Translation Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Source and target languages === In the practice of translation, the '''source language''' is the language being translated from, while the '''target language''' – also called the '''receptor language'''<ref>Willis Barnstone, ''The Poetics of Translation'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 228.</ref> – is the language being translated into.<ref>Basil Hatim and [[Jeremy Munday]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=3gZc6rCduLYC&dq=target+language+translation&pg=PA171 Translation: An Advanced Resource Book], Introduction, pg. 171. [[Milton Park]]: [[Routledge]], 2004. {{ISBN|9780415283052}}</ref> Difficulties in translating can arise from [[lexicon|lexical]] and [[syntactical]] differences between the source language and the target language, which differences tend to be greater between two languages belonging to different [[language family|language families]].<ref>Bai Liping, "Similarity and difference in Translation." Taken from [https://books.google.com/books?id=Okf1VDZLFpAC&dq=source+language+translation&pg=PA399 Similarity and Difference in Translation: Proceedings of the International Conference on Similarity and Translation], pg. 339. Eds. Stefano Arduini and Robert Hodgson. 2nd ed. [[Rome]]: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2007. {{ISBN|9788884983749}}</ref> Often the source language is the translator's [[second language]], while the target language is the translator's [[first language]].<ref>Carline FéRailleur-Dumoulin, [https://books.google.com/books?id=q2BK1Uv0wgAC&dq=target+language+translation&pg=PA36 A Career in Language Translation: Insightful Information to Guide You in Your Journey as a Professional Translator], pgs. 1-2. [[Bloomington, Indiana|Bloomington]]: [[AuthorHouse]], 2009. {{ISBN|9781467052047}}</ref> In some geographical settings, however, the source language is the translator's first language because not enough people speak the source language as a second language.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Pokorn|first=Nike K.|date=2007|title=In defense of fuzziness|journal=Target|volume=19|issue=2|pages=190–191|doi=10.1075/target.19.2.10pok}}</ref> For instance, a 2005 survey found that 89% of professional Slovene translators translate into their second language, usually English.<ref name=":1" /> In cases where the source language is the translator's first language, the translation process has been referred to by various terms, including "translating into a non-mother tongue", "translating into a second language", "inverse translation", "reverse translation", "service translation", and "translation from A to B".<ref name=":1" /> The process typically begins with a full and in-depth analysis of the original text in the source language, ensuring full comprehension and understanding before the actual act of translating is approached.<ref>[[Christiane Nord]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=HaHTZ2IxIX4C&dq=source+language+translation&pg=PA1 Text Analysis in Translation: Theory, Methodology, and Didactic Application of a Model for Translation-oriented Text Analysis], pg. 1. 2nd ed. [[Amsterdam]]: [[Rodopi (publisher)|Rodopi]], 2005. {{ISBN|9789042018082}}</ref> Translation for specialized or professional fields requires a working knowledge, as well, of the pertinent terminology in the field. For example, translation of a legal text requires not only fluency in the respective languages but also familiarity with the terminology specific to the legal field in each language.<ref>Gerard-Rene de Groot, "Translating legal information." Taken from [https://books.google.com/books?id=e1Fjal9DNpoC&dq=target+language+translation&pg=PA132 Translation in Law], vol. 5 of the ''Journal of Legal Hermeneutics'', pg. 132. Ed. Giuseppe Zaccaria. [[Hamburg]]: LIT Verlag Munster, 2000. {{ISBN|9783825848620}}</ref> While the form and style of the source language often cannot be reproduced in the target language, the meaning and content can. Linguist [[Roman Jakobson]] went so far as to assert that all cognitive experience can be classified and expressed in any living language.<ref>Basil Hatim and [[Jeremy Munday]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=3gZc6rCduLYC&dq=target+language+translation&pg=PA10 Translation: An Advanced Resource Book], Introduction, pg. 10. [[Milton Park]]: [[Routledge]], 2004. {{ISBN|9780415283052}}</ref> Linguist [[Ghil'ad Zuckermann]] suggests that the limits are not of translation ''per se'' but rather of ''elegant'' translation.<ref name=Revivalistics>{{cite book|author=[[Ghil'ad Zuckermann|Zuckermann, Ghil'ad]]|title=[[Revivalistics: From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and Beyond]]|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|year=2020|isbn=9780199812790}} {{ISBN|9780199812776}}</ref>{{rp|219}} ==== Source and target texts ==== {{see also|Source text}} In translation, a '''[[source text]]''' ('''ST''') is a text written in a given source language which is to be, or has been, translated into another language, while a '''target text''' ('''TT''') is a translated text written in the intended target language, which is the result of a translation from a given source text. According to [[Jeremy Munday]]'s definition of translation, "the process of translation between two different written languages involves the changing of an original written text (the source text or ST) in the original verbal language (the source language or SL) into a written text (the target text or TT) in a different verbal language (the target language or TL)".