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I. Revise the following issues:

INTRODUCING TRANSLATION STUDIES
Translation Studies – a discipline comprising theory, practice, methods, history and didactics
of translation/interpreting.

Objectives of Translation Studies

To describe the phenomena of To establish general principles

translating and translation(s) as they by means of which these
manifest themselves in the world of phenomena can be explained
our experience. (J.S. Holmes) and predicted. (J.S. Holmes)

The subject of Translation Studies – translation/interpreting as a creative activity related both to

language and literature, implying language contact and rendering of the original text (ST) in source
language (SL) by means of the target language (TL) to create a target text (TT).

Translation Studies

Linguistics Literary Studies Cultural Studies Information Theory

Communication Theory Logic Sociology

II. Study in details Holmes’s Map of Translation Studies (see the synopses below).
III. Decide where you would place the following types of research:
1. I wish to compare a modern translation of the Bible with an older version into
the same target language.
2. I intend to investigate the problems of translating fixed forms of expressions such
as idiom, aphorism and maxim from Ukrainian into English.
3. My aim is to carry out a critical survey of the contents of courses leading to
qualifications in translation and/or interpreting in my country.

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 James Holmes’s Map of Translation Studies
TRANSLATION STUDIES

PURE APPLIED

Translator Translation Translation

Training Aids Criticism

Theoretical Descriptive

Product Process Function

oriented oriented oriented

General Partial

Time Medium Area Rank Text-type Problem

restricted restricted restricted restricted restricted restricted

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 James Holmes’s Map of Translation Studies
1. Pure Translation Studies
Pure Translation Studies is subdivided into Descriptive Translation Studies
and Theoretical Translation Studies.
The objective of Descriptive Translation Studies is ‘to describe the phenomena
of translating and translation(s) as they manifest themselves in the world of our
experience’, where for translating we mean the process that underlies the creation of
the final product of translation.
The objective of the Theory of Translation Studies is ‘to establish general
principles by means of which these phenomena can be explained and predicted’.
There are three main types of research within Descriptive Translation Studies:
product-oriented, process-oriented and function-oriented.
The focus of product-oriented descriptive translation studies is the description
of individual translations.
One may, for example, carry out a comparative analysis of different
translations in the same target language of one source text or study a source text and
its translation into one or more languages. Analyses of this type may be restricted to
works of one historical period, in which case they are known as synchronic studies,
or they may cover different periods, in which case they are called diachronic studies.
Process-oriented descriptive translation studies aims at revealing the thought
processes that take place in the mind of the translator while she or he is translating.
One of the commonest techniques used for investigating translator behaviour is
the think-aloud method which involves asking a translator to translate a text and, at
the same time, to verbalise her/his thoughts. The written transcripts of these
recordings are called think-aloud protocols (taps).
Function-oriented descriptive translation studies encompasses research which
describes the function or impact that a translation or a collection of translations has
had in the socio-cultural situation of the target language. It is therefore ‘a study of
contexts rather than texts’. Within this field of research one may, for example, study
the reasons why certain types of texts were translated in a certain country in a
particular historical period (synchronic) or during a longer stretch of time
(diachronic) while others were excluded.
Theoretical Translation Studies often uses the empirical findings produced
by Descriptive Translation Studies. It elaborates principles, theories and models to
explain and predict what the process of translation is, given certain conditions such as
a particular pair of languages (translating from English into Ukrainian, for example)
or a particular pair of texts (translating an Arabic original text aimed at adults into an
English children’s book, such as The Arabian Nights).
Theoretical Translation Studies embraces both a General Translation Theory
and Partial Translation Theories. The elaboration of a general theory capable of
explaining and predicting all phenomena regarding translating and translation is,
according to Holmes, the final aim of the discipline.
Holmes distinguishes six different types of Partial Translation Theory:
medium restricted (theories of human versus computer assisted translation or

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written versus oral translation), area-restricted (theories relating to specific language
communities), rank-restricted (theories dealing with language as a rank or level
system: the rank for Holmes is made up of the morpheme, the word, the word group,
the clause or the sentence level), text-type restricted (theories relating to particular
text categories such as poems, legal documents, technical manuals, etc.), time-
restricted (theories dealing with contemporary texts or those from an older period),
and problem-restricted (for example theories concerning the translation of puns,
titles, idioms, proverbs, proper names, metaphors, unusual collocations, etc.).
2. Applied Translation Studies
Applied Translation Studies, the second main branch of the discipline,
concerns itself with:
• translator training
• the preparation of translation aids, such as dictionaries, grammars,
termbanks
• the establishment of translation policy (which involves giving advice on the
role of the translator in a given socio-cultural context, deciding on the economic
position of the translator, or deciding on which texts need to be translated, or
deciding on the role that translation should play in the teaching of foreign languages)
• translation criticism which concerns itself with the development of criteria
for the evaluation of the quality or effectiveness of the translation product.
1.5.3 Further dimensions of Translation Studies
Holmes discusses briefly two additional areas of research, which emerge
within each of the three branches of the discipline:
• the history of translation studies (either pure or applied);
• the study of the methodologies that are most appropriate for research carried
out in the different subdivisions of pure and applied translation studies. More
recently, these two fields of research are attracting a great deal of interest from a
variety of translation scholars.
Finally, Holmes pointed out that his proposed subdivisions of the discipline
should be viewed not as separate and distinct domains, but as interacting areas of
research, which need to be given equal attention for Translation Studies to flourish.

Obligatory reading: Munday J. Introducing Translation Studies.

Theories and Applications. London; New York: Routledge, 2008
(Subchapter 1.4). – available in the Internet

II. DISCUSSION:
Prove the importance of each statement from contrasting pairs
( “The Art of Translation” by T. Savory ):
A translation must give the words of the original.
A translation must give the ideas of the original.

A translation should read like an original work.

A translation should read like a translation.

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A translation should reflect the style of the original.
A translation should possess the style of the translator.

A translation should read as a contemporary of the original.

A translation should read as a contemporary of the translator.

A translation may add to or omit from the original.

A translation may never add to or omit from the original.

A translation of verse should be in prose.

A translation of verse should be in verse.