When studying translation, an objective and purpose distinction must be established between human translation and machine translation. Even though this dissertation is about improving machine translation with linguistic knowledge, some topics discussed in the theory of human translation seem relevant to the study of translation in general.
The aptitude to translate and the process of translation are complex and not always seem to be understood by the general public. There are two common translation fallacies. First, any person who speaks two languages is able to translate easily between these two languages. Second, translation is a mechanical process and the correspondence between two languages can be done merely word-for-word (literal translation or metaphrase).
As to the first myth, any person who speaks two or more languages well can only consider him/herself a candidate for the profession of translator. There are several skills that have to be learned for the profession that often can only address particular niche topics, and not work with the full scope of two languages in contrast. With the development of theories of linguistics and applied linguistics, translation was seen as a specialized and licensed activity performed by professional translators. Professional translation requires a profound knowledge of the source language as well as native proficiency of the target language. Additionally, it requires above-average writing skills, and an insightful knowledge of the social-cultural aspects of the source and target
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11 languages. Because total fluency is uncommon among even highly skilled second- language learners, translation experts not only master completely the linguistic spectrum of two idioms in contrast, but they need to be native speakers of, at least, the target language [Kasparek, 1983]. Translators translating into a second-language are prone to the influence of their native languages’ structures, idioms, etc. even if they are very skillful. Translation also implies knowledge of the grammar of the two languages, their writing conventions, and the situational and cultural context. In the case of scientific and technical translation, subject matter knowledge is required, including terminologies of the field or knowledge domain.
With regard to the second myth, the translation community has already made clear that literal translation is not acceptable [Maia, 2007]. Attempts to translate literally fail whenever the translator is confronted with expressions that have no correspondence in the target language. A literal translation is impractical because words can be ambiguous and because languages have different grammars, different lexicons, and different ways of expression, idioms, cultural background, etc. Polysemic words carry different meanings depending on context. For example, the word sound can mean tone, body of water, or medical probe (examples from [Scott, 2003]), depending on the context in which the word appears. On the other hand, one single meaning can be conveyed using distinct words or phrases. For example, the concept of creation can be expressed in words such as formation, making, conception, construction, design, among many others that can be found in any English dictionary. Different scopes of meaning represent different choices and possibilities for translation of a certain word, expression, sentence, or passage.
Different possibilities of translation result from dynamic equivalence. The term dynamic equivalence was introduced by [Nida, 1969] as opposing to formal equivalence. His use of the expression formal equivalence or a translation that is as close to the source text as possible. Formal equivalence translations help understand how meaning was expressed in the source language text. They try to show the original aesthetics, the beauty of original idioms, figures of speech such as metaphorical or symbolic patterns, allegories, etc., and also help perceive the author’s style and use of unique vocabulary terms because they preserve similar grammar, style, voice, or order, features that are related to form (syntax). Nida’s definition of dynamic equivalence moved towards the idea of the functionalists, such as[Reiss & Vermeer 1991] and [Nord, 1997]. He applied it
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essentially to Bible translation and adapting the Bible (or not) to the local culture. For example, the image of Lamb of God was replaced with Seal of God (translated kotik, for young seal) for the Eskimos because "there are no lambs trotting on the ice meadows of the Arctic where the Eskimos live" [Barnstone, 1993: 41]. Bible translators have always argued about translating ‘the word of God’ (as literally as possible) or doing an ‘interpretative’ version that attracts the public it is aimed at. For example, some of the modern translations aimed at attracting a younger generation and they are selective in their use of words and style. Functionalists normally start at the level of the text and only work down to the word level gradually. This preference is related to the fact that functionalists are always more interested in analyzing the pragmatic, social or communicative aspects of the text, and the reason why it is being translated. Functional equivalence is a top-down approach to translation where the word level comes at the end of the analysis. Functional translations distance themselves from the original form, and emphasize understandability of the original meaning, and readability. In functional equivalence translation, the translator attempts to achieve a target language text that functions the same way the source language text functioned for the original readers. Nowadays, more modern culturally orientated theories deal with the concept of equivalence in translation in different terms. [Venuti, 2004] and [Venuti, 2008] claim that a translator should not simplify in favour of making the translation fluent or easier to read but should make the reader appreciate the ‘foreignness’ of the text and accept a different cultural way of looking at the world.
Theory of translation has been dealing with controversial issues such as problems related to privileging meaning over form, visibility or invisibility of the translator, being faithful to the author or trying to make the text accessible to the reader (and which kind of reader), giving value to the source language culture (foreignise) or making the text suitable for the target language culture (domesticate) or allowing a ‘big’ language / culture to predominate over a ‘small’ language / culture or being creative, etc.
Because the nature of machine translation is different from that of human translation, many of the problems discussed in the theory of translation are not applicable to machine translation. An important common issue in human and machine translation is to define equivalence and to define and establish paraphrasing capabilities [Polguère, 2000] [Yamamoto, 2004]. Equivalence relates to the success of paraphrasing. It can be
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13 evaluated by humans without recourse to linguistics, but establishing an equivalent by a human is not a repeatable process, but a random, sometimes arbitrary and spontaneous practice. Each time a human paraphrases, a different paraphrasing strategy may be adopted and be more or less effective. Paraphrasing capabilities concern the resources and can become repeatable. Paraphrases obtained without human intervention for a specific phrase or sentence can be used by machine translation systems consistently, in one or varied combinations. Linguistics offers the resources and the ability to acquire knowledge concerning these paraphrases so that they can be used, either by translators for stylistic reasons, or by machine translation for simplifying meaning. In both cases, the goal is to get close to equivalence. So, paraphrasing capabilities are used to set a standard against which both human and machine translation efforts can be measured.
Traditionally, a translation equivalent is the target language expression, which corresponds to the source language expression. Essentially, equivalence concerns translation units. As in [Teubert, 2001: 145], "the equivalence of a translation unit in the target language is called a translation equivalent" and "the translation equivalent is regarded as the "paraphrase" of the meaning of a translation unit but in the target language". A translation unit is a segment of a text that represents a single cognitive unit when establishing equivalence. It can be a single word, a multiword expression, a sentence, or even a larger unit. An idiomatic or non-literal translation comprises larger translation units. A translation unit is different from a unit of meaning [Sinclair, 1996]. A unit of meaning is a meaningful linguistic unit and may be as small as a morpheme. For example, the plural morpheme -s is a unit of meaning but it is not a translation unit. Other units of meaning may be expressions that cut across traditional constituency boundaries, such as lexical bundles, viz. dizem que (they say that) or support verb constructions, viz. ter uma conversa com (to have a conversation with).