Translation At The Textual Level

Text linguistics is a new and rapidly expanding area of linguistic research. Its research scope extends beyond the minimal units (words/phrases) or syntactic rules to focus on the properties of whole texts and their functions in communication. Since translation is often positioned at the textual level, this theory has its empirical implications in translation. Based on numerous practical cases and various most related theories (text linguistics, functional approaches to translation, Skopostheorie, communicative equivalence, pragmatics, functional grammar, etc.), the thesis develops a model for the analysis of the elements of the source text & target text in translation. The elements to be analyzed in this model include the external elements & the internal elements of source text & target text; The external elements of the source text analyzed cover the contexts (situational context & cultural context) in which the source text has been produced, the text sender/producer, intentions of the message sender /text producer, acceptability by the recipients; in parallel, the external elements of the target text analyzed include the context in which the target text has been initiated and produced, the intentions of the translation initiator, acceptability by the translation users; the internal elements of the source text and target text to be analyzed cover the register, linguistic context, organization/structure, cohesion, coherence, intertextuality, text type and miscellaneous elements as might be required in the translation process. The model is operational in practice and can serve as a checklist for the analysis of the elements in translation at the textual level.The translation can be compared to the construction of a building. The construction starts with materials in pieces, but behind this is overall design and planning. In the process of construction, the workers refer frequently to the overall design. The practical translating activity also starts with words, phrases and sentences, but if a masterpiece translation is aimed at, the translator must have the whole picture of the text in mind as guidance and as the primary objective.