TRANSLATION THEORIES

Authors : Lokman Tanrikulu

Pages : 97-108

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Publication Date : 2017-06-30

Article Type : Other

Abstract :Translation process is an irreplaceable activity which brings societies and individuals together and which helps them have dialogue and communicate with each other. It dates back as far as the beginning of the history of mankind. Through this historical period inter-communal communication has gradually grown and translation process has developed and become a field of science. As translation science is based on a broad historical process, we need to mention quite a lot of factors when defining the term of translation process. Translation science is a discipline which studies the translation process and the text produced as a result of this process with all its details. According to Anton Popovic (1987), translation theory is a science which studies the systemic examination of translation and its task is to structure the translation process and the text. Similarly, Peter Newmark (1981) defines translation theory as a body of information related to translation process. By the second half of the 20th century the prevailing opinion was that morphological properties of texts should be given particular attention and artistic influences of written texts may not be conveyed to the target recipient with full correctness and therefore source text oriented linguistic approaches were adopted. In this approach the criteria is the source text. With this understanding, translator makes translation depending on the source text, which means depending only on the words without looking to the general text. In source text oriented translation, target culture reader is not expected to be as much influenced as the source culture reader.  Translator depending on the source text deals with the text within the discourse facilities in his own language or may present the text with a different form of expression which is unfamiliar to the reader of his mother tongue. Given the fast growing globalization and accordingly, rapidly  increasing communication facilities, international relations, increasing interest of men in other cultures, source language oriented approaches were replaced with target language oriented approaches. In this new approach the general text is of more importance than the words. The goal is not translating the words but being able to convey the main idea of the text in the source language to the target recipient. In target language oriented approach, target culture reader is expected to get influenced from the text as much as the source culture reader. The studies up to now examine various aspects of translation process.  Quite a number of dignified scientists in this field mention that translation is a very complicated process and it has pragmatic and communicational dimensions. In our study we are going to try to sum up briefly the theories and views of Levy, Koller, Klöpfer, Apel and Reiss & Vermeer. 
Keywords : Translation Process, Translation Science, History of Translation