Volume 53, Issue 2

The article addresses a few questions concerning the nature of translation theory. The main issue discussed is whether translation theory should be seen as a discipline that basically providing an academic framework that can serve as the basis for practical translation and the training of translators or whether it should be regarded as a branch of e.g. descriptive linguistics since its purpose is to describe what translators do rather than to outline what they ought to do.

The article positions the role of translation theory vis-à.-vis the challenges of translation practice. After portraying its heterogeneous historical development and the ensuing compartrnentalization of translation today, it argues that translation theory has developed a theoretical and methodological profile in the past twenty years as a useful resource for translation practice in the future. With the understanding that any discipline as a whole sustains its success only when operating on coherent concepts and methodologies, a possible common methodological ground for the complex dimensions of translation is outlined and discussed with special reference to what it can offer to the practice of literary translation. Against this background it is illustrated that conceptual and methodological coherence and transparency are not only useful standards when making and discussing literary translation decisions but are the essential backbone for the continued success of translation as a discipline

This article reflects on the nature of the relationship between translation practice and translation theory and comes to the conclusion that translation theory often does not seem to play a major role in the practical process of translation. The article goes on to argue that linguistic analysis of the source text can help to determine and to understand different levels of meaning, both of which processes are considered to be crucial for the task of translating a text.

From a practitioner's point of view the essay tries to give an account of the financial side of translating for the theatre, the author's work on the German versions of new British and Irish plays as a dramaturge and productions of his own translation of Mark O'Rowe's Howie the Rookie. These practical considerations are set against some of the criteria developed by theory for the process of translation and its necessary degree of faithfulness to the original. Finally some suggestions are made how to narrow the gap between theory and theatre practice.

Hinrich Hudde reports on his own experience as a translator of poetry, mainly referring to Christina Rossetti. The author explains the factors relevant for the evaluation of different options in the translation process and presents a detailed analysis of the choices made by other translators. He also comments on the importance of different factors relevant to the background of the translator, where he assigns a relatively insignificant role to translation theory.

Assessing the quality' of translations means assessing the quality of texts. The article provides a sketch of some criteria which might be useful for evaluating texts, and three criteria are suggested for "good translations". A good translation presupposes a) that the source text has been fully understood, that b) the translation results in a good text, and that c) any deviation from b) needs justification. The following sections serve to illustrate what is meant by "fully understand a text", with special emphasis on shared knowledge, text genre, associations and collocations, and the interplay of spoken and written language in written texts. There are some remarks on overt translations and on non-translatability. After that, attention is given to those circumstances which might require different types of translation. Finally, it is suggested that for translation theory to become a theory proper, more empirical evidence from parallel translation corpora will be needed.