l.The system of transfer operations
2. The classification of transfer operations
Transfer operations can be classified in several ways: according to the cause, aim, level, nature, etc. of the operation. Probably because of the complex nature of translation, all existing classifications represent a mixture of the different aspects.
Suffice it to mention "equivalence" as one of the seven main translation "proce
dures” in Vinay and Darbelnet’s system. Before we present our own classification, however, it might be helpful to survey the various possible classifications and to assess their advantages and disadvantages.
2.1. Obligatory and optional transfer operations
We shall distinguish between obligatory and optional transfer operations. Obliga
tory transfer operations are those performed by translators due to the differences between the lexical and grammatical systems of the two languages. These are con
sidered obligatory because without them the translator would produce semantical
ly or grammatically ill-formed sentences. Optional transfer operations are those performed over and above obligatory transfer operations.
This division hides the following pitfalls. It is unclear what the word "obligato
ry” exactly refers to: is it only to the source-language form that must be transformed, or does it also mean that it is obligatory to choose a particular target-language equi
valent. It is important to note that a source-language form to be obligatorily trans
formed (cf. for example, the Hungarian translation of possessive structures in Indo-European languages) can have numerous equivalents in the target-language (possessive adjectival phrase, post-positioned adjectival structure, compound word, etc.), which do not or only partly depend on the source-language form to be trans
formed. In other words, the choice between them is not determined by the source- language form, but by completely different considerations. Even so (and this is a crucial point), such transformations cannot be considered optional transfer opera
tions.
2.2. Automatic and non-automatic transfer operations
We can also make a distinction between automatic and non-automatic transfer operations. Automatic transfer operations are those that are (or should be) obliga
torily performed by translators as a result of differences between the systems of the two languages. In the case of translation from English into Hungarian, transla
tors automatically omit English prepositions and insert Hungarian inflections and postpositions, change word order, etc., while the replacement of infinitives and participles by finite verb phrases in the translation is not always an obligatory trans
fer operation.
2. The classification of transfer operations
Distinguishing automatic transfer operations from the rest is important because if they are always automatically performed their teaching may be unnecessary in translator training. It would be enough to merely call trainees' attention to these operations, and even such awareness-raising might be more interesting for linguists than for trainees. Oddly enough, however, although translators perform some of these transfer operations automatically, sometimes even the simplest transfer opera
tion may cause difficulties, such as the insertion of an article. It often happens in the case of novice translators that they translate Russian tables of contents almost entirely without articles inserting in the Hungarian text. This means that the extent to which a transfer operation may be considered automatic greatly depends on the competence of the translator. For beginner translators even the insertion of an article might not come automatically, while an experienced translator may auto
matically perform such complicated operations as the insertion into the target- language text of a contextual subject recovered from other parts of the text and not present in the given sentence.
2.3. Classification according to level of operation
Transfer operations may be classified according to the level at which they are car
ried out. Thus we may distinguish word-level, phrase-level, sentence-level, and discourse-level transfer operations. Word-level transfer operations refer to the replacement of source-language lexical units with target-language lexical units, phrase-level transfer operations are, for example, changing the word order with
in adjectival phrases, sentence-level transfer operations are, for instance, chang
ing the passive in English into an active structure in the Hungarian translation, and discourse-level transfer operations involve, for example, the unification of subjects, within the paragraph.
The danger of this classification is that many times even a simple passive-active change within a sentence may be determined by the whole text. Of course, there are clear cases of discourse-level transfer operations. These are, for instance, the spec
ification or abbreviation of sentence-initial thematic subjects to maintain coherence in the translation, or the specification of references in the translation of dramatic dialogues. Since the translator may have constant access to the mental representa
tion of the whole text, it is hard to decide at which level a seemingly word-level transfer operation was actually performed.
2.4. Classification according to the scope and cause of the operation
Russian literature on translation theory (Retsker 1974, Barkhudarov 1975, Shveitser 1973) usually makes a distinction between lexical, grammatical, and potentially stylistic or pragmatic transfer operations. Lexical transfer operations are the following: (1) differentiation and specification (identifying the context-bound sense of a polysemous source-language word and then selecting an equivalent with a nar
rower sense for the target-language text), (2) generalisation (using a target-language item with a wider sense than the source-language item), (3) conceptual expansion
(e.g., the replacement of a word denoting the cause of a process in the source-lan
guage with a word that denotes its consequence in the target-language), (4) antony- mous translation (rendering a source-language word by a negated target-language word which is opposite in meaning to the source-language word), (5) total trans
formation (the replacement of a source-language word with a target-language word that carries a completely different meaning), (6) compensation (rendering the meaning of a source-language word at a different place, using different means) (Retsker 1974).
