Translatioin of Political Literature - Иностранные языки - Скачать бесплатно
any of them. (omitted item strategy)
Use of synonymy pairs is characterized to all styles of written speech
of English language. Preserving such synonymy pair is accepted as pleonasm
and it is absolutely superfluous even when translating official documents
that demand preciseness. For example:
The Treaty was declared null and void.
Договор был объявлен недействительным.
Condemned by almost all members of the United States, and regarded as
an outcast and criminal system by the vast majority of mankind, it
(apartheid) is able to exist and defy censure solely because of the aid and
support given to it by the Western imperialist countries.
Апартеид осуждён почти всеми членами ООН, и подавляющее большинство
человечества считает эту систему преступной. Апартеид существует благодаря
помощи и поддержке империалистических государств Запада.
In this example are used two synonymy pairs: outcast and criminal, aid
and support. In the first case преступный sufficiently renders the essence
of both synonyms. The lexical meaning of the attribute outcast – изгнанный,
отверженный doesn’t fit to this context neither owing to norms of
combinability nor to the power of its meaning. The second pair of synonyms
can be preserved without any difficulty – помощь и поддержка. The
participle given is omitted for its meaning is supplied by case flexion.
The battle was fierce while it lasted.
Бой был жесток.
Time complex object in this in this case functions as a clichй and
doesn’t have corresponding equivalent in Russian.
So we can see that in the majority cases of translation some piece of
political literature we have make necessary changes. We should remind you
that it is not always an English sentence completely corresponds to the
Russian one. Very frequently the structure of a Russian sentence absolutely
differs from the one English. It has different word order, parts of the
sentences and pretty often differs even the order of sentences. In some
instances, parts of speech expressed in English are translated into Russian
by the help of different parts of speech. You should remember that the
compressed way of expression in the English can not be followed in Russian
and we therefore have to “decompress” them so that to make the easy to
perceive and understand, e.i. we have to add some words or expressions or
even sentences in whole. Nevertheless, some differences in usage of some
specific features make us leave some elements unsaid while translating the
whole. And all these cases are explained by grammatical transformations we
have just investigated.
§ II. Lexical difficulties of transformation.
Every word in a language carries some concrete notion. The semantics of
a word reflects different signs of the subject and the relation of its
meanings to other objects it denotes. The semantics of a word includes word
perception characteristic to the studied language, being more precise to
the bearers of the studied language. When studying the reality of some
object we can identify that its name reveals its functions which finds the
reflection in the semantics of the word. Lets take as an example the word
glasses – очки. In English it reveals the substance of which the object is
made and in Russian firstly it reveals its function – second eyes – очи.
Despite distinguishing all kinds of differences we should say that,
both languages sufficiently reflect one and the same perception of reality.
Therefore the difficulty stylistic devices represents to a translator is
based on word play, if in corresponding words of both languages are
featured different signs.
The second reason, causing lexical difficulties to translation of
political literature is the difference in the semantic volume of a word. In
every language a word exists in a close connection with the lexical-
semantic system of a given language. It may have various kinds of lexical
meanings (lexical-semantic) variants; it may widen or narrow its meaning
and make it more abstract or concrete.
The third reason presenting lexical difficulties in translation the
difference in combinability. Words in languages have some definite
relation characteristic only to the given language. It should be mentioned
that word combinability is possible if words point to similar objects they
denote. This difference of word combinability in various languages is very
important; therefore some types of combinability are easily accepted in one
of language and are completely unacceptable in other languages.
Last but not the least is the accepted usage of words in a language. It
is, of course related to the development of a given languages and formation
of its lexical system. Every language worked out its own clichйs and some
set expressions used by speakers, nevertheless those word expressions are
not phraseological units but they possess complete form, which, in
comparison with the phraseological units, are never broken by adding some
introductory words or substitution of some of its elements.
Translation studies showed that there are cases when due to the
distinguished signs a word acquires wider semantic volume and can not be
covered by corresponding equivalent in the target language. Let us take
teenager for example: etymologically it is related to the numerals from
thirteen till nineteen. The Russian подросток does not semantically cover
its meaning in complete volume for its is narrower in its meaning.
Therefore the word teenager is usually translated by different words –
подросток, юноша, and in plural as молодёжь.
Difference in the semantic structure of a word represents one of the
main reason causing lexical difficulty in translation. These difference are
related to peculiar features of separate words or word groups. And it is
quite natural that this matter covers a wide range of examples.
