Введение в теорию и практику перевода

МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ

НИЖЕГОРОДСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ

ИМ. Н.А. ДОБРОЛЮБОВА

ПЕРЕВОДЧЕСКИЙ ФАКУЛЬТЕТ

О.В. ПЕТРОВА

ВВЕДЕНИЕ В ТЕОРИЮ И ПРАКТИКУ ПЕРЕВОДА

(на материале английского языка)

 

Рекомендовано Учебно-методическим объединением

по образованию в области лингвистики

Министерства образования Российской Федерации

в качестве учебного пособия для студентов вузов,

обучающихся по специальности «Перевод и переводоведение»

 

НИЖНИЙ НОВГОРОД

Печатается по решению редакционно-издательского совета Нижегородского государственного лингвистического университета

им. Н.А. Добролюбова.

 

УДК 802.0

 

Петрова О.В. Введение в теорию и практику перевода (на материале английского языка): Учебное пособие - Н. Новгород: Изд-во НГЛУ им. Н.А. Добролюбова, 2002 – 84 с.

 

Учебное пособие “Ведение в теорию и практику перевода” предназначено для студентов переводческих факультетов и переводческих отделений факультетов иностранных языков. Пособие может использоваться как при проведении семинаров по курсам теории и практики перевода, так и при самостоятельной работе студентов.

Цель пособия – дать студентам представление об общих принципах перевода, познакомить их с приемами и способами решения типичных лексических и грамматических проблем при переводе с английского языка на русский, а также сформировать у студентов навыки использования этих приемов.

При составлении упражнений частично использованы материалы, подобранные Н.С. Авдентовой.

Рецензенты:

доктор филологических наук, профессор Ф.А. Литвин

(Орловский государственный университет),

доктор филологических наук, профессор А.Н. Лаврова

(Нижегородский государственный технический университет).

Научный редактор:

доктор филологических наук, профессор М.П.Ивашкин

(Нижегородский государственный лингвистический университет

им. Н.А. Добролюбова).

© Издательство НГЛУ

им. Н.А. Добролюбова, 2002

© О.В.Петрова, 2002

ISBN 5-85839-085-4

TRANSLATION OF LEXICAL UNITS

 

TYPES OF CORRELATION BETWEEN WORDS

IN SOURCE LANGUAGE AND TARGET LANGUAGE

There are different types of correspondences between the elements of the SL and TL lexical systems.

I. A word of SL and a word of TL may be identical in their meaning. Such words are called equivalents (the corresponding Russian term is эквиваленты). To this group usually belong proper names such as 'London - Лондон', 'Galsworthy - Голсуорси', etc.; terms such as 'a morpheme - морфема', 'logarithm - логарифм', etc.; names of the months, days of the week; numerals. Equivalents are usually monosemantic words and they are easily translated.

II. The meanings of a SL word and a TL word may coincide partially (частичные, или вариантные соответствия). There are three variants within this type.

1. A word in one of the languages may have more meanings than the corresponding word of the other language, so that the meaning of the latter is as it were included in the meaning of the former, e.g. the English noun "finish" and the Russian noun "финиш" both denote "the conclusion, end", which completely exhausts the meaning of the Russian word. The English word "finish", however, also denotes "that which finishes, completes or perfects", which corresponds to the Russian words "окончание", "отделка", "аппретура". Thus the meaning of the word "finish" includes the meaning of the word "финиш", but is not exhausted by it. This is the first variant of semantic relations characterized by partial coincidence of meanings.

2. The second variant of semantic relations between partially corresponding words may be described as intersection. It means that both the words have some meaning (or even meanings) in common, but at the same time each word has some other meanings which do not coincide. E.g.: the English word "cup" and the Russian "чашка" both mean "a drinking-vessel", besides which the word "cup" means "an ornamental vessel offered as a prize for an athletic contest" (in Russian - "кубок"), while the Russian "чашка" denotes also "круглая и плоская тарелка, подвешенная к коромыслу весов", which corresponds to the English word "pan". Thus the meanings of these two words ("cup" and "чашка") intersect in one point only - i.e. they both denote a drinking-vessel.

3. The third variant of relations within this type is somewhat more complicated. The fact is that different peoples reflect reality in different ways, and these differences find their manifestation in the languages which the peoples speak. It is well known that for the English it seems quite necessary to differentiate between a hand and an arm, while in Russian we usually do not feel it so very important and use the word "рука" to denote both the notions indiscriminately (cf. also "watch" and "clock" - "часы", "mirror" and "looking glass" - "зеркало", etc.). On the other hand we usually differentiate between "вишня" and "черешня", while for the English there exists one notion ("cherry"), as well as both "клубника" and "земляника" are indiscriminately called "strawberry"; we think that "почка" and "бутон" are quite different things and Englishmen always call it "a bud", no matter whether it is going to form a leaf or a blossom.

It does not mean, of course, that we cannot express the difference between a hand and an arm in Russian or that Englishmen do not see any difference between a leaf bud and a blossom bud. They do, but traditionally some aspects of reality are reflected as differentiated notions in the mind of one people and as undifferentiated notion in the mind of another people. Theoretically speaking every language can express everything, but it differs from other languages in what it should express.

This group of words demands special attention because it often causes trouble in the process of translation (for instance, try to translate the following sentence into Russian: "They both married their cousins").

