Translation Studies

13. Transfer operations 1: system and

classification

Krisztina Károly, Spring, 2006

Source: Klaudy, 2003

1. The system of transfer operations (TO)

The concept of TO

Translating = a highly complicated sequence of actions, including:- the replacement of SL lexical units by TL lexical units,- the restructuring of the sentence structure,- the changing of the word order,- the omission of certain elements and the addition of others, etc.

The concept of TO cont.

due to the differences between SL and TL lexical systems, even the seemingly simplest action the replacement of SL lexical units by TL lexical units can become a complicated taskKlaudy (2003) calls these choices/operations (e.g., replacement, transposition, omission, addition) “transfer operations” (= átváltási műveletek) refers to ALL the moves from SL to TL, not only problematic cases

The history of the term

Vinay and Darbelnet (1958, 1995) "methods" or "procedures" of translation, including:(1) borrowing,(2) calque,(3) literal translation,(4) transposition,(5) modulation,(6) equivalence, and(7) adaptation

They use the word "transfer" as a generic term for methods of translation

The history of the term cont.

Catford (1965) "operation":"Translation is an operation performed on languages" … "...a process of substituting a text in one language for a text in another" Catford's interest is in translation as a phenomenon (not in operations carried out by translators)Catford (1964) "shifts”Nida (1964) "techniques of adjustment" as a term to refer to additions, subtractions and alterationsNewmark (1982) “techniques”, “method” and “procedures”

Translation as a decision-making process: a case study

The first sentence of Graham Greene’s short story The Innocent was translated by Gabriella Prekop in the following way:

English ST: It was a mistake to take Lola here. (Greene 451)

Hungarian TT: Hiba volt, hogy magammal vittem Lolát. (Prekop 278) (lit: It was a mistake to take Lola with me.)

Inventory of all of the operations

mere replacement of the English lexical units with Hungarian ones produces a grammatically ill-formed sentence

(cf. Az volt egy hiba vinni Lola ide.)

Inventory cont.

To get a grammatically well-formed Hungarian sentence, she had to perform a series of operations:

(1) she left out the English personal pronoun it,

(2) the past tense of the English existential verb (was) was replaced by the past form of the Hungarian existential verb (volt),

(3) she left out the English article a,

Inventory cont.

(4) the English noun mistake was replaced by the Hungarian noun hiba,

(5) the English Verb-Noun word order was changed to the Hungarian Noun-Verb word order,

(6) the conjunction hogy (‘that’) was inserted in the Hungarian sentence,

(7) the declined personal pronoun magammal (‘with me’) was inserted in the Hungarian sentence,

(8) the English verb take was replaced by the Hungarian verb vinni,

Inventory cont.

(9) the English infinitive (to take) was replaced by the Hungarian conjugated verb form (vittem, ‘ I took’),

(10)she left out to,

(11) she added the past tense, first person singular inflection to the Hungarian verb vinni,

(12) she added the transitive inflection to the proper name Lola (Lolát),

(13) she left out the adverb here.

In sum = 13 operations:

four omissions (it, a, to, here),

two additions (hogy, magammal),

one change of word order (was mistake Hiba volt),

three lexical substitutions (was volt, mistake hiba, take vinni),

one grammatical replacement (to takevittem),

two structural changes (mistake to take hogy vittem, Lola Lolát).

Inventory cont.

in reality, the translator does not work in such a linear fashionthe most complicated operation is making a complex Hungarian sentence out of a simple English sentence the most important transfer operation triggers the rest, some of which are performed by the translator consciously and others automaticallyObligatory transfer operations: without these we do not get a grammatically well-formed Hungarian sentence are generally performed automaticallyE.g., the omission of it or the addition of the transitive inflection to the proper name Lola

2. The classification of transfer operations

Obligatory and optional transfer operations

Obligatory transfer operations = those performed by translators due to the differences between the lexical and grammatical systems of the two Ls (without them the translator would produce semantically or grammatically ill-formed sentences)

Optional transfer operations are those performed over and above obligatory transfer operations.

Automatic and non-automatic transfer operations

Automatic transfer operations = those that are (or should be) obligatorily performed by translators as a result of differences between the systems of the two Ls(e.g., from English into Hungarian, translators automatically omit English prepositions and insert Hungarian inflections and postpositions, change word order)distinguishing automatic transfer operations from the rest is important because if they are always automatically performed their teaching may be unnecessary in translator training

Classification according to level of operation

word-level transfer operations = the replacement of SL lexical units with TL lexical unitsphrase-level transfer operations = e.g., changing the word order within adjectival phrasessentence-level transfer operations = e.g., changing the passive in English into an active structure in the Hungarian translationdiscourse-level transfer operations = e.g., the unification of subjects, within the paragraph

Classification according to the scope and cause of the operation

Lexical transfer operations:

(1) differentiation and specification(2) generalisation(3) conceptual expansion (e.g., the

replacement of a word denoting the cause of a process in the SL with a word that denotes its consequence in the TL),

(4) antonymous translation(5) total transformation (the replacement of a

SL word with a TL word that carries a completely different meaning)

(6) compensation (rendering the meaning of a SL word at a different place, using different means) (Retsker, 1974)

Grammatical transfer operations:

(1) replacements,

(2) transpositions,

(3) insertions,

(4) omissions (Vaseva 1980).

Stylistic transfer operations

are necessitated by the requirements of the genre or text type

(e.g., the choice between the various forms of expressing impersonality in Hungarian: e.g., first and third person plural verb form, infinitive)

Pragmatic transfer operations

are necessitated by the requirements of the TL culture

(e.g., use of the diminutive suffix in Hungarian sounds childish and simple-minded, but not in Russian, where it denotes closeness)

What can be considered a transfer operation?

broader view of transfer operations: all operations conducted by the translator in order to transform the SL text into the TL text

Main types and (sub-)types

Main types

(= classification according to the scope of the operation)

1. Lexical transfer operations

2. Grammatical transfer operations

(Sub-)types (classification acc. to manner of performance)1. Types of lexical transfer operations

1.1. Narrowing of meaning (differentiation and specification)

1.2. Broadening of meaning (generalisation)1.3. Contraction of meanings1.4. Distribution of meaning1.5. Omission of meaning1.6. Addition of meaning1.7. Exchange of meaning1.8. Antonymous translation1.9. Total transformation1.10. Compensation

2. Types of grammatical transfer operations

2.1. Grammatical specification and generalisation

2.2. Grammatical division

2.3. Grammatical contraction

2.4. Grammatical omission

2.5. Grammatical addition

2.6. Grammatical transpositions

2.7. Grammatical replacements

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