Objectively required and subjectively

INTRODUCED/CONTEXTUAL TRANSFORMATIONS

OF LANGUAGE UNITS

As has been shown, there may be two types of transforma­tions resorted to in the process of translation: 1. objectively required/ conditioned by the peculiarities of the target language, i.e., inevi­table, and 2. subjectively introduced at the translator's own will and therefore not always unavoidable. Either of them requires structural/ outer alterations of the source language units in the target language. Moreover, each type of these transformations may be realized both on the syntactic as well as on the lexical level units. Cf. His holidays had been spent at Robin Hill with boy friends, or with his parents. (Galsworthy) - канікули він проводив у Робін Плі з товаришами чи з батьками. Here the passive voice syntaxeme had been spent must have been changed in Ukrainian into the active voice form. Objectively predetermined are also transformations of the objective with the infinitive or participle constructions/complexes, gerundial and nominative absolute participial constructions, national idioms, etc. In these cases a simple English sentence may turn into a com­plex sentence. Cf.:

«It (music) seems to be right «Здається, ніби музика в

in them.» (D.Parker) них просто в крові».

«When do you want me to do «Коли ви хочете, щоб я ие

it?» (Maugham) зробив?»

The outer form/structure of the language unit may be deliber­ately changed in the target language, when it requires a concretiza-tion. As a result, the structure of the sense unit is often extended or shortened in the target language without changing its proper mean­ing. For example, the personal pronoun it and the auxiliary verb do, when concretized in the Ukrainian translation may be substituted for a noun phrase and an objective word-group:

«Why did you do it?» the/she- «Ти навіщо підпалив

riff said. «I didn't do it,» Johnny будинок?» - запитав шериф. -
said. (Saroyan) «Я не підпалював його.» -

відповів Джонні.

the predicative word-groups підпалив будинок and його не підпалював become necessary in Ukrainian in order to explicate prop-

erly the meaning of the verb do arfd the pronoun it, which can be achieved only in a descriptive way, i.e., through transformation.

Also semantically and stylistically predetermined are all translator's transformations through addition, which are resorted to with the aim of achieving the necessary expressiveness. Additions become necessary in the target language either in order to express more clearly the content of the source language unit, or for the sake of achieving some stylistic effect. Cf.:

When a girl leaves her home Коли дівчина залишає

at eighteen, she does one of two домівку у вісімнадцять років, з
things ~ (Dreiser) нею трапляється одне з двох...

«I'm so glad you've asked me. «Я дуже радий, шо ти мене

darling.» (Maugham) запитала про це. люба.»

The additions made in the first and in the second Ukrainian sentences are both lexical and syntactic, since the first of them completes the sentence through the formation of the attributive word-group (вісімнадцять років), and the second complements the ob­jective verb and forms an objective word-group, which completes the object clause and the sentence as a whole (що ти мене запитала про це).

A semantic or syntactic addition used with the aim of concreti-zation may become necessary in the target language in order to main­tain the peculiar way of expression or to complete the structure of the sense unit in the language of translation. For example:

There was just enough room У ящикові було місце лише для
for us two in the crate, and if the нас двох, і якщо бананова
straw was not evenly strewn, it підстилка не була рівномірно
made lumps under our backs, розгорнута, вона збивалася в
(Caldwell) жмутки і муляла нам у боки.

The objective word-group муляла нам у боки is a semantically stable expression in Ukrainian and it can not exist without the verb муляти, which functions as its syntactic head. Similar additions for the sake of concretization become inevitable in the target language when dealing with local place names and specifically national notions of the source language. For example:

Він мешкає у Києві на Подолі, а працює там на Сирці.

Не lives in the Podil district of Kyiv and works there in the Syrets' residential area of the city.

There is no mention in the В офіційній інструкції мініс-

 

Home Office list of any such irt терства внутрішніх справ і
dustrial desease. (Cronin) згадки нема про таке професій-

не захворювання (шахтарів).

The Home Office (list) has been concretized by way of an ex­plicatory translation, i.e., by adding the word (noun) міністерство which is contextually required in the Ukrainian translation.

Often occurring among various translators' transformations are also omissions, which may be of two types: a) objectively required, i.e., inevitable and b) casual or subjectively introduced. The former are conditioned by the grammar phenomena which are not available in the target language. Thus, objectively omitted are auxiliary verbs, de­termining articles or pronouns (cf. he has his. hands in his pockets він тримає руки в кишенях), individual barbarisms, as in the sentence below:

«Oh, I like them. I really do.» «О, вони подобаються мені.

