Microsoft Word Revised Syllabus Ver doc

LESSON - II 
TRANSLATION THEORIES: ANCIENT AND MODERN 
Though everyone has expressed his own view and certain reservations all these views 
and reservations have had a cumulative effect in building up a sound theoretical base for the 
discipline of translation studies. One should say that translation studies came to perfection in 
the works of Eugene A. Nida in the twentieth century. The three phase theoretical model 
propounded by Nida (1964) and later exemplified in collaboration with Taber (1969) can 
stand the test of time and space.
Theories of translation can be broadly classified into four, viz. theories of the 
ancients, theories of the Middle Ages, theories of the early modern times and theories of the 
present age.
Theories of the Ancients
The few centuries immediately preceding the Christian era had witnessed a great 
amount of Greek literature flowing into Rome through the medium of translation. The 
translators mostly followed the literal type, i.e. word for word rendering. The translated text 
looked like a Meta-text. Notwithstanding this type of translation, there blossomed the real 
model of translation, the sense for sense model, under Cicero and Horace. Thus these two 
models were found to be in action then. The former related to 'word for word' translation and 
the latter signified the model of 'sense for sense' translation. These can be termed as literal 
translation and conceptual translation respectively.
Literal Translation
There was a regular flow of translated texts from Greek to Latin during the Roman 
period. Literature blossomed in its fullness in Greece. People from all over the world looked 
up to Greece for excellence in producing literary masterpieces. In an effort to bring as much 
materials as possible into their own languages, people began to translate Greek poems and 
other materials. They found an easy way of doing it by replacing the source language word 
by a target language word. Their concern was to transform the text from Greek to Latin. Most 
of the Romans considered the translated version as meta texts. They read them through the 
source text as opposed to a monolingual whose access to the original was only through the 
translated version.
It was in reality a case of enrichment of the literary system which incidentally led to 
language enrichment. In their effort to do quick translation these translators never bothered to 
consider whether it was advisable to borrow words from the source language itself. They 
simply took the source text and replaced the words in it without any change in syntax. 
Wherever they found it difficult to find word equivalents in Latin they retained the Greek 
words. Slowly they resorted to large scale Greek borrowings into Latin including 
grammatical features. Such borrowings reached a proportion which made it difficult for one 
to judge as to which the SL text was and which was the TL text. Cicero and Horace felt that 
this process was highly damaging to the message and that the message was likely to be 
misinterpreted. They were also against the indiscriminate use of SL words in the TL text. 
They advocated sense for sense translation. They felt that the concept contained in the 
message was more important than the outfit in which the TL version was given.

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However, for many Romans, the translation was a Meta-text as they were bilinguals 
or trilingual with access to the original. Many Roman translators presupposed the reader's 
acquaintance with the SL text and bound by that attitude, they brought out Roman versions. 
The task of translating according to many Romans amounted to an exercise in comparative 
stylistics.