A Textbook of Translation

by Peter Newmark

Manual De Traduccion / A Textbook of Translation

Genres: Nonfiction, Linguistics, Reference, Language, College, School

402 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1987

About the author

He was one of the main figures in the founding of Translation Studies in the English-speaking world in twentieth century. He was also very influential in the Spanish-speaking world.

He is widely read through a series of accessible and occasionally polemical works: A Textbook of Translation (1988), Paragraphs on Translation (1989), About Translation (1991), More Paragraphs on Translation (1998).

He was associated with the founding and development of the Centre for Translation Studies at Surrey. He was chair of the editorial board of the Journal of Specialised Translation. He also wrote "Translation Now" bimonthly for The Linguist and was an Editorial Board Member of the Institute of Linguists.

Reviews

[Matej · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read for every upstart translator. Good practical advice, although some of the theoretical theses are somewhat out-of-date. A further limitation of the book is its orientation towards an English-speaking translator translating from French. There are some examples of translating from/into German, but Newmark has some archaistic notions about the German language, which could confuse/mislead a modern-day translation student.

Nevertheless, A Textbook of Translation is a must-read classic and a great entryway into the craft, art and, to a lesser degree, science of translating.

[Ayu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little outdated (published in 1988), but still a good reference book. Not necessarily readable; very technical.

[Melvyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another book by Peter Newmark that I have re-read after a gap of twenty-odd years in which so much has happened, including the Internet and then the internet. Clearly IT developments have made this work rather dated, so that e.g. the sections on research are largely redundant, but overall I recommend this textbook for its very readable run-down of translation procedures, approaches, issues and terminology. I think his categorization of these issues will help the newcomer to get into good mental habits. Newmark backs up most of his statements with examples, and he castigates the many ‘translatologists’ who do not.

He is also critical of theorists who suggest that the words carrying a message are as a rule secondary in importance. In many genres he resets this balance more in favour of the individual components, e.g. “Many translators say you should never translate words, you translate sentences or ideas or messages. I think they are deceiving themselves.”

"The re-creative part of translation is often exaggerated, and the literal part underestimated,"

“Maybe if you are an interpreter, a natural communicator (I write half-heartedly), you try to forget the SL words, you deverbalise, you produce independent thought, you take the message first, and then perhaps bring the SL words in. If you are like me, you never forget the SL words, they are always the point of departure; you create, you interpret on the basis of these words.”

Likewise he does not make a fetish out of context, but reminds us that it is not necessarily everything. “A common mistake is to ignore context. A not uncommon mistake is to make context the excuse for inaccurate translation.” This is as timely now as it ever was IMO.

At the same time Newmark stresses the ‘taste area’ in literary and appellative texts, where there can be no such thing as the optimum translation: “The taste area, on the fuzzy perimeter of translation (with science at its centre), renders the concept of an ideal, perfect or correct translation a nonsense, and is itself an essential concept; the consequence is that a sensitive evaluation of a translation is cautious and undogmatic - usually!” “Nothing is purely objective or subjective. There are no cast-iron rules. Everything is more or less. There is an assumption of 'normally' or 'usually' or 'commonly' behind each well-established principle; as I have stated earlier, qualifications such as 'always', 'never', 'must' do not exist - there are no absolutes.”

There seems to me to be an eternal struggle in Newmark to harmonize these Apollonian and Dionysian forces:

"There is often a tension between intrinsic and communicative, or, if you like, between semantic and pragmatic meaning. When do you translate Il fait froid as 'It's cold' and when as 'I'm cold', 'I'm freezing', 'I'm so cold', etc., when that is what it means in the context? All of which suggests that translation is impossible. Which is not so."

"In translation discussion, function [i.e. the practical function of words within particular contexts as opposed to pure dictionary definitions M.] used to be neglected; now it tends to be overplayed."

“The fact that there is a small element of uncertainty and subjectivity in any judgment about a translation eliminates neither the necessity nor the usefulness of translation criticism, as an aid for raising translation standards”

A few more handy quotes:

The principle with which this book starts is that everything without exception is translatable; the translator cannot afford the luxury of saying that something cannot be translated.