In all the cases when the meanings of words coincide partially there arises a problem of choosing the right variant of translation. This choice should be based on two factors: on the knowledge of possible semantic relations between the words of SL and TL and on the information derived from the context.

III. Finally in one of the languages there may exist words which have no correspondences in the other language at all (безэквивалентная лексика). They are usually proper names which are not used or even known in other countries (personal names such as Aubrey, Hope, Игорь, Галина, etc.; place-names such as Hindley, Catmose, Молитовка, Урень, etc.), and names of specifically national notions and phenomena (such as lobby, muffin, drugstore, самовар, щи, агитбригада, стройотрядовец, etc.).

TRANSLATION OF WORDS

TRANSLATION OF PHRASES

Usually translation of free phrases does not cause any specific difficulties. The main thing to be remembered here is the interplay of the meanings of components, because every component should be translated in such a way as to form the whole meaning of the phrase. In the English language, however, there are some types of phrases, which deserve special attention due to peculiarities of their semantic structure. Fist of all it refers to phrases with preposed attributes. All these phrases are built according to the pattern ATTRIBUTE + (ATTRIBUTE +...) + SUBSTANTIVE but their semantic structure may vary considerably. Preposed attributes may denote properties and qualities of the substantive itself or of other attributes (cf. "south-coast convalescent camp" - where both "south-coast" and "convalescent" characterize "camp" - and "free educational institution" where "free" is not connected semantically with "institution"); besides properties and qualities, they may denote some notion with which the substantive is connected, they may express local, temporal and other characteristics. That is why it is often impossible or at least undesirable to translate such phrases using similar Russian constructions, since in Russian semantic relations between a preposed attribute and a substantive are rather uniform: if a "happy man" is certainly "счастливый человек", "a medical man" can hardly be translated as "медицинский человек". There may be several attributes in a phrase and they are not necessarily expressed by adjectives. Very often the function of a preposed attribute is fulfilled by a noun (the "stone wall" type of phrases) which, in its turn, may also have an attribute (e.g. "the front door key"). Sometimes it is not easy to see which of the nouns is characterized by a particular attribute (does "retail philanthropy business" mean "business of retail philanthropy" or "retail business of philanthropy"?). Such ambiguity is practically impossible in Russian attributive phrases.

Another peculiarity of English phrases with preposed attributes is that an attribute may modify a noun which is as it were omitted and only implied (e.g. "dry pruning" does not mean that the process of pruning is dry, the word "dry" denotes the state of branches that are being pruned).

These semantic and structural peculiarities should be taken into consideration when translating attributive phrases with preposed attributes. First of all it is necessary to translate the final noun, which is always the main word in such a phrase. Then one should single out sense groups within the phrase and analyze relations between them. If all these groups modify the final noun they may be translated in the same succession as they are in English, or in a different succession, according to the norms of the Russian language. If they modify each other in consecutive order the reverse way of translation is often recommended:

1 2 3

" Strategic ArmsLimitationTreaty " - " Договороб ограничении

1 2

стратегических вооружений "

There are several ways of translating such attributive phrases.

1. A preposed attribute may be translated with the help of a corresponding Russian preposed attribute: "a fine day" -

"чудесный день", "matrimonial ad" - "брачное объявление".

2. A postpositional attribute may be used in Russian: "always-at-ease-girls" - "девушки, всегда чувствующие себя непринужденно". Often these postpositional attributes are expressed by nouns in the genitive case: "opposition leader" ­"лидер оппозиции".

3. A preposed attribute of an English phrase may be expressed in Russian by a postpositional attribute joined to the modified noun by a preposition (usually N + prep + N): "highway robbery" - "грабеж на большой дороге", "youth unemployment" ­"безработица среди молодежи".

4. A preposed attribute may be rendered in translation by an apposition: "her millionaire friend" - "ее друг-миллионер".

5. Sometimes one of the components of an English phrase (usually the preposed attribute itself) is best translated descriptively, i.e. by a group of words: "a bargain counter" ­"прилавок (отдел) товаров по сниженным ценам".

6. When translating English attributive phrases with preposed attributes it is often advisable or even necessary to rearrange components of the phrase and transfer the attribute to another noun (present in or omitted from the phrase): "free educational institutions" - "бесплатные учебные заведения", though in English the word "free" is connected with "educational" and not with "institutions"; "Parliamentary Labour Party" - "парламентская фракция лейбористcкой партии" (the word "парламентская" here is an attribute to the noun "фракция", introduced into the phrase according to the norms of the Russian language); "the nine Common Market foreign ministers" - "девять министров иностранных дел стран Общего рынка", where two nouns are introduced ("дел" and "стран") to show real semantic connections.

For the purposes of translation an attribute may be transferred to another noun used in the same sentence outside the phrase. E.g. "dismal array of titles" in Mark Twain's "Running for Governor" should rather be translated as "набор ужасных прозвищ", though in English the adjective "dismal" modifies the noun "array”, and not "titles".

7. Very often English attributive phrases are translated with the help of Russian adverbial phrases, especially in case of English

to be

to have

to give + A + N phrases:

to take

"to give a loud whistle" - "громко свистнуть", "to have a good dinner" - "хорошо (вкусно, как следует и т.д.) пообедать", etc.

8. Finally there are cases when due to different reasons it is impossible to preserve the structure of a sentence including an attributive phrase with a preposed attribute, so the structure of the sentence is changed completely: “a girl with whom he had previously had a slight party-going acquaintance " - "девушка, с которой он раньше лишь иногда встречался на вечеринках".

