpreting or translating.” That is, through the process of
translation, oral-type texts acquire more written features, and
written-type texts take on more oral characteristics. Leveling out is
described more generally by Baker as “the tendency of translated text to
gravitate towards the centre of a continuum”.
• Laviosa proposes the term convergence – “the relatively higher level
of homogeneity of translated texts with regard to their own scores on
given measures of universal features” such as lexical density or sentence
length, in contrast to non-translational texts, which are more
idiosyncratic, with a higher level of variance. In other words, translated
texts, like converts, are more normal than normal.
 CAUSES OF TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS
• The influence of STs on TTs (interference of various kinds)
• Untranslatable elements in STs (various dialect
words; French: Dépaysement The feeling that comes from not
being in one’s home country - of being a foreigner, or an
immigrant, of being somewhat displaced from your origin)
• Cognitive causes – the so-called gravitational pull (
target-language prototypical or highly salient forms would exert
a pull on decision-making processes: these salient forms would
occur first to the translator’s mind, and lead to some of the
T-universals such as simplification. Similarly, the forms of the
source text would also exert a pull, leading to interference etc.
Halverson describes the effects of these pulls in terms of
cognitive grammar.
CAUSES OF TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS – Cnt’d

• Translators’ training – they are taught about

the norms they will be expected to meet. This
might explain why they tend to explicate, to
clarify
• Psychological cause – Translators’ desire to
avoid risk. For instance, translating literally
(which might involve interference) is a way of
playing safe if you are not sure of the exact
meaning of the source; and using high-frequency
forms is also a way of playing safe
 CAUSES OF TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS
• Halverson attempts to provide such an explanation in
terms of bilingual cognitive processing.
• Paloposki raises the possibility that the processes said
to be universal for translation—simplification,
explicitation, normalization—may be typical of
text-processing in general, and therefore not
distinguishing characteristics of translation at all.
 COGNITIVE CAUSES OF TRANSLATION
UNIVERSALS
• Differences between translations into L and texts originally
written in L are determined as much, if not wholly by L’s unique
features, rather than features of the language of the original for the
translation.
• This is among the most interesting findings to have arisen out of
the search for translation universals to date.
• Further, if the concept of the universal is to retain any theoretical
bite in our discipline, we would do well to reserve it for use in
connection with phenomena such as this, for which it makes sense to
produce a cognitively based explanation.
 CONDITIONS
• Toury, while reluctantly accepting the term universal, prefers law,
“not merely because the notion has the possibility of exception built in,
but mainly because it should always be possible to explain away seeming
exceptions with the help of another law, operating on another level.”
• He agrees with Frawley that regularities in translation involve
probability and not absolute determinism, so promotes the concept of
conditioned universals, essentially in the form “If conditions a, b, c,
etc., are true, then there is a greater likelihood that X will happen.” It’s
a theory of likelihoods—what translation is likely to involve, under
different sets of conditions—that recognizes the incredibly complicating
fact of the myriad variables in actual translation situations .
• Toury is also inclined to simplify the list of universals to two general
concepts that are in tension with each other: the law of increasing
standardization, and the law of interference from the source text.
Chesterman’s classification into S-universals
and T-universals
S-universals T-universals
THE EQUIVALENCE RELATION THE RELATION OF TEXTUAL FIT

