The notion of antonymic translation.

The notion of antonymic translation.

Antonymic translation usually implies a comprehensive lexical and grammatical transformation: an affirmative construction is translated by a negative one or a negative construction – by an affirmative one. But such grammatical transformation is usually accompanied by lexical transformation – the key word of the source language utterance is translated by its antonym in the target language utterance, e.g. the undead past – ещеживоепрошлое. Nobody was ever sorry to see him. – Всевсегдабылирадыеговидеть.

Antonymic translation is more frequently used when translating negative constructions by affirmative ones. This may be accounted for by the stylistic use of negative constructions in English for purposes of expressiveness. The English language uses grammatically only one negative in a sentence – either with a verb or with a noun but it makes a stylistic use of two negatives of which one is formed by grammatical means and the other – by means of affixation (negative prefixes or suffixes) or by lexical means, i.e. by words with a negative meanings.

A sentence containing two negatives is negative only on the face of it; actually it is affirmative as the two negatives neutralize each other. The grammatical form in this case is not used in its direct meaning and consequently attracts attention, as does, for example, the rhetorical question which is no question at all but an emphatic statement. The clash between the denotative meaning of the grammatical form and its use in speech makes it highly emotive and increases its expressiveness. Thus a double negation has a special connotative meaning. It is not identical, however, with an affirmative statement. It contains a certain modification. It may be an overstatement or an understatement. He spoke in no uncertain terms. Онговорилвесьмарешительно.

 

Translation of neologisms

In some cases neologisms may be regarded as non-equivalents and translated accordingly.

A neologism is word, term, or phrase which has been recently created - often to apply to new concepts, or to reshape older terms in newer language form. Neologisms often become popular by way of mass media, the Internet, or word of mouth. Every word in a language was, at some time, a neologism, though most of these ceased to be such through time and acceptance.

мыло ("an email" – the new IT-slang meaning; "a soap" – the traditional meaning)

There are also three ways of rendering neologisms in translation.

By Borrowings. By borrowed words may be either transcribed or transliterated. E.g. hippy –хиппи; smog – смог. It should be noted that transcription of such words is not always exact, e.g. nylon – нейлон; laser – лазер.

By Translation Loans.Neutron bomb – нейтроннаябомба.

By Descriptive or Interpreting Translation.Feedback – обратная связь, activism – агитационная деятельность, bugging – тайное наблюдение с помощью технических средств.

Term translation.

Translation is the transmittal of written text from one language into another. Although the terms translation and interpretation are often used interchangeably, by strict definition, translation Refers to the written language, and interpretation to the spoken word. Translation is the action of interpretation of the meaning of a text, and subsequent production of an equivalent text, also called a translation, that communicates the same message in another language. The text to be translated is called the source text, and the language it is to be translated into is called the target language; the final product is sometimes called the "target text."

Translation must take into account constraints that include context, the rules of grammar of the two languages, their writing conventions, and their idioms. A common misconception is that there exists a simple word-for-word correspondence between any two languages, and that translation is a straightforward mechanical process. A word-for-word translation does not take into account context, grammar, conventions, and idioms. The second half of the 20th century has seen the in-depth study of translation, which is sometimes called Theory of Translation, Science of Translation, Translation Linguistics, or even Translatology.

It has been claimed abroad that translation studies began in 1972 with Holmes’s paper presented at the Third International Congress of Applied Linguistics, “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies”. However, unfortunately, European and American scholars seemed to have been unaware of the achievements of the Russian school of translation studies. Works by V. Komissarov, A. Shveitser, A. Fedorov and many others confirmed the status of translation studies as a discipline of its own even in the 1950s.

The main concern of translation theory is to determine appropriate translation methods for the widest possible range of texts and to give insight into the translation process, into the relations between thought and language, culture and speech.

There are several aspects of this branch of linguistics:

- General theory of translation, whose object is general notions typical of translation from any language.

- Specific (or partial, in terms of Holmes) theory of translation that deals with the regularities of translation characteristic of particular languages - for example, translation from English into Russian and vice versa.

- Special (partial) theory of translation that pays attention to texts of various registers and genres.