The choice of a particular way to translate preposed attributes is predetermined mainly by semantic relations between the components of a phrase, grammatical norm, and combinability of words in TL.

There is a specific type of preposed attributes in English - attributes with inner predication. Their translation mainly depends on their stylistic properties. If such an attribute is rather extended and used for the purpose of irony, it is usually translated by means of a subordinate clause (mostly an object clause): "one of those quick Send-me-two-hundred-by-messenger­old-man-or-my-head-goes-in-the-gas-oven touches"(P.G.Wodehouse) - "одна из тех наскоро написанных записок, в которых обычно пишут: "Пришли мне, старина..." If it is not very long and no special ironical effect is intended it is better to find some laconic variant of translation using a preposed or postpositional attribute or sometimes even a noun without any attribute (if the meaning of this noun includes the characteristics which in English are expressed by the attributive phrase): "a 'God, you are wonderful' type of woman" - "восторженная женщина", "a grab-it-and-run... counter" - "место, где можно наскоро перекусить" or "забегаловка".

* * *

Speaking about set phrases it is first of all necessary to differentiate between figurative and non-figurative set phrases. Non-figurative set phrases are translated according to the principles that have already been discussed in connection with words and free phrases. The main guiding principle here is to remember the norms of TL.

Figurative set phrases deserve special discussion. The main peculiarity of these phraseological units is their specific meaning that often cannot be deduced from the meanings of their components. It is the meaning of the whole, not of separate words, that should be rendered in translation. Based on imagery, phraseological units serve to make the text more expressive; they are also often responsible for stylistic coloring of the text. Since the text in TL must be as expressive as it is in SL and characterized by the same stylistic coloring, it becomes very important to find an adequate variant of translating every phraseological unit.

There are four main ways to translate an image-bearing phraseological unit: 1) the image may be preserved as it is; 2) it may be partially changed; 3) it may be replaced by an utterly different image, and 4) a translated version may contain no image at all.

1. They usually preserve the image (and even the structure) of the so-called international phraseological units. Such units are mostly based on some historical, mythological, biblical, etc. references: "In the seventh heaven" - "на седьмом небе", "to go through the fire and water" - "пройти (сквозь) огонь и воду", "a blue stocking" - "синий чулок", "not to see the wood for the trees"- "за деревьями леса не видеть", etc. Such phraseological units of SL and TL are called equivalents. In case of equivalents, there arise no difficulties of stylistic or any other character.

Sometimes it is possible to preserve the image underlying a phraseological unit in SL even in the case when there is no corresponding unit in TL. It is achieved through loan translation: "no man can make a good coat with bad cloth" -"из плохого материала хорошего платья не сошьешь", "nothing comes out of the sack but what was in it" - "из мешка не вынешь больше, чем в нем было" (or - "ничего, кроме того, что в нем было"), etc. However, this means may be resorted to only if the image is absolutely transparent for the people speaking TL, that is if the figurative meaning of the phraseological unit is easily and unmistakably deduced from its direct meaning. In this case the translated version is no longer phraseological, but it remains figurative, so it renders the idea of the original phraseological unit and adds to the expressiveness of the whole text. If the image is not transparent and the meaning of the whole (and mainly its figurative meaning) cannot be deduced from the lexical meanings of the components, loan translation is absolutely impossible. "To send somebody to Coventry" (бойкотировать) cannot be translated as "послать в Ковентри", and translating "to find a mare's nest" ("попасть пальцем в небо") as "найти гнездо кобылы" one really finds a mare's nest.

2. It often happens that phraseological units of SL and TL express the same idea and are based upon similar though not identical images. They both express the idea figuratively and the imagery underlying them is basically the same. In such cases it is possible to ignore slight differences between the images and though in the phraseological unit of TL the image is partially changed in comparison with that of SL, it can still be accepted as an adequate translated version: "a fine suit doesn't make a gentleman" - "не одежда красит человека", "at a. glance (at a glimpse)" - "с первого. взгляда", "a burnt child dreads the fire" - "обжегшись на молоке, на воду дует". In the last example the difference between the English and the Russian variants seems to be rather serious: there is practically no lexical correspondence between the words. But the image is nearly the same - he who once was burnt is afraid of everything which is hot (hence the same generalized figurative meaning). Some more examples: "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush " - "лучше синица в руке, чем журавль в небе ", "look not a gift horse in the mouth " - "дареному коню в зубы не смотрят", "to lay by for a rainy day" - "отложить про черный день", etc.

3. Since the phraseological stock of every language reflects the history and culture of the people speaking the language, many ideas which are common to all peoples are expressed differently in different languages: in Russian we say "когда рак на горе свистнет", while Englishmen say "when pigs fly", in Russian ­"рыбак рыбака видит издалека", and in English - "birds of a feather flock together". Since the meaning of the first phraseological unit is in no way connected with either crayfish or pigs the lexical way of wording the idea ("something never going to happen") is of secondary importance. The main task here is to find a phraseological unit of TL expressing the same idea and belonging to the same stylistic register (стилистический регистр) as the original phraseological unit. The same is true about the second example. The complete substitution of the image does not in any way change the general meaning of the proverb. "У семи нянек дитя без глазу" is an adequate translation of the English "Too many cooks spoil the broth" because of complete coincidence of meaning and stylistic reference.

