General principles of translation

Object and objectives

Translation can be the object of scientific study aimed at understanding its nature, its components and their interaction as well as various factors influencing it or linked with it in a meaningful way. The science of translation or translatology is concerned both with theoretical and applied aspects of translation studies. A theoretical description of the translation phenomenon is the task of the theory of translation.

The linguistic theory of translation is concerned with translation as a form of speech communication establishing contact between communicants who speak different languages. The basis of this theory is linguistics in the broadest sense of the word, that is, macrolinguistics with all its new branches, such as psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, text linguistics, communicative linguistics, etc.

The core of the translation theory is the general theory of translation which is concerned with the fundamental aspects of translation inherent in the nature of bilingual communication and therefore common to all translation events, irrespective of what languages are involved or what kind of text and under what circumstances was translated. Basically, replacement of ST by TT of the same communicative value is possible because both texts are produced in human speech governed by the same rules and implying the same relationships between language, reality and the human mind. All languages are means of communication, each language is used to externalize and shape human thinking, all language units are meaningful entities related to non-linguistic realities, all speech units convey information to the communicants. In any language communication is made possible through a complicated logical interpretation by the users of the speech units, involving an assessment of the meaning of the language signs against the information derived from the contextual situation, general knowledge, previous experience, various associations and other factors. The general theory of translation deals, so to speak, with translation universals and is the basis for all other theoretical study in this area, since it describes what translation is and what makes it possible.

An important part of the general theory of translation is the theory of equivalence aimed at studying semantic relationships between ST and TT. It has been noted that there is a presumption of semantic identity between the translation and its source text. At the same time it is easily demonstrable that there is, hi fact, no such identity for even a cursory examination of any translation reveals inevitable losses, increments or changes of the information transmitted.

History

The first traces of translation date from 3000 BC, during the Egyptian Old Kingdom, in the area of the first Cataract Elephantine, where inscription in two languages have been found.

The most famous translation from ancient world is the Rosetta stone, dating from the 2^nd century BC, but found only in 1799. The stone actually contains both a descript and a translation into Greek.

Translation became a significant factor in the West in 300 BC, when the Romans took over wholesale many elements of Greek culture, including the whole religious apparatus.

The ancient Greco-Roman world was well acquainted with translation and the technique involved. As early as about 240 BC Livicus Andronicus had translated Homer’s “Odyssey” into Latin verse.

During the Middle Ages in Western Europe translation was confined primarily to religious essays rendered into stiff, ecclesiastic Latin. In the 9^th 10^th centuries Bagdad became an important centre for the translation of the Greek into Arabic. At the time of Renaissance, West Europe was inundated with a flood of translation. The dominant figure of translation during the 16^th century was Martin Luther. Luther’s Bible translation in 1522 laid the foundations of Modern German. King Jame’s Bible had a seminal influence on English language and literature. In 1790 A. Fraser published a volume on “The Principles of Translation” in which he sets up three principles: 1) the translator should give a complete translation script of the idea of the original word; 2) the style and manner should be of the same character with that of the original; 3) the translator should have all the case of the original composition. In the 18^th century in Russia free adaptation was accepted as the only way of translation. The 20^th century has been called “the age of translation” or “reproduction”.

Basic notion of translation

The term «faithful translation» (адекватний, вірний переклад) is used to denote the highest level/degree of rendering the denotative or connotative meanings of words, the sense of word-groups and sentences, the content, the expressiveness, picturesqueness and the pragmatic subtext/intention of passages or works of the source language with the help of the available means of the target language. The term «equivalent translation» ³s nowadays practically used in the same meaning as «faithful translation» with one exception only: it also includes the necessity of quantitative and qualitative representation of all constitutive parts or elements of the source language units in the target language. e. Consequently, a «faithful translation» very often means the same as «equivalent translation» which can be best illustrated on single words, word-groups or sentences as the following: work працювати, professors and students професори та студенти, to work hard важко працювати, take part братии участь, throw light проливати світло, Ukraine celebrated her fifth anniversary in August 1996 Україна святкувала свою п’яту річницю незалежності у 1996.

