29)Foreign translation theory development

Translation is a very ancient type of human activity. After appearing groups of people and different languages with them, there appeared bilinguists who helped them understand each other. Then written translators joined oral ones to fulfill their social function. Translators helped to understand many books written by foreign authors. So the translators played the important role in the creating and developing national languages and cultures. We don’t have to forget that the translator must know the language he is translating thoroughly, as well as its history and traditions of the people speaking that language. Only in that case the social function of the translation is gained.

Joseph F. Graham in his article Theory for Translation (p.24) asks the question if the time-honoured act of translation really is a subject that begs to be theorized. It seems that this is indeed the case if the wealth of literature on the subject available today is any indication. Early attempts at theory can be traced back over 2000 years to Cicero and Horace, with the key question being whether a translator should be faithful to the original text by adopting a “literal” (word-for-word) approach or whether a “free” (sense-for-sense) approach should be taken. This discussion continued right through to the second half of the 20th century when more systematic analyses were undertaken by theoreticians. These systematic analyses, which elevated translation studies from its role of being primarily a language-learning activity, centered on theories of translation in new linguistic, literary, cultural and philosophical contexts.During many centuries there were multiple attempts to understand and explain the translation process theoretically. In his work the translator always met the necessity to select a variant of translation, find a way to solve a translation problem. The first theorists of translation were translators themselves as they tended to summarize their own experience and their colleagues’ experience. In early translations of the Bible and other sacred texts there had been a tendency of a literal (or word-for-word) translation, which made the texts unclear. That is why some translators tried to explain that there must be more freedom in rendering the meaning and impression of the ST in translation. These first statements about the aims which must be purposed by translators are the first theoretical argues.

Later, some translators tried to form a kind of “standard theory of translation”. A French humanist, poet and a translator E. Dolet (Этьен Доле) (1509-1546) thought that a translator had to keep to the following five basic principles of translation: 1. to understand thoroughly the contents of the ST and the author’s intention; 2. to have deep knowledge of the ST language and the TT language as well; 3. to avoid word-for-word translation as it would distort the ST content and would ruin the beauty of its form; 4. to use common speech forms; 5. to render in the translation the impression of the ST choosing and arranging words in the right way. In 1790 an Englishman A. Tightler formed the following basic requirements in his book “Principles of translation”: 1. the translation is to render all the ST’s ideas; 2. the style and the manner of the TT is to be the same as in the ST; 3. the translation is to be read as easily as the ST. Though the requirements seem obvious, they have not lost their value.

Argues between the supporters of word-for-word and free translations have not avoided Russia. While P.A.Vyazemski (П.Ф. Вяземский) and especially A.A. Phet (А.А. Фет) insisted on the translation’s maximum similarity with the ST even if its meaning and the beauty of style is not rendered fully, well-known literary men and translators like N.M. Karamzin (Н.М. Карамзин), V.A. Zhukovski (В.А. Жуковский), A.V. Druzhinin (В.А. Дружинин) and others insisted on the translator’s right to create his own work of literature especially if he is translating a verse. There are well-known words said by Zhukovski: “A translator of a prose is a slave, a translator of a verse is a rival”.

The first attempts to show the necessity of scientific approach to translation met many critical and sharp objections from the translators themselves. They considered the translation theory to be something negative in itself. They thought that the gifted translators could create the masterpieces of translation not knowing the theory of translation. Their last argument was that translation is an art inaccessible to the scientific approach and analysis.

In the middle of the 20th century the linguists had to study the translation systematically. They had to come to the conclusion that the main difficulties of the translation process lie in the difference in structure and rule of languages which take part in the translation process. The first scientist who said that the choice of the word is often governed by some rule was Ya. I. Retsker (Я.И. Рецкер). In 1950 he published an article where he stated that the choice is defined by the correlation of the words in the languages. He also added there were three types of correspondence: 1. equivalents; 2. analogues; 3. adequate replacement.

In 1953 there was published the book of A.V. Phyodorov “The introduction into the translation theory” (Федеров А.В. Введение в теорию перевода. – М., 1953.) where the necessity and possibility to create linguistic theory of translation was announced. The book had general philological character. Phyodorov offered to differ general theory of translation and private translation theory. Abroad the first book devoted to the linguistic aspects of translation appeared in 1958. Its authors J.P. Vinai and J. Darbelnet (Ж.П. Вине и Ж. Дарбельне) called their work “Stylistic comparison of French and English”.

As a result of the research work of many outstanding linguists there were created premises for the development of the consistent linguistic translation theory.