So in all the cases when phraseological units of SL have no equivalents in TL and in TL there are no expressions based on the same image, complete substitution of image (i.e. use of phraseological analogues) is recommended.

4. In SL there may exist phraseological units that have neither equivalents nor analogues in TL. The idea expressed in these units has no fixed expression in TL. If the image underlying them is not transparent and loan translation is impossible, such phraseological units are translated descriptively, i.e. by free phases which are neither phraseological nor figurative: "a skeleton in the cupboard" - ­"семейная тайна" (an attempt to translate it as "скелет в шкафу" leads to utter misrepresentation of sense), "get the right (wrong) end of the stick" - "оказаться в выгодном (невыгодном) положении", "in a whole skin" - "благополучно, без повреждений", etc.

These are the main ways of translating figurative phraseological units.

When translating phraseological units it is necessary to remember that some of them have a definite national character, which makes their translation rather difficult. On the one hand, it is not always easy to preserve the national "flavour" in translation, on the other - there is always a danger of introducing national elements of TL. Semantically "to carry coals to Newcastle" and "ездить в Тулу со своим самоваром" are analogues, nevertheless one can hardly insert Тула in a text translated from English. In such cases it is advisable to find (or coin, if necessary) a neutral expression with the same figurative meaning: "носить уголь в шахту (воду в реку, дрова в лес и т.д.)". There should be no "коломенская верста" or "Тришкин кафтан" or "щи лаптем хлебать" in a Russian translation of any foreign text.

 

LEXICAL TRANSFORMATIONS

They say that translation starts where dictionaries end. Though somewhat exaggerated, this saying truly reflects the nature of translation. Dictionaries list all regular correspondences between elements of lexical systems of languages. Translation deals not so much with the system of language but with speech (or to be more exact - with a text, which is a product of speech). So in the process of translating one has to find it by himself which of the meanings of a polysemantic word is realized in a particular context, to see if under the influence of this context the word has acquired a slightly new shade of meaning and to decide how this new shade of meaning (not listed in any dictionary) can be rendered in TL. E.g. no dictionary ever translates the verb "to be" as "лежать", nevertheless it is the best way to translate it in the sentence "She was in hospital" - "Она лежала. в больнице". Moreover, it has already been said that every language has its specific way of expressing things, a way that may be quite alien to other languages. That is why a literal (word-for-word) translation of a foreign text may turn out clumsy (if not ridiculous) in TL. To avoid it one has to resort to some special devices worked out by the theory of translation and known as lexical transformations (or contextual substitutions) (лексические трансформации, или контекстуальные замены). There are several types of such transformations.

1. The first type of lexical transformations is used in translating words with wide and non-differentiated meaning. The essence of this transformation lies in translating such words of SL by words with specified concrete meaning in TL (трансформация дифференциации и конкретизации). When translating from English into Russian they use it especially often in the sphere of verbs. If English verbs mostly denote actions in rather a vague general way, Russian verbs are very concrete in denoting not only the action itself but also the manner of performing this action as well: "to go (on foot, by train, by plane, etc.)" - " идти пешком", " ехать. поездом", " лететь. самолетом", etc.; "to get out" - "выбираться","выходить", "вылезать", "высаживаться", etc. The choice of a particular Russian verb depends on the context. It does not mean, of course, that the verb "to go" changes its meaning under the influence of the context. The meaning of "to go" is the same, it always approximately corresponds to the Russian "перемещаться", but the norms of the Russian language demand a more specified nomination of the action. The same can be illustrated with the verb "to be": "The clock is on the wall", "The apple is on the plate and the plate is on the table" - "Часы висят. на стене", "яблоко лежит на тарелке, а тарелка стоит на столе", though in all those cases "to be" preserves its general meaning "находиться". The sentence "He's in Hollywood" in J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" should be translated as "Он работает в Голливуде", but if "Oxford" were substituted for "Hollywood" the translation would rather be " учится ". This transformation is applicable not only to verbs but to all words of wide semantic volume, no matter to what part of speech they belong: adverbs, adjectives, nouns, etc. E.g. due to their most vague meaning such nouns as "a thing", "stuff", "a camp" are used to denote practically anything, often remaining neutral stylistically. In Russian, however, nouns with so general a meaning are less universal, besides, they sometimes belong to the colloquial register which often makes it impossible to use them in translation (cf. "a thing" - "вещь", "штука", "штуковина"). That is why in every case there should be found a word with a more concrete meaning denoting that particular "thing" or "stuff" which is meant by the author: "... this madman stuff that happened to me" - "идиотская история,которая со мной случилась"; "... all the dispensary stuff" - "все медицинские препараты " or " лекарства "; "toilet things " - "туалетные принадлежности ", "you have never done a single thing in all your life to be ashamed of" - "за всю свою жизнь ты не совершил ни одного постыдного поступка ".

It is necessary to take into consideration not only denotative but connotative meanings as well. The verb "to employ" is usually translated as "нанимать, принимать на работу". But if Mark Twain's character is "accused of employing toothless and incompetent old relatives to prepare food for the foundling hospital", of which he is warden, the verb acquires a shade of negative meaning (he is said to have used his position in order to pay money to his relatives for the work which they could not do properly); so it should be translated by a less "general" verb - e.g. " пристроить ".

