The theory of translation deals with the problem of untranslatability.
~ No two languages having the same phonology. It’s impossible to recreate the sounds of a work composed in one language into another language.
~ No two languages having the same syntactic structure. It’s impossible to recreate the syntax of a work composed in one language into another language.
~ No two languages having the same vocabulary. It’s impossible to recreate the vocabulary of a work composed in one language into another language.
~ No two languages having the same literary history. It’s impossible to recreate the language and literary culture of a work composed in one language into another language.
~ No two languages having the same prosody. It’s impossible to recreate the prosody of a work composed in one language into another language.
Translation is a communicational process no matter what people say about untranslatability.
Motive
 | |||
 | |||
Purpose
 | |||
 | |||
Point of view Point of view
Forehortening opinion
Communicative intention
Mode of discourse
Conditions of discourse Qualities of participants
Types of interpretation
There are 2 subtypes of oral communication (as a process of communication):
-Sequential (consecutive interpretation).
-Immediate (simultaneous interpretation).
There is another division:
Escort translation. The interpreter accompanies the person. The situation is rather friendly, no tension. He knows, what he is going to speak of, knows the place of interest, gets prepared, can chose the necessary expressions or even learn his speech by heart. The only be in the ointment is the necessity to answer the questions.
Sequential translation. It depends upn the nature of the conference. We can prepare to the conference, but the preparation will be of general kind. This happens bcos he doesn’t exactly know the topic of the discussion. He doesn’t know exactly, what is the lng level of the speaker. He may speak idiomatic lng. The speaker will not think of the speed. If this is an academic discussion, the translator should adopt not his speech, but his psyche to the situation. He has to use his intuition. He should adopt the personal style of the speaker. They won’t forgive you, if you can’t interpret a metaphor.
Immediate translation. It’s done without pauses, at the same rate as the speaker talks. If the translation is done in a room with special equipment, the interpreter doesn’t see the speaker. Nobody pays any attention to the style. He should know many clichés. (They make speech more idiomatic & help to think over smth.
Sight translation. It is usually done in court or at conferences. It means translating documents, that haven’t been given to the translator beforehand, bcos any of the parties may consider it profitable pot to let the other party know the content of the document. The interpreter should provide a good working version of the document under the question. Sight translation can be very different; bcos the situation dominates the process. The translator may be occasionally called upon to compare the documents in SL & TL. This happens most often in case of legal documents. This is a very important task. The translator should be familiar with both cultures. Another exercise occurs when a client is overwhelmed by high amount of material in foreign lng & he invites the translator to give him the summary on the spot. In this case precision is the most important thing. In this case you are not allowed to compress. It’s literal translation & the thing is that if you don’t know a word & think it’s necessary you may ask for recognition to use the dictionary.
Oral interpretation demands the following “shall”:
- Exceptional articulation
- High comfort speaking level in front of the audience
- Public speaking experience
- The ability to retain one or two points while listening to new information & then reproduce entire message
- The ability to summarize the main points of smth being said
- Experience in one or more technical areas
- Complete ease in both lngs
Interpreting can take place in the following environments:
Conference. It’s a case when many people discuss a topic & sometimes they do it simultaneously. People interrupt each other & the translator should keep track of the main ideas & disregard repetitions. At the same time he should look for periods of time when he can sum up the previous information to precede the further. A translator is a kind of master of ceremony.
Meeting. They are usually held in a more orderly manner. The translator may resort to simultaneous translation; bcos people will keep special pauses. You’re going to discuss conditions not issues. Precision is necessary & you can discuss your clients’ intentions beforehand.
Telecom. It doesn’t give you the atmosphere of the conference you don’t feel it. Such meetings aren’t full of undercurrents, which are very important for the translator. You should listen through the lines.
OPI interpretation. Americans use it very often (24 hours a day service). The service enables the speakers to communicate by phone in a 3-way conference call, including the interpreter. This service is used mainly for business. This kind of interpretation is rather difficult. The interpreter doesn’t see the speakers & isn’t able to learn anything about topic of conversation beforehand. Speakers can switch over to any related theme & they may be illogical. The translator should use compressed lng bcos the speakers pay for a minute.
The Pros & Contras of interpretation:
It almost always puts an interpreter in an extremely pressured situation. He has to cope with an utterance at a moment’s notice. Nobody will take care of your feelings. Being a professional means to do a lot of troubling. Interpreting assignments are often required in the evenings, during dinners you should eat invisibly.
Interpretation requires flexibility. Intellectual flexibility: reaction should be quick & very much conclusive. Physical flexibility: should be prepared to do a lot of traveling.
A serious consideration of interpreting is a role that personality plays. Many interpreters were dismissed, bcos their personalities rubbed clients the wrong way. You should know the rules of behavior & have a very important psychological background. There are things you should not do: smth that isn’t your job.
You should insist on being given preparation materials. If not, inform the client that you’ll be operating at a disadvantage.
Be sure to discuss your fees ahead of time & to obtain a contract. There should also be compensation for traveling expense (“per diem”). If your preparation requires some time there also should be some kind of compensation. You should charge different fees.
Confirm that there is a difference between consecutive & simultaneous interpretation. If there are several people involved in translation then make sure what your task is.
An interpreter should be specialist in different technical fields, should possess a good reaction, should have a pleasing personality, good appearance, good manners, patience & a sense of humour.