There are two terms corresponding to the Russian word “перевод”: translation and interpretation. Those who discriminate between the terms refer the term ‘translation’ to the written text, and the term ‘interpretation’ to oral speech. However, the terms are polysemantic: to interpret might mean “to translate or discuss the meaning of the text” – an outstanding British translation theorist P.Newmark, for example, states that “when a part of a text is important to the writer’s intention, but insufficiently determined semantically, the translator has to interpret”. The term to translate is often referred to any (written or oral) manner of expression in another language.

Translator’s competence.

Many professional bodies have a code of professional conduct, like the Institute of Linguistics in the United Kingdom the German Federation of Translators developed a similar code of professional honor.

One of the first principles of translators’ behavior is objectivity and impartiality. A translator, or rather an interpreter, is a mediator of communication but not its active participant. He cannot take part in the discussion he translates. A translator is generally expected not to side with either party. If a speaker’s arguments seem weak to him, he must translate them as convincingly (or not) as does the speaker. The interpreter cannot correct the speaker even if he knows that the latter is evidently mistaken. In order to “wash his hands” of the wrong statement, the interpreter can stress that it is the speaker’s point of view: Какговориторатор… Neither vocal, nor facial expression should betray the interpreter’s thoughts and feelings. Generally speaking, interpreting involves a high level of neutrality and detachment.

The interpreter’s speech must be clear and distinct. He must not mumble and stumble. No matter what and how a speaker might be talking, the interpreter must be logical and grammatically correct. A sentence begun must be completed. There is a stereotype that well-respected participants speak according to the standard norms. Thus mistakes in translating will inevitably be attributed to the interpreter and not to the speaker.

It is recommended that the interpreter learn beforehand the names and positions of the communicators to avoid further troubles.

The interpreter is not responsible for the content of what he is translating. He cannot translate what was not said (though in informal situations, the interpreter may deviate slightly from this rule and, taking into account the difference in cultures, makes necessary comments.) Awareness of non-verbal communication will be of great help to the interpreter in any situation, though he is not obliged to translate gestures.

An interpreter must keep information from the talks confidential. When working at several negotiations concerning the same problem, the translator cannot make the participants understand that he is aware of some information on the problem.

An interpreter normally speaks in the first person singular; the third person deixis is employed when it is necessary to introduce the speaker, when the communicator speaks about the interpreter, or in informal situations with several participants. It is not recommended using in Russian the pronoun он / она - it is better to name a person (either in full name or with the courtesy title ‘господин /госпожа’.

The place of an interpreter depends on the type of ceremony. It is crucial that the interpreter hear and be heard well. In translating informal talks, the interpreter usually stands between the communicants, to the left of his chief. When translating officials, the interpreter is to the left and behind the official. At the conference, the interpreter can be at the podium, in the presidium, at a microphone. An interpreter can check with the speaker if he did not hear or understand something properly. But, of course, echoing questions should not be frequent, especially in translating official talks.

It is admissible, though not desirable, to interrupt very long utterances of a speaker. It is better to make an agreement with the speaker beforehand about the length of utterances s/he is going to speak. An interpreter should always have paper and pencil with him, ready to take notes.

An interpreter must be very punctual. He must be observant of the time and arrive on time. Negotiations cannot start without him. It is even desirable that the interpreter come a little earlier than appointed, because the participants may decide at the last moment to start the discussion earlier, or the interpreter’s help may be needed for discussing some problems before the talks.

An interpreter must work with modesty and dignity. He must avoid both over familiarity (even if he is on friendly terms with the negotiation participants) and servility towards the communicators. He must be self-assured: he knows that the worst translation is better than absence of one (the theory is disputable, however). He must not let the talks participants correct him and he should do everything to make them believe in his professional competence.

His manners must be reserved and official, the clothes neat and not garish.

Transposition

Replacement

Addition

Omission

This classification is arbitrary, not precise, because as far as translation goes we can’t find any of the transformations in is pure form. They are usually combined with one another.

1) Transposition - it’s a change in the order of linguistic elements, which are words, phrases, clauses and sentences. Most often it is connected with the notions of theme and rheme: *A boy came in – Вошелмальчик

Within a complex sentence the same tendency is observed in Russian. So the first place is occupied by the part of a sentence which most logically precedes the second, while in English the position of both clauses though not quite fixed is for the most part governed by existing syntactical rules. In fact the main clause precedes the subordinate one, and this often causes a change in the order of clauses in translation.

