the translation thesis

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• > The Cambridge Handbook of Translation
• > Theories of Translation

Book contents

• The Cambridge Handbook of Translation
• Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
• Copyright page
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I The Nature of Translation
• 1 Theories of Translation
• 2 The Translation Process
• 3 Translation and Technology
• 4 Self-Translation
• 5 Translated Text
• Part II Translation in Society
• Part III Translation in Company
• Part IV Translation in Practice: Factual Genres
• Part V Translation in Practice: Arts
• Part VI Translation in History

1 - Theories of Translation

from Part I - The Nature of Translation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2022

Chapter 1 discusses the nature of theory, how theory can be applied, and the interaction among theories. The last issue is especially important for a discipline like translation studies, which interacts in a variety of ways with other disciplines, as Part III highlights. The chapter takes us from St Jerome in his study at the end of the fourth decade of the Christian Era, when he was commissioned by Pope Damasus to revise the existing Latin translation of the Old Testament, through early and towards contemporary theories of the translation endeavour, and towards the terminology that has been developed along the way, to pinpoint the discipline’s important concepts, considerations and approaches.

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• Theories of Translation
• By Jeremy Munday
• Edited by Kirsten Malmkjær , University of Leicester
• Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Translation
• Online publication: 10 March 2022
• Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108616119.002

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English and Comparative Literary Studies

Ma in literary translation studies dissertation.

All students doing the MA in Literary Translation Studies Studies are required to complete a dissertation of approximately 16,000 words . The MA dissertation offers students the chance to undertake and complete one of two forms of sustained research project: either a) a dissertation of the more conventional variety, where the student undertakes research into an area of translation theory and practice and argues a thesis, supporting it with evidence or b) a literary translation accompanied by an extended piece of critical writing (a translation commentary).

The dissertation represents a substantial piece of work, and you should be aware of the fact that it will require significant input from you throughout the year. You should start thinking about the general area in which you would like to do your research from the beginning of the academic year and discuss it with the MALTS Convenor (and, where appropriate, with other members of staff) as soon as possible, since you will be expected to submit a dissertation proposal to the MALTS Convenor ([email protected]) by the end of Week 9 in Term 1. Students who opt to do a dissertation in the form of a literary translation accompanied by an extended commentary should begin to identify an appropriate source text or texts at an early stage. Depending on the language from which you work, source texts may be difficult to access; for this reason, you should plan ahead to allow time for delivery/access.

If the student opts for b) then the translation should be a minimum of 5000 and a maximum of 6000 words (which is approximately one-third of the total length of the dissertation), with the commentary constituting the bulk of the dissertation length at a minimum of 10,000 and a maximum of 11,000 words. Students who wish to translate poetry may agree a different weighting of translation and commentary with their supervisor(s). The translation should be into a language that can be read by the dissertation supervisor(s). This will normally mean that the translation will be into English. The student should include a copy of the source text as an appendix to the completed translation with commentary, clearly marking the appendix as such. Please note that the source text does not count towards the length of the dissertation.

There will be a compulsory workshop on the translation with commentary in Term 1. Please note that the commentary, for the purposes of the MALTS dissertation, is not a series of notes or annotations to a text, nor a chronological narrative of translating a text, rather it should do the following: contain an argument or a set of arguments that are illustrated by the translation; demonstrate the theoretically informed reflection that lies behind the creation of a translation product; address relevant issues of translation theory and practice. The link between the translation and the commentary, i.e. how far the translation bears out what is said in the commentary, will be central to the success of this piece of work. You should therefore select your source text or texts with a particular research focus in mind, rather than selecting a source text at random.

The document ' How to write a translation commentary ’ sets out the expectations for this type of dissertation.

Writing the dissertation proposal (Term 1)

Only projects deemed viable will be allowed to proceed, so it is important to get the proposal right. To be accepted, a proposal should • be intellectually viable; • be achievable within the stipulated time and word limit; • be feasible given the resources; • fall within the areas of expertise of members of academic staff.

See an example of a successful proposal for dissertation type a) and b). Proposals should be between 300 and 500 words in length and include an initial bibliography.

In addition, it is important that the content of your dissertation does not have a significant overlap with any of the essays you submit for your option modules.

To help you write a strong proposal, the English Department will be offering a series of workshops in the Autumn Term, and you will be expected to attend these. Time and place will be confirmed at the start of the academic year.

