All translation loses, adds, or changes information

The objective of good translation is to communicate all the meaning of the original without addition, subtraction, or distortion. Nonetheless, as the saying goes Traduttore, Traditore (“the translator is a traitor”).

Eugene Nida, a prominent contributor to the literature on translation, writes: “All types of translation involve (1) loss of information, (2) addition of information, and/or (3) skewing of information.”[1]

#translation #linguistics

See also:

  1. The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn – Kuhn (2022), § “Chapter 3: IV.” ↩︎