VARIETIES OF CLOSE TRANSLATION

It may be useful to distinguish literal from word-for-word and one-to-one trans- lation. Word-for-word translation transfers SL grammar and word order, as well as the primary meanings of all the SL words, into the translation, and it is normally effective only for brief simple neutral sentences: 'He works in the house - now', il travaille dans la maison maintenant. In one-to-one translation, a broader form of translation, each SL word has a corresponding TL word, but their primary (isolated) meanings may differ. Thus in passer un examen - 'take an exam', the two verb couplets can be said to correspond with each other, but, out of context, they are not semantic equivalents. Since one-to-one translation normally respects collo- cational meanings, which are the most powerful contextual influence on trans- lation, it is more common than word-for-word translation. Literal translation goes beyond one-to-one translation in including, say, le courage, derMut and 'courage' as literal equivalents; it is particularly applicable to languages that do not have definite and/or indefinite articles.

Literal translation ranges from one word to one word ('hall', Saal, salle, sola, zal) through group to group (un beau jardin, 'a beautiful garden', ein schoner Garten), collocation to collocation ('make a speech', faire un discours), clause to clause ('when that was done', quandcelafut fait), to sentence to sentence ('The man was in the street.' L'homme etait dans la rue.). The longer the unit, the rarer the one-to-one. Further, single-word metaphors ('ray of hope', rayon d'espoir), extended plural-word metaphors ('force someone's hand', forcer la main a quelqu'un) and proverbs ('all that glitters is not gold', tout ce qui brille n'est pas or), illustrate a second figurative semantic scale. I extend literal translation to corre- spondences such as un bilan sanguin, 'a blood check' and apres sa sortie, 'after going out' (but apres son depart, 'after his departure'), since it can be flexible with grammar whilst it keeps the same 'extra-contextual' lexis. Thus, 'literally', arbre is

'tree' not 'shaft', but words like aufheben, einstellen, Anlage have no literal trans- lation. Here, as in many other cases, my definitions are 'operational' to suit translation discussion (rather than theory), not 'rigorous' or 'exhaustive' (and so on) to suit linguistics.

I believe literal translation to be the basic translation procedure, both in communicative and semantic translation, in that translation starts from there. However, above the word level, literal translation becomes increasingly difficult. When there is any kind of translation problem, literal translation is normally (not always) out of the question. It is what one is trying to get away from, yet one sometimes comes back to it with a sigh; partly because one has got used to the sound of what at first seemed so strange and unnatural; beware of this. Une tentation cuisante: can you get nearer than a 'painful' or an 'intense' temptation? 'Burning temptation' is the nearest, it is still not literal. Literal translation above the word level is the only correct procedure if the SL and TL meaning correspond, or correspond more closely than any alternative; that means that the referent and the pragmatic effect are equivalent, i.e. that the words not only refer to the same 'thing' but have similar associations (Mama, 'mum'; le prof, 'the prof) and appear to be equally frequent in this type of text; further, that the meaning of the SL unit is not affected by its context in such a way that the meaning of the TL unit does not correspond to it. Normally, the more specific or technical a word, the less it is likely to be affected by context. Further, a common object will usually have a one-to-one literal translation if there is cultural overlap, though most languages have strange lexical gaps (e.g. 'fingers', 'waist', 'knuckles', 'shins'). A term for a common object sometimes has other common senses ('bank', 'peace') - so that language, particu- larly in English with its monosyllables, appears inefficient.