As you begin work on your proposal during Term 1, you will need to speak to members of academic staff with an interest in the area you wish to work in. All members of staff keep regular office hours during the term, and you should speak to several of them. It is your responsibility to seek them out. Use your contact with them to present and discuss your ideas. Listen to their advice and suggestions, read the books or articles they may point you to, and incorporate what is appropriate into your proposal. As you discuss your project, you will quickly pick up which aspects are worth pursuing and which are not. This is part of the research process. If you would like advice on whom to approach, speak to the MALTS Convenor. Remember when you submit your proposal to mention the names of staff with whom you have spoken.

You will be required to submit your proposal to the MALTS Convenor by the end of Week 9 in Term 1 , shortly before the winter holiday therefore. The MALTS Convenor will consider all applications and assign a supervisor for each successful proposal. You will be notified of decisions by the first week of Term 2. If your proposal has been declined, the MALTS Convenor will meet with you and explain the reasons for the decision, and provide advice and support on reworking the proposal into an acceptable one. It is expected that most proposals submitted by students who have attended all the workshops will be accepted.

Writing the dissertation progress report (Term 2)

Students must begin work on their dissertation research in Term 2. It can take time to work out exactly how to focus your project and decide on what you need to look at and read, so it’s important to start early. In Week 9 of Term 2 you must submit a Progress Report to the MALTS Convenor ([email protected]), copying in the Postgraduate Programmes Officer ([email protected]). The report consists of the following:

• Dissertation Progress Report form • title and chapter breakdown • an abstract of 1000 words • a bibliography.

Progress reports will be reviewed by the MALTS Convenor. If there are concerns about progress, the MALTS Convenor will contact you.

Research, writing and contact with your supervisor (Terms 2 and 3)

You can expect to meet with your supervisor for an initial supervision within the first two weeks of Term 2 and again in Week 8 or 9 shortly before submission of the dissertation progress report. You can also expect to meet with your supervisor three times in Term 3. Supervisions will generally be 45-60 minutes in length, although Term 2 supervisions may well be shorter than this. Your supervisor will read one rough draft of your dissertation, which must be sent by the end of Term 3. You are welcome to contact your supervisor by e-mail. As with all the department's staff, you can usually expect a supervisor to respond within about 3 working days (excluding weekends) if your query is straightforward. For more complex requests, supervisors will need more time to respond and you need to keep in mind that an e-mail exchange is no substitute for a face-to-face meeting. Face-to-face supervision of dissertations concludes at the end of term 3. Over the summer months of July and August, when staff undertake their own research activities, e-mail contact is at the supervisor's discretion and it will very likely take longer for them to respond to any message you send.

Submission (Summer)

The following reminders may be useful:

• You must be consistent in the style convention used (preferably either MLA, MHRA, Chicago or Harvard). Note that Harvard is the standard referencing style for scholarly work in Translation Studies.
• Footnotes/Endnotes are included in the final word count; the 'Bibliography' is not included in the final word count
• An abstract is not required in the final submission
• A margin of up to 10% over or under length is allowed, but dissertations that are between 10-24% over-length will incur a penalty of 3 marks
• Work that is more than 25% over-length will be refused

• Bibliography
• More Referencing guides Blog Automated transliteration Relevant bibliographies by topics
• Automated transliteration
• Relevant bibliographies by topics
• Referencing guides

Translation of Idioms: A Hard Task for the Translator

• August 2011
• Theory and Practice in Language Studies 1(7):879-883
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UMD Alum Eleftheria Briakou Wins Best Thesis Award for Machine Translation Research

Eleftheria Briakou (Ph.D. ’23, computer science) recently received the Best Thesis Award from the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas (AMTA). Now a research scientist at Google, Briakou was recognized for her dissertation, "Detecting Fine-Grained Semantic Divergences to Improve Translation Understanding Across Languages," which was commended for its innovative approach and significant contributions to machine translation.

Briakou’s advisor, Associate Professor Marine Carpuat , guided her work, which addresses key challenges in translation by developing methods to automatically detect subtle meaning differences between translated texts. These fine-grained semantic divergences—small but significant variations in meaning—pose challenges for human and machine translators. Briakou’s research explored how detecting these differences could improve translation accuracy, particularly for complex texts.

In her dissertation, she developed algorithms to flag meaning shifts, helping to identify translation errors that might otherwise be overlooked. This work is especially relevant as artificial intelligence-powered systems are increasingly relied upon to translate legal, medical and technical documents, where accuracy is crucial.

