Chapter 4 – Studying translation product and process

1. Vinay and Darbelnet’s model

1.1 Vinay and Darbelnet’s taxonomy（分类法）
Works: Comparative Stylistics of French and English (1958/1995) 《》
Strategy and Procedure:
 Strategy is an overall orientation of the translator 译 者 的 总 体 倾 向 (e.g. towards
‘free’ or ‘literal’ translation, towards the TT or ST, towards domestication or
foreignization)
 Procedure is a specific technique or method used by the translator at a certain
point in a text 译者在某处采用的具体技巧或方法(e.g. the borrowing of a word from the
SL, the addition of an explanation or a footnote in the TT).
1.2 Two strategies and seven procedures
Direct translation (‘literal’) covers 3: 直接翻译
（1）Borrowing 借词: The SL word is transferred directly to the TL 将源语词汇直接移到目标语中,
to fill a semantic gap in the TL, to add local colour, some technical fields. (sushi,
卢布 / rouble)
（2）Calque 仿造词语: This is ‘a special kind of borrowing’ where the SL expression or
structure is transferred in a literal translation 用直译的方法将源语中的表达方式直接移植过来, both
borrowings and calques often become fully integrated into the TL, although
sometimes with some semantic change, which can turn them into false friends. (法
英 science-fiction)
（3）Literal translation 直 译 : This is ‘word-for-word’ translation 字 对 字 , most common
between languages of the same family and culture. Literal translation is the
authors’ prescription for good translation: ‘literalness should only be sacrificed
because of structural and metalinguistic requirements and only after checking
that the meaning is fully preserved’. But, say Vinay and Darbelnet, the translator
may judge literal translation to be ‘unacceptable’ for what are grammatical,
syntactic or pragmatic reasons.
Oblique translation (‘free’) covers 4:间接翻译
（4）Transposition 词性转换: This is a change of one part of speech for another (e.g. noun
for verb) without changing the sense. Transposition can be: Obligatory 强制性转换
and optional 选择性转换. (they have pioneered; they have been the first)
Notes:Vinay and Darbelnet see transposition as ‘probably the most common
structural change undertaken by translators’.
（5）Modulation 调节: This changes the semantics and point of view of the SL. It can
be: obligatory 强制性调节 (the time when → the moment where) and optional 选择性调节
(it is not difficult to show → it is easy to show).
Modulation at the level of message is subdivided along the following lines 调节的路
线：
 抽象 ⇆ 具体 abstract ⇆ concrete, or particular ⇆ general：Give a pint of blood >
Give a little blood
 结果 ⇆ 原因 effect ⇆ cause：You’re quite a stranger > We don’t see you any more.
 整体 ⇆ 部分 whole ⇆ part：He shut the door in my face > He shut the door in my
nose
 部分 ⇆ 一部分 part ⇆ another part：He cleared his throat > He cleared his voice
 措辞颠倒 reversal of terms: You can have it > I’ll give it to you
 双重否定 negation of opposite: It does not seem unusual > It is very normal
 主 动 ⇆ 被 动 active ⇆ passive: We are not allowed to access the internet > they
don’t allow us to access the internet
 重 新 考 虑 时 空 限 制 rethinking of intervals and limits in space and time: No parking
between signs > Limit of parking
 改变语意象征 change of symbol: Fr. La moutarde lui monta au nez [‘The mustard rose
up to his nose’] > En. He saw red [‘he became very angry’].
Notes: Modulation is a procedure that is justified ‘when, although a literal, or
even transposed, translation results in a grammatically correct utterance, it is
considered unsuitable, unidiomatic or awkward in the TL’. Vinay and Darbelnet
place much store by modulation as ‘the touchstone of a good translator’
（6）Équivalence 对 等 , or idiomatic translation: Vinay and Darbelnet use this term to
refer to cases where languages describe the same situation by different stylistic or
structural means. 不同语言用不同风格和结构手法描述相同情景 Équivalence is particularly useful
in translating idioms and proverbs.
（7）Adaptation 改编: This involves changing the cultural reference 改变文化表征 when a
situation in the source culture does not exist in the target culture. However,
whereas their solution may work for some restricted metaphorical uses.
1.3 Supplementary translation procedures 其他翻译技法
Other techniques:
 Amplification/Economy 增词/减词
 False friend 假朋友
 Loss, gain and compensation 缺失，添加和补偿
 Explicitation 明晰化
 Generalization 笼统化
1.4 Levels of translation
The 7 main translation procedures are described as operating on three levels. These
three levels reflect the main structural elements of the book. They are:以上技法在以下层
面起作用
（1）the lexicon; 词汇
（2）syntactic structures; 语法结构
（3）the message; 信 息 in this case, ‘message’ is used to mean approximately the
utterance and its metalinguistic situation or context. 指情境或语境
Two further terms are introduced which look above word level. 其他术语:
（1）word order and thematic structure 词序和主位结构
（2）connectors 连接元素: These are cohesive links 衔接性连接 (also, and, but, and parallel
structures), discourse markers 语篇标记(however, first . . .), deixis 指示词语(pronouns
and demonstrative pronouns such as she, it, this, that) and punctuation marks 标点符
号.
Other Terms:
 Parameter 参量
 Servitude 受 限 refers to obligatory transpositions and modulations due to a
difference between the two language systems 语言不同造成的强制性词性转换和调整
 Option 选 择 refers to non-obligatory changes that may be due to the translator’s
own style and preferences, or to a change in emphasis.根据作者喜好而进行的非强制改变，或者
为了改变重点 This could be the decision to amplify or explicate a general term or to
change word order when translating between languages that permit flexibility.
Vinay and Darbelnet stress that it is option, the realm of stylistics, that should be the
translator’s main concern. The role of the translator is then ‘to choose from among the
available options to express the nuances of the message’.
1.5 Analytical steps
Five analytical steps: 翻译过程中 5 个解析步骤
（1）Identify the units of translation.确定翻译单位 (Unit of translation: a combination of a
‘lexicological unit’ 词 汇 单 位 and a ‘unit of thought’ 思 维 单 位 and define it as ‘the
smallest segment of the utterance whose signs are linked in such a way that they
should not be translated individually’.言语的最小片段，在这个片段中言语的符号以不应被单独翻译出来
的方式相互联系
（2）Examine the SL text, evaluating the descriptive, affective and intellectual content
of the units. 审视原文，评估翻译单位中描述性，情感性和知识性的内容
（3）Reconstruct the metalinguistic context of the message.重组信息中的元语语境
（4）Evaluate the stylistic effects.评估文本的影响
（5）Produce and revise the TT.译成并修订译文