Practically, even identical words in different languages are not always
equal in their meaning, they never correspond completely. Most often is the
correspondence of first lexical-semantic variants of such words – their
primary meaning – then we have various lexical-semantic variants for the
course of development of these words was of different nature.
This is characterized by different functioning of a word in language,
different in usage and combinability, but even the primary meaning of an
English word maybe wider of the corresponding one in Russian.
The semantic structure of a word predefines the possibility of its
contextual use, and the translation of contextual meaning presents a hard
task to translators.
Contextual meaning of a word in many instances depends on the character
of semantic context, on the semantics of the words combining with it.
Occasional meanings, suddenly originated in the context are not always
arbitrary – its is based into the semantic structure of the word. In
contextual usage of a word in poetry or prose – often point to the author’s
penetration into the depth of the word’s semantic structure. For
paradigmatic and semantic relations are characteristic to any words and the
lexical potential of words can be revealed in both cases. But revealing
these potentials of words is closely connected with the specificity of
lexical-semantic aspects of every language and here forth we may observe
the difficulty of translation of contextual meaning of words. What is
possible in one language maybe impossible in another because of its
difference in semantic structure and its usage.
In an atomic war women and children will be the first hostages.
The word hostage according to different dictionaries has got only one
meaning – заложник. But in the given instance the hostage acquired the
meaning жертва. Its contextual meaning probably exists in its paradigmatic
meaning; any hostage may get killed therefore while translating this
example we have to use the word жертва since заложник is not used in the
given contextual meaning.
Первыми жертвами в атомной войне будут женщины и дети.
A very interesting contextual meaning of exploitation will be given in
the following example:
Britain’s worldwide exploitation was shaken to the roots by Colonial
Liberation Movements.
The contextual meaning of the word originated metonymically – any
colonial system lives on exploitation, which comprises basis of colonial
power. The corresponding Russian эксплуатация can not be used in this
contextual meaning, the contextual surroundings of exploitation (worldwide,
shaken to the roots) also prevents it. The only possible variant of
translation is by means of metonymic transposition – substitution:
Колониальное могущество Англии было подорвано (потрясено до основания)
национально-освободительным движением во всех колониях.
Contextual meaning of a word is always effective semantically and
stylistically owing to its unexpectedness as well. It often used in
stylistic purposes and therefore a translator runs into two obstacles: he
should avoid (нивелировка) and at the same time not to break the norms of
translation.
The most difficulty presents the translation of emotional coloring that
demands lexical changes. There is a wide range of words in a language that
besides their logical meaning have emotional meanings or co-meaning. One
should not mix emotional co-meaning with the multiple meaning words.
Emotional meaning of words usually presents in paradigmatic meanings of
words, that is it is objective and but subjective, like in the words: hate,
love, friendship. But it is not an exception when emotional meaning
originates from contextual usage. Emotional meaning, based in the word is
usually created by association – positive or negative – which a word causes
and the associations that exist in it despite the context of perception.
A peculiar group of words demanding transformation in translation are
the words that possess different volume of meaning in Russian and English
languages. To this group belong international words, some words of human
perception, mental activity.
But we should mention that the words that belong to these groups are of
different semantic structure. International words and the words of human
perception, mental activity represents polysemantic words in English.
International words are words that are used in a wide range of
languages in one or several forms. These words express scientific and
social-politic notions. The volume meaning of these words does not usually
coincide (except term-words). Though it is well-known that they comprise
the false-friends of translators and the mistakes in their translation are
frequent. These mistakes are caused not only by difference in their
semantic structure but by the difference of their usage as well which
demand lexical changes:
We are told that television this autumn will give a massive coverage to
the General Election.
Сообщают, что нынешней осенью передачи по телевидению будут широко
освещать парламентские выборы.
The word massive along with the meaning массивный, has other meanings
like массовый, грандиозный, огромный, широкий and so on. For example:
massive success – огромный успех, massive problems – важные проблемы.
Since international words possess wider meaning volume they are more
used in English if comparing to Russian:
Never before in the history of the world have there been so many
persons engaged in the translation of both secular and religious materials.
Ещё никогда в истории человечества столько людей не занимались
переводом как светской, так и духовной литературы.
Russian words религиозные материалы are absolutely unacceptable in this
case because of their different usage. In this instance the usage plays the
main role though their meaning is identical in both languages.
Lexical transformations are also caused by necessity to concretize a
word while translating. It is characteristic to English language the
availability of words with wide spread meaning. They can be nouns,
adjectives and verbs, for example: thing, point, stiff; nice, fine, bad; to
say, to go, to come, to get.
