In the field of translation, a translation unit is a segment of a text which the translator treats as a single cognitive unit for the purposes of establishing an equivalence. The translation unit may be a single word, or it may be a phrase, one or more sentences, or even a larger unit.
When a translator segments a text into translation units, the larger these units are, the better chance there is of obtaining an idiomatic translation. This is true not only of human translation, but also in cases where human translators use computer-assisted translation, such as translation memories, and also when translations are performed by machine translation systems.
A distinction is made between translation, which consists of transferring ideas expressed in writing from one language to another, from interpreting, which consists of transferring ideas expressed orally, or by the use of gestures (as in the case of sign language), from one language to another.
To decode the meaning of a text the translator must first identify its component "translationunits", that is to say the segments of the text to be treated as a cognitive unit.
Cultural translation is a concept used in cultural studies to denote the process of transformation, linguistic or otherwise, in a given culture.
It should be mentioned at this point that translation studies distinguish two points of view in the practice and analysis of translations: the “source-oriented” point of view which favors the specificities and requirements peculiar to the source text (faithfulness, literality) and the “target-oriented” point of view which favors the target text (rewording, adaptation).
Translating the version translated backwards and “blindly” often allows us to notice that the equivalent structure was not the one taken as a starting point for translation, demonstrating the inaccuracy of the aforementioned translation.
An exemplary translator is not only required to be precise and meticulous but also to pay great attention to the stylistic subtleties of both his work languages according to the principle that every wording has its own meaning and aim in the linguistic system using it (the “economy of language” principle).
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