The role of a translator in the translation process was defined a long time ago, yet, it is not always clear that the relationships of translation equivalence are entirely translator-depended. This means that a translator not only applies already existing equivalence relationships (potential translation equivalence), but he also creates such. The concept of translation transformation, mostly encountered in works by Russian authors, is used relatively rarely; however, it may be applied to illustrate the way a translator creates relationships of translation equivalence. It is also an instrument used to explain the phenomenon of creativity in translation and individual aspects of translator's input. Descriptions of translation transformations, present in literature, in the author's opinion, require some improvement, particularly in relation to the classification of types of translation transformations. This paper presents a new proposal for such a classification.
The starting point for determining the nature of translation epistemology, which develops in parallel to the philosophical theory of cognition, is to distinguish an internal epistemology that permeates the field of translation communication – one of the varieties of verbal textual communication. Its goals are cognitive and exploratory. Cognition refers to the essence of translational communication, exploration refers to the forms differentiating this type of communication. I define translation as the interlingual re-editing of a ready text; and in the space of textual communication it generates seven fundamental components: 1. foreign-language originals or foreign-language translations, 2. mental translations (paratexts), 3. complete translations, 4. fragmentary translations, 5. translation-like structures, 6. translational reflections, and 7. translational fantasies. In this area the epistemology of translation is equivalent to the documentalist’s epistemology. For the translator, any textual structure, subjected to interlingual re-editing, becomes a document as well as a task. In the process of translation, cognitive activity is intertwined with praxeological one, the acquisition of knowledge is combined with the improvement of the craft of translation, the concurrence of cognition and skill prevails. The whole epistemological activity of translators and translation scholars, implicit and explicit, consists in the fact that the translator repeats the hypothetical path of the original author, while the translation scholar repeats bot the hypothetical path of the translator and the hypothetical path of the original author.
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