Models of the Translation

A model is a conventional representation of the translating process describing mental operations by which the source text or some part of it may be translated, irrespective of whether these operations are actually performedby the translator. Translation models can be oriented either toward the situation reflected in the ST contents or toward the meaningful components of the ST contents.

The existing models of the translating process are based on the situational (or referential) model, which is based on the identity of the situations described in the original text and in the translation, and the semantic-transformational model postulates the similarity of basic notions and nuclear structures in different languages. These postulates are supposed to explain the dynamic aspects of translation. In other words, it is presumed that the translator actually makes a mental travel from the original to some interlingual level of equivalence and then further on to the text of translation. In the situational model this intermediate level is extralinguistic. It is the described reality, the facts of life that are represented by the verbal description. The process of translating presumably consists in the translator getting beyond the original text to the actual situation described in it. This is the first step of the process, i.e. the break-through to the situation. The second step is for the translator to describe this situation in the target language. Thus the process goes from the text in one language through the extralinguistic situation to the text in another language. The translator first understands what the original is about and then says “the same things” in TL. The translating process may be described as a series of transformations. The transformational model postulates that in any two languages there is a number of nuclear structures which are fully equivalent to each other. Each language has an area of equivalence in respect to the other language. It is presumed that the translator does the translating in three transformational strokes. First – the stage of analysis – he transforms the original structures into the nuclear structures, i.e. he performs transformation within SL. Second – the stage of translation proper – he replaces the SL nuclear structures with the equivalent nuclear structures in TL. And third – the stage of synthesis – he develops the latter into the terminal structures in the text of translation.

Sources:

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