2. Catford and translation ‘shifts’

Definition: Translation shifts: linguistic changes occurring in translation of ST to TT.
Works: Catford’s A Linguistic Theory of Translation (1965).
Basis: Catford follows the Firthian and Hallidayan linguistic model, which analyses
language as communication, operating functionally in context and on a range of
different levels and ranks.
Distinction between formal correspondence and textual equivalence:
（1）A formal correspondent 形 式 对 应 is ‘any TL category (unit, class, element of
structure, etc.) which can be said to occupy, as nearly as possible, the “same”
place in the “economy” of the TL as the given SL category occupies in the SL’.
（2）A textual equivalent 文本等值 is ‘any TL text or portion of text which is observed on
a particular occasion . . . to be the equivalent of a given SL text or portion of
text’.
Explanation:
Thus, formal correspondence is a more general system-based concept between a pair
of languages while textual equivalence is tied to a particular ST–TT pair. When the
two concepts diverge a translation shift is deemed to have occurred. In Catford’s own
words, translation shifts are thus ‘departures from formal correspondence in the
process of going from the SL to the TL’.
Catford considers two kinds of shift:
（1）Level shift 层 次 转 换 would be something which is expressed by grammar in one
language and lexis in another. 用 A 语言词汇表达 B 语言语法关系(das buch meines bruders
 = my brother's book)
（2）Category shifts 范畴转换 These are subdivided into four kinds:
 Structural shifts 结构转换: in grammatical structure.
 Class shifts 词类转换: in part of speech to another.
 Unit shifts or rank shifts 单位转换或层级转换: the translation equivalent in the TL is at a
different rank to the SL 目标语中等值翻译与源语不在同一个层级上时进行的转换. ‘Rank’ here refers
to the hierarchical linguistic units of sentence, clause, group, word and
morpheme.此处的层级指不同等级的语言学单位，包括句子，从句，词群，单词和词素
 Intra-system shifts 内 部 体 系 转 换 : when the SL and TL possess approximately
corresponding systems but where ‘the translation involves selection of a non-
corresponding term in the TL system’ 这类转换是指源语和目标语拥有近似对应的体系，但是“翻译时涉
及对目标语体系中不对应的词语进行选择”
Comments:
Pros:
 Catford’s book is an important attempt to systematically apply advances in
linguistics to translation. Translation equivalence depends on communicative
features such as function, relevance, situation and culture rather than just on
formal linguistic criteria.
Cons:
 Comparison of the use of French and English article systems in short parallel
texts, Catford concludes that French le/la/les ‘will have English the as its
translation equivalent with probability .65’, supporting his statement that
‘translation equivalence does not entirely match formal correspondence’. This
kind of statement of probability, which characterizes Catford’s whole approach.
 His examples are almost all idealized (i.e. invented and not taken from actual
translations) and decontextualized. He does not look at whole texts, nor even
above the level of the sentence.
3. Option, markedness and stylistic shifts in translation
 For the analyst, the question is how far the style and intentions of the translator,
rather than the ST author, are recoverable from analysis of the TT choices. Such
analysis has been termed ‘translational stylistics’ 翻译文体学 Kirsten Malmkjær.
 It has also been advanced by the use of corpus-based methods. These have
attempted to identify the ‘linguistic fingerprint’ of the translator by comparing ST
and TT choices against large representative collections of electronic texts in the
SL and TL.
 The difficulty in distinguishing between those shifts that are effects of the SL and
those that are result of translator’s linguistic preferences relates to the difference
between Vinay and Darbelnet’s servitude and option.
 Markedness relates to a choice or patterns of choices that stand out as unusual
and may come to the reader’s attention. So, in English a sequence such as
Challenging it is. Boring it isn’t is marked because of the unusual word order
with the adjectives in first position. The key is to look for the reason behind the
markedness. In translation, it may usually be expected that a marked item in the
ST would be translated by a similarly marked item in the TT but this is not
 always so. Some work has investigated the possibility that translation may be less
marked.
 The interesting point is to hypothesize the motivation behind the selections,
factors in the translator’s environment, including education and the sociocultural
and political context in which they operate.