Requests for professional translators
The translator should possess thorough knowledge of both cultures. A foreign culture is a matter of likes & dislikes. Lng is a living phenomenon. It doesn’t exist apart from the culture. To be fully familiar with lng one should be fully familiar with culture, people using it, manners, beliefs etc.
Every translator should keep up with the growth & change of the lng to be up-to-date with all its nuances, neologisms etc. Lng is in a constant state of flexibility: words, structures change from year to year. An interpreter should tell the clients, what is appropriate & what is not.
Every translator should make a distinction between the lng one translates from & the lng one translates into. Generally speaking many translators prefer to translate from a foreign lng into their own, bcos they are familiar with it. But even years of study and experience do not necessarily enable one to be completely at ease with an acquire lng. Not so many people are good writers at their own lng. The education people get has much to be desired. Every translator should be an experienced writer in both lngs.
Every translator has to be able to translate in more than one area of knowledge. In-house translator is on the staff & translates for only one firm. Free-lancing translator is invited from time to time. He has to translate in variety of areas (at least 15). The only thing that has to be disregarded is that one should be a specialist. It’s nonsense.
Every translator should be a writer & an orator.
Every translator should develop a good speed of translation. The professional translator should be prepared to persuade the client that a translation would take time. He should value his time & reputation. Every translator is paid for a word. The more words you translate per hour the more income you have (250 words per hour-- the lowest rate).
Every translator should develop research skills. He must be able to acquire referent sources, which are necessary for providing high quality translation. Without them it’s impossible to provide high quality translation in variety of spheres, esp. in unrelated fields.
Every translator should keep a dictionary on him or a palmtop or a laptop. He should know how to use the media: Internet, fax etc. Every translator should keep a glossary & organize it according to his convenience.
Every translator should have the ability to learn lng once in a while. Every translator should know what the area would look like in 10years. The joint ventures are usually going to develop. Every translator should polish up the lng. Many translators divide lngs into groups. To the 1st group belong lngs that are in high demand (Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Arabic etc.). To the 2nd belong lngs having the potential for a development (Ukrainian, Pharcy etc.).
Differences between translation & interpretation
| Speech | Writing |
| 1Speech is time – bound, dynamic, and transient. It’s a part of interaction, in which both participants are usually present. A speaker has a particular addressee. Your translation will depend upon the addressee. You should know whom you rely upon. You should be ready to paraphrase what you had said. | Writing is space – bound, static, and permanent. It’s the result of situation in which the writer is usually distant from the reader & often doesn’t know who the reader is going to be. The reader is your client & you do not know exactly what your client really needs. If your client is a specialist, then before creating a clean copy, discuss it with the client. Cooperate with your client. |
| 2The spontaneity & speed of most speech exchanges make it difficult to engage in complex advanced planning. The pressure to think while talking promotes looser construction, repetition, rephrasing, & comment clauses. Intonation & pause divide long utterances into manageable chunks, but sentence boundaries are often unclear. In some cases speech depends upon the situation. Speech is never spontaneous. It’s always prepared. If you are to translate a general conversation of informal character, you are to be prepared to all sorts of deviations & to make illogical speech logical. Use short sentences to make your speech compressed & unambiguous. | Writing allows repeated reading & use of analysis & promotes the development of careful organization, compact expression with often-intricate structures. Units of discourse are usually easy to identify through punctuation & layout (arrangement of the page). Repeated reading allows you to compress the lng, & make it more expressive. You should read the whole text, get the general idea, the idea of every paragraph, compare the ideas of the paragraph with the whole text, decide which role each paragraph plays for the whole text. Then translate the paragraph sentence by sentence. |
| 3. Bcos participants are usually in face-to-face interaction, they can rely on such extra linguistic clause as facial expression or gestures to add meaning or to get feed back. The lexicon of speech is usually vague. Use words, which refer directly to situation (deictic expressions: that is, in here etc). On the other hand words we use in oral communication are not very much precise, bcos we don’t have time to chose a word. The communicator becomes verbose, bcos we have to explain want is really meant. The job of translator is to find out the meaning out of the succession of words & formulate the utterance economically. It’s a job to give a jest of the utterance & relate it to the second interlocutor. | Lack of visual contact means can’t rely on the extra linguistic context to make the meaning clear. Most writing therefore avoids the usage of deictic expressions. Writers must also anticipate the effects of time-lay between production & repetition & the problems posed by the lng, read & interpreted by many recipients in diverse settings. Instead of extra linguistic context you should relate a verbal context, which will make the meaning clear. You can’t be too verbose but you can take your time. You can chose between many options. The rule is: THE RIGHT WORD IN THE RIGHT PLACE. The fact that the translator doesn’t have any immediate feedback nay be regarded as disadvantage; in this case the translator should use imagination in order to have a clear vision of his addressee. The level of lng is proficiency. That’s why he should avoid parenthetical words, which cause misunderstanding & ambiguity. They will distract attention from the main topic. You should think of many recipients & chose a word, which many of them will understand. It’s easy to translate technical text bcos their characteristic feature is precision. When you start translating essays & popular articles you should be aware of lots of difficulties created by different settings. If you translate from Russian into English, you should be aware of “political correctness”. |