Equivalent can also be considered the translation of the following English sentence which maintains in Ukrainian its main constituent parts, its content, expressiveness and picturesqueness: There was Penelope flying after me like mad. (W.Collins) За мною гналась, мов навіжена, Пенелопа.

Numerous branches of national economies too can keep up with the up-to-date development and progress in the modern world thanks to the everyday translating/interpreting of scientific and technical matter covering various fields of human knowledge and activities. The latter comprise nuclear science, exploration of outer space, ecological environment, plastics, mining, chemistry, biology, medicine, machine building, electronics, linguistics, etc. In the present days translation of scientific and technical matter has become a most significant and reliable source of obtaining all-round and up-to-date information on the progress in various fields of science and technology in all countries of the world.

The social and political role of translation/interpretation has probably been most strongly felt in the 20th century when it provided the dissemination of political (doctrinal) ideas, of social and political knowledge in various fields of sciences. Whatever the type of matter is translated (belles-lettres, scientific or didactic, social or political, etc.) and irrespective of the form in which it ³s performed (written or oral) the linguistic and social or cultural significance of translation/interpretation remains always unchanged. It promotes the enrichment of lexicon and of the means of expression in the target language. Due to the unceasing everyday political, economic, cultural and other contacts between different nations the lexicon of all languages constantly increases. Thousands of words and phrases, which were unknown in national languages before, become an integral part of their lexicon. Among them are units like steppe, Cossack/Kozak, Verkhovna Rada, hryvnia, various scientific/technical and other terms. Among the adopted sentence structures are, for instance, the idioms God defend me from my friends; from my enemies ² will defend myself Захисти мене, Боже від друзів, а з ворогами я сам упораюсь; an old dog will learn no new tricks на старості важко перевчатися; he laughs best who laughs last сміється краще той, хто сміється останнім. to be or not to be бути чи не бути, the game is not worth the candle гра не варта свічок, etc.

These few out of many more sentence idioms are a testimonyto the versatile influence of translators’ activities upon the enrichment of languages through translation. The idiomatic word-groups and sentences of the source language almost always partly influence the placement of their component parts in the Ukrainian target language and thus facilitate their memorizing as well.

 

Main Types of Translation

Translation can be realized at all levels of the language hierachy:

1) at the level of phonemes: The Clyde – Клайд;

2) at the level of morphemes: table – стіл, tables – столи;

3) at the level of words: late – пізно, to come – приходити;

4) al the level of word combinations: to catch the fire – загорітися;

5) at the level of sentences: Make hay white the sun shines. – Коси, коса, поки роса;

In simultaneous interpretation the interpreter is supposed to be able to give his translation while the speaker is uttering the original message. This can be achieved with a special radio or telephone-type equipment. The interpreter receives the original speech through his ear-phones and simultaneously talks into the microphome which transmits this translation to the listeners.

Levels of equivalence.

Equivalence is a measure of semantic similarity between ST and TT.

In the first type of equivalence it is only the purport of communication which is retained.

e.g. A rolling stone gathers no moss. – Кому на місці не сидиться, той добра не наживе.

The second type of equivalence is designated as “identification of the situation”.

e.g. He answered the telephone. – Він зняв трубку.

The third type of equivalence implies retention in the translation of the method of its description plus the identification of the situation and the purport of communication.

e.g. You are not serious? – Ви шуткуєте?

The fourth type of equivalence presupposes retention in the translation of the invariant meaning of the syntactic structures plus the three above-mentioned meaningful components of the original, namely: the purport of communication, the identification of the situation, the method of its description.

e.g. He was standing with his arms crossed. – Він стояв, схрестивши руки на грудях.

The fifth type of equivalence suggests the retention of the five meaningful components of the original: the word semantics, the invariant meaning of the syntactic structures, the method of the description, the identity of the situation and the purport of communication.

e.g. Ukraine gained its independence in 1991. – Україна отримала незалежність в 1991 році.

A translation event is accomplished at a definite level of equivalence.

In practice the levels of equivalence are encountered as 1) substitution of printed letter for printed letter; 2) substitution of morpheme for morpheme; 3) substitution of word for word; 4) substitution of phrase for phrase; 5) substitution of sentence for sentence; 6) substitution of context larger than a sentence for a similar one; 7) substitution on the rank of situations.