Briakou highlighted the importance of her research, given advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

 "As translation systems' quality continues to improve, detecting fine-grained meaning differences becomes increasingly critical," Briakou said. "This is particularly important in light of the emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs). These models exhibit remarkable fluency, which can occasionally lead to over-reliance. Additionally, LLMs are progressively capable of translating lengthy texts. In such scenarios, developing automatic tools that can help humans detect even localized meaning differences becomes essential, as humans might easily overlook such differences due to the highly fluent outputs or the sheer volume of text."

Briakou’s current work at Google builds on her dissertation research, focusing on applying large language models to translation tasks. 

"In my new role as a research scientist at Google Translate, my primary focus remains machine translation, particularly within the realm of Large Language Models," Briakou shared. "Currently, my research centers around reimagining machine translation as a process that involves modeling intermediate reasoning steps that explain translation decisions."

As she reflected on the significance of the recognition, she acknowledged the people who played a crucial role in her success.

"Receiving this award is a true honor, and it wouldn't have been possible without the incredible support I've received throughout my Ph.D. journey," she said. "I am deeply grateful to all the wonderful mentors and collaborators who have contributed to my growth. In particular, I want to thank Marine for her invaluable guidance in steering me towards this research direction and the CLIP lab for fostering such a positive and supportive research environment."

About the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas:

The AMTA  is part of the International Association for Machine Translation (IAMT), a global organization supporting machine translation research. Founded in 1991, AMTA represents North America and collaborates with its sister organizations, the Asian-Pacific Association for Machine Translation (AAMT) and the European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT). Together, these groups promote collaboration among researchers and practitioners, offering a platform for sharing developments in translation technology.

—Story by Samuel Malede Zewdu, CS Communications 

The Department welcomes comments, suggestions and corrections.  Send email to editor [-at-] cs [dot] umd [dot] edu .

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Analysis of Translation Techniques in Thesis Abstracts of English and Indonesian Language and Literature Undergraduate Students

2021, Proceedings of the Thirteenth Conference on Applied Linguistics (CONAPLIN 2020)

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Zalinda Firdausyiah

An abstract is a brief overview of a research paper. Indonesian undergraduate students are often required to submit their thesis abstracts in Indonesian and English. Various studies related to rhetorical move and translation techniques of abstracts have been done previously, but not many analyzed undergraduate students’ thesis abstracts across languages. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the move-step of the abstracts, and to see translation techniques in different abstract moves. This study used 60 undergraduate thesis abstracts from English Language and Literature and Indonesian Language Literature study programs as the data. As the framework for the data analysis, this study employed Hyland’s (2000) five-move model and Molina & Albir’s (2002) translation techniques. The findings show that despite writing in different languages, both Indonesian and English abstracts were realized with similar rhetorical moves and steps. Move 3 and 4 were found in all of the abstracts, while Mo...

Ade Irma Khairani

The students’ translation ability exerted influence on the competence of students in transferring the source language into the target language. This competency included two contexts, namely the translating skill with grammatical and lexical accuracies, and the translating competence followed in a translation quality standard. Grammatical and lexical accuracies were tested through grammar error analysis, while the translation quality was tested through message accuracy, message acceptance, and message readability. The purpose of this study was to analyze the translation ability of the Applied Science undergraduate students to translate bilingual abstract texts in their scientific papers. The students were majoring in the Civil Engineering, Building Construction Design Management Study Program in Medan State Polytechnic. This study applied the qualitative method of research, which focused on document analysis. The sampling used in this study was purposive. This study was adapted to th...

INELTAL Proceedings 2018

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This study investigates the prior work in translating Indonesian-English abstracts of undergraduate students in Indonesia. The objectives are to find out what linguistics problem categories found and how to solve them in future works. The available abstracts are 133 pieces translated from 2009 to 2012; however; only 20 English version abstracts are purposively taken as the objects of the analysis with non-probability sampling technique. The data analysis technique is by sorting, clustering, and categorizing the analyzed texts. The findings show that the types of errors found are, respectively from the most to the least; the absence of definite and indefinite, grammatical errors, and lexicon error. This study is in context of personal development through reflection on writing; therefore, the types of errors made, the theories applied to solve these errors, and the empirical studies gained from this study, are worth studying.