(D.Parker) Справді.»

«Goodness, I'm so crazy «Боже мій, я у такій

abou t music and everything. І нестямі від музики, що мені
don't care what colour he is.» байдуже, якого він (артист)
(Ibid.) кольору.»

Here the sentence "I really do." is reduced to one-word sen­tence "Справді." The word «everything» in the second sentence is a barbarism of a character in the story, which the translator found obso­lete, of no need to transplant it to the Ukrainian translation of this sentence.

Very often, however, a sense unit may be omitted in the lan­guage of translation for stylistic reasons, when it is necessary, for example, to avoid a repeated use of the same sense unit in adjacent sentences, as in the following sentence:

She turned aghast towards the Вона з жахом/приголомшена

bed. (Salinger) обернулась.

Since the noun bed was already mentioned in the preceding sentence of the passage, the translator found it necessary to omit it in the Ukrainian version, which could not be made, naturally, if the sentence were singled out (separated) from the text and translated as a separate language unit.

Casual subjective omissions of this kind usually do not change the general content of the sentence/passage, though they may alter

to some extent the author's emphasis made in the sentence of the source language, as can be seen in the following translation:

/ was learning fast, but І Я навчалася швидко, але не

learned not fast enough to real- настільки швидко, щоб
ize then the peril of our position, усвідомити, яка над нами
(London) нависла загроза.

The omitted adverbial modifier then in the Ukrainian transla­tion changes the temporal emphasis of the author in his original version of the sentence where he pointed out the time («then») of «the peril».

A somewhat similar (and also deliberate) omission of the ad­verbial modifier, though for the sake of achieving faithfulness, can be observed in the Ukrainian sentence below:

Tamales are very good when Тамали (товчена кукурудза

the air grows chilly at night. з м'ясом) - дуже добра річ,

(Ibid) надто (...) коли ночі бувають

холодні.

The translator (O.Senyuk) found the specifying adverbial modi­fier alnight not explicatory enough for the Ukrainian reader or stylisti­cally aggravating for the structure of the target language sentence. This way of economizing the lexical means on account of the original content could not, naturally, be justified, as the content of the Ukrai­nian version would be simplified. To avoid it, the translator employed an extension (коли бувають холодні ночі). Hence, the deliberate omission of the part of the sentence (at night) was made for the sake of achieving a more exhaustive faithful rendering of this English sen­tence. Reduction is often employed for stylistic reasons, especially in translations of belles-letters texts, when there exists an incompat­ibility between the structural forms of the syntactic units of the source language and their semantic and structural equivalents in the target language. The forms of reduction depend on the peculiarity of the language units under translation, on the means of expression or units to be reduced, and sometimes on the aims persued by the reduc­tion¹. The most often occurring reductions are the following:

¹ See about various transformations in the process of translation also Я.И.Рецкер. Теория перевода и переводческая практика. - М.: Международньїе отношения, 1974, p.p. 38-63, 80-113; Л. С. Бархударов. Язьік и перевод. - М.: Международньїе отношения, 1975, р.191-231.

 

1) Changing of an extended word-group into a simpler sense
unit (reduction or contraction):

She gave him a little smile and Вона грайливо усміхнулась і

took his hand. (Ma ugham) взяла його за руку.

The objective verbal word-group «gave him a little smile» may also be transformed in Ukrainian into other word-groups: 1) (вона) окинула його грайливою усмішкою 2) (вона) подарувала йому грайливу усмішку. Each of these two variants, naturally, would be quite acceptable, but the translator avoided them as stylistically and semantically less fitting in this particular sentence.

Shortening of syntactic units in the target language is often conditioned by the stylistic aim of individualizing the speech of some literary character as in the sentences below:

«What politics have you?» І «Ви за кого?» - запитав я.

asked, «l am without politics.» he «я ні за кого.» - відповів
said. (Hemingway) старий чоловік.

Instead of the direct translation of the underlined English sen­tences «Яких політичних поглядів ви дотримуєтесь» and «Я ніяких політичних поглядів не дотримуюсь» the translator used a more natural for the old and seemingly uneducated shepherd, a shortened and an elliptical sentence characteristic of colloquial Ukrainian:»Ви за кого?" and logically natural «Я ні за кого».

