Name

ID

: Iman Hilmansyah
: 1402203

Topic

: The Unit of Translation and Discourse Analysis

INTRODUCTION
Discourse analysis took off as a subject in linguistics about fifteen
years ago, partly as an expression of dissatisfaction with sentencebased grammars, possibly also to stress communication rather than
the study of language and reference isolated from their users.
Discourse analysis can be defined as the analysis of texts beyond and
above the sentence - the attempt to find linguistic regularities in
discourse.
Although confusing tendency for translation theorists to regard
the whole text, the basis of discourse analysis, as the unit of
translation (UT), which is the opposite of Vinay's and Darbelnet's who
define the unit of translation as 'the smallest segment of an utterance
whose cohesion of signs is such that they must not be separately
translated* - in other words, the minimal stretch of language that has
to be translated together, as one unit. Now, since the rise of text
linguistics, free translation has moved from the sentence to the whole
text. In the last fifteen years the argument has been revived by those
who maintain that the only true UT is the whole text. This view has
been underpinned by the vast industry in discourse analysis, or text
linguistics, which examines a text as a whole in its relations and
cohesion at all levels higher than the sentence.
The general properties of a text have often been described
such as:

the tone,
the intention of the text,
your own intention as a translator,
the type of the text,
the quality of the writing,
the permanent features of the writer (dialect, sociolect,

period, sex, age, etc),

the situation linked to the readership,
the degree of formality,

generality or technicality,
and emotional tone - say the register and the pragmatic
features.

Besides, there are three typical reader-types such as:

the expert (in the SL text culture and/or the subject of

discourse);
the educated layman;
the ignoramus-in the culture and/or the topic, not to
mention their degree of interest in the topic,

COHERENCE
In translation, the more cohesive, the more formalized a text, the
more information it, as a unit, affords the translator. For Example, if a
narrative has a formulaic opening ('Once upon a time') and a
formulaic close (they all lived happily ever after') the translator has
to find standard phrases if they exist. Other stereotypes - weather
reports, surveys, enquiries, official forms, and medical articles - may
have standard forms, a house-style.
TITLES
If the SL text title adequately describes the content, and
is brief, then leave it. But a sub-title which is may not suit the
English house-style (for instance, we do not use sub-titles in
newspapers-only occasional superscriptions), so delete it.
We can distinguish between 'descriptive titles 1, which
describe the topic of the text, and 'allusive titles 1, which have
some kind of referential or figurative relationship to the topic.
For serious imaginative literature, I think a descriptive title
should be 'literally' kept {Madame Bovary could only be
Madame Bovary), For non-literary texts, there is always a case
for replacing allusive by descriptive titles, particularly if the
allusive title is idiomatic or culturally bound.

DIALOGUE COHESION
Cohesion is closer in the give and take of dialogue and
speech than in any other form of text. Here the main cohesive
factor is the question, which may be a disguised command,
request, plea, invitation (i.e. grammatically a statement or a
command or a question) and where the forms of address are
determined

by

factors

of

kinship

and

intimacy,

and,

regrettably, class, sex and age. Similarly, each language has

marking words that signal a break or end of a subject, such as
'Right1, 'Well', LGood', 'Fine', 'Now.

PUNCTUATION
Punctuation can be very important, but is so easily
overlooked that I advise translators to make a separate
comparative punctuation check on their version and the
original. Punctuation is an essential aspect of discourse
analysis, since it gives a semantic indication of the relationship
between sentences and clauses, which may vary according to
languages.

SOUND-EFFECTS
In terms of sound-effects, even at the level beyond the
sentence, should be taken into account, not only in poetry, but
in jingles, or in realistic narrative. It should be done by the
translator. This must be done if the words have powerful effect.

COHESION
Cohesion always related to the relations between
sentences.

The

most

common

forms

these

take

are

connectives denoting addition, contradiction, contrast, result,

etc. These connectives are tricky when they are polysemous,
since they may have meanings contradicting each other.