4. The cognitive process of translation

The ‘interpretive model’ 释 意 过 程 , initially applied to the study of conference
interpreting, explains translation as an (overlapping) three-stage process
（1）Reading and understanding 阅 读 与 理 解 using linguistic competence and ‘world
knowledge’ to grasp the sense of the ST.
（2）Deverbalization 脱离源语言外壳 is an essential intermediate phase if the translator is to
avoid transcoding and calques. This was an explanation developed to explain the
cognitive processing of the interpreter, where transfer is supposedly through
sense and not words.
（3）Re-expression 重 述 where the TT is constituted and given form based on the
deverbalized understanding of sense.
 A fourth stage, verification 确认阶段, where the translator revisits and evaluates the
TT was added.
 In some ways, this model might appear quite similar to Nida’s model of analysis,
transfer and restructuring. However, rather than placing the emphasis on a
structural representation of semantics, the interpretive model stresses the
deverbalized cognitive processing that takes place.
Opinions:
 From the perspective of relevance theory, Ernst-August Gutt: translation is an
example of a communication 思想交流实例 based around a cause-and-effect model of
inferencing and interpretation.基于推理和释意的因果模式
 Any successful communication is said to depend on the communicator’s ensuring
that his/her ‘informative intention’ is grasped by the receiver 信息传递的意图为受众所理解,
and this is achieved by making the stimulus (words, gestures, etc.) optimally
relevant to the extent that the receiver ‘can expect to derive adequate contextual
effects without spending unnecessary effort’. That is, the communicator gives the
hearer communicative clues that allow the inference to be made.
Translators need to decide
1)whether and how it is possible to communicate the informative intention, 是否可以实现传
递意图，如何实现
2)whether to translate descriptively or interpretively, 进行描述性翻译还是释意性翻译
3)what the degree of resemblance to the ST should be, and so on.应当在多大程度上与原文相似

Summary
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
传统分类法 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. Fuzziness of category boundaries is a problem, while other
models have been proposed for non-European languages. Another approach to the
analysis of shifts, particularly stylistic shifts, came from Czechoslovakia 捷克斯洛伐克 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. Meanwhile, a different approach to the examination and explanation
of translation procedures has been afforded by cognitive theorists, starting with the
Paris School of the 1960s and including Gutt (from relevance theory 关联理论) and Bell
(from psycholinguistics and systemic functional analysis 心 理 语 言 学 和 系 统 功 能 分 析 ).
Increasingly, such research methods have made use of technological advances such as
think-aloud protocols, key-stroke logging and eye-tracking, although methodological
procedures remain to be standardized.