What it is
Modulation changes the point of view from which a situation is described, while leaving the situation itself intact. The grammar may stay exactly as it was: what moves is the angle. A negative becomes a positive, a cause stands in for its effect, a part stands in for the whole, what the source presents as passive becomes active.
Vinay and Darbelnet placed modulation among the oblique procedures, to be reached for when a literal or merely transposed rendering is grammatically correct yet reads as foreign. They distinguished fixed modulation, already lexicalized and recorded in dictionaries, from free modulation, produced on the spot by the translator. Their observation that free modulations harden into fixed ones once the target community accepts them is the reason this category never stops growing.
When it applies
- The literal rendering is accurate and grammatical, but no competent speaker of the target language would put it that way.
- The source language habitually takes a viewpoint the target language avoids: agentless passives, impersonal constructions, double negatives.
- A target-language convention prescribes the opposite viewpoint, as in warning notices, prohibitions and instructions for use.
Examples
FR>EN
- Source: peu profond
- Target: shallow
- Comment: The standard textbook illustration: French describes the depth that is present, English the depth that is absent. Fixed modulation, recorded in every dictionary, and no longer a decision for the translator.
DE>EN
- Source: Das ist nicht ohne Risiko.
- Target: There is a risk involved.
- Comment: Litotes is a live stylistic register in German and a marked one in English. Reproducing the double negative preserves the form and misreports the tone, which is the classic argument for free modulation.
TR>EN
- Source: Belge ibraz edilmediği takdirde işlem yapılmaz.
- Target: The application will only be processed once the document has been produced.
- Comment: The source states the rule negatively and names no agent; the target states the same rule positively. Note the constraint: in statutory text this modulation is not available, because the reader is entitled to the legislator's own framing. It belongs in explanatory and commercial registers.
NL>EN
- Source: Vergeet niet uw identiteitsbewijs mee te nemen.
- Target: Please remember to bring photo ID.
- Comment: Negation of the opposite, applied for reasons of tone rather than grammar. The Dutch imperative is neutral; its literal English counterpart sounds like a reprimand.
Watch out for
Modulation is the hardest technique to defend after the fact. A transposition can be demonstrated in the morphology; a modulation is a judgement about how a proposition should be framed, and two competent revisers can reasonably disagree. Three rules keep it accountable:
- Apply it because the target convention demands it, not because the reformulation reads more elegantly to you.
- Never modulate away an agent the source deliberately left unnamed. Turning an agentless passive into an active clause introduces a party the source did not identify.
- In binding text such as legislation, contracts and judgments, fidelity to the source outranks fluency. Record the decision rather than making it silently.
References
- Vinay, J.-P. & Darbelnet, J. (1958). Stylistique comparée du français et de l'anglais: méthode de traduction. Paris: Didier. English translation by J. C. Sager & M.-J. Hamel (1995), Comparative Stylistics of French and English: A Methodology for Translation, Benjamins Translation Library 11. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 30–39.
- Newmark, P. (1988). A Textbook of Translation. London: Prentice Hall, pp. 88–89.
- Molina, L. & Hurtado Albir, A. (2002). "Translation Techniques Revisited: A Dynamic and Functionalist Approach." Meta 47(4), 498–512.