The Issue Of Literal Translation Revisited: A Holistic Approach

Literal translation, one of the basic concepts in Translation Studies,tends to be dimmed by other concepts of a similar nature and calls fordeep ontological research. However, relevant previous research on literaltranslation mostly adopted a one-fold perspective or straight-line model,which is far from comprehensive and systematic. This paper adopts aholistic approach to the epistemological aspects, manifestations andvalues of literal translation. First, it explores the developmental process ofliteral translation so as to shed light on its nature and connotation. Thestudy shows that translation theorists throughout the translation historyaddressed literal translation from five major epistemological perspectives:classical rationalism, objective idealism, linguistic ontology,communicative rationality and deconstructionism. Then, it discussesliteral translation at the morphological, syntactic and semantic levels andfinds that the manifestations of literal translation include phonemic loanand formal loan at the morphological level, syntax borrowing at thesyntactic level and concept borrowing at the semantic level. It alsoexplores the values of literal translation from linguistic, cognitive andcultural perspectives. It is concluded that on the linguistic front, literaltranslation conduces to the realization of evolutionary processespertaining to the target language, and the target language in turn has theopportunity to enrich itself; on the cognitive front, literal translation canintroduce new concepts into the target language, bridge the semantic gapand then facilitate the target language in establishing cognitive models;and on the cultural front, foreign cultures can be introduced into the targetculture by means of literal translation, and as a consequencemulti-cultural communication and blending are made possible. Finally,case studies are applied to demonstrate how such manifestations play their roles in intercultural communication. Backed up by historicalanalysis, conceptual research, comparative and contrastive approaches,this paper is intended to discuss literal translation in an objective mannerand provide theoretical underpinnings for making the most of literaltranslation in an efficient fashion.