| 4.Many words & constructions are characteristic of speech. Lengthy coordinate sentences are normal, & are often of considerable complexity. Nonsense vocabulary is not usually written & may have no standard spelling. Obscenity may be replaced by graphic euphemism. Slang & graphical informality should not be used in writing. Informal speech presents lots of challenges for the interpreter. Atypical grammatical constructions cannot be avoided & should be dealt with. Obscene words should be avoided & replaced by neutral phrases. Slang is quite an obstacle. It should be avoided in oral speech, bcos it may create a wrong impression on your interlocutor. | Some words & constructions (multiple instances of subordination in the same sentence, elaborately balanced syntactic patterns & long, often multipage sentences) are characteristic of writing. Certain items of vocabulary are never spoken (long names of chemical components). Elaborately balanced syntactic patterns are important. |
| 5.Speech is very suited of social & phatic functions. It’s good at expressing social relationships & personal opinions, due to the vast range of nuances, which can be expressed by the prosody & accompanying non-verbal features. The ability to pronounce one word (phrase or sentence) with multiple information patterns. | Writing is very suited to recording of facts, communication of ideas, tasks of memory & learning. Written records are easier to keep & to scan, tables demonstrate relationships between things, notes & lists provide mnemonics, and texts can be read. Writing is a priceless instrument for the translator. Every translator should first learn how to take notes. When he has written a text, he should make sure that he had chosen the right meaning to develop later into a full-fledged text. He should possess all kinds of memory. |
| 6. There is an opportunity to rethink an utterance while it is in progress (starting again, adding qualification). However errors once spoken cannot be withdrawn (the one exception is when a sound engineer performs wonders of auditory plastic surgery on a tape-recorder of non-fluent speech). Interruption & overlapping are normal & highly audible. Its possible when speakers are in frank terms & communication is informal. But if the interpretation is official it should be remembered that the situation of rethinking, saying things again is absolutely impossible. If you’ve made a mistake don’t correct it. | Inadequacies of our writing can be eliminated in later drafts without the reader ever knowing they were there. Interruptions if they ever occur in writing are invisible in the final product. Written texts are edited. The translator should remember that the final target lng text is a result overlapping of several drafts. |
| 7. Unique features of speech include most of the prosody. The main nuances of intonation, as well as contrasts of loudness, tempo, rhythm & other tones of voice cannot be written down with much efficiency. Every translator should to some degree possess the qualities of actor. He should be able to discover what tone is meant. Sometimes such things as gestures can help. | Unique features of writing include pages, lines capitalization, spatial organization & several aspects of punctuality. Only a few graphic conversions relate to prosody, such as questions, marks & underlining for emphasis. Writing possesses much more opportunities for the translator. There are several types such as italics, bold type, and spacing. They show the importance of this or that word & attract attention. Every translator should know the punctuation rules |
The idea of translating word by word is wrong. The translator should do it only if literal translation is required. In all other cases you should first read the text several times to make sure of the intention of the author. And then start translating the text. If the text is long & your memory is bad you should write down key words, key-phrases or key sentences. And then provide your own translation. The title should be translated in the end. The title is a short summary. It reflects the ideas implied.
Aspects of translator reliability
Reliability with regard to the text
Attention to detail. The translator is meticulous in his attention to the contextual & collocational nuances of the word or phrase he uses. A context is a background, which controls the meaning of a word or phrase. Every translator should rely upon it. Contexts & collocations should be chosen carefully, bcos some words may be used in certain context in one lng but not in another. This concerns official situation or may depend upon cultural tradition in other cases.
Sensibility to the user’s needs. The translator listens closely to the user’s special instructions, regarding the type of translation required, understands those instructions quickly & fully & strives to carry them out exactly & flexibly. Every translator should that the client is a person who brings him business. The results of his work are vital for the client. The translator can give advice. But if it is not accepted, he should do the job, as the client wants him to.
Research. The translator does not simply work round words he does not know, by using a vague phrase that avoids the problem of leaving the question mark where the word would go, but does careful research. The translator must be 100% sure that he knows the translation is correct. He should understand that lng is a living phenomenon & that dictionaries are not able to give all the necessary words. So the translator needs a contemporary research of the lng. For this purpose he can rely upon his guess on the context, but the result should be fine. The translator should consult specialists, who can help him.
Checking. The translator checks his work carefully & if there is any doubt he has the translation checked by an expert before delivery to the client. The translator cannot be a specialist in any sphere. If the client is not a specialist, he should look for some.
Reliability with regard to the client
Versatility. The translator is versatile enough to translate texts outside his area of specialization. There are 15 technical areas which translator should be in. Some areas overlap, have common terminology. Every translator should possess a certain ability to analyze the context & draw conclusions from it.
Promises. The translator knows his own abilities & schedules & working habits well enough to make realistic purposes to the client regarding delivery dates & times & then keep his promises or if the pressing circumstances make it impossible to meet a deadline, calls the client & renegotiates the time frame or arranges for someone else to finish the job.
Friendliness. The translator should be friendly on the phone or in person, is pleasant to be or speak with, has a sense of humor, offers helpful advise & so on. The translator should be able to smile in any situation. Every translator should know Latin.
Confidentiality. The translator should not disclose confidential matters learned through the process of translation to third parties.
