Vinay and darbelnet's

model
 Introduction

Influenced by earlier work by the Russian theorist and translator Andrei

Fedorov (1953), as described by Mossop (2013) and Pym (2016), Vinay
and Darbelnet carried out a comparative stylistic analysis of French and
English. They looked at texts in both languages, noting differences
between the languages and identifying different translation ‘strategies’
and ‘procedures’.
 These terms are sometimes confused in writing about
translation. As we saw in Chapter 1 (pp. 23–4), in the
technical sense a strategy is an overall orientation of the
translator (e.g. towards ‘free’ or ‘literal’ translation, towards
the TT or ST, towards domestication or foreignization)
whereas a procedure is a specific technique or method used
by the translator at a certain point in a text .
 Although the model proposed in Stylistique comparée . . . centres solely on the
French–English pair, its influence has been much wider. It built on work on
French–German translation (Malblanc 1944/1963) and inspired two similar books
on English–Spanish translation: Vázquez-Ayora’s Introducción a la traductología
[‘Introduction to traductology’] (1977)
 and García Yebra’s Teoría y práctica de la
traducción [‘Theory and practice of translation’]
(1982). A later French response to the work was
Chuquet and Paillard’s Approche linguistique des
problèmes de traduction [‘Linguistic approach to
problems of translation’] (1987).
 Borrowing

The SL word is transferred directly to the TL. This category (1995: 31–
2; 2004: 129) covers words such as the Russian rouble, datcha, the later
glasnost and perestroika, that are used in English and other languages to
fill a semantic gap in the TL. Sometimes borrowings may be employed
to add local colour (sushi, kimono, Osho–gatsu . . . in a tourist brochure
about Japan, for instance).
 Borrowing:

Of course, in some technical fields there is much borrowing

of terms (e.g. computer, internet, from English to Malay). In
languages with differing scripts, borrowing entails an
additional need for transcription, as in the borrowings of
mathematical, scientific and other terms from Arabic into
Latin and, later, other languages (e.g. [al- jabr] to algebra).
 Calque:

This is ‘a special kind of borrowing’ (1995: 32–3; 2004: 129–30)

where the SL expression or structure is transferred in a literal
translation. For example, the French calque science-fiction for the
English.
 :Calque

Vinay and Darbelnet note that both borrowings and

calques often become fully integrated into the TL,
although sometimes with some semantic change,
which can turn them into false friends. An example
.is the German Handy for a mobile (cell) phone
 Literal translation

(1995: 33–5; 2004: 130–2):

This is ‘word-for-word’ translation, which Vinay and Darbelnet describe

as being most common between languages of the same family and
culture. Their example is:

English ST: I i left my spectacles on the table downstairs.

French TT: J ai laisse mes lunettes sur la table en bas.

 Literal translation is the authors’ prescription for good
translation: ‘literal- ness should only be sacrificed because of
structural and metalinguistic requirements and only after
checking that the meaning is fully preserved’ (1995: 288).3
But, say Vinay and Darbelnet (ibid.: 34–5), the translator
may judge literal translation to be ‘unacceptable’ for what are
grammatical, syntactic or pragmatic reasons.
 Conclusion

The 1950s and 1960s saw the emergence of attempts at detailed taxonomies of
small linguistic changes (‘shifts’) in ST–TT pairs. Vinay and Darbelnet’s classic
taxonomy continues to exert most influence today and was useful in bringing to
light a wide range of different translation techniques. However, like Catford, who in
the 1960s applied a systematic contrastive linguistic approach to translation, theirs
is a rather static model.
 Conclusion

Fuzziness of category boundaries is a problem, while other models have

been proposed for non-European languages (e.g. Loh 1958). Another
approach to the analysis of shifts, particu- larly stylistic shifts, came from
Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and 1970s. Stylistic analysis, and its link to
the identity, intentions and ideology of the translator, have come to the fore
in the ‘translatorial stylistics’ of the new millennium (Malmkjær 2003).