Linguistic MODELS of the Translation Process

To start a machine translation, computer designers invited a group of experienced translators to ask them a question, seemingly naive but directly 47 referring to their profession: how do you translate? Could you tell us in detail everything about the translation process? What goes on in a translator's brain? What operation follows what? Dmitri Zhukov, a professional translator, reminisces54 that this simple question took everyone by surprise, for it is a terribly difficult thing to explain what the process of translation is. Attempts to conceptualize the translation process have brought to life some theories, or models, of translation. The translation model is a conventional description of mental operations on speech and language units, conducted by a translator, and their explanation. Approximately, four translation models can be singled out: 1. Situational (denotative) model of translation 2. Transformational model of translation 3. Semantic model of translation 4. Psycholinguistic model of translation. Each model explains the process of translation in a restrictive way, from its own angle, and, therefore, cannot be considered comprehensive and wholly depicting the mechanism of translation. But together they make the picture of translation process more vivid and provide a translator with a set of operations to carry out translation

SITUATIONAL MODEL OF TRANSLATION One and the same situation is denoted by the source and target language. But each language does it in its own way. To denote means to indicate either the thing a word names or the situation a sentence names. Hence is the term of denotative meaning, or referential meaning, i.e. the meaning relating a language unit to the external world; and the term of denotation, or a particular and explicit meaning of a symbol. To translate correctly, a translator has to comprehend the situation denoted by the source text - as P. Newmark stressed, one should translate ideas, not words and then find the proper means of the target language to express this situation (idea). If the translator does not understand the situation denoted by the source text, his or her translation will not be adequate, which sometimes happens when an inexperienced translator attempts to translate a technical text.

§ 3. TRANSFORMATIONAL MODEL OF TRANSLATION When translating, a person transforms the source text into a new form. Transformation is converting one form into another one. There are two transformation concepts in the theory of translation. In one of them, transformation is understood as an interlinguistic process, i.e., converting the source text into the structures of the target text, which is translation proper. Special rules can be described for transforming source language structures as basic units into target language structures corresponding to the basic units. For example, to translate the “adverbial verb” one must introduce an adverb, denoting the way the action is performed, into the target language structure: She stared at me. – Она пристально смотрела на меня.

In the second concept, transformation is not understood as broadly as replacing the source language structures by the target language structures. Transformation here is part of a translation process, which has three. For example, the sentence I saw him enter the room. is transformed into I saw him. He entered the room. Translation proper: the basic units of the source language are translated· into the basic units of the target language: Я видела его. Он вошел в комнату. 

10.Lexicology as a Linguistic discipline.                                                                                    Lexicology (from Gr lexis “word” and logos “learning”) is a part of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of a language and the properties of words as the main units of the language. It also studies all kinds of semantic grouping and semantic relations: synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, semantic fields, etc. In this connection, the term vocabulary is used to denote a system formed by the sum total of all the words and word equivalents that the language possesses. The term word denotes the basic unit of a given language resulting from the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment. A word therefore is at the same time a semantic, grammatical and phonological unit. So, the subject-matter of lexicology is the word, its morphemic structure, history and meaning. There are several branches of lexicology. The general study of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the specific features of any particular language, is known as general lexicology. Linguistic phenomena and properties common to all languages are referred to as language universals. Special lexicology focuses on the description of the peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language. A branch of study called contrastive lexicology provides a theoretical foundation on which the vocabularies of different languages can be compared and described, the correlation between the vocabularies of two or more languages being the scientific priority

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics, inquiring into the origins and meanings of words.                                                                                                            English lexicology aims at investigating and studying the morphological structures of English words and word equivalents, their semantic structures, relations, historical development, formation and usages. It’s a theoretically oriented course.

English lexicology is a subbranch of linguistics, but it embraces other academic disciplines, such as phonetics, morphology, semantics, etymology, stylistics, lexicography.

Branches of lexicology: onomasiology (naming and nominative processes), semasiology (theory of meaning), etymology (source of vocabulary and word origin), phraseology (theory of set expressions), lexicography (the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries), onomastics (the study of the history and origin of proper names, esp. personal names), terminology (the body of terms used with a particular technical application in a subject of study, theory, profession, etc.).