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This study analyzes types of themes, theme equivalence, theme shifts in the Indonesian-English translation of thesis abstracts. The data consist of 10 thesis abstracts and their translation into English, taken from Postgraduate Program of Semarang State University from the last two years (2010-2011). The result shows that topical theme dominates the entire texts at 80.16% (198 out of 247) in ST and 79.56% (222 out of 279) in TT. Interpersonal theme is not found both in ST and TT. Most topical themes are in participants, followed by circumstance and process. The textual theme in both texts is adjunct conjunctive. Most of the themes (70.2%) are considered as non shift or equivalent. The theme shift occurrs through three processes: (1) by changing the grammatical function within the theme (11.7%), (2) by adding more themes (14.7%) and (3) by deleting themes (3.4%). It is suggested for a translator to have complete mastery over the grammatical structure of both the SL and TL and also be...

Ebony - Journal of English Language Teaching, Linguistics, and Literature

Erma Sujiyani

Rhetoric in an abstract writing literally means the techniques a writer might use to deliver complicated information in a limited amount of space effectively and intentionally. However, as being non-native speaking (NNS) writers, Indonesian EFL Graduate students often have difficulties in producing, organizing, and delivering ideas of an abstract into widely accepted international standard of English academic writing conventions. This study describes the nature and characteristics of the rhetoric of thesis abstract focusing on the moves-step(s) written by Indonesian EFL Graduate students of Palangka Raya University. The model proposed by Samraj (2002) consisting of five moves: Move 1 - Situating the Research, Move 2 - Purpose, Move 3 - Methods, Move 4 - Results, and Move 5 - Conclusion was used as a general guideline to analyze the moves-step(s) of the abstracts. The findings of study show that three textual spaces: M2 - Purpose, M3 - Methods, and M4 - Results are compulsary while the other two (M1 - Situating the Research and M5 - Conclusion) are optional; and the rhetorical pattern mostly employed in the abstracts is PMRC or M2-M3-M4-M5. However, in realizing the rhetorical strategies of the abstractd, a great deal of first language rhetorical interference (such as redudancy use of steps particularly in M2, reordering or non-linear patterns of steps mostly the steps in M3, the overlap function between moves expecially between M4 and M5, the low occurrence of M1, and the repeated use of embedding moves particularly the embedment of M2 and M3) is discovered among the moves or the steps forming each move

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Fitrotul Maulidiyah

Thesis writing is one compulsory subject which must be completed by students at State Polytechnic of Malang particularly in Accounting Department. Moreover, an abstract is an inseparable part of thesis which must be written by all students. The abstracts must be written both in Indonesian and English. Students have to translate their Indonesian abstract into English. From the preliminary study, it was found out that students have many difficulties in translating their thesis abstract from Indonesian into English. Hence, this research seeks to investigate what type of errors committed by the students during the process of English abstract writing. A descriptive qualitative design was used in this research. Documents in the form of 25 abstracts were used in the data analysis. The results showed that during the process of English abstract writing completion, students tend to have problems in abstract translation, grammar, vocabularies, sentence structures and writing mechanics. Detaile...

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Scholars and practitioners should be aware that writing a good and eye-catching abstract is significant but tough work. Scholars and researchers are challenged to produce an informative and persuasive abstract to be accepted then published in either national or international publication and they should know the current characteristics of abstracts written by the students or apprentice writers. The study aims at examining the comparison of discourse structure and linguistic features between English abstracts of research articles by Indonesian researchers and English abstracts of the thesis by Indonesian scholars. The corpus data were taken from 10 research articles abstracts of Indonesian researchers concerning English education published in ERIC and 10 thesis abstracts of the graduate program of English Education in UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. Thus, a genre-based analysis proposed by Bhatia’s move structure and Swales’ and Feak’s move structure will be used to investigate the d...

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International Journal of English Language and Translation Studies , Canan Terzi

This study aimed at evaluating English abstracts of MA and PhD dissertations published in Turkish language and identifying translation errors and problems concerning academic style and discourse. In this study, a random selection of MA and PhD dissertation abstracts both from the dissertations of Turkish speaking researchers and English-speaking researchers were used. The corpus consists of 90 abstracts of MA and PhD dissertations. The abstracts of these dissertations were analyzed in terms of problems stemming from translation issues and academic discourse and style. The findings indicated that Turkish-speaking researchers rely on their translation skills while writing their abstracts in English. Contrary to initial expectations, the results of the analysis of rhetorical moves did not indicate great differences in terms of the move structures, from which we concluded that there might be some universally accepted and attended rhetorical structure in dissertation abstracts.

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