2. Transformational model of translation

When translating, a person transforms the source text into a new form. Transformation is converting one form into another one. There are two transformation concepts in the theory of translation.

In one of them, transformation is understood as an interlinguistic process, i.e., converting the source text into the structures of the target text, which is translation proper. Special rules can be described for transforming source language structures as basic units into target language structures corresponding to the basic units. For example, to translate the “adverbial verb” one must introduce an adverb, denoting the way the action is performed, into the target language structure: She stared at me. – Она пристально смотрела на меня.

In the second concept, transformation is not understood as broadly as replacing the source language structures by the target language structures. Transformation here is part of a translation process, which has three phases:

• Analysis: the source language structures are transformed into basic units of the source language. For example, the sentence I saw him enter the room. is transformed into I saw him. He entered the room.

• Translation proper: the basic units of the source language are translated into the basic units of the target language: Мен оны көрдім. Ол бөлмеге кірді. Я видел его. Он вошел в комнату.

• Synthesis: the basic units of the target language are transformed into the terminal structures of the target language: Оның бөлмеге кіргенің көрдім. Я видел, что он вошел в комнату.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of this model? It is employed in contrastive analysis of two language forms that are considered to be translation equivalents, as it verbalizes what has been transformed in them and how. This model provides us with transformation techniques. It explains how we translate equivalent-lacking structures into another language. This model is important for teaching translation because it recommends that one transform a complex structure into a simple one.

However, a disadvantage of this model consists in inability to explain the choice of the transformation made, especially at the third synthesis phase. It does not explain the facts of translation equivalence on the situational level. It also ignores sociocultural and extralinguistic aspects of translation.

3. Psycholinguistic model of translation

Translation is a kind of speech event. And it develops according to the psychological rules of speech event. The scheme of the speech event consists of the following phases:

• The speech event is motivated;

• An inner code program for the would-be message is developed;

• The inner code is verbalized into an utterance.

Translation is developed according to these phases: a translator comprehends the message (motif), transforms the idea of the message into his/her own inner speech program, then outlays this inner code into the target text.

The point of this theory is that it considers translation among speaking, listening, reading and writing as a speech event. But there is evidence to suggest that translators and interpreters listen and read, speak and write in a different way from other language users, basically because they operate under a different set of constraints. While a monolingual receiver is sender-oriented, paying attention to the speaker's/writer's message in order to respond to it, the translator is essentially receiver-oriented, paying attention to the sender's message in order to re-transmit it to the receiver of the target-text, supressing, at the same time, personal reactions to the message.

There are two essential stages specific to the process of translating and interpreting: analysis and synthesis– and a third stage, revision, available only to the translator working with the written text. During the analysis stage, the translator reads/listens to the source text, drawing on background knowledge, to comprehend features contained in the text. During synthesis, the target text is produced. Then the draft written translation is revised /edited.

However, the explanational force of this model is very restricted, inner speech being the globally disputable problem in both psychology and linguistics.

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