Grammatical transfer operations are generally grouped into four categories:
(1) replacements, (2) transpositions, (3) insertions, (4) omissions. Within these four categories, depending on language pair and the direction of the translation, several subgroups may be identified (Vaseva 1980).
We have also mentioned stylistic and pragmatic transfer operations. Stylis
tic transfer operations are necessitated by the requirements of the genre or text type. Even though Russian-Hungarian translations are often characterised by the transfer operation that change the passive verbs into the active, this operation can
not be performed without considering the genre. Although in literary translations it is desirable to perform this change, in scientific texts one must not forget that Hungarian academic prose also tends to sound impersonal, in the same way as English or Russian. The only difference is that it reaches this impersonal tone using different means, and not the passive or nominal phrases. According to this view, the choice between the various forms of expressing impersonality in Hungarian (e.g., first and third person plural verb form, infinitive) may be considered to be a stylistic transfer operation.
Pragmatic transfer operations are necessitated by the requirements of the tar
get-language culture. Although, for instance, Russian diminutive suffixes can easily be translated into Hungarian using morphological devices (teácska. vizecske.
vodkácska. vagonoçska etc.), if the use of the diminutive suffix in Hungarian is considerably less common than in Russian, then the number of people who would use it will also be lower both with respect to sex and age. Middle-aged men in Hun
gary, for example, cannot use diminutive suffixes, because it would not suggest the informal relationship between them as in Russian: it would make them sound childish and simple-minded instead. In such cases, the author’s intention should be rendered by other means, i.e., by the use of pragmatic transfer operations, or pragmatic "adaptation”.
The classification according to lexical, grammatical, pragmatic, and stylistic transfer operations also suffers from certain weaknesses. What do "lexical” or
"grammatical” transfer operations exactly refer to? Do they refer to the scope or to the cause of the operation? If they refer to its scope, then all the transfer opera
tions, which affect the lexical elements of the sentence, can be considered lexical irrespective of the cause of the operation. If they refer to its cause, then all the transfer operations, which are triggered by the different lexico-semantical systems of the two languages, may be called lexical, even if they affect several words.
The same dilemma applies to the term "grammatical transfer operations”. If they refer to scope of operation, then all the transfer operations, which affect the grammatical structure of the sentence, can be considered as grammatical ones, inde
pendently of the cause of the operation. If they refer to cause of operation, then all the transfer operations, which are caused by the different grammatical systems
2. The classification of transfer operations
of the two languages may be called grammatical, even if they affect only one word in the sentence.
The status of stylistic and pragmatic transfer operations is also unclear in this classification, because genre-specific and cultural differences are manifested in the lexical units and grammatical structure selected for the target-language sentence.
This calls our attention to the paradox that lexical correspondences which cannot be found in bilingual dictionaries become examples illustrating stylistic and prag
matic transfer operations.
2.5. Classification according to the manner of operation
The problem whether the nature or the cause of the operation should serve the basis of classification is solved to a certain extent by Barkhudarov, who categorises transfer operations based on the manner in which they are performed, i.e., based on their "technical performance”: transposition (perestanovka), replacement (zamena), omission (opushchenie), and addition (dobavlenie); and within these categories he distinguishes lexical or grammatical replacements, lexical and gram
matical insertions, etc. (Barkhudarov 1975: 191). This classification forms the basis of the operational typology discussed below.
2.6. What can be considered a transfer operation?
The most important question is what exactly may be considered a transfer opera
tion? Can all the operations carried out by the translator to transform the source- language text into the target-language text be regarded as transfer operations, or should we narrow down the scope of transfer operations?
There are two ways to "narrow” it down. One of them regards those operations as transformations (or transpositions, etc.), which must be performed by the trans
lator as a result of the lexical and grammatical differences between the systems of the two languages (Vinay and Darbelnet 1958, Catford 1965, Newmark 1982).
The other view narrows the scope even further: according to this view, the opera
tions which are performed due to the differences between the systems of the lan
guages should also be excluded, since they must be carried out anyway and trans
lators perform them automatically. Only those operations are worth researching which are not induced by differences between language systems, but by differ
ences in stylistic traditions, or are made necessary because of the expectations of target-language audiences, etc.
In this regard we shall adopt the broader view of transfer operations: all opera
tions conducted by the translator in order to transform the source-language text into the target-language text are considered transfer operations. The following two questions are related to this issue.
Question 1: Is it worth dealing with obligatory transfer operations (e.g., chang
ing the word order in translating possessive structures from English, German, and Russian into Hungarian and vice versa), knowing that without such transforma
tions the translator cannot produce a well-formed target-language sentence, so he/she has to perform them anyway?