Proverbs and sayings

Proverbs often have an equivalent in the target language. However, even if a linguistic equivalent exists, there may be cultural differences to consider. For example, translation into English could vary based on whether the target is the Uk or the US. It often helps to determine the origin of the proverb, especially if it isn’t an entirely common saying. An obscure literary proverb should not be translated into a very familiar proverb in the target language. It is best to aim for equivalence between the proverb’s standing within the context of the source culture and the target.Often, proverbs deal directly with societal customs that might not translate directly to certain other societies. In these cases, it might help to find a saying that approximates the intended message of the proverb and use that.Ultimately, the challenges of translating proverbs depend on the case at hand, and therefore, it it is best for translators to adjust their method on a case by case basis.

Lexical transformations

In substitutions of lexical units words and stable word combinations are replaced by others which are not their equivalents:

A concrete definition – replacing a word with a broad sense by one of a narrower meaning: He is at school – Он учиться в школеж; У мактабда укийди. He is in the army – Он служит в армии; У армияда хизмат килади.Generalization- replacing a word’s narrow meaning by one with a broad sense: A Navajo blanket – жун адёл; индийское одеяло.Antonymic translation is employed for the sake of achieving faithfulness in conveying content or the necessary expressiveness of sense units. It represents a way of rendering when an affirmative in structure language unit (word, word-combination or sentence) is con­veyed via a negative in sense or structure but identical in content language unit, or vice versa: a negative in sense or structure sense unit is translated via an affirmative sense unit. Cf.: to have quite a few friends мати багато (немало) друзів.Compensation is used when certain elements in the original text cannot be expressed in terms of the language it is translated into. In cases of this kind the same information is communicated by other or another place to as to make up the semantic deficiency.

The infinitive

n many cases, however, equivalence in translation can be best achieved if the translator does not try to mirror the grammatical forms in the source text. There are no permanent grammatical equivalents and the translator can choose between the parallel forms and various grammatical transformations. He may opt for the latter for there is never an absolute identity between the meaning and usage of the parallel forms in SL and TL. For instance, both English and Russian verbs have their infinitive forms. The analogy, however, does not preclude a number of formal and functional differences. We may recall that the English infinitive has perfect forms, both active and passive, indefinite and continuous, which are absent in the respective grammatical category in Russian. The idea of priority or non-performed action expressed by the Perfect Infinitive is not present in the meaning of the Russian Infinitive and has to be rendered in translation by some other means. Cf. 'The train seems to arrive at 5." - Поезд, видимо, приходит в 5. and 'The train seems to have arrived at 5." - Поезд, видимо, пришел в 5.A dissimilarity of the English and Russian Infinitives can be also found in the functions they perform in the sentence. Note should be taken, for example, of the Continuative Infinitive which in English denotes an action following that indicated by the Predicate:Parliament was dissolved, not to meet again for eleven years. Парламент был распущен и не созывался в течение 11 лет. Не came home to find his wife gone. Он вернулся домой и обнаружил, что жена ушла.

 

The passive voice

 

Some ways of expressing the passive voice in both languages may coincide in form and structure. Others should be transformed, in order to achieve faithfulness in translation. English passive forms referring to present tense have mostly no structural equivalents in Ukrainian where the auxiliary verb to be is usually omitted and the past participle acquires other morphological and semantic expression. One more faithful Ukrainian transformation of this passive sentence construction may be achieved by way of conveying it through the so-called middle voice form or -ся/-сь verb. Depending on the form of the passive construction and still more on the lexical verbal meaning, this voice form may have in Ukrainian some still other transformations, which express the same meaning of the passive construction; they may acquire the following outer forms of expression in Ukrainian: a) that of an indefinite personal sentence/clause; b) that of single predicative word/simple nominal predicate; c) a finite form of the verb/simple verbal predicate:

The common English passive voice constructions with the prepositional object as their subject have generally no equivalent passive constructions in Ukrainian. They are rendered then with the indefinite personal forms of the verb.

Some English passive voice constructions often change their outer and inner form and become active voice forms in Ukrainian.