Reliability with regard to technology
Hardware & Software. The translator should own a late model of computer, a recent version of a major word-processing program, a fax-machine, a modem & know how to use them. Every firm has a list of terminology & there are many departments that have their own codes & information systems. The translator should know how to find information that is necessary for his work & how to get access to any of the in-house systems.
Types of text reliability
Literalism. The translation follows the original word for word, or as close to this ideal as possible. The syntactic structure of the SL text is painfully evident in the translation. There are cases when the translator isn’t allowed to give an adequate translation that will have the same function as the original. In these cases he can provide it but it’ll be neither English nor Russian. The client will always say that the text is written not in his lng but in some kind of hybrid.
Foreignism. The translation reads fairly fluently, but has a slightly alien feel. One can tell reading it that it’s not the original, but translation.
Fluency. The translation is so accessible & readable for the TL reader as to seem like an original in the TL. It never makes the reader stop & reflect that in fact it is translation.
Summary. The translation covers the main points or the gist of the original.
Commentary. The translation unpacks the hidden complexities of the original, exploring at length implications that remain unstated or half stated in the original. The translator should provide comments, which will make it easier for the TL reader to understand the national flavor of the idiom.
Summary-commentary. The translation summarizes some passages briefly while commenting on others. The passages that most concern the user are unpacked & the less important passages are summarized. In this case the translator should find out what the client is interested in. Then he tries to give the general idea of the text, but translates fully the passages the client is mostly interested in. Then the translator, having analyzed the lng & cultural problems of the text problems, goes on supplying comments if there is some misunderstanding. The translator supplies footnotes. When there are some cultural challenges (concerning differences in the procedures or format of the documents) the translator should provide a set of notes after the document.
Adaptation. The translation recasts the original so as to have the desired impact on the audience that is substantially different from that of the original. E.g. it happens when the adult text is adapted for TV, or advertising campaign designed to associate a product with sophistication uses entirely different images of sophistication in SL & TL. In the case of adaptation the translator should pay attention to the socio-psychological aspect of the audience for whom the translation is meant. Lng problems should also be taken into consideration.
Translator’s intelligence
All the translators are pragmatic. The translator needs intelligence to maximize speed & enjoyment, while not minimizing & probably enhancing reliability. At first sight the desires to translate faster & reliably might seem to be at odds with one another. The reliable translator should not make major mistakes & then he should not try to translate fast. If he does smth new & unfamiliar, which requires concentration, he should know that it takes time. Every translator should remember 2 things: it takes time, BUT if you have weak muscles they go in for lift waiting & then they become stronger. Then many people think it quite normal when they say: I have a poor memory. They are wrong. This is the question of intelligence. Man’s body is able to remember many things bcos of constant practice. Experienced translators are so fast bcos they translated so much that it often seems their brain is not doing the translation, their fingers are. They recognize familiar SL structure & they barely pose before their fingers are racing across the keyboard rendering it into a well-known TL structure equivalent. This equivalent is full of lexical items that seem to come of them automatically without conscious thought or logical analysis.
Classification of the translator’s memory
Immediate memory. It enables a person to remember words (or phrases) for a short period of time while you are trying to make out the meaning of this or that notion. Then another type of memory becomes responsible for these words.
Operational memory. It operates all the information a person ever gets.
Long-term memory. It comes in handy when you start translating & remember some expression or a phrase. If you train it you won’t need a dictionary.
Translation is an intelligent activity, requiring creative problem solving in new textual, social & cultural conditions. This intelligent activity is most often very conscious & most of the time it is subconscious. But this subconscious activity is no less intelligent (we are not aware of it), it’s no les creative, but it seems to us mysterious. And this is the mysterious mode of translation. This subconscious activity this sublimated intelligence that makes it possible to translate rapidly & reliably is the product of learning. Experience store in memory in ways that enable its effective recall & flexible use. This doesn’t mean that good translators should memorize vast quantities of linguistic & cultural knowledge. At least they shouldn’t do it consciously. Translation should be good at storing experiences in memory. It’s important to memorize words in contexts. Then the translator should be able to recall a situation & use the word in a proper way.
The 2nd classification of memory:
-Representational memory (RM)
-Procedural memory (PM)
RM records daily actions. PM helps to perform skills or activities, which are quickly sublimated as unconscious habits. Translators need both these kinds of memory. They need RM to remember a specific word & PM for typing, computer skills, and linguistic & cultural analytical skills.
Both types are important for the translator. PM is most useful when things go well, esp. when the SL text makes sense it’s well formed grammatically & lexically & the translation job seems to be well defined. It’s purpose & the TL audience is clearly understood. When things go wrong or not so well, when a poorly written text requires a conscious memory of grammatical rules, when the client himself doesn’t know the task, then the translator needs RM. PM helps the translator do his job rapidly, RM is needed when there are problems & rapid translation is impossible.
The 3rd classification of memory:
-Intellectual memory (IM)
-Emotional memory (EM)
When we view memory from the different prospective we may say that we can distinguish between IM & EM. Brain scientists draw a distinction between 2 pathways for memory when one of them goes through the parts of brain, which are responsible for recording facts (IM) & the other for recording feelings about those facts (EM). EM is at force of all learning. It’s always easier to remember things that we care about. The strongest memories about things are always about those, which had the most emotional impact. The more we enjoy learning, the better we learn. The more pleasurable we find our job, the more rapidly we will become efficient in it.