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Introducing Translation Studies: theories and applications (4th ed.)|last=Munday|first=Jeremy |author-link=Jeremy Munday |publisher=Routledge|year=2016|isbn=978-1138912557|location=London/New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/introducingtrans0004mund/page/8 8]|url=https://archive.org/details/introducingtrans0004mund/page/8}}</ref> The terms 'source text' and 'target text' are preferred over 'original' and 'translation' because they do not have the same positive vs. negative value judgment. Translation scholars including [[Eugene Nida]] and [[Peter Newmark]] have represented the different approaches to translation as falling broadly into source-text-oriented or target-text-oriented categories.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Introducing Translation Studies: theories and applications (4th ed.)|last=Munday|first=Jeremy|publisher=Routledge|year=2016|isbn=978-1138912557|location=London/New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/introducingtrans0004mund/page/67 67–74]|url=https://archive.org/details/introducingtrans0004mund/page/67}}</ref> ====Back-translation==== A "back-translation" is a translation of a translated text back into the language of the original text, made without reference to the original text. Comparison of a back-translation with the original text is sometimes used as a check on the accuracy of the original translation, much as the accuracy of a mathematical operation is sometimes checked by reversing the operation.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=1xAdjkR14ocC&dq=source+language+translation&pg=PA454 Measurement in Nursing and Health Research], pg. 454. Eds. Carolyn Waltz, Ora Lea Strickland and Elizabeth Lenz. 4th ed. [[New York City|New York]]: [[Springer Publishing]], 2010. {{ISBN|9780826105080}}</ref> But the results of such reverse-translation operations, while useful as approximate checks, are not always precisely reliable.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.atc.org.uk/winter2004.pdf |title=Back Translation: Same questions – different continent |journal=Communicate |issue=Winter 2004 |page=5 |last=Crystal |first=Scott |access-date=20 November 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060520035802/http://www.atc.org.uk/winter2004.pdf |archive-date=20 May 2006}}</ref> Back-translation must in general be less accurate than back-calculation because [[linguistic]] symbols ([[word]]s) are often [[ambiguous]], whereas mathematical symbols are intentionally unequivocal. In the context of machine translation, a back-translation is also called a "round-trip translation." When translations are produced of material used in medical [[clinical trial]]s, such as [[informed consent|informed-consent forms]], a back-translation is often required by the [[Ethics Committee (European Union)|ethics committee]] or [[institutional review board]].<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.gts-translation.com/medicaltranslationpaper.pdf |title=Back Translation for Quality Control of Informed Consent Forms |journal=Journal of Clinical Research Best Practices |access-date=1 February 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060505141653/http://www.gts-translation.com/medicaltranslationpaper.pdf |archive-date=5 May 2006}}</ref> [[File:Mark Twain, Brady-Handy photo portrait, Feb 7, 1871, cropped.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|In 1903, [[Mark Twain]] back-translated his own [[short story]], "[[The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County]]".]] [[Mark Twain]] provided humorously telling evidence for the frequent unreliability of back-translation when he issued his own back-translation of a French translation of his [[short story]], "[[The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County]]". He published his back-translation in a 1903 volume together with his English-language original, the French translation, and a "Private History of the 'Jumping Frog' Story". The latter included a synopsized adaptation of his story that Twain stated had appeared, unattributed to Twain, in a Professor Sidgwick's ''Greek Prose Composition'' (p. 116) under the title, "The Athenian and the Frog"; the adaptation had for a time been taken for an independent [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] precursor to Twain's "Jumping Frog" story.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/jumpingfroginen01twaigoog <!-- quote=french The Jumping Frog. --> Mark Twain, ''The Jumping Frog: In English, Then in French, and Then Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil'', illustrated by F. Strothman, New York and London, Harper & Brothers, Publishers, MCMIII [1903].