constructing pathways to translation - Higher Education Commission

different people: the author, the editor, the critic and the reader. His world is complicated
because he is a go between and has to keep the pleasure of so many people in view. The
exact status of the Translator therefore cannot be determined or decided since the every
Translators task and his performance determines the true status of the Translator.
10.2.2 PROLEGOMENON TO A THEORY OF TRANSALTION
The ‘Translation theory’ has remained a phantasm or a notion, despite the fact it has
remained the pressing issue of both linguists and philosophers in the recent years. Many
basic but baffling questions have continuously haunted the Translation theory; Is
there any Theory of Translation? Should there be any Theory of Translation?
Certainly there is a Theory of Translation. Yes, not in the scientific sense of the term, but
in terms of parameters that are not fixed, but are drawn in accordance with usage and
particular Language being translated. Secondly, surely there should be a Translation
theory, but for that we should begin on solid footing by setting on some propositions
about the fundamental objectives worth theorizing about.
169
The elaborate discussion in Literature review is a step towards some fundamental
propositions and parameters that constitute the Translation theory. Sufficient has been
delineated about the theoretical framework of Translation, but few points need to be
clarified, with regard to Novel analysis and the Questionnaire replies.
Translation means ‘codification’. Hence,
a theory of Translation is a set of propositions
about how, why, where and when (…..) the coded elements are rendered into other
codes. Codification involves at least two codes: the Matrix Code and the Target Code.
There is perpetual shuffling back and forth between Matrix and Target Code in the act of
Translation. The Matrix Code provides the essential information to be re-codified, and
the Target Code provides the parameters for the rendering of that information. In order to
accommodate the matrix information to the target parameters, the two must be judged in
conjunction or reflexively.
What all this comes down to is that identity or exact equivalence is actually useless in
Translation. We must purge ourselves of this rampant notion that identity somehow
saves Translation. That is the wrong track to take for two reasons: First Universal
grammar and the identity it entails are the aspects of Linguistic competence, where as