Translation is an intellectual ability. The translator has to employ 4 more kinds of intelligence in addition to the linguistic & logical –mathematical:
Musical intelligence. It’s the ability to hear, perform & compose music, which is a complex skill & attention to detail. Musical intelligence is often related to but distinct from mathematical intelligence. If you don’t have an ear for music, if you have never specialized in music as such you should do it now. You should try to analyze it from the prospective of its essential parts.
Spatial intelligence. It’s the ability to analyze the relations among spatial shapes, relations of tension & balance in paintings, sculptures, architecture & dance to create& transform fretful analogies between verbal or musical or other forms & spatial form.
Bodily kinesthetic intelligence. It’s the ability to understand, produce & caricature bodily states & actions. It’s the intelligence of actors, mimics, dancers & many eloquent speakers. This will give your body an ability to reproduce the intonation & the expressiveness of speech.
Personal intelligence. It’s very much connected with the previous types. We should call it emotional intelligence. It’s the ability to track & sort out & articulate one’s own emotional states. It’s important when you want to motivate yourself & to direct the activity toward the desired goal. You should be unobtrusive.
Logical-mathematical intelligence. It’s the ability to perceive, sort out & manipulate order, relations, world of objects, & abstract symbols used to represent those objects.
Linguistic intelligence. The ability to hear, sort out, produce & manipulate the complexities of a simple lng. It’s the intelligence of facts, novels, all good writers, eloquent speakers, and effective teachers. The ability to learn foreign lngs, to hear, sort out, produce & manipulate the complexities of transfer among lngs. It’s the intelligence of translators & interpreters.
Differences in the transfer of information between languages
Words may have secondary meanings, & these are dependent on the context. Second lng will always have an equivalent of the primary meaning, but the translator should be careful as the secondary meaning can not match at all. E.g. take Russian word “родители” (the interaction of the meanings “parents” & “ancestors”). It’s the case of metonymy, which appears in many lngs, but not every lng will have exact equivalent in the other.
* The kettle is boiling (but it’s the water!) – чайник закипел
* плавать на экзамене – to get lost at the exam
Lexical items may also reflect attitudes, emotions in addition to purely factual information.
*Inquisitive vs. curious (любознательный / любопытный)
As to collocations that belong to the same group every lexical item will tend to occur in the lng with a particular range of other lexical items. The meaning is practically the same but different words are combined to indicate this meaning. Each word has different collocational possibilities & a collocational range of equivalent words between lngs will not be identical especially in secondary meanings.
*Tailor / dressmaker /seamstress
*Handsome man / beautiful woman
*A pack of wolves / a school of fish / a flack of birds
Sometimes the preposition may change the meaning of the whole structure.
*Anxious about / anxious for
It’s not enough for the translator to learn isolated words & phrases. He should know words in contexts (collocations).
Only 4% of lng units are phraseological. Collocation challenges are far greater in number. The translator should learn the most frequently used patterns.
E.g. colour+with+emotion
*Red with anger
*Blue with cold
BUT when we speak about collocations we should assume that they do not coincide in different lngs:
слабые успехи = poor progress
правильные черты лица = regular features
Collocations in different lngs have different structures use different prepositons.
Confident of himself=уверен в себе
Jumped with joy=подпрыгнул от радости
Sometimes a shade of meaning may present a certain challenge.
We should do our best to prevent a riot.
I should do my best to prevent my sister from dating this man.
Sometimes every shade of meaning may have a collocation of its own.
He started smoking. - He started to smoke.
He is a free man. – He is free of money.
I’m mad about the movie. – I’m mad of his tone.
Types of lexical transformations
Concretization. It’s the most frequent device in translation from English into Russian. There is a wide group of English words of semantic volume. These words belong to different parts of speech (thing, affair, nice, point, case, fine). The meaning of them is rather vague & usually the translator uses them in different contexts, but in fact they are used as mere prop-words (do not express anything). The translator needs a context to determine their meaning.
*He came in sight of a lodge, a low, long frowning thing of red brick. – он увидел длинное серое мрачное здание из красного кирпича
*If the prime ministers speech made few new points, it was statesmanlike. And if it was stronger in terms of planned policy than of achieved results, this is often the case of political oratory – мало нового… часто бывает…
*The by-election victory went to the Labor candidate – при дополнительном голосовании победил кандидат от лейбористской партии
*The rain came in torrents – полил сильный дождь
Sometimes a micro-context is necessary for the translation
*Two of the shipwrecked men died of exposure – двое из потерпевших крушение моряков погибли от холода\жары
*It was a good solid house built to withstand time & exposure – это был прочный дом, который мог противостоять времени и погоде
Not infrequently specification is resorted to, as correlated generalizing words in English & in Russian have a different usage. Thus the word «limbs» can be used, speaking about tree. So it has a wider usage than the correlated word in Russian. And sometimes the usage of a word is inappropriate
*Thank you. - Said Margaret, feeling large & awkward & clumsy in all her limbs - …чувствуя себя неловкой и неуклюжей
The specification is when there are no correlated words in both lngs.
Generalization. This device is reverse of concretization. Still there is a tendency of differentiation in English, when Russian uses more general word. In some cases there is an equivalent in the TL & this equivalent is at the same level of abstraction. Generalization may desirable of purely stylistic reasons. It is sometimes used in rendering non-equivalents.