REFERENTIAL SYNONYMS
Sentences

cohere

through

the

use

of

referential

synonyms, which may be lexical, pronominal or general. In

many cases, all three types of referential synonym are used to
avoid repetition rather than to supply new information (which,
in any event, is incidental, thematic, and not pan of the
sentence's message). Whilst the translator must reproduce the
new information, he should not be afraid of repetition, in
particular of repeating the most specific tremor the proper
name to avoid any ambiguity.

ENUMERATORS
Enumerators

(enumeralive

conjuncts')

also

act

as

connectors between sentences. Numerical adverbs are usually

straightforward, although sometimes it has various senses, and
double meaning.

OTHER CONNECTIVES
Linguistic synonyms are also used as a cohesive device
to avoid repetition, particularly in a reinforcing sentence. Words
more or less unclearly expressing analogy, and sometimes the

degree of analogy which the translator often finds difficulty in

establishing.

FUNCTIONAL SENTENCE PERSPECTIVE

Functional sentence perspective (FSP) examines the
arrangement of the elements of a sentence in the light of its
linguistic, situational and cultural context, determining its
function within the paragraph and the text. What is known, or
may be inferred, or is the starting-point of a communication
(the communicative basis! is to be regarded as the theme of a
sentence; the elements which convey the new piece of
information (the communicative nucleus) is the theme. Rheme
in English is often signalled by an indefinite article, a
determiner, a specific term, such as 'Robert Smith*; theme by
a definite article, a determiner, or a generic term, such as
'Smith*. A further distinction in English between 'Robert Smith'
and 'Smith' may be that the first is not known, the second is
well known; or the first is used to distinguish one of a larger
number of Smiths.
.
CONTRASTS
Climax or focus can also be marked by a negativepositive sequence, where the negative is likely to introduce an
opposite or a heightened meaning. Less frequently, the
contrast is from positive to negative, the latter being signalled
as exceptional.

THE LOWER UNITS OF TRANSLATION

If we include chapter or section under 'text' (but allowing
that text may also be one word or one sentence), the next

tower unit is the paragraph, which is Nietzsche's unit of

thought (and mine). Typical paragraph schemes:
(a) start with a generalization and then produce two or three
examples, illustrations, pieces of evidence to support it;
(b) introduce and relate an event and give the result;
(c) introduce and describe an object or brief scene. In
informative texts, you may want to regroup sentences in
accordance with such a typical scheme but you have to bear
house-styles in mind.
The sentence is the 'natural* unit of translation, just as it
is the natural unit of comprehension and recorded thought.
Normally, by the time you have started working, you translate
sentence by sentence, and you will consciously be looking at
the larger units - paragraphs and text - only, for example
(1)When

you

have

difficulties

with

connectives,

e.g.

Quelques-uns, vers la fin, s'y endormirenz et ronfUrent.

Mais, au cafe, tout se ranime {Madame Bovary), Gerard
Hopkins translated: 'When the feast was nearing its end,
some of them fell asleep and snored, though they woke up
again, when coffee appeared7. This translation is lexically
fairly accurate; the force of the connective is slightly
weakened by the fusion of the two sentences, but I think
this is a good translation. It is usually justified to fill the
case-gaps of nouns like 'beginning', 'middle1 and 'end*.
(2)When you are not happy about the sentence as a unit.
(3)When you start revising your version,
Within the sentence, there are five possible sub-units of
translation. One of them, the morpheme, the smallest unit of
meaning, need not be taken seriously, except in the cases of
prefixes such as 'post-1, 'inter-* or suffixes such as '-ism' when
they have no direct TL equivalent in the word. Two sub-units,
the clause and the group, are grammatical; the other two.
Collocation and the word (including the idiom and the
compound, which is a congealed collocation), are lexical. When

you translate, you have to be looking at the grammatical (the

general factors of time, mood, space, logic, agreement) and the
lexical (the details) at the same time, making sure that FSP is
preserved where important.