Translation Theory: The ideal translation should be..

What is translation?

Translation consists of transferring the meaning of the source language text into the receptor language text.
Catford (1965: 20) Translation is the replacement of textual material in one language by equivalent textual material in another language.

Translation Theory: The ideal translation should be…

Acording to Nida and Taber

Translating consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style (Nida and Taber, 1982)
Translation is the general term referring to the transfer of thoughts and ideas from one language (source) to another (target), whether the languages are in written or oral form; whether the languages have established orthographies or do not have such standardization or whether one or both languages is based on signs, as with sign languages of the deaf (Brislin, 1976)

Translation is a process of finding a TL equivalent for an SL utterance. (Pinhuhuck, 1977:38)

Translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language. (Newmark, 1981:7)

(McGuire, 1980:2) Translation involves the rendering of a source language (SL) text into the target language (TL) so as to ensure that (1) the surface meaning of the two will be approximately similar and (2) the structure of the SL will be preserved as closely as possible, but not so closely that the TL structure will be seriously distorted.

Translation is a transfer process which aims at the transformation of a written SL text into an optimally equivalent TL text, and which requires the syntactic, the systematic and the pragmatic understanding and analytical processing of the SL (Wilss and Noss, 1982).
Good theory is based on information gained from practice. Good practice is based on carefully worked-out theory. The two are interdependent. (Larson l991, p. 1)
The ideal translation will be accurate as to meaning and natural as to the receptor language forms used. An intended audience who is unfamiliar with the source text will readily understand it. The success of a translation is measured by how closely it measures up to these ideals.

The ideal translation should be…

Accurate: reproducing as exactly as possible the meaning of the source text.
Natural: using natural forms of the receptor language in a way that is appropriate to the kind of text being translated.
Communicative: expressing all aspects of the meaning in a way that is readily understandable to the intended audience.
Translation is a process based on the theory that it is possible to abstract the meaning of a text from its forms and reproduce that meaning with the very different forms of a second language.

Translation, then, consists of studying the lexicon, grammatical structure, communication situation, and cultural context of the source language text, analyzing it in order to determine its meaning, and then reconstructing this same meaning using the lexicon and grammatical structure which are appropriate in the receptor language and its cultural context. (Larson l998, p. 3)

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