Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 December 23

= December 23 =

Not literal translation
We have an article on literal translation. It's essentially when the translator switches words... word for word, paying little attention to other considerations (rhyme, connotations, etc.). Along the same lines, Sense-for-sense translation goes sentence by sentence. Is there a term for the stye of translation that allows for small "hedges" in the translating to preserve the original intent? For example, when poetry gets translated and the translator intentionally switches phrases or words to preserve the original rhyme or meter. A similar example is with Asterix where the translators preserve the idea of wordplay, by not giving the literal translation, but by preserving the basic ideas and making their own puns. Do we have an article on that style? Matt Deres (talk) 17:07, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Praphrasing? I'm a translator and this is what I have to do occasionally.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  17:46, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I have never had a course in translation, but I would think paraphrasing is sense-for-sense translation. I just ran into this in the lead of an article where we had to give a foreign phrase, a literal word-by-word translation, and then a paraphrase to clarify what was actually meant.  But I can't recall which article, unfortunately.  I would think that the happy middle between literal and sense-for-sense translation would simply be good translation. μηδείς (talk) 18:29, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Free translation or adaptation? ---Sluzzelin talk  18:27, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Ah, now that could work. Yes, that gets the point across. Thank you! Matt Deres (talk) 21:52, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Dynamic equivalence... AnonMoos (talk) 20:35, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * That sounds good, and I'd stumbled across that article earlier, but something about it just didn't ring quite true. For one, it seems to be strictly regarding bible translations. For another, that article and those related to it (like Eugene Nida) have an odd vibe to them; they remind me of COI-written stuff we see sometimes, and I wasn't sure how widely known those terms really were (peacock stuff in the articles aside). Certainly a reasonable suggestion, though. Matt Deres (talk) 21:52, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually, good Bible translators have to think long and hard about issues that other working translators (under time pressures etc.) may be tempted to gloss over or sweep under the rug. Nida and Ken Pike were reasonably well-known among structural linguists in the 1950s-1960s, and I would guess that Nida is still known among translation scholars (though Pike's Tagmemics was largely left behind in the 1960s after the rise of generative theory).  Nida and Pike are easily notable enough to have Wikipedia articles. AnonMoos (talk) 23:12, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, I don't doubt that they merit articles, it's just the tone of them that arched my eyebrow. Matt Deres (talk) 16:38, 24 December 2012 (UTC)