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Types and Methods of Translation
Before we discuss types of translation, a distinction should be first made between translation
methods and translation procedures or techniques. ‘While translation methods relate to whole
texts, translation procedures are used for sentences and the smaller units of language’
(Newmark 1988a: 81).
The question whether a translation should be literal or free is as old as translation itself. The
argument in favour of the spirit and sense as against the letter or the word has been going on at
least from the beginning of the first century B.C. The view that translation was impossible
gained popularity when the cultural anthropologists suggested that language was culture
bound. Walter Benjamin and Valdimir Nabokov who were considered the 'literalists'
concluded that a translation must be as literal as possible. But in their argument the purpose of
translation, the nature of readership, the type of text were not discussed.
Though several methods have been suggested for translation it is quite evident that a
substantially good translation cannot be produced by holding fast to any one of those methods.
During the process of translation, depending on the type of the source language text, the
translator resorts to the combination of these different methods.
Some of the methods mentioned by Peter Newmark, in his 'A Textbook of Translalion ' and
other scholars are: word-for-word translation, literal translation, faithful translation,
communicative translation, semantic translation, adaptation and free translation. These will be
explained below with examples illustrating each type.
1) Word-for-word translation
This type of translation keeps the SL word order; words are translated out of context according
to their most common meaning. Such kind of translation can be used as a preliminary
translation step but it is not applied in real translation tasks. The following lines are from The
Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad with their translation into Arabic following the word-for-
word method.
- That child is intelligent.
- That child is intelligent.
كاذ لفطلا نوكي اًيكذ كاذ لفطلا نوكي اًيكذ
This method or type of translation takes the meaning of each word in isolation regardless of
differences between both Arabic and English in grammar, word order, context, and special
usage. Moreover, this translation focuses on the source language and the target should follow
it step by step. Hence, it seems a very easy way to translate and it is common between
students. However, this method is very risky because it does not consider the target language
and relies on the source language only. In addition, it does not take account of the grammars of
both languages, namely when these two languages descend from two very different families
such as English which is an Indo-European West Germanic language and Arabic which is a
Semitic language. Furthermore, this method does not take both languages word order into
account. This method also neglects the context which is very important to understand the
meaning of a given sentence. Likewise, it ignores the metaphorical use of words which
