Lingual personality of the translator

 

The problem of relations between language, culture and speaker is one of the fundamental problems in modern linguistics. This problem is defined by many researchers as “anthropological”. Language is a reflexion of an ethnic group’s culture, a means of transmitting cultural values through generations and the major tool of cognition. As language sets the parameters of human perception of the world and stereotypes of daily behavior, any linguistic research in the field of language semantics deals with the interrelations of the concepts of language, culture, and personality. “intercultural communication is adequate mutual understanding of two participants of a communicative act belonging to different national cultures.Lingual personality of the translator/interpeter acts as an implementation of the functional approach to language typology, that ‘s why translation is bilingual, become multilingual on conference, political summit etc.Translator/interpreter is mediator of the culture. Cross cultural communication is very relevant thing because through the gab between the countries we had known information in the world through them. The translator plays an important role in the process of intercultural communication, since he/she has frequently not only to translate sentences, but also to interpret the cultures of the communicants. He serves as the mediator for both sides explaining to them the main rules of behavior and customs of the countries. translation is the basic mechanism of intercultural communication. With the help of translation, languages interact, influence each other, get richer and change.

 

 

Translator's false friends

 

The term ‘translator’s false friends’ (les faux amis) was introduced by the French theorists of translation M. Koessler Кесслера and J. Derocquigny Дерокиньи in 1928. This term means a word that has the same or similar form in the source and target languages but another meaning in the target language. "Pseudointernational" words their formal similarity suggesting that they are interchangeable, is, therefore, deceptive and may lead to translation errors. For that reason they are often referred to as the translator's false friends. The pseudointernational words can be classified in two main groups. First, there are words which are similar in form but completely different in meaning. E.g It lasted the whole decade. Это продолжалось целое десятилетие. Second, there are many pseudointernational words which are not fully interchangeable though there are some common elements in their semantics. As often as not, the translator may opt for an occasional equivalent to a pseudointernational word just as he may do while dealing with any other type of the word: South Vietnam was a vast laboratory for the testing of weapons of counter-guerrilla warfare. Южный Вьетнам стал полигоном для испытания оружия, используемого в войне против партизан.

2. The stylistic factor resulting from the difference in the emotive or stylistic connotation of the correlated words. For example, the English "career" is neutral while the Russian «карьера» is largely negative. The translator has to reject the pseudointernational substitute and to look for another way out, e.g.:

Davy took on Faraday as his assistant and thereby opened a scientific career for him. Дэви взял Фарадея к себе в ассистенты и тем самым открыл ему путь в науку.

3. The co-occurrence factor (совпадение событий) reflecting the difference in the lexical combinability rules in the two languages. The choice of an equivalent is often influenced by the usage preferring a standard combination of words to the formally similar substitute. A "gesture" is usually translated as «жест» but the Russian word will not be used to translate the following sentence for the comparability factor:The reason for including only minor gestures of reforms in the program...Причина включения в программу лишь жалкого подобия реформ.

4. The pragmatic factor reflecting the difference in the background knowledge of the members of the two language communities which makes the translator reject the formal equivalent in favour of the more explicit or familiar variant.E.gThe Senator knew Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation by heart.Сенатор знал наизусть провозглашенную Линкольном декларацию об отмене рабства.Misleading words are mostly international, or it is better to say that they are pseudointernational. They are loan words that can be borrowed from the source text but have developed their own meanings in the target texts. For example, interview = ‘a series of questions in a formal situation in order to obtain information about a person’; интервью = a journalist’s questioning some public figure in order to be published in mass media’. Or they can have the same origin of the third language (mainly Greek and Latin) and be borrowed both into the source and target languages: aspirant = ‘ a person who has great ambition, desires strongly, strives toward an end, aims at’; аспирант = ‘a graduate student’. Sometimes the form similarity can be accidental: herb = ‘an aromatic plant used in medicine or as seasoning’; герб = ‘an object or representation that functions as a symbol’.

The American Revolution was a close parallel to the wars of national liberation in the colonial and semi-colonial countries.

Война за независимость в Америке была прямым прототипом национально-освободительных войн в колониальных и полуколониальных странах.

The peculiarities of the interpretation process

 

The translating process in it’s narrow sense is the set of action undertaking by a translation to produce a TT. It include 2 mental process: Understanding means that the translator first understand the context of ST, which means that he/she reduces the information text contains to his/her mental program. Verbalization means that the translator developed this program in TT the stage of development operation.A model is a conventional representation of the translation process describing mental operation by which the ST maybe translated irrespective of the facts whether this operation are actually perform by the translation.The task of the model is only to describe the sequence of translation operation with the help of which it is possible to solve translation problem under different translation circumstances. Situational model is based on the assumption that all linguistic units reflect some extra reality objects,phenomenaetc.This model postulates the identity of the situation describe in the TT and ST.In the situational model this intermediate level is extra linguistic level.It gives the possibility to explain those peculiarities of translating process which are connected with the situation. Semantic transformational model is postulates the similarity of basic notions and nuclear structures.This model suggest the translating process maybe described of the theory of transformation it’s based on the facts that in any 2 languages there are nuclear structure which are fully connect to each other.Translator transforms the original sentence into simplified nuclear structure.The semantic transformational model poses the significant explanatory side to the translating process which can’t be directly observed.

