The Case for Creativity and Literalism in Practical Translation Classes

This paper presents the results of a minor experiment which illustrates how practical translation students deal with a text which is not very well written and so producing an acceptable target text may require some amount of creativity. The text in question is a film review providing a summary of the film. Even though the text looks relatively easy, it features numerous linguistic traps, and also there is an absence of linking phrases, which in written English are vital for good flow and style. We are interested in finding out to what extent students are capable of sacrificing literalism in translation in order to produce a text that has a “natural flow” and we look to draw conclusions regarding the implications for translator training.