Type, Kind and Individuality of Text: Decision Making in Translation

1. Interlingual translation may be defined as a bilingual mediated process of communication, which ordinarily aims at the production of a TL text that is functionally equivalent to a SL text (2 media: SL and TL + 1 medium: the translator, who becomes a secondary sender; thus translating: secondary communication.) 1.1.1. The use of two natural languages as well as the employment of the medium of the translator necessarily and naturally result in a change of message during the process. The theoretician of communication, Otto Haseloff (1969), has pointed out that an ideal communication is rare even when one single language is employed, because the addressee always brings his own knowledge and his own expectations, which are different from those of the addresser. H.F. Plett (1975) calls this factor the communicative difference. In translating, such differences are, of course, to be taken for granted even more. At this point I distinguish between intentional and unintentional changes affecting the translation. Unintentional changes may arise from the different language structures as well as from differences in translating competence.