 

 

The Word order

 

A most common example of dissimilarity between the parallel syntactic devices in the two languages is the role of the word order in English and in Russian. Both languages use a "direct" and an "inverted" word order. The predominantly fixed word order in the English sentence means that each case of its inversion makes the object carry a great communicative load. This emphasis cannot be reproduced in translation by such a common device as the inverted word order in the Russian sentence and the translator has to use some additional words to express the same idea.

The first group of problems stems from the broader semantic relationships between the attribute and the noun. The attribute may refer not only to some property of the object but also to its location, purpose, cause, etc. As often as not, translating the meaning of an English attributive group into Russian may involve a complete restructuring of the sentence.

The second group of problems results from the difficulties in handling multi-member attributive structures. The English-speaking people make wide use of "multi-storied" structures with complicated internal semantic relationships. Given the multiplicity of possible translations such structures should be analysed in terms of factors influencing the choice of Russian variants rather than with the aim of listing regular correspondences.

 

Modal Verbs and modal forms

 

Modality is a semantic category indicating the degree of factuality that the speaker ascribes to his message. Modal relationships make up an important part of the information conveyed in the message. Obviously a translation cannot be correct unless it has the same modality as the source text. The translator must be able to understand various modal relationships expressed by different means in SL and to choose the appropriate means in TL. Modal verbs are widely used in English to express various kinds of modality. The translator should be aware of the fact that an English modal verb can be found in some phrases the Russian equivalents of which have no particular modal forms. Most English modal verbs are polysemantic. So "must" can express obligation or a high degree of probability. "May" implies either probability or moral possibility. "Can" denotes physical or moral possibility, etc.

While handling modal forms the translator should not forget that while the English language has practically no modal particles, the Russian language has. Whenever necessary, Russian particles (ведь, хоть, мол) should be used to express modality which is expressed in the source text by other means or only implied

 

Newspaper articles

V.G.Kostomarov stresses two opposite trends:the repetitiveness of language means used and the expressiveness.

Dif-ties: 1) the core of newspaper lexis is constituted by standard well-established cliches but the bulk of standard newspaper lexis are nationally specific(производство на душу населения - per capita production

мыслить по-современному - to think along modern lines история подтверждает - history bears out). a)avoid "cultural shock"-Проблема отцов и детей-The generation gap;b) peculiar connotations in SL that offer difficulties for TLreaders(silent majority-молчаливое большинство)

2)E=>R: stylistically marked vocabulary by neutral units(axed-отклонил, показуха — show-off)

3) neologisms(получать тринадцатую зарплату - to get a 13' pay packet)

4) a) universal shortenings(GATT,IMF,VAT);b) nationally specific shortenings-ГКО (государственные краткосрочные облигации) - short-term Government bonds (treasury bills, government securities with a fixed interest rate)

5) Eng-dimin. and fanciful forms of ref. to politicians;Rus-not(ВВП,БАБ,Maggy,Gorbi)

6) to retain a stylistic effect(He is soaring into his world of fantasy-Но он предпочитает летать в облаках)

R=>E (rendering the meanings of linga-cultural concepts)

The analysis of Rus neologisms-three main sources of their appearance:1)neologisms formed after productive patterns of Russian (чернобылец); 2)neologisms borrowed from other languages(таймшер (time-share); 3)neologisms described as inner borrowings(отмазывать).

Translation solutions:a) transcription /transliteration(префект — prefect); b)loan-translation(личное подсобное хозяйство - individual subsidiary holding);c)equivalent(утечка мозгов - brain-drain);d)analogues(общепит -public catering facilities);e)variant(отмывание денег-hot moneyrecycling

f)explanatory(демократ - shitty democrat); g)combined translation(bor.tr-n+expl.= черный нал - black cash)

 

 

Literary text

In literary translation, the following things are important: preservation of form, content, structure and aesthetic influence of the original. A translation of literary text is performed by professional philologists with consideration of all language peculiarities.

Translation of literary texts may include:

- literary translation of books, articles, essays etc.

- literary translation of advertisement materials etc., that need not a word-for-word translation but a creative approach.

- many other texts that can be included into the category of literary translation.

Main demandsfor translation of belles-letres literature that a translator should follow.

1) Accuracy. A translator is obliged to render all the ideas of an author to the audience.

Hereby not only the main theses but also details and tones of a statement should be preserved.