Grammatical transformations

Lexical semantic transformation transformation involving certain semantic changes. Specification- is the substitution of word with more general meaning in SL by words with the general meaning in TL.E.g You poor old thing. Беднжка. Generalization- is a substitution of units in the SL having more specific meaning with units having more general meaning.E.g You stop on my toe. Ты наступил мне на ногу. Modulation- is a creation of an equivalent by replacing a units the meaning of which can be logically deduced from it and which is another way of referring to the same objects.Eg.I don’t blame them. Я их понимаю. Grammatical transformation is partition of ST by 2 or more sentences or converting a simple source sentence in to a compound or complex sentence.When se translate from English into Russian we commonly use inpartition.Eg. Come alone and see me play one behind.Приходи ко мне как-нибудь посмотришь, как я играю. Integration implies the combining of 2 or more sentences in to 1 target sentence or compressing sentence into a simple one.Eg The opening ceremony is delited the guest didn’t mind know.Церемония открытия задерживалась, однако,гости не высказывали недовольство.

1. Transposition
2. Replacement
3. Addition
4. 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 – The boy came in.

In the first case literal translation is impossible, as the word “boy” is rheme, so we change the word order: “Вошел мальчик”

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. – Взглянув наверх, он задрожал.

*You goin’ to court this morning? – Said Jim. We have strolled over. – Мы подошли. “Вы пойдете сегодня в суд?” – спросил Джим.

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. In English as in Russian the theme is generally placed in the beginning if a sentence, though in English this place is reserved for the sentence subject. The theme of the English sentence is represented by the subject though semantically it is not always the doer of the action expressed by the predicate group. It may be its object and even denote some adverbial relations (time, place, cause etc). In Russian the word order is relatively free, therefore the first word group must not necessarily be at the same time its syntactic subject. So in many cases the English subject is replaced by a secondary element, such as object, adverbial modifier with constant changes in the syntactic pattern of the sentence. Very often there occur some lexical changes.
*He was met by his sister.
*He was given money.
*The new film is much spoken about.
*The tent sleeps 6 people. – 6 человек могут разместиться в этой палатке.
*The fog stopped the traffic.

It is obvious that when we translate from Russian into English the process is reversed.
*В комнате установилась тишина.” – “The room turned silent.”
*В радиотехнических устройствах часто встречаются системы из электрических проводов”. – Radio equipment often includes systems of electric wires.

 

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.

- Word forms:
*The struggles of the Indian people in all parts of the US” – борьба
*A novel about lives of common people” – о жизни
*He said he knew the man” – он сказал, что знает…
*The door was opened by a middle-aged woman” – дверь открыла…

- Parts of speech:

It is a common type of replacement for English nouns derived from verbs and denoting actions. In this case the English noun is replaced by a Russian verb.
*It’s our hope that… – мы надеемся, что…
*The abandonment by Irene of all the glittering things he had given her – Ирэн оставила

The same is true for nouns derived from verbs with the help of the suffix –er. The situation is complex, because in Russian the corresponding word may not exist at all or such words may denote people of permanent occupations.
*He is an early riser.
*I am a very rapid packer.
*John is a sound sleeper. – крепко спит
*The writer of this note. – написавший эту записку
*She is a very good dancer.” – хорошо танцует

Very often English adjectives are replaced by Russian nouns.
*Australian prosperity – процветание Австралии
*Youthful joblessness – безработица среди молодежи

English comparative forms of adjectives, such as “higher, lower, longer, shorter, better” are frequently replaced by Russian nouns that come from adjective stems.
*They demand higher wages and better living conditions – они требуют повышения зарплаты и улучшения условий жизни.

- Sentence elements

It is sometimes called syntactic restructuring, which consists in changing of the functions of the words in the sentence. As in Russian so in English the theme is usually placed in the beginning of the sentence (subject, object, adverbial relations). In many cases the English subject is very often replaced by some secondary element with constant changes in the syntactic pattern of the whole sentence. Very often it is accompanied by certain lexical changes.
* The new film is much spoken about.
*Last week saw a 500 strong meeting of shop-assistants & trade union officials.
*Figure 2 gives…

- Sentence types

It is a very common transformation of the simple sentence by a complex one and vice versa. While translating from English into Russian it becomes necessary to replace English structures with non-finite verbal forms by subordinate clauses and in this case we turn the simple sentence into a complex one.