</ref> When a document survives only in translation, the original having been lost, researchers sometimes undertake back-translation in an effort to reconstruct the original text. An example involves the novel ''[[The Manuscript Found in Saragossa|The Saragossa Manuscript]]'' by the Polish aristocrat [[Jan Potocki]] (1761–1815), who wrote the novel in French and anonymously published fragments in 1804 and 1813–14. Portions of the original French-language manuscript were subsequently lost; however, the missing fragments survived in a Polish translation, made by [[Edmund Chojecki]] in 1847 from a complete French copy that has since been lost. French-language versions of the complete ''Saragossa Manuscript'' have since been produced, based on extant French-language fragments and on French-language versions that have been back-translated from Chojecki's Polish version.<ref>[[Czesław Miłosz]], ''The History of Polish Literature'', pp. 193–94.</ref> Many works by the influential [[Classical antiquity|Classical]] physician [[Galen]] survive only in medieval [[Arabic]] translation. Some survive only in [[Renaissance Latin]] translations from the Arabic, thus at a second remove from the original. To better understand Galen, scholars have attempted back-translation of such works in order to reconstruct the original [[ancient Greek|Greek]].{{citation needed|date=September 2018}} When historians suspect that a document is actually a translation from another language, back-translation into that hypothetical original language can provide supporting evidence by showing that such characteristics as [[idiom]]s, [[pun]]s, peculiar [[Grammar|grammatical]] structures, etc., are in fact derived from the original language. For example, the known text of the ''[[Till Eulenspiegel]]'' folk tales is in [[High German]] but contains puns that work only when back-translated to [[Low German]]. This seems clear evidence that these tales (or at least large portions of them) were originally written in Low German and translated into High German by an over-[[Metaphrase|metaphrastic]] translator. Supporters of [[Aramaic primacy]]—the view that the [[Christianity|Christian]] [[New Testament]] or its sources were originally written in the [[Aramaic language]]—seek to prove their case by showing that difficult passages in the existing [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] text of the New Testament make much more sense when back-translated to Aramaic: that, for example, some incomprehensible references are in fact Aramaic puns that do not work in Greek. Due to similar indications, it is believed that the 2nd century Gnostic [[Gospel of Judas]], which survives only in [[Coptic language|Coptic]], was originally written in Greek. [[John Dryden]] (1631–1700), the dominant English-language literary figure of his age, illustrates, in his use of back-translation, translators' influence on the evolution of languages and literary styles. Dryden is believed to be the first person to posit that English sentences should not end in [[preposition]]s because Latin sentences cannot end in prepositions.<ref>[http://ling.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/data/B_HIST_EU.html Gilman, E. Ward (ed.). 1989. "A Brief History of English Usage", Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. Springfield (Mass.): Merriam-Webster, pp. 7a-11a], {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201152753/http://ling.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/data/B_HIST_EU.html |date=1 December 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Greene|first=Robert Lane|title=Three Books for the Grammar Lover in Your Life: NPR|newspaper=NPR.org|url=https://www.npr.org/2011/05/17/133652882/three-books-for-the-grammar-lover-in-your-life?sc=fb&cc=fp|publisher=[[National Public Radio|NPR]]|access-date=18 May 2011}}</ref> Dryden created the proscription against "[[preposition stranding]]" in 1672 when he objected to [[Ben Jonson]]'s 1611 phrase, "the bodies that those souls were frighted from", though he did not provide the rationale for his preference.<ref>Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, 2002, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press, p. 627f.</ref> Dryden often translated his writing into Latin, to check whether his writing was concise and elegant, Latin being considered an elegant and long-lived language with which to compare; then he back-translated his writing back to English according to Latin-grammar usage. As Latin does not have sentences ending in prepositions, Dryden may have applied Latin grammar to English, thus forming the controversial rule of [[Preposition stranding#The Debate about P-stranding|no sentence-ending prepositions]], subsequently adopted by other writers.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3komDgAAQBAJ&q=word+by+word+kory+stamper|title=Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries|last=Stamper|first=Kory|date=1 January 2017|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=9781101870945|pages=47}}</ref>{{efn|Cf. a supposed comment by [[Winston Churchill]]: "This is the type of pedantry up with which I will not put."}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. 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