Translation - Precedence of Functional Over Word Meaning
The importance of human translators and a reliable agency and the drawbacks of machine translation. Translation is the conversion of information from one language to another. It requires special skills to ensure that not just words but more importantly the meaning, intent and function of the original sentence is conveyed in the translated text. Consider for example, the word ‘hey’ in English. Now look at it in a conversation: A: Hey! B: Yeah? We can see that the word has no meaning by itself, but it’s usage in a specific situation, and when uttered to get someone’s attention, performs a certain function of drawing attention, and asking the other to pay attention. Now try to imagine how this would be said in a different language. If you were to consider only the LITERAL or WORD meaning of ‘hey’ you would get many equivalents which, when applied in the same dialogue, may be out of place in the target language. Take for example in a Hindi -speaking environment – one could say ...