For the sake of completeness of statement rendered a translator should not add anything on their own behalf, and should not complement and explain the information given by the author. That would also be a corruption of an original text.

2) Brevity. A translator should not use excess words; the ideas of the text should be presented in a possibly brief and laconic form.

3) Clarity. Laconicism of language of a translation should never interfere with clarity of expression of ideas and ease of their understanding. A translator should avoid complicated and dubious expressions that complicate understanding. An idea should be expressed with a simple and clear language.

4) Literariness. As it was mentioned before, a translation should completely correspond to the norms of literary language. Every phrase must sound naturally leaving no tracks of foreign syntactic constructions of an original text.

 

SD metaphor simile pun

To enhance the communicative effect of his message the author of the source text may make use of various stylistic devices, such as metaphors, similes, puns and so on. Metaphors and similes though most commonly used in works of fiction, are not excluded from all other types of texts. A metaphor and a simile both assert the resemblance between two objects or processes but in the latter the similarity is made explicit with the help of prepositions "as" and "like".

Many metaphors and similes are conventional figures of speech regularly used by the members of the language community. Such figurative units may be regarded as idioms and translated in a similar way. As in the case of idioms their Russian equivalents may be based on the same image a powder magazine — пороховой погреб, white as snow — белый как снег) or on a different one a ray of hope — проблеск надежды, thin as a rake — худой как щепка. Similarly, some of the English standard metaphors and similes are rendered into Russian word for word (as busy as a bee — трудолюбивый как пчела), while the meaning of others can only be explained in a non-figurative way (as large as life — в натуральную величину).

More complicated is the problem of translating individual figures of speech created by the imagination of the ST author. They are important elements of the author's style and are usually translated word for word. Nevertheless the original image may prove inacceptable in the target language and the translator will have to look for a suitable occasional substitute. Consider the following example:

They had reached the mysterious mill where the red tape was spun, and Yates was determined to cut through it here and now. (St. Heym. "Crusaders")

"Red tape" is usually translated as «бюрократизм, волокита», but bureaucratism cannot be spun or cut through.

A similar tactics is resorted to by the translator when he comes across a pun in ST. If the SL word played upon in ST has a Russian substitute which can also be used both literally and figuratively, a word-for-word translation is possible

 

Object and objectives

Translation can be the object of scientific study aimed at understanding its nature, its components and their interaction as well as various factors influencing it or linked with it in a meaningful way. The science of translation or translatology is concerned both with theoretical and applied aspects of translation studies. A theoretical description of the translation phenomenon is the task of the theory of translation.

The linguistic theory of translation is concerned with translation as a form of speech communication establishing contact between communicants who speak different languages. The basis of this theory is linguistics in the broadest sense of the word, that is, macrolinguistics with all its new branches, such as psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, text linguistics, communicative linguistics, etc.

The core of the translation theory is the general theory of translation which is concerned with the fundamental aspects of translation inherent in the nature of bilingual communication and therefore common to all translation events, irrespective of what languages are involved or what kind of text and under what circumstances was translated. Basically, replacement of ST by TT of the same communicative value is possible because both texts are produced in human speech governed by the same rules and implying the same relationships between language, reality and the human mind. All languages are means of communication, each language is used to externalize and shape human thinking, all language units are meaningful entities related to non-linguistic realities, all speech units convey information to the communicants. In any language communication is made possible through a complicated logical interpretation by the users of the speech units, involving an assessment of the meaning of the language signs against the information derived from the contextual situation, general knowledge, previous experience, various associations and other factors. The general theory of translation deals, so to speak, with translation universals and is the basis for all other theoretical study in this area, since it describes what translation is and what makes it possible.

An important part of the general theory of translation is the theory of equivalence aimed at studying semantic relationships between ST and TT. It has been noted that there is a presumption of semantic identity between the translation and its source text. At the same time it is easily demonstrable that there is, hi fact, no such identity for even a cursory examination of any translation reveals inevitable losses, increments or changes of the information transmitted.

History

The first traces of translation date from 3000 BC, during the Egyptian Old Kingdom, in the area of the first Cataract Elephantine, where inscription in two languages have been found.

