1. Basic Definitions

2. Text? Dickins et. al. (2006:6) define text as:
“Text Any given stretch of speech or writing assumed to make a coherent whole. A minimal text may consist of a single word - for instance, the road sign قف 'stop' - provided this is construed as an independent message. A maximal text may run into thousands of pages.

3. Text
Minimal
Maximal
One word
Thousands of pages

4. Source Text (ST) The text requiring translation.
Target Text (TT) The text which is a translation of the ST.
Source Language (SL) The language in which the ST is spoken or written.

5. Target Language (TL) The language into which the ST is to be translated.
Strategy: The translator's overall 'game-plan', consisting of a set of strategic decisions taken after an initial reading of the ST, but before starting detailed translation.

6. Types of translation
1. Word-for-word translation (also called Literal translation or direct translation), refers to the rendering of text from one language to another one word at a time. This type of translation may convey the sense of the original.

7. It is commonly used to translate technical, scientific, technological or legal texts.

8. One word at a time
Try to translate the following into Arabic adopting word-for word translation strategy:
I like swimming.
He is a teacher.
Attempt to translate the following into English:
أحمد مدرس.
الطيور على أشكالها تقع.

9. Problems with this type of translation:
It can be full of errors because the translator does not make any effort to deliver the correct correct idioms or shades of meaning.

10. 2. Interlinear translation
At the extreme of SL bias is interlinear translation, where the IT does not necessarily respect 1L grammar, but has grammatical units corresponding as closely as possible to every grammatical unit of the ST.

11. Example

12. 3. Free translation
At the opposite extreme, where there is maximum TL bias, is free translation.
In this type of translation, the translator seeks to achieve a global correspondence between the textual units of the ST and those of the TT.

13. Example:
اللي فات مات is translated as ‘let bygones be bygones’.

14. 4. Semantic vs. Communicative
Newmark (1981:39) defines semantic translation an communicative translation as:
Communicative translation attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original. Semantic translation attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the original.

15. Communicative translation attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original.

16. Semantic translation attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the original.

17. Example: أنا وزوجي مقطوعين من شجرة يعني طنجرة ولقيت غطاها
Translate the above semantically and communicatively:

18. We’re like a pot having found its lid. (Semantic)
We’re a perfect match. (communicative)