Transformational Model Of Translation

Language states that translation is the state of being translated and a translated version of a text while the American Heritage® Roget’s Thesaurus defines it as a restating of something in other, especially simpler, words.

The last definition of translation from dictionaries is derived from Collins English Dictionary and states that it is something that is or has been translated, especially a written text.

Jeanie C. Crain in her book Reading the Bible As Literature. An Introduction. (2010, p. 170) defines translation as “the creation of text in a second language having the same meaning as the written communication in a first language”. She adds that it requires not only dealing with various kinds of texts from literal to idiomatic but also

It means that one object or structure is converted into another. The translator identifies not the shared world of reality but the signs of the source language with those of the target language. Two transformation concepts can be distinguished in this model. The first one is when transformation is recognized as an interlinguistic process. It is “converting the source text into the structures of the target text, which is translation proper” . Particular principles should be described for transforming the structures of the source language as primary units into the structures of the target language which correspond to the primary units. The second concept of the transformational model is not as broad as the previous one. It is not about substituting the structures of the source language by those of the target one. Here in contrast the transformation is part of the process of translation. It is divided into three

Synthesis – the basic units of the TL are converted into the final structures of the TL. For instance: On widział, że ona wyszła z kuchni.

Using transformational model in the process of translation contributes to translator’s better understanding and awareness of a given text and TL devices. This is because of back-and-forth transformation of the SL sentence. However, this model does not take into consideration the importance of the SL form in the creation of the TL sentence. Moreover, often structures of the SL and TL are wrongly treated as equivalent “despite the fact that they cannot be traced back to the common area between the two languages”2.

Before introducing the next model of translation some definitions must be provided to the better understanding of the idea which it carries. The first one is surface structure. It is defined by Awin Wijaya (2016) on the basis of Chomsky’s approach (1957) as “the syntactic form they take as actual sentences”. In other words, surface structure consists of forms of sentences which arose from transformations and modifications. The second term is deep structure. According to the same author it is “an abstract level of structural organization in which all the elements determining structural interpretation are represented”. It is also “the input of transformation rules”. This information is needed to comprehend semantic model of translation. This model underlines semantic structures of the source and target pieces of writing. In this