IV. Special translation theories.

The general theory of translation describes the basic principles which hold good for each and every translation event. In each particular case, however, the translating process is influenced both by the common basic factors and by a number of specific variables which stem from the actual conditions and modes of the translator’s work:

– the type of the original text he is to cope with,

– the form in which ST is presented to him and

– the form in which he is supposed to submit his translation,

– the specific requirements he may be called upon to meet in his work.

Contemporary translation activities are characterized by a great variety of types, forms and levels of responsibility:

· The translator has to deal with works of the great authors of the past and of the leading authors of today, with intricacies of science fiction and the accepted stereotypes of detective stories;

· He must be able to cope with the elegance of expression of the best masters of literary style and with the tricks and formalistic experiments of modern avant-gardists;

· The translator has to preserve and fit into a different linguistic and social context a gamut of shades of meaning and stylistic nuances expressed in the original text by a great variety of language devices: neutral and emotional words, archaic words and new coinages, metaphors and similes, foreign borrowings, dialects, jargon and slang expressions, stilted phrases and obscenities, proverbs and quotations, illiterate or inaccurate speech, etc;

· The original text may deal with any subject from general philosophical principles or postulates to minute technicalities in some obscure field of human endeavor. The translator has to tackle complicated specialized descriptions and reports on new discoveries in science or technology for which appropriate terms have not yet been invented; diplomatic representations and policy statements; scientific dissertations and brilliant satires; maintenance instructions and after-dinner speeches, etc;

· Translating a play the translator must bear in mind the requirements of theatrical presentation, and dubbing a film he must see to it that his translation fits the movement of the speakers’ lips;

· The translator may be called upon to make his translation in the shortest possible time, while taking a meal or against the background noise of loud voices or rattling type-writers;

· In simultaneous interpretation the translator is expected to keep pace with the fastest speakers, to understand all kinds of foreign accents and defective pronunciation, to guess what the speaker meant to say but failed to express due to his inadequate proficiency in the language he speaks;

· In consecutive interpretation he is expected to listen to long speeches, taking the necessary notes, and then to produce his translation in full or compressed form, giving all the details or only the main ideas;

· In some cases the users will be satisfied even with the most general idea of the meaning of the original, in other cases the translator may be taken to task for the slightest omission or minor error.

Each type of translation has its own combination of factors influencing the translating process.

The general theory of translation should be supplemented by a number of specialtranslation theories identifying major types of translation activities and describing the predominant features of each type: the theory of artistic translation, of machine translation, versification, linguistic theory of translation, etc.

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