We believe that the obligatory nature of transfer operations only means the ability to distance oneself from the source-language text and not to actually select the target-language equivalent. In the case of obligatory transfer operations, the only thing that is clear for the translator is that "this way is not viable”; but the way leading to the best solution out of several alternatives will depend on a num
ber of factors.
Question 2: Is it worth dealing with transfer operations generally performed on an automatic basis by translators (e.g., the insertion of an article when translat
ing from a language which does not use articles into one that does, omission of the object in translating into Hungarian made possible by the existence in Hungarian of the transitive declension, etc.)?
In our opinion, dealing with automatic transfer operations is worth the effort partly because for novice translators many operations are not automatic, and part
ly because an interesting asymmetry can be observed with regard to automaticity depending on the direction of translation. It often happens that the insertion of a particular grammatical category is automatic in one direction (e.g., the insertion of the personal pronoun in translating from Hungarian into English, French, Ger
man, and Russian) whereas its omission is not automatic in the other direction.
2.7. The operational typology developed in this book
Now that we have decided to treat every change that the translator carries out in order to "transform” the source text into the target text as a transfer operation, we must also decide what basis we shall use for a typology of operations. One possible classification, as mentioned before, divides transfer operations into word-level, phrase-level, sentence-level, and discourse-level operations. In our view, these lev
els are extremely hard to distinguish in the process of translation. Thus, we must specify whether we are looking at translation as a product or as a process. If we speak about translation as a product, we may legitimately investigate at which lev
el equivalence is realised (Komissarov 1980, Baker 1992). If, however, we speak about translation as a process, it is very hard to determine the various levels of the translator's decisions, i.e., to identify the exact level at which the selection of the target-language equivalents took place. Therefore, the "level of decision” does not serve as a basis for classification: it is only taken in providing explanations.
Another possible classification divides transfer operations into lexical, grammati
cal, stylistic, and pragmatic transfer operations. Here we must note first of all that the terms "lexical” and "grammatical” in this context are ambiguous. They may refer to the scope of the operation (depending on whether it affects the lexical or gram
matical elements of the sentence) or to the cause of the operation (the lexical or grammatical differences between the systems of the two languages). This ambiguity, however, cannot and need not be avoided, since it reflects an ambiguity that exists in reality. As will be seen later in this book, one of the interpretations (scope) is used in the classification, in determining the two main types, while the other interpreta
tion (cause) is used in explaining the operations and providing a rationale for them.
As regards the status of stylistic or pragmatic transfer operations, these may be claimed not to exist by themselves, since they can only be manifested in lexical or grammatical changes. Therefore, in this case it is the cause of the operation that
2. The classification of transfer operations
counts and not its nature. Thus, we do not consider stylistic or pragmatic aspects starting points either, we only take them into consideration in the explanations.
Finally, it was decided that confusion among the various aspects can only be avoided if we concentrate on the "operational" nature of transfer operations, and the manner of their performance; this means that their "technical performance”
will serve as the basis for classification. Therefore the cornerstones of our typology will be the following operations: broadening, narrowing, contraction, division, omission, addition, transposition and replacement.
2.8. Main types and types
In the description of the types of the above operations it was possible to clearly distinguish lexical operations from operations affecting grammatical structure.
By way of illustration, let us take the case of addition. If the word folyó (‘river’) is inserted into the text next to the name of a river, (due to lacking background knowledge on the part of the target-language reader), this will be categorised as lexical addition, since it does not affect the structure of the sentence. If, however, a multicomponential nominal phrase is "eased” by the addition of the present par
ticiple folyó (‘going on 3) then it will obviously be regarded as a grammatical trans
fer operation affecting the structure of the sentence, even if only one word is inserted into the text of the translation.
This made the distinction between lexical and grammatical transfer operations relatively simple. The only question that remained to be decided is whether lexical and grammatical transfer operations should be distinguished within transfer oper
ations as main types (e.g., whether within addition one should distinguish between lexical addition and grammatical addition), or the individual transfer operations should be classified as types under the two main types, the lexical and grammatical transfer operations. Finally, the latter version was chosen, and within lexical and grammatical transfer operations as the two main types, we identified ten types of lexical and seven types of grammatical transfer operations.
Main types (classification according to the scope of the operation) 1. Lexical transfer operations
2. Grammatical transfer operations
Types (classification according to manner of performance) The types of lexical transfer operations
1.1. Narrowing of meaning (differentiation and specification) 1.2. Broadening of meaning (generalisation)
1.3. Contraction of meanings 1.4. Distribution of meaning 1.5. Omission of meaning 1.6. Addition of meaning 1.7. Exchange of meaning 1.8. Antonymous translation 1.9. Total transformation 1.10. Compensation
2. The types of grammatical transfer operations