The English pronoun "you" deserves special attention. It can be translated only with the help of differentiation, i.e. either "ты" or "вы". The choice depends on the character, age, the social position of the characters, their relations, and the situation in which they speak. One should remember that the wrong choice can ruin the whole atmosphere of the text.

2. The second type of transformation is quite opposite in its character and is usually called "generalization" (трансформация генерализации). In many cases the norms of TL make it unnecessary or even undesirable to translate all the particulars expressed in SL. Englishmen usually name the exact height of a person: "He is six foot three tall". In Russian it would hardly seem natural to introduce a character saying "Он шести футов и трех дюймов росту"; substituting centimetres for feet and inches wouldn't make it much better: "Он 190,5 сантиметров росту". The best variant is to say: "Он очень большого роста".

Generalization is also used in those cases when a SL a word with differentiated meaning corresponds to a word with non-differentiated meaning in TL ("a hand" - "рука", "an arm" ­"рука", etc.).

The necessity to use generalization may be caused by purely pragmatic reasons. In the original text there may be many proper names informative for the native speakers of SL and absolutely uninformative for the readers in TL. They may be names of some firms, of the goods produced by those firms, of shops (often according to the name of the owner), etc.: Englishmen know that "Tonibell" is the name of various kinds of ice-cream produced by the firm Tonibell, while "Trebor" means sweets produced by Trebor Sharps LTD and "Tree Top" denotes fruit drinks produced by Unilever. Transcribed in the Russian text these names are absolutely senseless for the reader who would not see any difference between "Тонибелл", "Требор", "Три Топ" or even "Тоутал", which is not eatable since it is petrol. An English reader in his turn can hardly guess what they sell in "Динамо" shops (even if it is spelt "Dynamo") or in "Весна" (no matter whether it is rendered as "Vesna" or "Spring"). Hardly are more informative such names as "Снежинка" (a cafe or a laundry), "Байкал" (a drink), "Первоклассница"(sweets), "Осень"(a cake), etc. That is why it is recommended to substitute names (unless they are internationally known or play a special role in the context) by generic words denoting the whole class of similar objects: "Он сдает свои рубашки в "Снежинку" - "He has his shirts washed at the laundry", "Они ели "Осень", запивая ее "Байкалом" - "They were eating a cake washing it down with a tonic"; "... Domes of glass and aluminium which glittered like Chanel diamonds" -"купола из стекла и алюминия, которые сверкали, как искусственные бриллианты". To translate "Chanel diamonds" as "бриллианты фирмы "Шанель" would be a mistake since the majority of Russian readers do not know that this firm makes artificial diamonds. If the text permits a longer sentence it is possible to add this information ("искусственные бриллианты фирмы "Шанель"), which may be useful for the reader's scope but absolutely unnecessary for the text itself. However, the generalized translation "искусственные бриллианты" is quite necessary here.

3. The third type of transformation is based upon logical connection between two phenomena (usually it is a cause-and-effect type of connection), one of which is named in the original text and the other used as its translated version. This transformation presupposes semantic and logical analysis of the situation described in the text and consists in semantic development of this situation (in Russian the transformation is called смысловое развитие). If the situation is developed correctly, that is if the original and translated utterances are semantically connected as cause and effect, the transformation helps to render the sense and to observe the norms of TL: "Mr Kelada's brushes... would have been all the better for a scrub" (S.Maugham) - "Щетки мистера Келады... не отличались чистотой". It may seem that the translation "не отличались чистотой" somewhat deviates from the original "would have been all the better for a scrub". However, the literal translation "были бы много лучше от чистки" is clumsy while "не отличались чистотой" is quite acceptable stylistically and renders the idea quite correctly: why would they have been all the better for a scrub? - because they не отличались чистотой. Another example: "When I went on board I found Mr Kelada's luggage already below" (S.Maugham)... я нашел багаж мистера Келады уже внизу" is not Russian. The verbs "нашел" or "обнаружил" do not render the situation adequately. It is much better to translate it as "... багаж мистера Келады был уже внизу", which describes the situation quite correctly: why did I find his luggage below? - because он был уже внизу.

These two examples illustrate substitution of the cause for the effect (замена следствия причиной): the English sentence names the effect while the Russian variant names its cause. There may occur the opposite situation - substitution of the effect for the cause (замена причины следствием): "I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table...." (S.Maugham) - "... три раза в день встречался с ним за одним столом"; "Three long years had passed... since I had tasted ale..." (Mark Twain) - "Целых три года я не брал в рот пива..." In these examples the English sentences name the cause while the Russian versions contain the effect (I ate three meals a day at the same table with him, so Я три раза в день встречался с ним за одним столом; three long years had passed since I tasted ale, so целых три года я не брал в рот пива).

4. The fourth type of transformation is based on antonymy (антонимический перевод). It means that a certain word is translated not by the corresponding word of TL but by its antonym and at the same time negation is added (or, if there is negation in the original sentence, it is omited in translation): "It wasn't too far." - "Это оказалось довольно близко" ("far" is translated as "близко" and negation in the predicate is omitted). Not far = близко.

The necessity for this transformation arises due to several reasons: 1) peculiarities of the systems of SL and TL, 2) contextual requirements, 3) traditional norms of TL.