*I want you to speak English.

*I heard my mother go out and close the door.

*Here is a book for you to read.

The subtype of this transformation is known as unification or conversely division of sentences in translation, it’s a replacement of two simple sentences by a compound or a complex one or vise versa.

*Thousands of Algerians tonight fled from the dead city of Orleansville after a 12-second earthquake had ripped through central Algeria killing an estimated 1,100 people. – Сегодня вечером в центре Алжира произошло сильное землетрясение. Около 1100 человек погибло. Оставшиеся в живых в спешке покинули разрушенный город.

Unification of 2 or more sentences occurs more rarely.
*The only thing that worried me was our front door. It creaked like a bastard. – Меня волновала только входная дверь, которая скрипела как сволочь.

- Types of syntactic relations
Both Russian and English have syntactic relation of coordination and subordination. Coordination is more characteristic of spoken Russian, so it is often desirable when doing consecutive or immediate translation from English into Russian to replace subordination of sentences by coordination.
*So I started walking way over coast where the pretty cheap restaurants are, because I didn’t want to spend a lot of dough.”

Transformation – a formal linguistic operation, which enables to place 2 levels of structural representation in correspondence.

These transformations are optional from the grammatical point of view, but they are very frequent because they add to the clarity and the simplicity of style.

The transformation helps to avoid ambiguity; it makes the implicit meaning of a sentence explicit. In the phrase “in 1969 report of the Royal Commission on Security” “of” has two meanings:
- A report about the Commission
- A report delivered by the Commission.

When we deal with translation we deal with several operations and problems:
- Semantic,
- Stylistic,
- Pragmatic.

- Addition & omission

Grammatical transformations consist in analysis aimed at removing ambiguity and synthesis aimed at reconstruction of the original message of the TL.
*– Have you heard of my son’s robbery?
*-- No, whom did he rob? (Who robbed him?)”

The surface structure here is the same but the deep structure would be different.
*Another problem that was found considerably exaggerated is that of radar blackout. (=прекращение работы радара с целью маскировки или выведения eго из строя) An attempt to blackout the radar would require the establishing of about 15 aiming points in the sky. – Серьезность проблемы, связанной с выведением из строя РЛС была также, как выяснилось, значительно преувеличена.”

Addition here is caused by various factors, which are necessitated by 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.
*pay claim – требование о повышении З./платы
*gun license – разрешение на ношение оружия
*oil talk – переговоры о ценах на нефть

 

Types of correspondence

 

The are 5 levels of correspondonce:1st level is phoneme(sound level) Lady-Леди, Speaker-Спикер,Liverpool-ливерпуль;2nd level is morpheme:Tables-столы;3rd level of word He cme home. Он пришел домой. I look at her.Я посмотрел на нее.4th the level of word combination: to take part принимать участие, spill the beans выдать секрет;5th the level of sentence keep off the grass-по газонам не ходить, Give me some bread Дай мне хлеба. Regular equivalents are classified into 2 groups. Depending of the character of relation to TT in TL. They are divided in 2 group: permanent one to one correspondence non-variable. E.g. hydrogen-водород.Nonpermanent or one to many variable it means more then one corresponded.E.g. altitude поза, отношения, политика and etc. Occasional or contexstual substitute. This equivalent is used when the context doesn’t allow the translator to employ any regular equivalence to given source language units.E.g He had friendly attitude towards all. Он ко всем относится по дружески. The choice of the equivalent will depend on the relative importance of a particular semantic element in the act of communication. For instance, the English word "ambitious" may denote either praiseworthy or inordinate desires. Its translation will depend on which of these aspects comes to the fore. Thus "the ambitious plans of the would-be world conquerors" will be translated as «честолюбивые планы претендентов на роль завоевателей всего мира», while "the ambitious goals set by the United Nations" will give «грандиозные цели, поставленные ООН» in the Russian translation.A variety of equivalents may also result from a more detailed description of the same object in TL. The English word "attitude", for instance, is translated as «отношение, позиция, политика» depending on the variant the Russian language prefers in a particular situation. Here the choice between equivalents is determined by TL factors.

Even if a SL unit has a regular equivalent in TL, this equivalent cannot be used in TT whenever the unit is found in ST. An equivalent is but a potential substitute, for the translator's choice is, to a large extent, dependent on the context in which the SL unit is placed in ST. There are two types of context: linguistic and situational. The linguistic context is made up by the other SL units in ST while the situational context includes the temporal, spacial and other circumstances under which ST was produced as well as all facts which the receptor is expected to know so that he could adequately interpret the message.