Microsoft Word Revised Syllabus Ver doc

1. Metaphrase 
This type of translation was prevalent during the early Christian era and the middle 
ages. It was very much there during the Roman period. Roman scholars were translating 
Greek literature into Latin using mostly this technique. This type continued to be used even 
during the period of the Renaissance, Reformation and later. The translator substituted the 
source text word by an equivalent word from the TL. This could work very well for those 
languages whose grammatical features were identical or very close to each other. 
The closeness between the European languages made it easy for the translators 
to go in for this type of translation and probably this could have been the reason for its 
popularity. In modern terminology, this type of translation can be equated to Catford’s (1965) 
theory of translation at the rank level. 
2. Paraphrase 
In this type of translation, the translator took the sense of the original source text and 
translated the message in such a way that there was perfect union or near complete identity of 
the message. This can be compared to the Cicernonian type of sense for sense translation. 

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In the modern concept, paraphrase is looked upon as a form of abridgement. This 
stands in contrast to the paraphrase of the medieval period vis-à-vis translation. The medieval 
period is supposed to be a period of conflict concerning the problems related to translation. 
Many scholars favoured literal translation. Notwithstanding this pressure, many other 
scholars during this period favoured the Ciceronian model of translation. Their view on the 
closeness and distance between the source and target languages led to work on two fronts. 
They could go in for literal translation if both languages involved were similar to each other 
in form and structure. This process failed when the structures of the two languages involved 
varied. There they could do justice to their work if they took the content in full from the 
original and rendered that version in the TL so that there was no deviation in the content. 
That is to say the translated version reflected exactly the original. They were prepared for 
changes in form in order to maintain the identity of the message. The translators were well 
versed both tom SL and TL. They were at the receiving end in SL and then became 
messengers in TL. i.e. they were at the giving end in TL. They were faithful to the content of 
the text rather than the form. Matthew Arnold was an ardent supporter of this view (cf. Ch.3). 
theorists preceding him such as John Denham (1656) and Abraham Cowley (1656) 
contributed much to the view.