Antonymic translation. It is a grammatical & lexical transformation, which substitutes an affirmative construction or vice versa with some accompanying lexical changes, usually substituting the antonym for the original word.
*Keep off the grass
*Keep the child out of the sun
*My dear wife, - said I, - we must be serious sometimes.
Metonymic translation. It is a lexical transformation, based on substitution of correlated concepts.
*The advantages of sound have nowhere been better understood & implemented than on the 3rd program – преимущества радио особенно хорошо использовались 3-им каналом ВВС
*London in July with a sun for ones continuously shining had become a mad place, stifling, enclosed & dry. – В этом году Лондон под палящим июльским солнцем стал особенно невыносимым, удушливым, давящим, пыльным.
Antonymic translation. It’s a grammatical & lexical transformation, which substitutes an affirmative construction or vice versa with some accompanying lexical change.
* Keep off the grass – по газонам не ходить
*We must be serious sometimes – не всегда же нам шутить
*Keep the child out of the sun – не оставляйте ребенка на солнце
Paraphrasing. It is very often used in translation. It renders the meaning of some phrase in the SL by a phrase in the TL, & consists of non-correlated lexical units.
*Good riddance – счастливого пути
*In for a penny, in for a pound – назвался груздем, полезай в кузов
Translation & some problems of sociological variations of English & their reflection in translation
As all lngs English is not a homogeneous system. It consists of many multitude subsystems & they represent territorial & social dialects. Standard English is not a homogeneous system ever. It comprises several varieties:
1. American English
2. Canadian English
3. Australian English
4. British English
These are the major variations of English, but nowadays scholars speak of an awful lot of “Englishes”. These are accepted variations. The existence of all those subsystems poses a number of challenges for the translator.
*Bonnet (Br.) = good (Am.)=капот
Territorial dialects cannot be accepted as purely regional varieties of English. We may call them social-regional varieties. They are determined not only in lng terms, but also in geographic & social terms. They are certain facts that influence translation in many respects. In rendering dialect characteristics the translator does not only convey regional features, but the social markers as well, looking for the equivalents in the TL that have the same regional & social characteristics.
*They did the old woman in (Pygmalion). – они укокошили старушку
At the same time compensation is widely used. Sometimes the marker is purely phonetic. So we can use lexical compensation for phonetic dialect. The 2 major varieties of Standard English (American & British) have very much prominent distinctive features & they influence the process of translating. This influence is different when you translate into English or into Russian. When you translate into Russian the problem is of understanding & proper interpretation. It should be voted that seemingly identical lexical items might take different denotational meanings in British & in American.
*Oxford faculty – факультет
*Harvard faculty - профессорско-преподавательский состав
To diagnose the meaning properly the translator should find out the origin of the text. Sometimes differences of 2 variations influence not only denotational meaning but just one of its components. These partial semantic divergences are also important for translation.
*To ship materials (cargo).
Both in British & in American variations “to ship” denotes transportation. But in British it means doing transportation by sea & in American any means of transportation is suitable.
Semantic differences between British & American English may affect not only words, but also phrases.
*Public school – (US) school for primary & secondary grades that is maintained at public expense;
(Br) – only exclusive schools sometimes boarding, most often for boys, which prepare students for universities: Some of them prepare people for public service.
Translating articles or books, the translator should make sure what the country is. Essential semantic differences affect the system of numbers.
*Billion – (US) 1000000000
(Br) 1000000
Equally important are the differences between measures of weight. Some of the units in British & in American do not coincide.
Lexical differences in lngs affect not only denotational but also connotational meaning as well.
*Politician – (US) acquires some negative connotation.
(Br) neutral meaning
*Aggressive – (US) energetic, persistent
(Br) negative connotation
There is a lot of confusion. But the most difficult is when the translator has to produce texts, oriented at any English speaking person, regardless of his/her nationality. So the choice of wording should be based on very different principles. Preference should be given to linguistic forms, which possess no local coloring. Unfortunately it’s not always possible to find a neutral word for a term. The translator should explain what he really means, but the publishers in most cases prefer British variant.
Translation & the issue of style
There are 2 kinds of styles. They are interrelated but mean different things & allow us to view the notion of style from different prospective.
Style – is the lng people use, but they may express their ideas in different ways & manners.
There are functional styles, giving us specific features of text belonging to different genres. This is the layer of vocabulary people use. Then we can speak about style from the prospective of individual qualities of a writer.
The problem of style affecting translation may be divided into 2 main categories.
*Functional styles.
*Stylistic devices.
When we say functional style we mean the peculiarities of texts belonging to different genres in the SL & in the TL. Texts belonging to different functional styles such as official documents, research or scientific papers, technical manuals etc. are characterized by distinctive features that vary from lng to lng. These variations affect the comprehension, understanding of a text, its syntactic & semantic structure & the choice of linguistic devices for each time of text. The easiest is when we have equivalents to render the meaning of this or that phrase.
* High contacting parties – высокие договаривающиеся стороны
* We, the undersigned – мы нижеподписавшиеся
* The signatories of the present agreement – стороны подписавшие соглашение
Scientific & technical texts are characterized by the use of special terminology, equivalent of which should be selected from the proper style level. In a technical manual it’s essential in case of terminological synonymy to use the appropriate term for a given item.
