Babel - Volume 36, Issue 3, 1990

Using a corpus of French newspaper texts from "Le Monde" and their translations into English as its empirical basis, the article deals with various types of translational shifts which manifest themselves in specific structural transformations between SL (source language) and TL (target language) textual segments. On the basis of Reiss/Vermeer's approach these shifts are examined as regards their causes; these may be differing lexico-semantic structures, textual conventions, knowledge prerequisites on the part of SL and TL recipients and/or situational parameters. A classification is proposed (which naturally is restricted to the specifically empirical basis), and the effects of shifts on the TL texts are discussed. In their totality, translational shifts contribute to assure TL standards of textuality; they have to be considered as expressions of the interdependence between the text as a whole and its parts.

Legal translation from languages of limited diffusion: translation strategyTranslation studies generally fail to regard the SL as one of the main factors determining translation strategy. This also applies to studies of legal translation, the subject-matter of this paper. Analyzing the procedures used in the translation of system-bound terms in statutory texts from LLD (languages of limited diffusion), the author shows that translators of LLD also give priority to neutral, TL-oriented equivalents. In cases, however, where no neutral equivalents are available in the TL, translators usually resort to literal equivalents. Assuming that their readers are not already familiar with the source concept, translators of LLD intentionally avoid using borrowings and naturalizations which are preferred by their colleagues who translate from world languages. This, however, does not warrant the unlimited use of literal equivalents. Finally, for the sake of uniform usage, the author urges national organizations to standardize equivalents of LLD system-bound terms.

The allegory of the marriage of languages was inspired by Herder's comparison of a language not yet profaned by translations with a virgin. This simile was logically extended to the simile of translation as marriage of languages. The first part of the treatise presents the allegory. The translator wanders through the centuries and goes courting. In the second part the allegory is solved. The third part tries to answer the question of how far the allegory is to be considered as a contribution to the history of translation. The greatest stress is laid upon the open end of the allegory: the modern translations of ancient literature are — in an intentionally exaggerated manner — criticized so as to focus attention on the question of how far a historian of translation should consider his present point of view and interest when writing a history of translation.