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MARÍA T. SÁNCHEZ–LINGUISTICS AND TRANSLATION: A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP?
LINGUISTICS AND TRANSLATION: A LOVE-HATE
RELATIONSHIP?
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MARÍA T. SÁNCHEZ
University of Salford, UK
For a long time, a great deal of tension has existed between what are now two
well-defined and established disciplines, Linguistics and Translation Studies, provoking a
very uneasy relationship – “a troubled relationship”, Peter Fawcett has called it in a
recent publication (1997: 1). As is known, the aim of Linguistics is the study of language,
and it has produced since the beginning of the twentieth century a whole range of theories
and approaches on how language works. This fundamental objective had, inexorably, and
sooner or later, to lead Linguistics in the direction of Translation Studies, since
translation is quite obviously a language activity, and it is easy to see that, from the start,
Linguistics has contributed a considerable input to the development of Translation
Studies. Linguists’ concern with translation as part of the whole theory of meaning is
evident from about the middle of the century. In 1953, the Russian linguist Fedorov
stated that translation should always be considered as a linguistic phenomenon, having
Linguistics as the common denominator and he also stated that every translation theory
should be within a linguistic discipline (Mounin 1963: 13). In 1957, in a well-known
article on linguistic theory, another linguist, Firth, wrote:
One of the most important assignments for linguists in the future is the
formulation of satisfactory theories of the nature of the translation bridges between
languages. Do we really know how we translate or what we translate? […] Translators know
they cross over but do not know by what sort of bridge. They often re-cross by a different
bridge to check up again. Sometimes they fall over the parapet into limbo. There is a good
deal of smuggling and surreptitious evasion, and deliberate jettisoning of embarrassing
difficulties. (Palmer 1968: 197)
A couple of years later, Roman Jakobson also declared that “widespread practice
of interlingual communication, particularly translating activities, must be kept under
constant scrutiny by linguistic science” (Brower 1959: 234).
From then onwards and throughout the 1960s, as Translation Studies started
developing into a theoretical framework of increasing complexity, linguists also became
very much involved in contributing to this framework, thus giving the discipline a
linguistic-oriented approach. Translation was considered a branch of one of the areas of
Linguistics, namely “Applied Linguistics”. In spite of this division, Linguistics did
continue to be considered the main discipline, able to inspire the study of translation.
This significant role played by Linguistics is reflected in the literature published at that
time. One has to refer here to one of the most important books, nowadays always
included in any decent bibliography about Translation Studies, a book whose very title
symbolizes the whole period, A Linguistic Theory of Translation, written by John Catford in
1965. In it, Catford defined “Applied Linguistics” and its relationship to the Theory of
Translation by saying that it was:
a term used to cover all those applications of the theory and categories of general
linguistics which go beyond (i) the elucidation of how languages work and (ii) the description