Many theorists believe that translation is more a process of explanation, interpretation and reformulation of ideas than a transformation of words; that the role of language is secondary, it is merely a vector or carrier of thoughts. Consequently, everything is translatable, and linguistic difficulties do not exist. This attitude, which slightly caricatures the Seleskovitch School (ESIT, Paris), is the opposite of the one stating that translation is impossible because all or most words have different meanings in different languages, i.e. all words are culture-specific and, to boot, each language has its peculiar grammar. My position is that everything is translatable up to a point, but that there are often enormous difficulties.


All the same, we do translate words, because there is nothing else to translate; there are only the words on the page; there is nothing else there. We do not translate isolated words, we translate words all more or less (and sometimes less rather than more, but never not at all) bound by their syntactic, collocational, situational, cultural and individual idiolectal contexts. That is one way of looking at translation, which suggests it is basically lexical. This is not so. The basic thought-carrying element of language is its grammar. But since the grammar is expressed only in words, we have to get the words right. The words must stretch and give only if the thought is threatened.

A translator has to have a flair and a feel for his own language. There is nothing mystical about this 'sixth sense', but it is compounded of intelligence, sensitivity and intuition, as well as of knowledge. This sixth sense, which often comes into play (joue) during a final revision, tells you when to translate literally, and also, instinctively, perhaps once in a hundred or three hundred words, when to break all the 'rules' of translation, when to translate malheur by 'catastrophe' in a seventeenth-century text.

Whilst translation is always possible, it may for various reasons not have the same impact as the original.

A piece about floors may be 'pushing' floor polishes; about newspapers, a condemnation of the press; about nuclear weapons, an advertisement for them - always there is a point of view, somewhere, a modal component to the proposition, perhaps in a word - 'unfortunately', 'nevertheless', 'hopefully'.

TEXT STYLES
Following Nida, we distinguish four types of (literary or non-literary) text:
(1) Narrative: a dynamic sequence of events, where the emphasis is on the verbs or, for English, 'dummy' or 'empty' verbs plus verb-nouns or phrasal verbs ('He made a sudden appearance', 'He burst in').
(2) Description, which is static, with emphasis on linking verbs, adjectives, adjectival nouns.
(3) Discussion, a treatment of ideas, with emphasis on abstract nouns (concepts), verbs of thought, mental activity ('consider', 'argue', etc.), logical argument and connectives.
(4) Dialogue, with emphasis on colloquialisms and phaticisms.

The average text for translation tends to be for an educated, middle-class readership in an informal, not colloquial style. The most common variety of 'marked' error in register among student translators tends to be 'colloquial' and 'intimate', e.g. use of phrases such as 'more and more' for 'increasingly' (deplus en plus), 'above all' for 'particularly' (surtout); 'job' for 'work'; 'got well' for 'recovered' and excessively familiar phrasal verbs ('get out of, 'get rid of). The other common error, use of formal or official register (e.g. 'decease' for 'death'), also shows signs of translationese.


STYLISTIC SCALES
The scale of formality has been variously expressed, notably by Martin Joos and
Strevens. I suggest:

Officialese: 'The consumption of any nutriments whatsoever is categorically prohibited in this establishment.'
Official: The consumption of nutriments is prohibited.'
Formal: 'You are requested not to consume food in this establishment.'
Neutral: 'Eating is not allowed here.'
Informal: 'Please don't eat here.'
Colloquial: 'You can't feed your face here.'
Slang: 'Layoffthenosh.'
Taboo: ' Lay off the fucking nosh.'
As always, the distinctions are fuzzy.

I suggest the following scale of emotional tone:
Intense: (profuse use of intensifers) ('hot')
'Absolutely wonderful. . . ideally dark bass . . . enormously successful. . . superbly controlled'
Warm:
'Gentle, soft, heart-warming melodies'
Factual ('cool'):
'Significant, exceptionally well judged, personable, presentable, considerable'
Understatement ('cold'): 'Not. . . undignified'

Note that there is some correlation between formality and emotional tone, in that an official style is likely to be factual, whilst colloquialisms and slang tend to be emotive. In translating, the effusiveness of Italian, the formality and stiffness of German and Russian, the impersonality of French, the informality and understatement of English have to be taken into account in certain types of corresponding passage.

