Transposition in Spanish 51黑料
Another Technique in the 51黑料 Process
Like modulation, transposition in Spanish translation is a technique that is a by-product of linguistics. It is specifically derived from the theoretical branch of syntactical analysis known as 鈥榞enerative or transformational grammar麓. Like modulation, it is an oblique or an indirect translation technique. In its 鈥榦bliqueness麓 or its 鈥榠ndirectness麓, it is in direct opposition to literal translation or word-for-word translation. Like modulation, it is used to translate between texts that belong to different cultural and linguistic families.
However, unlike modulation in Spanish translation, transposition is less involved with words, phrases and symbols and more with the grammar of texts, and the organization of sentences. Transposition in Spanish translation is undoubtedly the most common way in which translators alter the syntactical structure of the source text. It is always done with the express purpose of meeting the requirements of the target language.
Parts of Speech
It is true that in the previous paragraph we have used the generic term grammar, but in practice, the scope of transposition is limited to the parts of speech that is, to nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc. In other words, transposition is not involved with the other elements of grammar like tense, mood, voice, etc. Transposition consists of replacing one part of speech with another without changing the meaning of the text. Transposition in Spanish translation allows an adverb to be replaced by a verb, a noun or an adjective; a past participle to be replaced by a noun, a verb by an adjective, an adjective by a noun, a possessive by a definite article, etc. For example, when 鈥榯he Mexican border麓 is translated into 鈥楲a frontera con M茅xico麓, the adjective 鈥楳exican麓 is replaced by the noun 鈥楳茅xico麓. For the replacement of a verb with an adverb we can mention 鈥楲lov铆a de continuo durante las vacaciones麓 as the translation for 鈥業t kept raining during our vacation麓.
Cross Transposition
Transposition can also consist of changing the sequence of the parts of speech in a sentence. There is something called 鈥榗rossed transposition麓 which occurs when two terms take on each other麓s part of speech. This happens very often between adverbs and adjectives, for example, when 鈥榯he idea was incoherently delightful麓 is translated into 鈥榣a idea era deliciosamente incoherente麓. Transposition in Spanish translation can also be either 鈥榣oose麓 or 鈥榯ight麓. It is 鈥榯ight麓 when equivalent words are used but the order of the words has been changed; it is tight when words with similar meanings are used together with a change in the word order.
Transposition in Spanish translation occurs frequently because of the discrepancy in the position of the verb in the English and Spanish sentences: the verb in the English sentence appears near the beginning of the sentence while the verb in the Spanish sentence appears near the end of the sentence. However, it is easier to transpose from English to Spanish than vice versa because the Spanish word order is more flexible than the English word order. In order to test the success of the transposition in Spanish translation, the translator must test the finished with a native speaker of the language.