21. Literal and free translations of their status when translating texts of different genres

A literal translation is a translation that reproduces communicatively irrelevant (formal) elements of the original, as a result of which the rule or pattern of the target language is violated, or the actual content of the original is distorted (not translated).
A literal translation is, as a rule, inadequate, except in cases where the translator has been assigned a pragmatic super-task to perform a philological translation, that is, to reflect as formally as possible in the translation the formal features of the source language.
In the II century BC. Old Testament was translated into Greek by the Symmachus. In the ancient antique period there was a tendency when translators adhered not only to the spirit, but also to the letters of the original, of the original. This principle found its expression in a literal translation, in which not only the meaning of the original, but also the forms characteristic of the source language, in violation of the norms of the translation language, were transferred to the translation language. The priests demanded that the Bible was a scripture, nothing could be changed, even punctuation. They demanded a literal translation, no liberties were allowed. In ancient times, the role of translators increased significantly. In the territory of ancient Egypt there was a school of translators.

By free or free translation is meant a translation made at a lower level of equivalence than that which can be achieved under the given conditions of the translation act.
A free translation can be recognized as adequate if this help solves a certain pragmatic task or ensures the high artistic merit of the translation.

If the translation to religious books was dominated by the tendency to maximal literalism, other types of translation, oral and written, were often very approximate in nature, their creators freely used the original, made many unjustified deviations and errors. In part, such a free (or free) translation was the result of a translator’s low qualification, but at times it could be due to a lack of proper respect for the translated text and a lack of standardization of the translation quality by the translator and readers.
The contrast between literal and free translation was preserved at a later time, when the choice of one of these translation strategies was no longer determined by the nature of the translated text, but by the overall installation of the translator, his understanding of the purpose and content of his work. The distinction of such installations was especially clearly manifested in the literary translation. Here, the supporters of the literal translation were convinced that only such a translation could be true to the original, that the task of the translation was to maximize the copying of the source text. Their opponents objected that just a literal translation will never be true, because it does not convey the most important thing - the artistic merit of the original and, more importantly, does not create a full-fledged text in the target language. They defended the right of a translator in order to achieve such usefulness to make any changes to their translation. Some supporters of the free translation went very far in their versions. Already in the 19th century, the well-known Russian translator Irinarkh Vvedensky proclaimed the translator's right to any “ad-libs” if he was inspired by the original, reincarnated as his author and can fill in any omissions, for some reason present in the original. Irinarkh Vvedensky unswervingly embodied these theoretical principles in his translation practice. So, translating the novel by David Dickens “David Copperfield”, he composed from himself the end of the second chapter, the beginning of the sixth chapter, made numerous corrections to the text of the novel. Indeed, as the translator claimed, he was led by the author’s “spirit” with his pen.

With literal translation, the meaning of the content changes. When the free meaning remains, the style changes.