constructing pathways to translation - Higher Education Commission

3. Translation: the abstract concept which encompasses both the process of
translating and the product of that process.
Clearly, a theory of translation, to be comprehensive and useful, must attempt to describe
and explain both the process and the product. The present situation, however, is one in
which translation theory has concentrated on the product, to the exclusion of the process,
and thus has adopted a normative attitude.
In order to attempt to describe and explain the process, itself, one enters into the
framework of psychological studies of perception, information processing and memory:
cognitive science. The process crucially involves language, for which one needs to draw
on the resources of linguistics concerned with the psychological and social aspects of
language use; psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. The first examines the process in
the mind of the translator, the second places the source language text (SLT) and target
language text (TLT) in their cultural context (Bell,1991).
1.2.3 The Monolingual Communication Process in Translation
The communication process involved in Translation is inevitable in the investigation of
translation theory. One can understand a study of process of translation through a
descriptive process, not a prescriptive approach. It is process which creates the product,
and it is only by understanding of the process that one can improve skills as translators.
The diagram given below clearly indicates the processes involved in Translation
activity:
Source
Language
Text
Memory
Analysis
Semantic
Representation
Synthesis
Figure 1.1 Translation Process (Adapted from Bell 1991:21).
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