*He trembled as he looked up. – Взглянувнаверх, онзадрожал.

*You goin’ to court this morning? – Said Jim. We have strolled over. – Мыподошли.“Выпойдетесегоднявсуд?” – спросилДжим.

The transposition of the sentence elements is sometimes called sentence restructuring, because the sentence is getting restructured in the process of translation. This restructuring consists in changing syntactic functions of words in a sentence.

2) Replacement - This is a very important transformation, and I can affect any kind of linguistic units: word forms, parts of speech, sentence elements, types of syntactic relations, sentence types etc.

*The struggles of the Indian people in all parts of the US” – борьба

*A novel about lives of common people” – ожизни

*She is a very good dancer.” – Хорошотанцует

Addition & omission

Addition & omission here is caused by various factors, which are need or have no use for lexical incompleteness. That means that certain word groups or sentences don’t give enough information or the lack of information sometimes depends on the insufficiency of the context or peculiarities of the language. Thus in English in many cases words, which are omitted, can be easily restored by the context. In Russian their actual presence is a necessity.

*payclaim – требованиеоповышенииЗ./платы

*gun license – разрешение на ношение оружия

*oil talk – переговоры о ценах на нефть

*State-financed” = financed by state

*US-made” = made in US

There are certain rules that every translator should observe.

Verbs can be substituted by nouns & vice versa. These substitutions are based upon 2 principles.

1. The translation must be adequate & transparent.

2. The translation must be precise & the economy should be observed.

Text as a translation unit.

Singling out and defining a unit of translation is a problem widely discussed in Translation Studies?

According to R. Bell, a unit of translation is the smallest segment of a source language text which can be translated, as a whole, in isolation from other segments (as small as possible and as large as is necessary). Should we consider a word as a translation unit? Though there exists the notion of a word-for-word translation, the word can hardly be taken for a translation unit. First of all, this is because word borders are not always clear, especially in English. Sometimes a compound word is written in one element, sometimes it is hyphenated, or the two stems are written separately as a phrase: e.g., moonlight, fire-light, candle light. On the other hand, in oral speech it is difficult to single out separate words because they tend to fuse with each other into inseparable complexes: [‘wud3э 'ko:lim?] – According to the stress, there should be two words, while in written speech we can see four words: Would you call him?

Furthermore, it is impossible to consider a phrase (word combination) as a translation unit, because its boundaries are also vague.

Thus, it is not a language unit that should be considered in translation, but a discourse (speech) unit. A translation unit is a group of words united in speech by their meaning, rhythm and melody, i.e. it is a syntagm, or rhythmic and notional segment of speech.

This definition of the unit of translation is process-oriented. If considered from a product-oriented point of view, it can be defined as the target-text unit that can be mapped onto a source-text unit.

Types of equivalence

Equivalence is the reproduction of the original text by translated text means. Equivalence is not a constant but a variable quantity and the range of variability is considerable. The degree of equivalence depends on the linguistic means used in the original texts and on the functional style to which the text belongs.

First Type – Formal Equivalence. Children go to school every morning. - Детиходятвшколукаждоеутро.

The content, the structure of the sentence and the semantic components (language units) are similar. Each element of the original text has a corresponding one in the translated text. But such cases of complete similarity are rather rare.

Second Type – Partial Correspondence Equivalence. Non-corresponding elements may be lexical, grammatical or stylistical. Equivalence of the second type is usually achieved by means of various transformations: substitution or replacements (both lexical and grammatical), additions and omissions, paraphrasing and compensation.

All through the long foreign summer the American tourist abroad has been depressed by the rubber quality of his dollar.

Во время продолжительного летнего пребывания за границей американских туристов угнетало непрерывное сокращение покупательной способности доллара.

Third Type – Situational or Factual Equivalence. The content or sense of the utterance is conveyed by different grammatical and lexical units.

Situational equivalence is observed when the same phenomenon is described in a different way because it is seen from a different angle, e.g.

The police cleared the streets. Полиция разогнала демонстрацию. Hold the line. Некладитетрубку.

Translation equivalence does not mean that source and target texts are identical. It is a degree of similarity between source and target texts, measured on a certain level.

Every text should be equivalent to the source text pragmatically, which means that the both texts should have one and the same communicative function. The target text should have the same impact upon the receptor as the source text has.

