Fidelity And Transparency
Translation is a process that interprets a language and changes it into a different language. N the process the meaning remains same. The translation happens from the source text to the target language; leading to target text.
While going forward with translation, it is important to note the constraints that are integral to the particular context, along with the rules of grammar for both the languages. Emphasis over the conventions and idioms too should be well established. It has been hypothetically believed that the act of translation is possible between every language. However there are various challenges and difficulties. As for instance to translate content from Chinese to English, there are innumerable challenges that a translator face.
In this paper the basic concern is to discover these challenges. With special emphasis over the theme of fidelity vs. transparency, the context of translating Chinese to English will be placed.
Fidelity and Transparency
The theme of fidelity or the ethical notion of faithfulness, and the essence of transparency are the two basic themes that are very much interrelated to each other. These are the two determined qualities that are considered as ideals in dealing with translations particularly in case of literary translation. The characteristic feature of fidelity is very appropriate in terms of extending translation more accurately and to render the right meaning of the concerned source text. This needs to be done without adding or subtracting anything from the core concept; and without weakening or intensifying any part of the respective meaning. In short without any kind of distortion of the meaning or context expressed in the source text. On the other hand the act of transparency is to accept the extension of translation as per the appearance that persists. It needs to suit the native speaker of the particulaized target language, in order to identify the original script written in that language. It is through transparency that the translation can conform to a language’s grammatical, added syntactic and above all idiomatic conventions. As a matter of fact translation must meet the criterion of being a “faithful translation” with enough fidelity. This must be established by the addition of second criterion of “idiomatic translation” to gain transparency. Though these two qualities are not under any compulsion of mutual exclusiveness, yet the involvement of both is very important in a piece of translation.
The measures through which the characteristic feature of fidelity and transparency can be assessed; vary as per different subjects, languages and content in particular. The variations also follow the type, established function and the appropriate use of text with its literary qualities under social as well as historical context.
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