Theory in translation

All the existing translation theories can be divided into three phases till nowadays:

a) prelinguistic phase (till twentieth century): philological and philosophical approach from translators that tried to analyze their work deeper;

b) linguistic phase (till 60th): systematic and actual analysis of translation ability in language;

c) metalinguistic phase (last twenty years): attempt to synthesize the previous approaches from the point of view of translator taking into account the achievements of new sciences (semiotics, communication theory, textology etc…).

The try to synthesize the existing knowledge, if we limit ourselves with the present epoch, will easily give an answer to practitioners and to theorist on linguistic thesis on translation, as linguistic phenomena and empiric antithesis postulate the subjective character of translation activity.

Today we can say for sure that we are approaching the unique and universal theory of translation. Undoubtedly, because of the complexity of such phenomenon as translation there are researchers that prefer either linguistic elements or cognitive content; either anthropological aspects or literary nuances etc. But now a lot of people, despite the theory and terminology used, agree that in translation it is necessary, despite the multiple approaches to study the translation, to analyze the so called phenomena, that: 1) comes to meaning transfer from one text containing the semantic and the stylistic elements; 2) finds and materialize the expressed idea; 3) aims at communication; 4) is understandable during the interpretation.

It is clear that from the very beginning such unique phenomena as translation the scientists literally put under a microscope, impressed by the complexity of the notion. And it is easy to explain that other sciences, connected with language in particular or with humanity in general, tried to analyze separate aspects of this phenomena, taking into account that that these phenomena can be explained just in unity. Taking into account all the said above, it is possible to say that today a new science is being developed – translation science. Here we have a subject, the methods of work are being worked out, and the translation science is developing itself as a separate branch of science.