Types of translation.

Due to the continuing evolvement of the translation industry there are now certain terms used to define specialist translations that do not fall under a general category. This brief guide offers an explanation of some of the more common translation terms used.

Administrative translation.The translation of administrative texts. Although administrative has a very broad meaning, in terms of translation it refers to common texts used within businesses and organizations that are used in day to day management. It can also be stretched to cover texts with similar functions in government.

Commercial translation. Commercial translation or business translation covers any sort of document used in the business world such as correspondence, company accounts, tender documents, reports, etc. Commercial translations require specialist translators with knowledge of terminology used in the business world.

Computer translation. Not to be confused with CAT, computer assisted translations, which refer to translations carried out by software. Computer translation is the translation of anything to do with computers such as software, manuals, help files, etc.

Economic translation. Similar to commercial or business translation, economic translation is simply a more specific term used for the translation of documents relating to the field of economics. Such texts are usually a lot more academic in nature.

Financial translation. Financial translation is the translation of texts of a financial nature. Anything from banking to asset management to stocks and bonds could be covered.

General translation. A general translation is the simplest of translations. A general text means that the language used is not high level and to a certain extent could be in layman's terms. There is no specific or technical terminology used. Most translations carried out fall under this category.

Legal translation. Legal translations are one of the trickiest translations known. At its simplest level it means the translation of legal documents such as statutes, contracts and treaties. A legal translation will always need specialist attention. This is because law is culture-dependent and requires a translator with an excellent understanding of both the source and target cultures. Most translation agencies would only ever use professional legal to undertake such work. This is because there is no real margin for error; the mistranslation of a passage in a contract could, for example, have disastrous consequences. When translating a text within the field of law, the translator should keep the following in mind. The legal system of the source text is structured in a way that suits that culture and this is reflected in the legal language; similarly, the target text is to be read by someone who is familiar with another legal system and its language.

Literary translation. A literary translation is the translation of literature such as novels, poems, plays and poems. The translation of literary works is considered by many one of the highest forms of translation as it involves so much more than simply translating text. A literary translator must be capable of also translating feelings, cultural nuances, humor and other subtle elements of a piece of work. Some go as far as to say that literary translations are not really possible. In 1959 the Russian-born linguist Roman Jacobson went as far as to declare that "poetry by definition [was] untranslatable". In 1974 the American poet James Merrill wrote a poem, "Lost in Translation," which in part explores this subject.

Medical translation. A medical translation will cover anything from the medical field from the packaging of medicine to manuals for medical equipments to medical books. Like legal translation, medical translation is specialization where a mistranslation can have grave consequences.

Technical translation. A technical translation has a broad meaning. It usually refers to certain fields such as IT or manufacturing and deals with texts such as manuals and instructions. Technical translations are usually more expensive than general translations as they contain a high amount of terminology that only a specialist translator could deal with.

The notion of antonymic translation.

Antonymic translation usually implies a comprehensive lexical and grammatical transformation: an affirmative construction is translated by a negative one or a negative construction – by an affirmative one. But such grammatical transformation is usually accompanied by lexical transformation – the key word of the source language utterance is translated by its antonym in the target language utterance, e.g. the undead past – ещеживоепрошлое. Nobody was ever sorry to see him. – Всевсегдабылирадыеговидеть.

Antonymic translation is more frequently used when translating negative constructions by affirmative ones. This may be accounted for by the stylistic use of negative constructions in English for purposes of expressiveness. The English language uses grammatically only one negative in a sentence – either with a verb or with a noun but it makes a stylistic use of two negatives of which one is formed by grammatical means and the other – by means of affixation (negative prefixes or suffixes) or by lexical means, i.e. by words with a negative meanings.

A sentence containing two negatives is negative only on the face of it; actually it is affirmative as the two negatives neutralize each other. The grammatical form in this case is not used in its direct meaning and consequently attracts attention, as does, for example, the rhetorical question which is no question at all but an emphatic statement. The clash between the denotative meaning of the grammatical form and its use in speech makes it highly emotive and increases its expressiveness. Thus a double negation has a special connotative meaning. It is not identical, however, with an affirmative statement. It contains a certain modification. It may be an overstatement or an understatement. He spoke in no uncertain terms. Онговорилвесьмарешительно.