You have to make several assumptions about the SL readership. From the setting of the SL text, as well as the text itself, you should assess whether the readership is likely to be motivated (keen to read the text), familiar with the topic and the culture, and 'at home' in the variety of language used. The three typical reader types are perhaps the expert, the educated layman, and the uninformed.

Untranslatable words are the ones that have no ready one-to-one equivalent in the TL; they are likely to be qualities or actions - descriptive verbs, or mental words - words relating to the mind, that have no cognates in the TL, e.g. words like 'fuzzy', 'murky', 'dizzy', 'snug', 'snub'; many such English words arise from Dutch or from dialect.


There are two approaches to translating (and many compromises between them): (1) you start translating sentence by sentence, for say the first paragraph or chapter, to get the feel and the feeling tone of the text, and then you deliberately sit back, review the position, and read the rest of the SL text; (2) you read the whole text two or three times, and find the intention, register, tone, mark the difficult words and passages and start translating only when you have taken your bearings. Which of the two methods you choose may depend on your temperament, or on whether you trust your intuition (for the first method) or your powers of analysis (for the second). Alternatively, you may think the first method more suitable for a literary and the second for a technical or an institutional text. The danger of the first method is that it may leave you with too much revision to do on the early part, and is therefore time-wasting. The second method (usually preferable) can be mechanical; a translational text analysis is useful as a point of reference, but it should not inhibit the free play of your intuition. Alternatively, you may prefer the first approach for a relatively easy text, the second for a harder one.

Note that déjà often translates as 'now'.

What is natural in one situation may be unnatural in another, but everyone has a natural, 'neutral'
language where spoken and informal written language more or less coincide. It is rather easy to confuse naturalness with: (a) a colloquial style; (b) a succession of cliched idioms, which some, particularly expatriate teachers, think is the heart of the language; (c) jargon; (d) formal language. I can only give indications:
(avant tout) (F)
(a) first of all
(b) before you can say Jack Robinson
(c) in the first instance
(d) primarily
plus ou mains (F)
(a) more or less
(b) give or take
(c) within the parameter of an approximation
(d) approximately

I am suggesting that you keep in parallel the four levels - the textual, the referential, the cohesive, the natural: they are distinct from but frequently impinge on and may be in conflict with each other.

All translated books should have translators' prefaces.

According to Biihler, the three main functions of language are the expressive, the informative - he called it 'representation' - and the vocative ('appeal') functions: these are the main purposes of using language.

One normally assumes a modern, non-regional, non-class, non-idiolectal style, with perhaps four points on a scale of language varieties:

(1) a formal, non-emotive, technical style for academic papers, characterised in English by passives, present and perfect tenses, literal language, latinised vocabulary, jargon, multi-noun compounds with 'empty' verbs, no metaphors;

(2) a neutral or informal style with technical terms for textbooks characterised by first person plurals, present tenses, dynamic active verbs, and basic conceptual metaphors;

(3) an informal, warm style for popular science or art books (e.g., coffee-table books), characterised by simple grammatical structures, a wide range of vocabulary to accommodate definitions and numerous illustrations, and stock metaphors and a simple vocabulary;

(4) a familiar, racy, non-technical style for popular journalism, characterised by surprising metaphors, short sentences, Americanese, unconventional punctuation, adjectives before proper names and colloquialisms. (Note how metaphors can be a yardstick for the formality of a text.)

I have adopted and adapted the Biihler-Jakobson functions of language operationally as the most convenient way of looking at a text for translation. It is also useful to divide texts by topic into three broad categories: (a) literary; (b) institutional; and (c) scientific - the latter including all fields of science and technology but tending to merge with institutional texts in the area of the social sciences. Literary texts are distinguished from the rest in being more important in their mental and imaginative connotations than their factual denotations.

