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Revisiting Newmark's Theory of Translation: To What Extent Is It Appropriate?

Asep Budiman, Student no. 202111080020

Abstract

One of the main problems of translating has often been whether to translate literally or freely. This dispute has been going on since at least the first century BC. Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, many writers favored some kind of "free" translation: the spirit, not the letter; the sense not the words; the message rather than the form; the matter not the manner. This was the revolutionary slogan of writers who wanted the truth to be read and comprehended. At the twentieth century, when the study of cultural anthropology suggested that the linguistic barriers were insuperable and that language was entirely the product of culture, the translation must be as literal as possible. This resulted in confusion among translators when translating a text, not until they were illuminated by Peter Newmark’s Approaches to Translation. Newmark's idea has been widely used on translator training courses and combine a wealth of practical examples of linguistic theories of meaning with practical applications for translation. However, in this twenty-first century where translation becomes more complex (e.g. political agenda), Newmark's theory seems to have deficiency as it does not pay attention to the role of the translators. Therefore, the translation theory needs to be broadened to take account of the value-driven of the socio-cultural framework. The aim of the present paper is to provide a critical evaluation of Newmark's theory of translation and to suggest a new theory. It is concluded that the Newmark's theory lacks some important criteria to really reach appropriate translation in some cases. Finally, the "Appropriateness Theory" proposed by Woesler (2021) comes to perfect the previous theories and to meet the demands of this twenty-first century translation.

Key words

Newmark's translation theory, 21st century translation, appropriateness theory

Introduction

Peter Newmark is one of the most influential theorists of translation. He is also one of the founders of the Institute of Linguists and a fervent advocate for the professionalization of translators. Newmark was once professor of Translation and dean of the School of Modern Languages at the Royal Polytechnic Institution (now the University of Westminster). He taught the theory and practice of translation between German and English, and later taught at the University of Surrey. His opinions on translation theory were mostly reflected in papers published between the 1970s and 1990s, some of which were compiled into collections.

Approaches to Translation, his most important work, was published in 1981, some of his other works includes About Translation, 1991, Paragraphs on translation, 1993, More paragraphs on Translation, 1998 and A Textbook of Translation, 1988. Newmark’s works involve a wide range of problems, and their contents are numerous and complex. Newmark devoted himself to studying the past and present of Western translation. By describing the ideas of various schools, he extensively discussed the relationship between translation and other disciplines, putting forward his own views on this basis.

Newmark's works do not aim to promote any monolithic translation theory but rather attempt to describe a basis for dealing with problems encountered during the translation process. More specifically, Newmark replaces Nida's terms of formal and dynamic equivalence with semantic and communicative translation respectively. The major difference between the two types of translation proposed by Newmark is that semantic translation focuses on meaning whereas communicative translation concentrates on effect. In other words, semantic translation looks back at the ST and tries to retain its characteristics as much as possible. Its nature is more complex, detailed and there is also a tendency to over-translate. On the other hand, communicative translation looks towards the needs of the addressees, thus trying to satisfy them as much as possible. In this respect, communicative translation tends to under-translate; to be smoother, more direct and easier to read. Hence, in semantic translation a great emphasis is placed on the author of the original text whereas communicative translation is meant to serve a larger readership. It should be pointed out that during the translation process, communicative translation need not be employed exclusively over semantic or vice versa. It may well be the case in a literary text that a particular sentence requires communicative translation whereas another sentence from the same text may require a semantic one. Therefore, the two methods of translation may be used in parallel, with varying focuses where each is employed.