2) Transformation of an English complex sentence into a simple
one in the target language because of the structural incompatibility of
the former in the Ukrainian language:

«That's what I say.» she said. «Оце така моя думка.» -

«That's the way I feel.» she said, сказала вона. «Отакя ставлюсь
(D.Parker) до цього», -підсумувала вона.

The first complex sentence with its predicative clause and the second complex sentence with its attributive clause have both been transformed into simple extended Ukrainian sentences and thus changed their outer structure and syntactic nature («Оце така моя думка,» «Отак я ставлюсь до цього», «Це так я ставлюсь до цього»).

3) Merger of two separate sentences into one composite sen­
tence in the target language. This type of reduction may be required
by the content, as well as by the national Ukrainian way of expression
(and by the style of the text). For example:

1. Every once in a while Dave»(1) Раз по раз Дейв ставав

got on his hands and knees and навколішки і розрівнював

turned the straw over. 2. It was руками (2) бананову підстилку,

the banana straw, and it was яка була сира (відсиріла), і від

soggy and foul-smelling, якої неприємно тхнуло.
(Caldwell)

It is easy to assert that each sentence in the source language is semantically and syntactically highly relevant. Nevertheless, only the first sentence can be completely transplanted to Ukrainian: Раз no раз Дейв ставав навколішки і розрівнював підстилку. The sec­ond sentence, however, when transplanted unchanged, would be struc­turally and stylistically irrelevant, i.e., not fit in the style and for the Ukrainian way of expression in this particular context. Cf.: Це була бананова підстилка, і вона була волога і неприємно тхнула.

То avoid literalism and structural/syntactic awkwardness in Ukrainian, the translator reduced the second sentence or rather changed it into an attributive subordinate clause, which made the Ukrainian variant sound stylistically and semantically quite natural: Дейв розрівнював бананову підстилку, яка була мокра і неприємно тхнула.

One more example of contextual reduction (or extension) of English sentences through their merger in Ukrainian can be seen be­low. The only difference between this and the above-given sentence lies in the placement of the second English sentence, which in the Ukrainian translation is moved to the front position. This is required by the peculiarities of the Ukrainian way of expression and by the se­mantic/logical structure of its communicative units. Cf.:

«Oh, we have more argu- «О, ми стільки спере-

ments about colored people. чаємось про кольорових.

I talk to him like I don't knowЯ як розійдуся, то такого

what. I get so excited.» (D.Parker) йому наговорю, шо й сама не

знаю, що.»

These and the like purely subjective, at first sight, transforma­tions are absolutely necessary in order to achieve a faithful expres­sion of content of the English sentences and maintain the logical flow of thought characteristic of the natural Ukrainian speech. It goes with­out saying that such kind of transformations through reduction, exten­sion or replacement can not always be treated as deliberate or exclu­sively subjective, because they are objectively required by the pecu­liarly national ways of expression in the target language.

Always subjective, however, is the approach of the translator to the choice of some semantically and syntactically equivalent versions of the source language units as in the following sentence:

«They gave me a wrong book, and I didn't notice it, till I got back to my room.» (Salinger) This sentence can have two equally faithful versions in Ukrainian, each of which fully expresses its content:

1) Вони мені дали не ту 2) Мені дали не ту книжку,

книжку, і я не помітив цього, і я помітив ие. аж коли
аж доки не прийшов додому. прийшов додому.

The subjective transformations in the left hand Ukrainian defi­nite personal clause Вони мені дали не ту книжку is transformed into the indefinite personal sentence Мені дали не ту книжку,

2) the second co-ordinate clause і я не помітив цього is changed into the antonymic affirmative clause І я помітив це, and the adverbial subordinate clause аж доки не прийшов додому is changed into an affirmative clause (antonymic again) аж коли прийшов додому.

These subjectively introduced by the translator transformations have not in any way changed the syntactic nature or content of the English composite (compound-complex) sentence as a whole. Nei­ther have they changed the order of words, though the plane of ex­pression has undergone some alterations, the main of which is the employment of the antonymic device. It is expedient to term such kind of alterations in the structural plane of syntactic units as «inner transformations» as well. The latter involve only minor structural or lexico-semantic alterations without causing any cardinal changes in the structural form of the sense units under translation.

These were by far all the possible objectively required or delib­erately introduced transformations of lexical and syntactic units called forth in the process of translation by the existing divergences between the means of expression in the source language and in the target language on one hand, or due to the translator's subjective approach to some types of sense units on the other.