French tends to use commas as conjunctions.

German notably uses modal connectives (mots-charnières) such as aber, also, doch, schliesslich, eben, eigentlich, einfach, etwa, gerade, halt, ja, mal, nun, schon, vielleicht, so überhaupt, bitte, bestimmt - all these in talk three times as often as in newspapers and six times as often as in 'literature' (Helbig). Normally, these words can only be over-translated and therefore they are often rightly and deliberately omitted in translation: their purpose is partly phatic, i.e. they are used partly to maintain the reader's or listener's interest, usually with the nuance that the
accompanying information is just a reminder, they should know it already.

Note English's tendency to turn SL complex into co-ordinate sentences on the lines of Si tu marches, je cours, 'You can walk, but I'll run.'

Further aspects of FSP which are of interest to a translator are the various devices for heightening or frustrating expectation, which may differ in two languages.

Longacre (Dressier, 1981) has pointed out that climax or 'peak' may be attained through tense shifts (e.g. from past to historical present), which is more common in French than in English, or from transition from indirect to direct speech (probably common in many languages).

Contrasts or oppositions are one of the most powerful cohesive factors in discourse. When they introduce clauses (d'une part. . . d'autrepart, etc.) there is no problem, except to bear in mind that in non-literary texts, si (F) or se (It.) usually translate as 'whilst', 'whereas', or 'although' rather than 'if.

In some languages, notably German and Italian (not, according to pedants, in French), the comparative may be absolute as well as relative (e.g. größerer may be 'fairly large' as well as 'larger than something previously mentioned'); note that in English a comparison is implied, but need not be explicit - 'the larger towns'.

Rhetorical questions, which are more common in many other languages than in English, and should frequently be translated into statements, are anaphoric or cataphoric, since they are often used to summarise an argument, or to introduce a fresh subject (as well as to emphasise a statement): Est-ce à dire que I'efficacité chimique du composé sera superieure? Rien n'est moins certain, et. . .-'In no sense are we implying that this drug is chemically more effective than the remainder of the group.'

Half the misunderstanding about translation in Britain is due to the fact that so many teachers tell their pupils to avoid translating an SL word by a similar-looking TL word whenever possible. Thus the pupils expand their TL vocabulary and distort their translations.

(Vinay and Darbelnet's 'criss-cross' transposition):
Il gagna la fenêtre en rampant, 'He crawled to the window'

SL noun plus (empty) past participle or adjectival clause (etc.) plus noun, TL noun plus preposition plus noun (the 'house on the hill' construction): Le complot ourdi contre lui, 'the plot against him'; la tour qui se dressait sur la colline, 'the tower on the hill'

Si lui est aimable, sa femme est arrogante - 'He is (may be) very pleasant, but his wife is arrogant' - 'He is pleasant; his wife, however, is arrogant'.

// n'a pas hesité - 'He acted at once'
// n'est pas Iache - 'He is extremely brave'

If you are translating an important book, you should not hesitate to write a preface and notes to discuss the usage and meanings of the author's terms, particularly where you sacrificed accuracy for economy in the translation, or where there is ambiguity in the text. In the case of a scholarly work, there is no reason why the reader should not be aware of the translator's informed assistance both in the work and the comment. The artistic illusion of your non-existence is unnecessary.

Componential analysis is based on a component common to the SL and the TL, say in the case of dacha, 'house', dom, to which you add the extra contextual distinguishing components ('for the wealthy', 'summer residence'; cf. maison secondaire). Inevitably, a componential analysis is not as economical and has not the pragmatic impact of the original.

I always reduce a cliche metaphor or simile to sense or at least to dead metaphor: 'rapier-like wit' -esprit mordant, acerbe.

The first and most obvious use of componential analysis is in handling words that denote combinations of qualities, or combinations of actions and qualities, that appear to show up a lexical gap in the target language: English words such as 'quaint', 'gawky', 'murky', 'loiter', 'hop', 'sleazy', 'dingy'; French words like rêche, bourru, relais, filière, braderie, bricoleur, moche; German words like düster, bunt, knapp, schroff, pochen, knistern, Prunk. (These are my 'untranslatable' words in the sense that they have no obvious one-to-one translations.)

