Blackwell Reference Online

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Translation is an act that involves the transfer of texts written in one language into another. The Latin root of the English word ‘translation’ implies relocation, translatus being the past participle of the verb transferre , ‘to carry across’. Early uses of the term were both figurative and literal: just as a book could be translated from one language to another, so also could a body be translated from one place to another and, in a religious context, be translated from the earthly to the heavenly. It is important to acknowledge that there is an implicit spatial relationship involved in the act of translation, for in translating there is always both a starting point and a destination or, as contemporary translation theorists define it, a source and a target. Translation is a kind of textual journey from one context into another. What distinguishes translation from other kinds of writing is precisely the dual relationship involved in that journeying. There is always a source in translation, an original text, and the act of translating involves the transformation of that source into something other, into a text that can be read by a completely new set of readers, in another time and another place. Were the original not to exist, translation could not happen, but the existence of a source means that the translator is involved in a more complex relationship with texts and readers ... log in or subscribe to read full text