Translation of these words depends on the context, which helps to
identify their concrete meaning. Usually they are translated by various
Russian words that have concrete meaning (importance). Practically it
refers to verbs — to verbs of speech and verbs of movement. Concrete
lexical meaning(importance), this or that the lexical-semantic variant of a
verb depends on structure and lexical meaning of words that distribute
them.
At the by-election victory went to the Labor candidate.
На дополнительных выборах победа досталась лейбористам (победу одержал
кандидат от лейбористской партии).
Among nouns of wide meaning a special group comprises abstract
nouns, that frequently demand concrete definitions in translation. So, for
example, despite the presence of a word президентство in Russian - English
word presidency usually refers to the words a пост президента or
президентская всласть.
An ageing Speaker cannot take on the burdens of the presidency.
Престарелый спикер не может взять на себя бремя президентской власти
(в случае смерти президента).
The use of words of abstract meaning strongly differs in various
languages. Therefore follows the necessity of concrete definition in
translating.
The Saigon regime used every form of pressure and violence to compel a
reluctant electorate to go to the polls.
Сайгонский режим прибегал ко всем видам давления и насилия, чтобы
заставить упрямых избирателей принять участие в выборах.
Sometimes it is necessary to concretize some word due to different
qualitative distinction (valeur) the generalizing words have in languages.
The following words belong to them: meal and трапеза that usually
illustrate the this phenomenon and the words limbs and члены, from which
limbs is widely common, and Russian word the члены has much narrower usage.
In the given translation, besides concrete definition of руки and ноги,
we also had to use fixed word phrase.
The following problem which demands careful consideration in lexical
transformations of translation is problem of word combinability. In all
languages there are typical norms of word combinability. The concept of
norm is relative, on the one hand, with system of language, and on the
other hand, it is closely connected with speech, in which the originality
of speech formation is displayed. Each language can form uncountable
number new word combinations that will be understood by its bearers. In any
language there exists generally accepted tradition of word combinations,
which do not coincide with the corresponding tradition of word combinations
in the other languages.
And it makes look for similarly accepted word combinations in the
target language. The main part combined words usually coincides in
translation, but the second one is frequently translated by a word
possessing other logical meaning, but performing the same function, as for
example, trains run — поезда ходят, rich feeding — обильная пища.
Labor Party protests followed sharply on the Tory deal with Spain.
За сообщением о сделке консервативного правительства с Испанией
немедленно последовал протест лейбористской партии.
The wider is the semantic volume of a word, the wider is its
combinability, thus due to this feature it can interact with various word
forms and word combinations. And this features enables the translator to
use his creativity in translation.
Along with traditional combinations in languages unexpected
combinations are also possible, but they are quite clear, for they follow
generally accepted semantic models of word combinability. This phenomenon —
the connection of words with completely various semantic features - is
peculiar to all languages, but in each language it has various rules and
traditions. In English language such unexpected word combinations are
formed very easily. It is probably caused by conversion and easiness in
formation of new words in various ways, heterogeneity of languages
vocabulary and some other reasons. Not only poets and writers, but also
journalists frequently create unexpected word combination that makes their
statements significantly vivid and original. The unexpectedness of word
usage is closely connected with expressiveness of the statement.
Unexpected usage of word combinations hardens the task of translators,
for words interrelate in combinations not only with one word, but also with
a large number of other words of the sentence, for example:
The use of an adjective sharp in this context is unexpected: none of
its meanings given in dictionaries gives the description of a hand. The
difficulty of its translation is aggravated by presence of the second
definition white, which excludes translation by words костлявый and сухой.
Белая, сухощавая рука мадам лежала на широком колене Адама.
In the given translation the sense of the sentence has been rendered
but the unexpectedness of the used word was lost.
The last feature of lexical transformation to be discussed in this
Paper is traditional word usage for every language and which causes
frequent lexical transformations. This traditional usage is to some extent
related to another approach to the phenomena of reality. For example:
The military base is built on terraces rising from the lake.
For Russian the traditional use will be:
Военная база построена на террасах, спускающихся к озеру.
In this case preposition is omitted in translation because as the
originality of the English word usage required complete transformation.
To the traditional word usage can also be referred the so-called
clichйs — order, and the clichйs in wider sense.
Hands up!
Руки вверх!
Long live America!
Да здравствует Америка!
The assault of the castle was followed by continuous bombing. Loss of
life was uncountable.
За штурмом крепости последовала длительная бомбардировка. Жертвы были
бесчисленны.
The Commonwealth countries handle a quarter of the world's trade.
