Shanghai foreign language education press

A TEXTBOOK OF 
TRANSLATION
Peter Newmark
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*MRtt
SHANGHAI FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION PRESS

9787810801232 

A Textbook of Translation
Peter Newmark
SHANGHAI FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION PRESS

A Textbook of 
Translation
Peter Newmark
Prentice Hall
NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY TOKYO

First published 1988 by
Prentice HaH International vUIO Ltd.
66 Wood Lane End, Heme! Hempstead.
Hertfordshire, HP2 4RG
A division of
Simon &i Schuster International Group
(0 1988 Prentke Hall International >XK ' Ltd
All rights reserved. No pan of this publication may be reproduced. 
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any 
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, 
without the prior permission, in writing, from the publisher. For 
permission within the United States of America contact Prentice Hall 
Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632.
All reasonable steps have been taken to contact copyright holders of 
materials used in this book. The Publisher would be pleased to make 
suitable arrangements with any whom it has not been possible to 
reach.
Printed and bound in Great Britain bv A. 
Wheaton & Co. Ltd, Kxeter
Library of Congress Catahging-in-Pubiicariitn Data
Newmark, Peter
A textbook of translation,
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
L Translating and interpreting. L Title. 
P306.N474 1987 
418 .02 
86-30593
ISBNO-B-912593-Oipbk.)
British Library Cataloguing in Pubhcauon Data
Newmark. Peter
A textbook of translation.
1. Translating and interpreting
[.Title
418,02 
P306
ISBN 0-13-912593-0
Published by arrangement with Pearson Education Limited.
Licenced for sale in the People's Republic of China only, excluding Hong Kong

A Textbook of 
Translation

For my daughter Clare

Preface
This book has been five years in the writing. Sections of it have twice been stolen 
during travel and have been rewritten, hopeniliy better than the first time - the fond 
hope of ail writers who have had their MSS lost, stolen or betrayed. Its 'progress' has 
been further interrupted by requests for papers for conferences; four of these papers 
have been incorporated; others, listed in the bibliography are too specialised for 
inclusion here. It is not a conventional textbook. Instead of offering, as originally 
planned, texts in various languages for you to translate, I have supplied in the 
appendices examples of translational text analyses, translations with commentaries and 
translation criticism. They are intended to be helpful illustrations of many points made 
in the book, and models for you to react against when you do these three stimulating 
types of exercise.
If the book has a unifying element, it is the desire to be useful to the translator, Its 
various theories are only generalisations of translation practices. The points I make are 
for you to endorse or to reject, or simply think about.
The special terms I use are explained in the text and in the glossary.
I hope you will read this book in conjunction with its predecessor, Approaches to 
Translation, of which it is in many respects an expansion as well as a revision; in 
particular, the treatment of institutional terms and of metalanguage is more extensive 
in the earlier than in this book.
I dislike repeating myself writing or speaking, and for this reason I have 
reproduced say the paper on case grammar, about which at present I haven't much 
more to say, and which isn't easily come by.
This book is not written by a scholar, I once published a controversial piece on 
Corneille's Horace in French Studies, and was encouraged to work for a doctorate, but 
there was too much in the making that didn't interest me, so 1 gave up. And a German 
professor refused to review Approaches because it had so many mistakes in the 
bibliography; which is regrettable (he was asked to point them out, but refused; later, 
he changed his mind and reviewed the book), but academic detail is not the essential 
of that or this book either.
I am somewhat of a itteralist', because I am for truth and accuracy. I think that 
words as well as sentences and texts have meaning, and that you only deviate from 
literal translation when there are good semantic and pragmatic reasons for doing so, 
which is more often than not, except in grey texts. But that doesn't mean,
xt

xn
I'BEFACh
as Alex Brothenon (Amsterdam) has disparagingly written without evidence, that I 
believe in the * absolute primacy of the word
1
. There are no absolutes in translation, 
everything is conditional, any principle (e.g. accuracy) may be in opposition to another 
(e.g, economy) or at least there may be tension between them.
Much as at times I should like to get rid of the two bugbears of translation, the 
dear old context and the dear old readership, alas, we never can. lean only go as far as 
saying that some words in a text are far less context-bound than others; and that some 
readerships (say of a set of instructions, of which the readership is the reason for its 
existence) are more important than others (say a lyric, where the poet and his translator) 
may only be writing for himself.
Again when Halliday writes that language is entirely a social phenomenon and 
consequently collapses or conflates Biihler's expressive and appellative functions of 
language into the interpersonal function, stating that there is no distinction between the 
first two functions in language, I can only say that this is a matter of beliefor 
philosophy as the expression of belief, and that I disagree. But all this is to some extent 
a matter of emphasis (and reaction) rather than (diametrical) opposition. The single 
word is getting swamped in the discourse and the individual in the mass of society -1 
am trying to reinstate them both, to redress the balance. If people express themselves 
individually in a certain type of text, translators must also express themselves 
individually, even if they are told they are only reacting to, and therefore conforming 
with, social discourse conventions of the time.
Writing a book about translation, 1 am aware that this is a new profession, 
though an old practice, and that the body of knowledge and of assumptions that exists 
about translation is tentative, often controversial and fluctuating.
This book is intended to be reasonably comprehensive, that is, to discuss most of 
the issues and problems that come up in translating. (In this aim, at least, the book is 
original.) In spite of the controversial nature of several of its chapters, it is therefore 
designed as a kind of reference book for translators. However, some of the shorter 
pieces in Chapter 18 are inadequate and can only offer you a few pointers. I hope to 
expand the book (my last one on translation) for a second edition, and I would 
welcome suggestions for its improvement,
Acknowledgements
I warmly thank Pauline Newmark, Elizabeth Newmark and Matthew Newmark, whom 
I have consulted so frequently; Vaughan James, who has helped so much at every 
stage; Vera North, who coped so superbly with the ins and outs of my handwriting; 
Mary FitzGerald; Sheila Silcock; Margaret Rogers, Louise Hurren; Mary Harrison; 
Simon Chau, Hans Lindquist, Rene Dirben, Robin Trew, Harold Leyrer, David 
Harvey.

Contents
Preface 
xi
Acknowledgements 
xii