4.3 Semantic vs communicative translation part 3

Newmark argued that the vast majority of texts require a communicative rather than a semantic translation. He suggested that the communicative approach is to be adopted for most non-literary writing, textbooks, technical writing, popular fiction, propaganda, whereas the semantic approach is to be adopted for texts ‘where the specific language of the speaker or writer is as important as the content’. Indeed, for Newmark, ‘any important statement requires a version as close to the original lexical and grammatical structure as is obtainable’ (Newmark, 1981, p. 44). The example he provides is of Charles de Gaulle’s 18 June 1940 broadcast and adds that autobiography, private correspondence and any personal effusion requires ‘semantic treatment’ since the ‘intimate flavour of the original is more important than its effect on the reader’ (1981, p. 45).

Which approach you choose to adopt will undoubtedly depend on the translations you have to deal with. Often as a first draft, it feels natural to work semantically, e.g. from the smaller units and then build up into something more communicative, but there are many ways of tackling material for translation. At times, you might want to spell things out more literally and then a semantic approach might be more appropriate.

Now, if you would like to try the activity the other way round, it will enable you to practise doing both a semantic and a communicative translation into any language you speak. For each expression in the English source text in the first column, do a semantic translation (i.e. translate it word for word) into your other language. Then, in the communicative translation column, see if you can think of a more idiomatic way to say it in that language. If you are not sure, you can look it up online!