In search for the initial translator in translation and bilingualism studies

Abstract

Translation has been informally and broadly perceived as a commu­ nicative act that involves the transfer of meaning of a text from one language into another. According to this definition, translation is seen as a process by means of which an equivalence of meaning between two texts is established. This process has been dealt with in the litera­ ture on translation studies from at least two different perspectives: in the more traditional approach, the equivalence process refers to the semantic, pragmatic and stylistic identity between the two texts, the original text and the target text (e.g. Delisle, 1984; Toury, 1984); this viewpoint, which we may refer to as an extemally-oriented ap­ proach to translation, implies a prescriptive approach towards this process whose starting point is a series of a priori formal criteria that the translator must meet in order to interpret the original text correct­ ly and deliver a good translation; under a more communicative perspective, the equivalence process rendering any translation has a more dynamic nature in the sense that, in this rather intemally-ori­ ented approach (e.g. Nida, 1964; 1976; Seleskovitch, 1976; Rabadán Álvarez, 1991), the reproduction of a message is specially linked and ultimately constrained in a way by the intended interlocutors; that is, the semantic-pragmatic components would weigh more than the mere formal ones in this equivalence process. This last perspective involves then a shift from the text itself towards the speaker and, in particular, towards the speaker the translation is intended for.