Special attention should be paid to the so-called terminological phraseology.
* Turn as far as it shal go – повернуть до конца
* Rotate clock-wise – повернуть по часовой стрелке
 | |||
 |
Russian English texts are characterized by a number of certain features. The texts of newspapers are characterized abundance of neologisms, clichés, wide stylistic range, compressed structures & so on. But newspaper articles in Russian & in English have certain differences:
The headlines in Russian newspaper articles are more often based on noun phrases, while the English ones on verb phrases.
*The kidnapped general escapes – побег похищенного генерала
English headlines use present for the past.
*The government resigns – правительство ушло в отставку
English titles use infinitive where Russian use future.
*Coal miners to strike – шахтеры собираются бастовать
English headlines have a wide semantic range. The leading article usually has one of the 6 wh’s: who, when, where, what, why, which.
The most usual sequence in Russian lead is as follows:
Source Message.
In English it’s usually:
Message Source
Stylistic modification of texts is the most frequent transformation used in translation. A typical modification in translating from Russian into English is from bookish to neutral & sometimes even colloquial. Translating from English into Russian is vice versa.
* The secretary told that
*Sport writers banged away
In English we observe greater portions of compressed structures & this calls for expansion, translating into Russian.
*Defense panel – комитет по реорганизации министерства обороны
Categories & environment of oral interpretation
Consecutive interpretation. It covers a wide variety of situations, when the speaker waits for the interpreter to interpret parts of text. Interpretation depends upon the length of the pause. The translator should be able to anticipate where the meaningful part of the text begins & where it ends. The interpreter should always wait for the speaker to complete his idea. Consecutive translation presupposes that the translator should render the speaker’s attitude to what he is saying. The interpreter should preserve the effect produced by metaphors & other tropes & figures of speech. Consecutive interpretation is very common in court. In this case the interpreter should know the lng of court. The responsibility is even greater when you should translate medical texts orally. Consecutive interpretation is practiced during business negotiations. Other scenarios requiring consecutive interpretation include telecom translation & when it is a joint venture – factory sight tours & foreign visitor escort servicing. Consecutive interpretation requires formal training esp. in such instances as court interpreting, which has become rather popular in recent years.
Simultaneous interpretation. It can only be done with the appropriate equipment, which is necessary. The interpreter should be able to listen to the speaker & interpret almost at the same time. It’s a very challenging activity. One has to be prepared to it. He should know both lngs. He should be able to use clichés that save time & allow the interpreter to remove redundancy. The interpreter should possess the quality of an actor (intonation). He should be able to use synonyms. The interpreter should be psychologically prepared not to pay attention to mistakes.
The translator being a writer is primarily a message conveyer. The translation is to be understood by readers of the TL. Therefore no particular adapting the work is needed. Everyone knows that legal translation leaves little for adaptation & rewriting. Style related concerns are not of paramount importance. What the reader needs is a translated text that is faithful to the original in meaning & in function, regardless of stylistic skills. In a number of cases the translator faces a text, which is not to be used within a process of active communication & the impact of such text very often depends on the very wording of the original. In this case the translator can change in the original wording in order to understand the ST better & to be able to render it in the TL. This is the moment when the translator becomes an active link in the communication chain, when his communication skills are called upon to enhance the effect of the original message.
Report, inference & judge words
Report. It is a way of exchanging information. The basic symbolic fact is the report of what we have seen or felt. It’s the most usual form of communication.
*It’s raining. (Report)
Most frequently we rely on reports of reports, like “the newspapers say…”
The translator should remember that reports adhere to the following groups. First & foremost all reports are verifiable, we can analyze it & say whether it is a fact or not. Report is based on mere facts. A translator should remember that for the most part people trust each other reports. Everyday life is full of reports & precision is one of the most trust worthy characteristics of reports. All reports should avoid misunderstanding. There are lots of texts, which are reports. First & foremost these are the texts full of factual matter, about science, mathematics, automotive engineering, travel, geography etc. The information in them should be reliable. The lng of reports is so to say “map” lng, bcos it gives reasonably accurate representation of the sphere. It enables you to get the work done. This lng may be dull & uninteresting, but reports are not meant for entertainment. We should state the things in such a way that everybody will agree with our formulation. A report is what to do & how to do.
Inference. It is an expression of opinion as a kind of comment on what is going said. In science we rely not only on reports but also on inferences & it’s important to distinguish between them two. An inference is a statement about the unknown based on the known. Report is a statement. Inference is a conclusion. Report is the foundation of utterances in some areas of thought. And inferences form the main body of science. E.g. a physician making a diagnosis infers it from the symptoms that a patient is talking about. Inference depends upon facts & we should always mention first facts & then inferences.
Judgment. They are usually regarded as a barrier to clear thinking. They express the speaker’s approval or disapproval.
*It’s a wonderful car.
Judgments look like facts but they are not facts. When a translator deals with legal documents he should do his job in such a way that the division between reports, inferences & judgments is obvious. Sometimes judgments lead people to extremes. If a person expresses disapproval he uses words having negative connotation, approval – positive (always exaggerated). Every translator should be able to disregard extremes, trying to make information neutral to avoid misunderstanding. No judgment is directly stated. It’s implied.