1). The necessity to resort to antonymic translation may be caused by various peculiarities of SL and TL lexical systems: a) in Russian the negative prefix не coincides in its form with the negative particle не, while in English they differ (un-, in-, im-, etc. and the negative suffix -less on the one hand and the particle "not" on the other hand); so it is quite normal to say "not impossible" in English, while in Russian "не невозможно" is bad; b) groups of antonyms in SL and TL do not necessarily coincide: in English the word "advantage” has an antonym – “disadvantage," while in Russian the word "премущество” has no antonym, in English there are antonyms "to arrange - to disarrange", while in Russian there is only "систематизировать", etc.

2). Sometimes antonyms become the most adequate way of rendering the contextual meaning: "a murderer is only safe when he is in prison" - "убийца не опасен, только когда он в тюрьме". The word "safe" taken separately is easily translated as "безопасный", but in this context the variant "не опасен" is preferable since it is not "безопасность" of the murderer that is meant here but the fact that he is "не опасен" for the others. This shade of meaning is better rendered by the antonym.

In a particular context this transformation may help to render emotional and stylistic coloring of the text: "He's probably thirsty. Why don't you give him some milk?"- "Наверное, он хочет пить. Может, дать ему молока?". "Direct" translation "Почему бы не дать ему молока?" is not colloquial, while the characters of P.G.Wodehouse speak in a highly informal way.

3). Finally the transformation is often necessary for the purpose of observing the traditional norms of TL: "I only wish I could. I wish I had the time" (S.Leacock) - "Мне очень жаль, что я не могу. К сожалению, у меня нет времени". Generally speaking the English construction "I wish smb + Past Tense form of verb" should always be translated "жаль, что... не". The variant "Я бы хотел, чтобы я мог (в прошлом)" is not Russian. "Not... (un)till" corresponds to the Russian "лишь, только...тогда-то". "He won't be back till tomorrow night, will he?" ­"Он ведь вернется только завтра к вечеру, правда?".

5. The fifth transformation is usually called "compensation" (компенсация). To be exact, it is not so much a transformation but rather a general principle of rendering stylistic peculiarities of a text when there is no direct correspondence between stylistic means of SL and TL. This transformation is widely used to render speech peculiarities of characters, to translate puns, rhyming words, etc. The essence of it is as follows: it is not always possible to find stylistic equivalents to every stylistically marked word of the original text or to every phonetic and grammatical irregularity purposefully used by the author. That is why there should be kept a general stylistic balance based on compensating some inevitable stylistic losses by introducing stylistically similar elements in some other utterances or by employing different linguistic means playing a similar role in TL. Suppose a character uses the word "fool-proof" which is certainly a sign of the colloquial register. In Russian there is no colloquial synonym of the word "надежный" or "безопасный". So the colloquial "fool-proof" is translated by the neutral "абсолютно надежный" and the speech of the character loses its stylistic coloring. This loss is inevitable, but it is necessary to find a way of compensation. It is quite possible to find a neutral utterance in the speech of the same character that can be translated colloquially, e.g. "I got nothing". Taken separately it should be translated "Я ничего не получил" or "Мне ничего не дали", but it allows to make up for the lost colloquial marker: "Я остался с носом (на бобах)". It results in getting one neutral and one colloquial utterance both in the original and in the translated texts.

There is another variety of compensation which consists in creating the same general effect in TL with the help of means different from those used in SL. A combination of phonetic and grammatical mistakes is used by G.B.Shaw to show that his character is an uneducated person: "Old uns like me is up in the world now". It is impossible to make the same mistakes in the corresponding Russian sentence: "Такие старики, как я, сейчас высоко ценятся". Nevertheless, speech characteristics are very important for creating the image of Beamish, so it is necessary to make him speak in an uneducated manner. In Russian mistakes in the category of number would hardly produce this effect, they would rather be taken for a foreign accent. One also can't omit sounds in any of the words in the sentence. That is why it is better to achieve the same result by lexical means, using words and their forms typical of popular speech (просторечие): "Старички-то навроде меня нынче в цене!". Another example: "You can't have no rolls" (G.B.Shaw) Since double negation is the literary norm in the Russian language it doesn't help to render the effect of illiterate speech; it is necessary to make a typical Russian grammatical mistake. The most widespread mistakes are connected with case formation in Russian, so something like "А булочков-то не будет" may serve the purpose[1].

With the help of these five types of transformations one can overcome practically all lexical difficulties.

 

GRAMMATICAL TRANSFORMATIONS

It is well known that languages differ in their grammatical structure. Apart from having different grammatical categories they differ in the use of those categories that seem to be similar. This naturally results in the necessity to introduce some grammatical changes in the translated version of any text. These changes depend on the character of correlation between the grammatical norms of SL and TL. Various as they are, all the possible changes may be classed under four main types: transpositions (перестановки), replacements (замены), additions (добавления), and omissions (опущения).

1. Transpositions. There may appear a necessity to rearrange elements of different levels: words, phrases, clauses or even sentences. Transposition of words and phrases may be caused by various reasons: differences in the accepted word order in SL and TL, presence or absence of emphasis, differences in the means of communicative syntax.

