The role of theory translation in short story translations

The second half of the 20th century has seen the in-depth study of translation, which is sometimes called Theory of Translation, Science of Translation, Translation Linguistics, or even Translatology. It has been claimed abroad that translation studies began in 1972 with Holmes’s paper presented at the Third International Congress of Applied Linguistics, “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies”. However, unfortunately, European and American scholars seemed to have been unaware of the achievements of the Russian school of translation studies. Works by V. Komissarov, A. Shveitser, A. Fedorov and many others confirmed the status of translation studies as a discipline of its own even in the 1950s. As we see translation occurred in early ages but the theory of translation was studied in 20th century. European scientists tried to present new approaches to translation study but Russian scholars had achieved more achievements till this period.

The main concern of translation theory is to determine appropriate translation methods for the widest possible range of texts and to give insight into the translation process, into the relations between thought and language, culture and speech.

Translation is the replacement of a text in one language by a replacement of an equivalent text in a second language. Translation is the replacement of textual material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL).

The First Period:

This period concludes by Tytler’s definition of good translation as, “That in which the merit of the original work is so completely transfused into another language, as to be as distinctly apprehended, and as strongly felt, by a native of the country to which that language belongs, as it is by those who speak the language of the original work”. From the above definition, Tytler introduces three “laws”:

• 1.    The translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work.

• 2.    The style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of original.

• 3.    The translation should have all the ease of original composition.

As the first law not giving whole idea of the work will be disrespectful to the writer or speaker of original work. Besides that it causes to destroying of the right of author and it may be strange for reader also. because the tradition or national custom may be described in the work and translator should give the definition if in the nation of TL there is not such kind of tradition.

" In our nationality robe and skullcap mean the condolence. But if we translate it word by word in English, it will be misunderstanding to the reader. In this condition translator should give description of the situation.

The Second Period:

One of the early theorists in this period is the French humanist Etienne Dolet who had propounded in 1540 a short outline of translation principles, entitled Lamaniere de bien traduire dune langue en aultre ( How to Translate Well from One Language into Another) and established five principles for the translator.

• 1.    The translator must fully understand the sense and meaning of the original author, although he is at liberty to clarify obscurities.

• 2.    The translator should have a perfect knowledge of both SL and TL.

• 3.    The translator should avoid word-for-word renderings.

• 4.    The translator should use forms of speech in common use.

• 5.    The translator should choose and order words appropriately to produce the correct tone.

The Third Period:

This period, which is the shortest as it extends to less than three decades, starts with the publication of the first papers on machine translation in the 1940s, and is characterized by the introduction of structural and applied linguistics, contrastive studies in morphology and syntax among others which help the translator identify similarities and differences between NL and FL, and communication theory into the study of translation. It comprises two eras: first the pioneering era; the second the invention of the first generation of machine translation.

Uzbek language was only inserted to Google Translator than translation programs were invented. Thus we can see only the version of Google Translator’s translation.

Such kind of texts will be translated easily by translation programs. But more literary ones causes difficulty to machine. We speak about this widely, during the course paper.

The Fourth Period:

The last period coexists with the third period as it has its origin in the early 1960s, and is characterized by a recourse to hermeneutic inquiries into translation and interpretation, i.e., by a revision of translation that sets the discipline in a wide frame which includes a number of other disciplines.

The third period was the base of machine translation. From the middle of the 20th century the first experiments was done by American scientists. Especially, Charlz Bebbidj was the first man who did experiments related to machine translation.

The translator not only faces problems with the lexical selection of a target language,but also with the interpretation of a source language text. For the good translation translator should know the types of translating theories and some problems that can be faced up. It helps both translating scientific materials and fictional ones, especially story translations.