Microsoft Word Revised Syllabus Ver doc

Culture and Language
In the earlier days, translation work was restricted to religious writings only. In the 
West it was the Holy Bible and in the oriental countries the epics like Mahabharatha and 
Ramayana were translated into many languages. This trend continued to dominate till the 
dawn of the previous century. The development achieved in the fields of science and 
technology and so many such other secular fields in the western countries and also in other 
countries necessitated the others to translate those developments into their languages in order 
to have those developments in their countries also. As a result of this attempt, numerous 
works in the fields of science and technology have been translated into Asian and African 
languages. Understanding the importance of translation, more and more scholars focused 
their attention in this field. More and more secular writings were translated and published in 
these languages.
It is quite well known that every language is a product of its culture. In other words, it 
can be said that language is a manifestation of the culture. The lexical items in the language, 
its grammatical structure, etc represent the culture of the language concerned. As such, it 
would be impossible to find equivalent lexical items in another language because most of the 
lexical items are culturally and socially codified. However close two the languages may be, 
there may not be exact lexical equivalents in those two languages for the simple reason that 
each language is a product of its culture which is unique and distinctive.
Though the history of translation is very long and plenty of non-secular writings have 
been translated from one language to another in all the other concerns of the world, no 
attempt was made to view it scientifically and frame principles of translation. Some of the 
translators have spoken about the ways and methods of translation in the earlier days, but it 
was only after the starting of science translation that scholars started to think about translation 
scientifically and come out with principles of translation. More and more scientific and 
technological writings were translated into world languages applying those principles. 
Translation in the field of science and technology has to be appropriate and accurate; 
otherwise it will lead to misunderstanding. If a book on medicine is not accurately translated 
then needless to say the consequences will prove to be highly fatal and dangerous.
The principles of translation developed in the earlier days were of one type and those 
developed in the recent days are of another type. The principles of translation framed in the 
beginning gave importance to the form or shape of the message that was being translated.
The translator's main aim was to preserve the rhyming, meters, etc., of the source 
material in their translation. Once they become successful in this attempt they felt that they 
have done their work satisfactorily and sufficiently. But the thinking of the latter day 
translators was not in the same direction. The latter day translators shifted their attention from 
the retention of form of the message to the response of the readers of the translation. The 
reaction of the reader of the source material has to be compared with the reaction of the 
reader of the translated material. If they are more or less similar then it can be said to be the 
most appropriate translation. If the response of a reader who reads a translation does not 

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coincide with that of the reader who reads the source material then it goes without saying that 
the translator has failed in his job.
In order to judge whether the translation is an appropriate one or not, we have to be 
very clear on who are the supposed readers of the translation. In addition to this, we have to 
estimate the level to which he has understood the source material. To be precise, while 
assessing the quality of a translation, we have to bear in mind not only the fact that an 
average reader of the translation should not only understand it accurately but also he should 
not misunderstand even a little bit of it. Hence it goes without saying that not being 
misunderstood by the reader is as important as being appropriately understood.
Such a conception about the accuracy of translation makes it quite possible that there 
is more than one accurate translation for one and the same book. There is no wonder about it. 
This is because all the readers do not have the same capacity to understand. The ability to 
understand the things varies according to individuals. Even a very poor translation of a book 
may be properly understood by an expert in that field. In the same way, even a very good 
translation may not be understood accurately by a person who does not have the basic 
knowledge on the subject about which the book deals with. These are all quite possible. 
When a language is spoken in a geographically wider area and by a large number of people 
their social and educational levels vary considerably. In this context, if a translation has to 
reach all the people who are characterized by varying social and educational levels, it has to 
be done bearing in mind their differences; then only the translation will reach the masses, 
otherwise it will be a failure. Readers belonging to different social and educational levels 
cannot completely understand the translation.
From this argument, we come to the conclusion that translation has to be rendered 
with varying lexical and grammatical levels so, that the translation may reach the readers 
having different levels of education. To enhance the communicability of the translation and 
thereby to improve the readability we have to remove all the constructions that are likely to 
be misunderstood and to remodel the constructions that are difficult to be understood on 
account of their word structure or grammatical structure. For instance, the construction 
'voiced phoneme' may be translated into Tamil as olippuTai oliyan and the construction 
'voiceless phoneme' may be translated into Tamil as olippila: oliyan. This type of translation 
may not be accepted by all the scholars in the field of phonetics as these will lead to some 
sort of confusion and misunderstanding.
The readers of the Tamil translation may raise questions as to how can there be a 
sound that does not sound at all. Why to call a sound as that one which sounds? In order to 
avoid this type of misconceptions and confusions, it is better to rephrase the Tamil 
translations as atirvuTai oliyan and atirvilaa oliyan which are more reasonable and more 
appropriate in conveying the meaning. Here, we find the word-to word translation will not be 
appropriate but, on the other hand, conceptual translation would be more appreciable and 
accurate in conveying the meaning.
In the same manner, those constructions which are difficult to be understood by the 
readers should be dispensed with. If most of the readers of translated material misunderstand, 
then how can it be called appropriate translation? Let us consider the construction ‘Eradicate 
Illiteracy Programme’. This is a translation of the Tamil sentence which refers to a 
programme that aims at removing illiteracy. In the construction given above there is 
confusion as to the function of the verb ‘eradicate’. Does the verb ‘eradicate’ function as a 

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predicate to the noun ‘illiteracy’ or to the noun phrase ‘Illiteracy programme’? As a result, 
the above construction may have two meanings. Programme to eradicate illiteracy, and 
eradicating illiteracy programme. Here the confusion is whether we are eradicating the 
illiteracy or the programme. In order to solve this confusion, the above construction should be 
changed either as illiteracy eradication programme or as programme to eradicate illiteracy.
In addition to the words that are used in a translation, the styles in which the words 
are used also contribute to the misunderstanding of them. If the source language and target 
language belong to one and the same family then their syntactic patterns will be more or less 
the same. However, these two languages belong to two different families; their syntactic 
pattern will be completely different. In these contexts it is advisable to preserve the syntactic 
patterns of the target language. This will help in better translation.

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