. Speaking of word order, it would be more accurate to say that to change word order really means to rearrange not so much words but parts of the sentence When translating from English into Russian one has to change word-order because normally it is fixed in English while in Russian it is relatively free: "George has bought some new things for this trip..." (Jerome K.Jerome) - "К этой поездке Джордж купил кое-какие новые вещи..." or "Джордж купил к этой поездке кое-какие новые вещи..." or "Джордж купил кое-какие новые вещи к этой поездке", which depends (in this particular case) on the rhythm of the whole utterance. But such freedom of choice is rather rare, since the word order of the Russian sentence is not as arbitrary as it seems to be. The position of a word in the sentence is often predetermined by its communicative function. In the English sentence "... I realized that a man was behind each one of the books" (R.Bradbury) the rhematic function of the noun "man" is indicated by the indefinite article. In order to make it the rheme of the Russian sentence it is necessary to put it in the final position: "... я понял, что за каждой из этих книг стоит человек". Another example: "A certain man. was seen to reel into Mr. Twain's hotel last night..." - "Вчера вечером видели, как в отель, где проживает мистер Марк Твен, ввалился некий человек..."

Transposition of clauses is also used to preserve the semantic and communicative balance of the whole sentence: "The sun had got more powerful by the time we had finished breakfast…" (Jerome K. Jerome) - "К тому времени, как мы позавтракали, солнце припекало уже вовсю..." If the Russian sentence began with the principal clause ("Солнце припекало...") the logical meaning would be different - the sentence would state the time by which the sun got more powerful, while the real meaning of the sentence is to show what was the state of things by the time they finished their breakfast and had to decide upon further course of action.

Transposition of sentences does not become necessary very often. However, it helps sometimes to render the meaning which is expressed by the Past Perfect form in the English text, so as to indicate the succession of actions or events: "The village of St.Petersburg still mourned. The lost children had not been found" (Mark Twain) - "Пропавших детей так и не нашли. Городок Сант-Питерсберг оплакивал их".

2. Replacements. Replacements are also made at different levels.

A. To conform to the demands of the grammatical system of TL it may become necessary to change the grammatical form of a

word: "fifteen thousand dollars" - "пятнадцать тысяч долларов" ("thousand" - singular, "тысяч" - plural), "And your hair's so lovely" - "У тебя такие красивые волосы ", etc.

B. They often have to replace one part of speech by another. Most frequent replacements of this type are the following: a) English nouns with the suffix -er denoting the doer of an action are usually replaced by verbs in Russian: "I'm a moderate smoker " (J.D.Salinger) - "Я мало курю ", "When George is hanged Harris will be the worst packer in this world" (Jerome K.Jerome) - "Когда Джорджа повесят, хуже всех на свете укладывать вещи будет Гаррис". However, if such a noun denotes a person's profession the replacement is not recommended: when Holden Caulfield describes a girl, saying "She looked like a very good dancer" (J.D.Salinger), it should be translated "Похоже, она здорово танцует", but the sentence from S.Maugham's "Gigolo and Gigolette" "Stella was a good ballroom dancer", characterizing Stella's professional skill, should be translated "Стелла была хорошей исполнительницей бальных танцев". English deverbal nouns (usually converted from verbs) may be translated by verbs (especially if they are used in the construction "to give (to have, to make, to take) + N: "to give somebody a lift " - " подвезти кого-то". "He gave us all a look " (S.Maugham) - "Он взглянул на нас", etc. b) They often replace nouns by pronouns and vice versa. In the story "The Broken Boot" by J.Galsworthy Bryce-Green says to Caister: "Haven't seen you since you left the old camp ". "The old camp" is a phrase with an extremely wide and vague meaning, it means "some place we used to be at together and some people we were somehow connected with", so it is quite adequately translated "Не видел Вас с тех пор, как Вы ушли от нас ". The pronoun "нас" here is substituted for the noun "camp" (or, to be more exact, for the nominal phrase "the old camp"). A noun is substituted for a pronoun in the following example: "... and Harris sat on it, and it stuck to him., and they went looking for it all over the room" (Jerome K.Jerome). At first sight it seems possible to translate the sentence as it is: "... Гаррис сел на него, и оно к нему прилипло, и они принялись искать его. по всей комнате". However, the sentence is "overloaded" with pronouns, the more so because the Russian "его" can denote both Harris and the butter. That is why it is necessary to replace some pronouns by nouns to make the situation clear and the sentence more readable: "... а Гаррис сел на этот стул, и масло. прилипло к его брюкам., и они оба принялись искать его по всей комнате".

Occasionally some other replacements may become necessary.

However, it must be remembered that the choice of parts of speech influences the general stylistic coloring of the text, cf. "бросить взгляд" and "взглянуть", "хранить молчание" and "молчать", etc. Russian abstract nouns are usually more appropriate in newspapers and official texts, short-form adjectives and passive participles are somewhat bookish and should be avoided if possible when rendering colloquial speech, which means that part of speech replacements may be caused sometimes by purely stylistic considerations.

C. Replacement of parts of the sentence. The most frequent among such replacements is that of substituting an object for the subject and vice versa. It is very helpful in translating English passive constructions. Statistics shows that in English they use passive constructions much more often than in Russian. Moreover, in English these constructions in themselves are not marked stylistically while in Russian they are mainly bookish and official, cf.: "мне дали интересную книгу" and "мне была дана интересная книга". The essence of this replacement is in making the subject of the English sentence the object of the Russian version: "She was brought here last night" (Ch.Dickens) - "Ее. принесли сюда вчера вечером". If the English sentence has an object denoting the doer or the cause of the action, it automatically becomes the subject of the Russian sentence: "The psychiatrist was shocked by the smile” (R.Bradbury) - "Эта улыбка. поразила психиатра". If the subject of the English sentence denotes some place or time it may be replaced by an adverbial modifier in translation: "Anyway, the corridor was all linoleum and all..." (J.D.Salinger) - "А в коридоре у нас - сплошной линолеум" (translated by P. Райт-Ковалева). This transformation is regularly used when the subject of the English sentence is expressed by a noun denoting some message: "the text (the telegram, the letter, etc.) says..." - "в тексте (в телеграмме, в. письме и т.д.) говорится (сказано)”. Occasionally this transformation is applied to other nouns in the function of the subject.