Slanting is a case when people characteristic features & facts in such a way that the attitude of the writer is vividly seen, though sometimes he keeps the facts only & for the choice of facts the arrangement show the bias. This is done on purpose. The translator should avoid bias & keep the balance. He should be very sensitive if he feels it. Then he should discover bias, divide facts into important & not, establish a certain hierarchy of facts, find out whether the writer or his editors gave the story a misleading emphasis, discover whether they did it deliberately or sue to the lack of competence. If deliberately he should not chose a word. If not intentionally the translator should edit the message.
Report lng is instrumental in character. It deals with facts. If we consider the report lng from the point of view of the hearer or the reader we can say that it informs us. The means of lng are used to affect us. Words affect our feelings. The first affective device is tone. Intonation is important during the course of the utterance. The translator verbalizes the moods, which are expressed through intonation. When we deal with writing we also can speak of tones, but their approach is a bit different. So we have to deal with styles, expressed through different devices. Another effective element in lng is rhythm. It is achieved by repetition. Rhythm is important, bcos there is a continuous development of man’s response to the rhythm. To produce it means to attract attention of the speaker. The translator while translating should try to maintain the challenge & keep the original rhythm. Rhythm sometimes relies upon rhyme & alliteration. They are important not only for versification & fiction writing. They can be used in slogan & advertisement writing. In addition to tone, voice & rhythm we can mention words, which are very important. They give us an aura of personal feelings. The usage of affective connotations produces a certain effect (pig, sugar, honey etc.) the idea of effective connotation is so important that every translator should know the means to express them. If the translator translates from Russian into English the minimative suffixes are reduced. The choice of words is very important. The difference between forms of address shows your attitude.
* Gentleman – individual – person – gent – guy – fellow – herd
* I have the honor to inform you sir – I should like to tell you sir – I’m telling you nester – Listen punk
Taboo words
In every lng there seem to be certain unmentionables. Due to the fact that these words possess a strong effective connotation they cannot be used in polite speech. In English they do not mention words related to sex, extinction, anatomy. The behavior laws prohibit the translator to use taboo words. In the 19th century it was inelegant to speak of going to bed (they said “to retire”). Sometimes words & expressions degrade in meaning. If you translate the book, belonging to the 19th century you should understand that “to make love” in those times meant “to court”. Sometimes it’s necessary to discuss some shocking matters (AID). In such cases vague explanations full of euphemisms cannot be used. There are such themes as death, money, age, which are not to be discussed.
Semantic differences between languages
Referential meaning & its rendering in translation.
Different vision & usage that characterize concept & meaning.
Difference in the semantic structure of words in different lngs.
Difference in valency & different collocations.
The challenges in translation of monosemantic words.
Translation of terms.
Languages are different not only phonologically & grammatically. Their systems of meaning are also different. Meaning is a property of a language (Catford). This means that semantic structures of correlated words of the SL & those of the TL cannot be considered as co-extensive, which means that they never cover each other. Their semantic relationship is very complex; bcos the concepts that are in current use in respective cultures are different. A concept is a recognizable unit of meaning. It may be broken into concept components. Sometimes they are called semes. In this respect meaning can be viewed as a group of meaning components. A concept may be represented by a morpheme, word, phrase, and tone.
Types of meaning
Referential meaning. It’s also called logical or denotative. It has direct reference to things or phenomena of reality, naming abstract notions & processes as well. It’s also necessary to distinguish between primary & secondary referential meaning.
Emotive meaning. It has reference not directly to the thing but to the feelings & emotions, associational with them. It’s a connotative meaning created by connotations, raised in the meaning of the speaker or reader. It’s inherent in defining groups of words even if they are taken out of the context.
Stylistic meaning. It’s based by the stylistic stratification of the English vocabulary & is formed by stylistic connotations. Stylistic & emotive meanings are closely connected. As a rule stylistically colored words possess a considerable element of emotive meaning. Such words as “mug” & “phiz” are more stylistically expressive than their neutral counterpart “face”.
Referential meaning causes lexical transformations when you deal with:
Different visions of objects of reality & different usage. Every lng possesses its own system of images & they depend upon associations.
*Hot milk with the skin on it – горячее молоко с пенкой
* Blue – голубой, синий
*Purple robes – пурпурные одеяния
*Purple ink – фиолетовые чернила
*Purple shades – синие тени
Different semantic structure of a word in TL & SL.
*gloomy – 1)темный, мрачный; 2) унылый, мрачный
*mellow – 1)сочный, мягкий, спелый – о фрукте; 2)выдержанный – о вине;
3)подобревший – о человеке; 4)сочный – о голосе; 5)рыхлый, плодородный – о
почве; 6)подвыпивший – разговорный.
Differences in the semantic structure are one of the primary causes of lexical transformations. Even words, which seem to have practically the same meaning in
SL & TL cannot be considered identical. Semantic correlation between lngs is not to
be interpreted as semantic identity. Not infrequently similar meanings of Russian &
English words differ in some components. It’s often reflected in dictionaries.
Different valency & collocability. Words are used in context & the aptness of word to appear in different combinations can be described as valency or collocability. Every lng has its syntagmatic norms & patterns of valency. They depend largely upon vision. Collocated words tend to institute a cliché, which differ in different lngs.
*heavy sea – бурное море
*bad mistake – грубая ошибка
When we speak about valence the main problem the translator has to face is the difference in collo