Many words of quality or description appear to have two fairly evenly divided components when out of context - thus rêche: 'harsh' and 'bitter'; épanoui: 'radiant' and 'serene'; bunt: 'bright' and 'many-coloured'; düster: 'dark' and 'sinister'; Prunk: 'magnificence' and 'display'; 'bustle': hereineilen and geschäftig but in collocation one or other component is likely to predominate so that the addition of another component in the translation depends on the importance of the word in the text.

(“When such 'opponents' of translation as Robert Graves, Ortega y Gasset and Paul Valery talked about the 'impossibility' of translating pain as 'bread', vin as 'wine' and so on, they were conscious of the gap in feeling and connotation between the source language and the target language word, which they considered to be unbridgeable. But in fact the explanation is the translation.”)

I take 'purpose' to be a special case, the overriding factor for the translator sequencing his sentences. I take it that in any informative text, the purpose should be foregrounded; thus C'est un travail comparatif, portant sur des criteres essentiellement cliniques visant a mettre en evidence ['incidence des thromboses veineuses profondes may become 'The purpose of this comparative study, which is based mainly on clinical criteria, is to demonstrate the incidence of deep venous thromboses',.

[Irene · Rating 2 out of 5]

Si estás empezando a traducir o no lo has hecho aún, puede ser una guía. Especialmente si trabajas con inglés, francés y alemán, ya que los ejemplos están en estas lenguas.

Creo que se pierde un poco en los ejemplos y deja la teoría (básica) para un segundo plano.

También queda algo desfasado (la mención a la TAO y TA como emergente).

[Harry Hermawan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buku kuliah perlu dibaca...

[Melody Violine · Rating 4 out of 5]

simple and clear

[Bookshire Cat]

I have read only selected chapters for my class. I didn't like the style too much, to be honest.

[Esraa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice

[Ekim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read most of this book more than once. I can quote without even looking at the page number. Remind this to me in ten years Goodreads. Bye.

[Maria ☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful, covers a wide range of challenges and concepts.

[Michaela (books.collection) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ten pocit, keď dočítam knihu s vedomím, že som si dôležité veci v nej povyznačovala a môžem sa k tomu potom vrátiť. A keď sa vrátim zistím, že tam nič nie je vyznačené? No, samozrejme, že som si to neuložila! *plačem* Môžem si to pekne-krásne prečítať znova. Veď prečo nie, keď mám aj tak toho všetkého "málo".

[Lucila · Rating 1 out of 5]

Demasiado básico. No entiendo cómo esto todavía sigue siendo un assigned reading cuando:
1) está super out-of-date
2) tiene ejemplos del francés y del alemán que no te sirven en lo más mínimo
3) dice cosas demasiado estupidas, como por ejemplo "you have to look up all words you do not know"
REALLY NEWMARK?

Leer esto fue una reverenda pérdida de tiempo.

[María Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful and comprehensive guide for anyone interested in the intricacies of translation theory and practice. Newmark’s clear explanations of key concepts make this book a valuable resource for both students and professionals. The book’s structure is well-organized, with practical examples that help clarify complex ideas. It is a must-read for anyone serious about the craft of translation.

[Zuzana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Přibližně od půlky se to vůbec nedá číst, Newmark se snaží vypsat všechny situace, které můžou nastat, když překládáte zkratku/metaforu/neologismus/cokoli a říct k tomu, jaká jsou všechna možná řešení. Děs.

[Bilal]

mnnnnnn

[Wai Hein · Rating 4 out of 5]

its amazing for our term paper project!!

[Aoi Hikari]

want

[محمد الساكت · Rating 5 out of 5]

درستُ أجزاءًا محددةً من هذا الكتاب العظيم في دراستي الجامعية بكلية اللغات والترجمة

[4 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for the Translation Theories class last semester. Not disappointed.

[выаы ываыф]

gdf

[Salam]

https://imgur.com/a/NWkCYtv