Abstract:
Translation and interpretation in various forms (intralingual, interlingual, sign
language) have been practiced since the Tower of Babel collapsed. A record of its
consideration in the academic sphere, however, dates back to 46 BC, with the writings of
Marcus Tillius Cicero.
These writings focused mainly on literary translation and, even today, the number
of translation theory books that have examined the translation of documents meant for very
practical use, remain few and far between.
Having gone through the theoretical courses, and having completed the translation
practice internship under the programme, I have sought to discuss some issues of practical
reality faced by the practicing translator, and which, if not properly handled, could affect
communication by distorting meaning.
These are language-related, including badly written texts with grammatical and
syntactic errors. I am inspired by Vinay and Darbelnet’s taxonomy in comparative
stylistics of French and English (1958/1995) which is the classic model and one which has
had a very wide impact.
I have chosen to adopt this approach because I am tackling translation here as a
professional activity with the primary objective to facilitate communication, through
meaning as expressed in the source language to the target language, as opposed to simply
an academic or artistic activity. I set out to translate Petrocis Infos in such a way that its
meaning in French will be preserved in English using the theory of “la fidélité au sens”
Therefore, in spite of criticisms about “letter/spirit”, “word for word” or “sense for
sense” etc, the hallmark of a good translation, in my opinion remains, as always,
preservation of meaning.
