9. Translation as a process and communication
Translation as a process: T is a complex dichotomous (раздвоенный) and cumulative process, which involves a host of activities drawing upon other disciplines related to language, writing, linguistics and culture. This multi-disciplinary process suggests that three major activities run concomitantly (параллельно):
Transfer of data from the source lang-ge to the target lang-ge.
Synchroanalysis of text and translation and research of subject matter.
Continuous self-development and learning.
Translation as communication: T is a communication process, which involves the transfer of a message from a source lang-ge to a target lang-ge. Text linguistics, which is concerned with the ways the parts of text are organized and related to one another in order to form a meaningful whole, is useful for analysis of the translation process and the transfer of meaning from one lang-ge to another. De Beaugrande and Dressier (1981) define the text as a communicative occurance, which meets seven standards of textuality. These standards of textual communication are cohesion (сочленение, единство – means that every part of the text has the place in it according to the informative importance it possesses and the role it plays eliciting the purpose of the author), coherence (состыковывание, последовательность – all sorts of connectives, that register the position of the meaningful parts of the text), intentionality, acceptability, informativity, situationality, and intertextuality. However, according to Widdowson (1979) a text cannot be an occurrence since it has no mechanism of its own, but can only be achieved by a human agency. It doesn’t itself communicate but rather provides the means of achieving communication. Moreover, Hatim defines a text as a stretch of linguistic material, which maps on the surface a set of mutually relevant communicative intentions.
NB: T should possess adequacy and equivalence.
Translation and the peculiarities of the communicative situation.
Translation may be viewed as an interlingual communicative act in which at least three participants are involved: the sender (the author of the SL message), the translator  (intermediary) who acts in dual capacity – as the receptor of the SL message and as the sender of the equivalent TL message), and the recipient of the TL message (translation). If the original was not intended for a foreign-language recipient, there is one more participant: the SL recipient for whom the message was originally produced. Translation as such consists in producing a text (message) in the TL, equivalent to the original text (message) in the SL. Translation as an interlingual communicative act includes two phrases: communication btw the sender and the translator and communication between the translator and the recipient of the newly produced TL text. In the first phase the translator, acting as a SL recipient, analyses the original msg, extracting the information contained in it. In the second stage, the translator acts as a TL sender, producing an equivalent message in the TL and re-directing it to the TL recipient. In producing the TL text the translator changes its plan of expression (linguistic form) while its plan of content (meaning) should remain unchanged. In fact, an equivalent (TL) message should match the original in the plane of content. The msg, produced by the translator, should evoke practically the same response in the TL recipient as the original message in the SL recipient. That means, above all, that whatever the text says and whatever it implies should be understood in the same way by both the SL user for whom it was originally intended and by the TL user. It is therefore the translator’s duty to make available to the TL recipient the maximum amount of information, carried by linguistic signs, including both their denotational (referential) meanings (i.e. information about the extralinguistic reality which they denote) and their emotive-stylistic connotations. Communicative situation (таблица) presupposes (1) factors of communicative competence and (2) additional factors influencing communication. (1) can be: a) universal human factors (time and space); b) linguistically conditioned factors (cultural background). (2) can be: a) specific human factors (age, gender); b) socially conditioned factors; c) individual human factors.