На страны Британского содружества приходится четверть всей мировой
торговли
As you can see from the examples given above – in translations
corresponding Russian clichйs are also used.
§ III. Stylistic difficulties of translation
In the previous chapters we carefully considered the grammatical and
lexical transformations that occur while translating political literature
from English into Russian. And we have figured out that most of these
reasons are rooted in national and cultural settings of both languages.
Practically, stylistic devices in almost all languages are similar
still though their functions in speech vary. Identical stylistic devices
are used differently in languages; they perform different functions and
have different value in stylistic system of their language what actually
explains their necessity when transformations in translation occur. The
stylistic changes are as necessary as grammatical or lexical ones. While
applying some grammatical or lexical transformation in translation the
translator is guided by principle of rendering grammatical of lexical
meaning. When rendering stylistic meaning of the source text a translator
should be guided by the same principle – to recreate in translation the
same impression that might be left by the original text.
A translator should not try to preserve the stylistic device given in
the sentence, but reproduce its function in the target language.
We should not forget that almost all stylistic devices are multi
functional. It is like when polysemantic words in English and Russian
languages do not coincide in their lexical-semantic variants and the same
is when differ the function of identical stylistic device. Thus when
comparing stylistic devices we can easily identify complete correspondence,
partial correspondence and even sometimes absence of correspondence and
their functions.
To illustration it we can compare alliteration in the English and
Russian languages. The function of alliteration coincides in both languages
— in this function alliteration is one of the basic devices of poetic
speech. However the usage of alliteration for pleasant sounding in prose is
more characteristic for the English language, than for Russian. The second
function of alliteration is logical. Alliteration emphasizes close
relationship between components of the statement. Especially brightly
alliteration shows the unity of an epithet with an attributed word.
The third function of alliteration in English language – to attract
attention of the reader — is widely used in the names of literary works,
newspaper headings and often in articles.
The use of alliteration is a convincing acknowledgement that various
functions of stylistic devices in different languages do not always
coincide in usage.
We have already discussed functional translation of stylistic devices.
But it is extremely important to distinguish in the translated text
original and imagined alliterations so that to avoid unnecessary
emphasizing and to keep stylistic equivalence which presents necessary
component of adequate translation. there is a constant danger to smooth and
de-color the original text or, on the contrary, to make translation
brighter and stylistically colored. But sometimes a translator consciously
applies some "«smoothing" or neutralization in other words.
Repetition as you know is a more widespread stylistic device in the
English language, than in Russian.
In some cases repetition as the stylistic device should be necessarily
kept in translation, but for the difference in combinability and various
semantic structures of polysemantic words or words of wide meaning in
English and Russian languages the translator has to change and replace some
of elements.
The repetition is widely used with stylistic purposes in newspaper
publicity. In these cases the translator is compelled to apply stylistic
changes, make substitution or omission.
A policy of see no stagnation, hear no stagnation, speak no
stagnation has had too long a run for our money.
Слишком долго мы расплачиваемся за политику полного игнорирования и
замалчивания застоя в нашей экономике.
The triple repetition of no stagnation has been omitted in
translation, though is partially compensated by the use of synonymic pair
at a word (stagnation), but neutralization is evident in translation. The
neutralization happened when translating the phraseological unit to have
(too long) a run for our money.
Among stylistic devices used in political literature rather frequent
there are synonymic and alliterated pairs. The use of such pairs is
traditional for all styles of the English language including business style
as well. When translating official documents such pairs are frequently by
one word. For example, the just and equitable treatment of all nations from
UN Charter is given in Russian as справедливое отношение ко всем нациям,
for in Russian there is no absolute synonym for the word just.
Metaphor is used in all emotionally – colored styles of speech.
However in style of fiction the metaphor always carries original character,
whereas in political literature the original metaphor is used rather seldom
and basically — copied metaphors. Nevertheless in advanced clauses of the
English and American political literature, the purpose of which is to
assure, to make people believe and to impress the reader, that is to force
him to agree with the point of view given in the article, one can often see
rather bright and colorful metaphors.
Sometimes the difficulty of translation of metaphor consists in
translating some word combination or a phraseological unit, which does not
have figurative equivalent in Russian.
We have already discussed the necessity of neutralization of means of
expressiveness when translating English or American politics. Let us
consider the problem of extended metaphor. The extended metaphor represents
a chain of the logically connected figurative components. Sometimes such
components of the extended metaphors pass through the whole clause. The
below-mentioned example is taken from clause of the American observer James
Reston.
The latest official explanation of the President's Indochina policy
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