Translation into English and Challenges before a Translator: A Study with Special Reference to Bhabendra Nath Saikia’s The Hour before Dawn

Abstract

Md. Eakub Ali Abstract: Translation is concerned with communication of meaning and it has to do with linguistics as well as culture. The challenges before a translator are many. Finding an equivalent between the two texts is the aim of the translator. The translator’s concern with the literary text as made up of a language is not simple because the text also has words charged with memory, associations, and literary echoes. A total translation is regarded as a myth. Cicero’s dilemma between word for word rendering leading to an uncouth translation and the sense for sense rendering which requires changes leading to a departure from the function of a translator is a dilemma which every translator faces. Keywords: Translation, Source Language, Target Language, Challenges, Communication. Click here to print/download PDF of this research paper Translation is an intimate act of transferring the meaning of a text from the Source Language to the Target Language. The transfer of meaning of the Source Language Text is done not only by offering the equivalent elements in the Target Language Text but also by bringing the intended elements of meaning of the SLT into the TLT. In this act of transferring the meaning from the SL into the TL it is not easy to find full equivalence of an SL word in another word in TL and this conceptualises that total translation is not possible. While translating the SL meaning into the TL meaning retaining as much sense as possible, the translator faces a num...