Microsoft Word Revised Syllabus Ver doc

Psycholinguistic Theory
Danica Seleskovitch (1976) introduced a new dimension to translation theory by 
introducing the psychological approach. Her approach to translation was dictated by the 
nature and fluctuation of meaning.
In a general translation theory language units are considered as permanent matches 
with other language units. According to Seleskovich once an idea is set down in black and 
white, it assumes permanent form and with the passing of time, form may well predominate 
over the original meaning so that posterity inherits only the linguistic form containing the 
message. Psychological approach gives the message a subtle touch discerning the idea of the 
original speaker to the listener through the interpreter. They always stem from meaning. Her 
perception is that language, such as described in grammars and dictionaries, yields many 
varied meanings to the scrutiny of the scholar; speech performance yields but one meaning to 
the initiated listener; the thing meant by the speaker, stress is one the ideas rather than with 
language. A psychological approach i.e., the theory of interpretation is not concerned with 
descriptive or comparative linguistics but with speech performance. It studies and compares 
the original message with that conveyed by the interpreter and endeavours to discern the 
interplay of thought and language through the evidences are supplied by the process of 
understanding and expressing.
A General Translation Theory
The ultimate goal of the translation theorist in the broad sense must undoubtedly be to 
develop a full, inclusive theory accommodating so many elements that it can serve to explain 
and predict all phenomena falling within the terrain of translating and translation, to the 
exclusion of all phenomena falling outside it. It hardly needs to be pointed out that a general 

---

47 
translation theory in such a true sense of the term, if indeed it is achievable, will necessarily 
be highly formalized and, however the scholar may strive after economy, also highly 
complex 
Most of the theories that have been produced to date are in reality little more than 
prolegomena to such a general translation theory. A good share of them, in fact, are not 
actually theories at all, in any scholarly sense of the term, but an array of axioms, postulates, 
and hypotheses that are so formulated as to be both too inclusive (covering also non-
translatory acts and non-translations) and too exclusive (shutting out come translatory acts 
and some works generally recognized as translations).

---

48