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The Translation Shift

Approach
M. Febryanto
0807999
Introduction
• The emphasis of the structural
approach to translation changes
towards the end of the 1950s and
early 1960s with the work of Vinay,
Darbelnet and Catford, and the
concept of translation shift which
examines the linguistic changes that
take place in the translation between
the ST and TT (Munday p.55). 
Introduction
According to Venuti “Translation
theories that privilege equivalence
must inevitably come to terms with
the existence of ‘shifts’ between the
foreign and translated texts” (p.148).
Vinay and Darbelnet’s
Model
Compare the differences between
English and French and identify two
translation techniques that
somewhat resemble the literal and
free methods
Vinay and Darbelnet’s
Model
Translation strategies:
• Direct (literal) translation discusses three possible strategies:
1) Literal translation or word-for-word which Vinay and Darbelnet
describe as being common between languages of the same
family and culture.
2) Calque, where the SL expression is literally transferred to the
TL and often become fully integrated into TL, although
sometimes with some semantic changes.
3) Borrowing – the SL word is transferred directly into the TL.
Vinay and Darbelnet’s
Model
Oblique (free) translation covers four strategies:
1) Transposition – interchange of parts of speech
that don’t effect the meaning,
2) Modulation – this changes the semantic and
point of view of SL. For example: it isn’t
expensive / it’s cheap.
3) Equivalence – same meaning conveyed by a
different expression, which is most useful for
proverbs and idioms.
4) Adaptation – cultural references may need to be
altered to become relevant.
Vinay and Darbelnet’s
Model
Two other important features arise from the work of Vinay
and Darbelnet. The first of these is the idea of
“servitude”, which refers to the compulsory changes from
ST to TT; and “option”, which refers to the personal
choices the translator makes, such as the modulation
example above. Option is an important element in
translation because it allows for possible subjective
interpretation of the text, especially literary texts
(Munday pp. 59-60).
Catford and Translation
Shift
1) Shift of level, where a grammatical concept may
be conveyed by a lexeme (the French future
tense endings are represented in English by the
auxiliary verb ‘will’).
2) Category shifts, of which there are four types –
structural shifts (in French the definite article is
almost always used in conjunction with the noun);
class shifts (a shift from one part of speech to
another); unit or rank (longer sentences are
broken into smaller sentences for ease of
translation); intra-system shift (such as count
nouns).
Van Leuven-Zwart
Developed a more complex theory,
using different terminology, based on
their work. Her idea is that the final
translation is the end result of
numerous shifts away from the ST,
and that the cumulative effect of
minor changes will alter the end
product. 
Van Leuven-Zwart
Models for translation shifts:
Comparative – where a comparison of the
shifts within a sense unit or transeme
(phrase, clause, sentence) between ST
and TT is made. She then conducts a very
detailed analysis of the “architranseme”
or the core meaning of the word, and how
this meaning can be transferred to the
TL. She proposes a model of shift based
on micro-level semantic transfer.
Van Leuven-Zwart
There are three main categories in comparative
model:
• Modulation – one of the transemes tallies with the
architranseme but the other differs either
semantically or stylistically.
• Modification – both transemes show some form of
disjunction (semantically, stylistically, syntactically,
pragmatically, or some combination of these).
• Mutation – it is impossible to establish an
architranseme either because of addition, deletion
or ‘some radical change in meaning’ in the TT.
Van Leuven-Zwart
Descriptive – situated in the linguistic
fields of stylistics and pragmatics
deals with what the author is trying to
say, and why and how this can be
transferred to the TT. It deals with
differences between the source and
target cultures and serves as a model
on a macro level for literary.
 

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