D. One of the most important syntactic peculiarities of the English language is the existence of secondary predication created by various participial and infinitive constructions. These constructions are included in the structure of simple sentences in English while Russian simple sentences have only one predicative center. This may lead to the necessity of substituting Russian composite sentences for simple sentences of the original text: "I remember a friend of mine buying a couple of cheeses at Liverpool" (Jerome K.Jerome) - "Я помню, как один мой приятель купил в Ливерпуле пару сыров" (a simple sentence in English and a complex sentence in Russian); "I let the day slip away without doing anything at all" (Mark Twain) - "Прошел целый день, а я так ничего и не предпринял" (translated by Н.Тренева) (a simple sentence in English and a compound sentence in Russian).

Sometimes two or more simple sentences may be joined together to form one sentence (simple or composite) in translation; usually they do it for logical, stylistic and rhythmical reasons: "I made my way into the smoking-room. I called for a pack of cards and began to play patience." (S.Maugham) - "Я отправился в курительную комнату, спросил себе колоду карт и принялся раскладывать пасьянс"; "Quite the reverse is the truth in the case of great men. The nearer you go to them, the smaller they seem" (G.Mikes) - "С великими людьми ­все наоборот: чем вы к ним ближе, тем они кажутся мельче".

On the other hand, English composite sentences with formal, purely grammatical subjects (introductory 'it', 'this', etc.) often correspond to Russian simple sentences: "This was hardly what I intented" (G.B.Shaw) - "У меня были совсем другие намерения"; "It's the natural, original sin that is born in him that makes him do things like that" (Jerome K.Jerome) - "Его толкает на все эти проделки врожденный инстинкт, так сказать, первородный грех." (translated by М.Салье).

A long and syntactically complicated sentence containing secondary predication may be translated by several simple sentences: "A few months ago I was nominated for the Governor of the great State of New York, to run against Mr. Stewart L.Woodford and Mr. John T.Hoffman on an independent ticket” (Mark Twain) - "Несколько месяцев назад моя кандидатура была выдвинута на пост губернатора великого штата Нью Йорк. В качестве кандидата от независимых мне предстояло выступать против мистера Стюарта Л.Вудфорда и мистера Джона Т.Хоффмана."

E. In some cases it is possible to replace the principal clause by a subordinate clause (and vice versa) if it helps to conform to the logical and stylistic norms of TL: "They put him under laughing-gas one year, poor lad, and drew all his teeth, and gave him a false set, because he suffered so terribly with toothache..."(Jerome K. Jerome) - "Он так жестоко страдал от зубной боли, что однажды его, беднягу, усыпили, под наркозом вырвали все зубы и вставили искусственные челюсти." His suffering with toothache is here the main thing the author stresses; to show how terrible his sufferings were he says that they had to draw all his teeth; that is why it is but logical to state the main idea in the principal clause, while the clause which is principal in the English sentence becomes subordinate in Russian.

F. A different type of syntactic bond may be used in translation instead of that used in the original text, i.e. subordination may be replaced by coordination and vice versa. Generally speaking, subordination is more frequently used in English than in Russian, since subordinating words in English are rather vague semantically while in Russian they state rather definitely the character of semantic connection between the clauses. The conjunction "while" does not really indicate any temporal connection between the actions in the sentence "Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn carpet" (O'Henry), so it is hardly possible to translate it "... в то время как...” Such translation would create a humorous effect which was not intended here by the author. It is much better to introduce co-ordination instead of subordination: "Один раз руки ее дрогнули и она замерла на мгновение, а на потертый ковер скатились две слезинки."

G. Syndetic connection used in English sentences is not always appropriate in Russian, so it would often create a wrong stylistic effect if preserved in translation. That is why asyndetic connection of parts of the sentence is rather regularly used in Russian instead of the English polysyndeton: "It made them nervous and. excited, and. they stepped on things, and. put things behind them; and. then couldn't find them when they wanted them; and they packed the pies at the bottom, and put heavy things on top, and. smashed the pies in" (Jerome K. Jerome) - "Они волновались, нервничали; они роняли то одно, то другое, без конца искали вещи, которые сами же перед тем ухитрялись спрятать. Они запихивали пироги на дно и клали тяжелые предметы сверху, так что пироги превращались в месиво" (translated by М.Салье).

So, the following types of replacement may be used in order to overcome difficulties created by differences in the grammatical systems of SL and TL: A. Replacement of word-forms (замена форм слова). B. Replacement of parts of speech (замена частей речи). C. Replacement of parts of the sentence (замена членов предложения). D. Replacement of a simple sentence by a composite one and vice versa (замена простого предложения сложным и наоборот). E. Replacement of the principal clause by a subordinate one and vice versa (замена главного предложения придаточным и наоборот). F. Replacement of subordinati