Newmark P. Approaches to translation

Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1982. – 213 p.The plural noun in the title reflects a basic attitude of the author: "any talk of a single translation theory, or of one semantic theory for that matter, is a waste of time. Translation theory is eclectic; it draws its material from many sources" (p. 37).The first chapter reviews past studies on the craft of translating, culminating in a statement of what is involved when the expressive, informative, and vocative functions of language are considered. Chapter 2 describes what translation theory sets out to accomplish, illustrating various approaches to problems when emphasis is given to areas of meaning such as linguistic, referential, cultural, or semiotic, and defining and illustrating specific classes of problems.Chapter 3 presents Newmark's specific contribution to translation theory, namely, the dis- tinction between semantic and communicative translation. "Communicative translation attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original. Semantic translation attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the original" (p. 39). The one represents a target-language bias ("free," "idiomatic"), while the other represents a source- language bias ("literal," "faithful"). These two types may be quite different, or they may coalesce in a given translation; the latter is preferred.Chapter 4 distinguishes between thought (which is sometimes wordless, pictoral) and speech, and discusses the significance for translation. Chapter 5 modifies and clarifies the concepts of communicative and semantic translation, emphasizing concern for the artistic integrity of the original work as well as for its historical and cultural milieu as context.Chapter 6 is a practical discussion of the problems encountered when translating proper names and institutional and cultural terms. Chapter 7 presents a model for dealing with the translation of metaphor, whether dead, cliché, stock, recent, or original, suggesting seven procedures for dealing with them. Chapter 8 discusses grammatical and lexical synonymy, demonstrating that complete synonymy is impossible between languages. In chapter 9 Newmark discusses the metalingual function of language, not so much in terms of language about language as in terms of ambiguities, word-plays, poetic allusions or connotations, etc.Part Two, "Some Propositions on Translation," consists of 145 statements organized under eight headings. Most are solid, practical suggestions for the translator's task, while some leave room for debate or else are so brief that they should have been either developed properly or discarded.The book apparently is addressed to experienced translators and trainers who understand French and German thoroughly. (Translations are provided only when needed as examples of translating.) The material is not organized pedagogically, nor does it always follow an analytical outline; it frequently appears to be a collection of essays joined together in a rambling style. Many sentences have a multiple parenthetic structure, occasionally requiring conscious decoding.Newmark clearly favors semantic over communicative translating. He is somewhat wary of the dynamic equivalence approach advocated by Nida and others, which he considers to be approximately that of communicative translating. But he misrepresents the concept when he says that it "assumes that exact translation may be possible and may be perfect" (p. 68). On the contrary, advocates of dynamic equivalence agree with him regarding the impossibility of true synonymity.