SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE PLACE OF LITERAL TRANSLATION

Degrees of literality

There are degrees of literality and not a literal translation opposable to an elegant translation.

Examples:

Latin version if pasted that the direction escapes (incorrect layer)
And yet, is it not an essential stage of work, of translation into action, of translating activity?
The Latin version is very close to the Latin construction, but in French correct syntactically (correct layer) “multi Dixit” translated as, “he says many things”. This translation has made minimal stylistic changes; habits or instructions are recorded in each language (for the translation of the neutral Latin noun nouns, the French word “chooses” is accepted as a first approximation, rejected in writing as awkward). We will return to these «translations» according to the term of J.-R. Ladmiral, «figures of translation» according to J.-Cl. Chevalier “As there are figures of rhetoric, there are figures of translation”

The Horlogier de Saint Jérôme, Linguistic Problems of….Latin version “elegant”, “well written”, with translation by https://transcriberry.com/academic-transcription-service/ finds literary translation rendering the poetry of the original or translation taking into account the effect to be produced (translation of theatre texts for the purpose of representation, rhetorical texts for reflection on the validity of their hypotheses, etc.)

Solution

Is there a continuity solution? Where to stop the literal translation if we try to define the term objectively and not make a strictly pejorative use of it? The comparison with professional translations of advertisements, of technical, journalistic, economic, or political texts, the common point of which is the conative function, would involve pouring the whole series into the literal translation, with the exception of certain transpositions of the latter category. At each stage, there are more or less elaborate «translation figures» and «translation techniques».

In the list of the seven types of solutions to translation difficulties, J.-P. Vinay and J. Darbelnet first list borrowing, tracing, and word-for-word, a “literal” translation that J.-R. Ladmiral is described as ideal but rarely possible. Four oblique solutions follow transposition, modulation, equivalence, and adaptation. This is why the «literal» translation is described as ideal: it is the one that gives the translator the fewest moods, but it is not up to him to use it.