Comparative Chart: The Four Levels of Translating

Level	Definition	Features	Use
Textual	Decoding or render the syntactic structures of the source text into their   correspondent structures in the target text.	Sometimes you have to change the structures into something quite different in order to achieve the target language naturalness.	-Communicative texts -Descriptive texts
Referential	The referential level operates on the content of the ST. It deals with the message or the meaning of the text. On this level you decode the meaning of the source text and build the conceptual representation.	This is where you simplify polysemous words and phrases. On it you decode idioms and figurative expressions. At this level you have to make up your mind and, summarily and continuously ask yourself, what is it about? What is an aid of? What the writer‘s peculiar slant on it is?	-Technical texts. -Institutional texts. -Literary texts.
Cohesive	This level attempts to follow thought through the connectives and feeling tone, and the emotion through value-laden or value-free expressions, is, admittedly, only tentative, but it may determinate the difference between a humdrum or misleading translation and a good tone. This cohesive level is a regulator, it secures coherence, and it adjusts emphasis.	The cohesive level follows both the structure and the moods of the text: the structure through the connective words (conjunctions, enumerations, reiterations, definite article, general words, referential synonyms, punctuation marks) linking the sentences usually proceeding from known information (theme) to new information (rheme). The second factor in the cohesive level is the mood, again, this can be shown as a dialectical factor moving between positive and negative, emotive and neutral.	-Scientific texts. -Medical texts.
Naturalness	Naturalness is easily defined as, not so easy to be concrete about. Natural usage comprises a variety of idioms or styles or registers determined primarily by the setting of the text i.e. where it is typically published or found, secondarily by the author, topic and readership, all of whom are usually dependent of the setting.	You have to pay special attention to: -Word order; -Common structures; -Cognate words; -The appropriateness of gerunds, infinitives, verb-nouns; -Lexis; -Other ‘obvious’ areas of interference.	-Communicative texts -Descriptive texts -Referential texts -Manuals

References:

Newmark, Peter. (2003). A textbook of translation. Essex: Longman. P19-38.