• lengthening of TTs compared to STs • simplification (lower lexical

• Toury’s law of interference
• Toury’s law of standardisation
• dialect normalisation
• reduction of complex narrative
voices
• explicitation
• sanitization
• retranslation hypothesis
• reduction of repetition
variety and lexical density, more
high-frequency items)
• conventionalisation, normalisation
• untypical and less stable lexical
patterning
• under-representation of TL-specific
items
 IMPLICATION OF TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS
RESEARH FOR TRANSLATION TEACHING - 13
• A pedagogical application exploits the connection between the
traditional pejorative observations and the more recent descriptive
formulations. The pedagogical argument runs as follows: if it is the
case that translations tend to have certain features, and these
features are judged to be negative, we can perhaps improve the
quality of our students’ translations by deliberately teaching them
about potential universals. This is thus an exercise in
consciousness-raising.
• A few such projects have been done as part of a translator
trainer programme, but conclusions are still unclear
• It is necessary to teach speech habits of the SL and TL
 IMPLICTIONS FOR GENERAL TRANSLATION
THEORY
• Research into translation universals has already had an important
impact on Translation Studies. Through its recent focus on using
e-corpora, corpora and corpus methodologies have been scrutinized and
improved.
• Furthermore, whether the results of corpus research can be labeled
“universal” or not, the identification of regularities in translated texts
vis-à-vis other texts can provide insight into translation processes. The
intent of the endeavor is “to discover more and more facets of the nature
of translated text and translating and raise awareness about the complex,
reciprocal relationship that links language to culture” (Laviosa).
• The accumulation of comparative data can certainly enrich our
understanding of translated texts and perhaps serve as a stimulus, if not
support, for improved hypotheses.
 IMPLICATIONS FOR GENERAL TRANSLATION
THEORY - 2
• Through its recent focus on using e-corpora, corpora and corpus
methodologies have been scrutinized and improved. Furthermore,
whether the results of corpus research can be labeled “universal” or not,
the identification of regularities in translated texts vis-à-vis other texts
can provide insight into translation processes.
• The intent of the endeavor is to discover more and more facets of
the nature of translated text and translating and raise awareness about
the complex, reciprocal relationship that links language to culture. The
accumulation of comparative data can certainly enrich our understanding
of translated texts and perhaps serve as a stimulus, if not support, for
improved hypotheses.
 IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLATION PRACTICE
• Avoiding negative aspects of translation universals in translating
• There is no reason why textual investigations should not be of use to
practising translators, as long as the latter also realize that there is as
much to be learnt from insights into the many possibilities and
constraints that operate on translation as there is from rigid prescription
and definite answers.
• The contribution of universals research so far may be those
micro-level observations that have come out of corpus
studies—observations of tendencies that are not at all evident to the
reader, but help determine the shape of the text.
• Bringing unconscious choices to the conscious level at least raises the
translator’s awareness of translation decisions and strategies and “should
lead to a greater understanding of how to produce translations that have
more desired effects and fewer unwanted ones.”
 USEFULNESS FOR TRANSLATION PRACTICE
• “While the non-evaluative stance of Descriptive Translation Studies has
indeed been a valuable move within translation research, there is no reason
why textual investigations should not be of use to practising translators, as
long as the latter also realize that there is as much to be learnt from
insights into the many possibilities and constraints that operate on
translation as there is from rigid prescription and definite answers.”
(Øverås)
• The contribution of universals research so far may be those micro-level
observations that have come out of corpus studies—observations of
tendencies that are not at all evident to the reader, but help determine the
shape of the text. Bringing unconscious choices to the conscious level at
least raises the translator’s awareness of translation decisions and
strategies and “should lead to a greater understanding of how to produce
translations that have more desired effects and fewer unwanted ones
 METHODS OF TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS
RESEARCH
• Disproving a translation universal is very much easier than proving one
and most theorists these days would accept that the number of
situational variables in the translation process is so vast it would restrict
an absolute theory (i.e. statements that hold for every case) to the very
bland, such as ‘translation involves shifts’
• Corpus-based studies (using ST and TT corpora, parallel
concordansers).
Universals research uses different types of e-corpora: parallel corpora
are bilingual (or multilingual), and include source texts and their
translations; comparable corpora are monolingual, and include
translated and non-translated texts.
• Both types are needed to rule out or account for the influence of the
source language and of target-language norms. Corpus design and
quality, the fact that corpora are mostly limited to western languages,
principles governing the alignment of texts, and methodologies for using
corpora are the subject of much discussion.
•
 PERSPECTIVES OF TRANSLATION UNIVERSAL
STUDIES
•Other language pairs in translation should be studied
•Other genres and types of texts, in addition to fiction, must be
researched
•Research methods must be improved, e.g,. large parallel texts
corpora are to be analyzed
•More scholars should be involved in translation universal
research
•It is advisable to include lectures on Translation Universals into
the courses in Introduction to Translation and Translation
Theory
 PERSPECTIVES OF TRANSLATION and TT
UNIVERSAL STUDIES

Since the constants of any translation event are

not only the source and target texts and the
translation process, but also the translator, the
situation, the audience (receptor), and the
translation task, it is promising, with regard to
translation universals, to study the universal
characteristics of these constants as well.
 BUT DO TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS REALLY
EXIST?

• SO FAR, THIS IS ONLY A HYPOTHESIS

•Largely, only European and some Asian languages have been
studied
•In order to claim that there are translation universals, all
languages and all translation directions must be researched
•But this hypothesis is productive for a general translation
theory, translation teaching and translation practice
 DO TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS REALLY EXIST?
-2
• The concept of translation universals may be controversial but it has
elicited a heated response from translation scholars, pushing research in new
directions and providing evidence both for and against their existence.
• The prevalent view is that they have the status of hypotheses. As
emphasized by Chesterman, “Genuine universals are the subject of
unrestricted hypotheses: these claims aim to be valid for all translations of all
kinds, in all times and places, universally”, which makes them difficult, if not
impossible, to prove.
• Major reservations concern the very term ‘universal’ and whether
universals really arise from the translation process itself. House, who questions
their existence, argues that they are language universals applicable to
translation rather than autonomous translation universals
 LITERATURE ON TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS

•Translation Universals: Do They Exist? – Google Books

•Malkmjar K. Translation Universals // The Oxford Handbook of
Translation Studies. - 2012
•Andrew Chesterman. Why study translation universals? // In
the Internet
•Other materials on Translation Universals can be found in the
Internet (type in the query “translation universals” in your
browser)