The most famous translation from ancient world is the Rosetta stone, dating from the 2^nd century BC, but found only in 1799. The stone actually contains both a descript and a translation into Greek.

Translation became a significant factor in the West in 300 BC, when the Romans took over wholesale many elements of Greek culture, including the whole religious apparatus.

The ancient Greco-Roman world was well acquainted with translation and the technique involved. As early as about 240 BC Livicus Andronicus had translated Homer’s “Odyssey” into Latin verse.

During the Middle Ages in Western Europe translation was confined primarily to religious essays rendered into stiff, ecclesiastic Latin. In the 9^th 10^th centuries Bagdad became an important centre for the translation of the Greek into Arabic. At the time of Renaissance, West Europe was inundated with a flood of translation. The dominant figure of translation during the 16^th century was Martin Luther. Luther’s Bible translation in 1522 laid the foundations of Modern German. King Jame’s Bible had a seminal influence on English language and literature. In 1790 A. Fraser published a volume on “The Principles of Translation” in which he sets up three principles: 1) the translator should give a complete translation script of the idea of the original word; 2) the style and manner should be of the same character with that of the original; 3) the translator should have all the case of the original composition. In the 18^th century in Russia free adaptation was accepted as the only way of translation. The 20^th century has been called “the age of translation” or “reproduction”.

Basic notion of translation

The term «faithful translation» (адекватний, вірний переклад) is used to denote the highest level/degree of rendering the denotative or connotative meanings of words, the sense of word-groups and sentences, the content, the expressiveness, picturesqueness and the pragmatic subtext/intention of passages or works of the source language with the help of the available means of the target language. The term «equivalent translation» ³s nowadays practically used in the same meaning as «faithful translation» with one exception only: it also includes the necessity of quantitative and qualitative representation of all constitutive parts or elements of the source language units in the target language. e. Consequently, a «faithful translation» very often means the same as «equivalent translation» which can be best illustrated on single words, word-groups or sentences as the following: work працювати, professors and students професори та студенти, to work hard важко працювати, take part братии участь, throw light проливати світло, Ukraine celebrated her fifth anniversary in August 1996 Україна святкувала свою п’яту річницю незалежності у 1996.

Equivalent can also be considered the translation of the following English sentence which maintains in Ukrainian its main constituent parts, its content, expressiveness and picturesqueness: There was Penelope flying after me like mad. (W.Collins) За мною гналась, мов навіжена, Пенелопа.

Numerous branches of national economies too can keep up with the up-to-date development and progress in the modern world thanks to the everyday translating/interpreting of scientific and technical matter covering various fields of human knowledge and activities. The latter comprise nuclear science, exploration of outer space, ecological environment, plastics, mining, chemistry, biology, medicine, machine building, electronics, linguistics, etc. In the present days translation of scientific and technical matter has become a most significant and reliable source of obtaining all-round and up-to-date information on the progress in various fields of science and technology in all countries of the world.

The social and political role of translation/interpretation has probably been most strongly felt in the 20th century when it provided the dissemination of political (doctrinal) ideas, of social and political knowledge in various fields of sciences. Whatever the type of matter is translated (belles-lettres, scientific or didactic, social or political, etc.) and irrespective of the form in which it ³s performed (written or oral) the linguistic and social or cultural significance of translation/interpretation remains always unchanged. It promotes the enrichment of lexicon and of the means of expression in the target language. Due to the unceasing everyday political, economic, cultural and other contacts between different nations the lexicon of all languages constantly increases. Thousands of words and phrases, which were unknown in national languages before, become an integral part of their lexicon. Among them are units like steppe, Cossack/Kozak, Verkhovna Rada, hryvnia, various scientific/technical and other terms. Among the adopted sentence structures are, for instance, the idioms God defend me from my friends; from my enemies ² will defend myself Захисти мене, Боже від друзів, а з ворогами я сам упораюсь; an old dog will learn no new tricks на старості важко перевчатися; he laughs best who laughs last сміється краще той, хто сміється останнім. to be or not to be бути чи не бути, the game is not worth the candle гра не варта свічок, etc.

These few out of many more sentence idioms are a testimonyto the versatile influence of translators’ activities upon the enrichment of languages through translation. The idiomatic word-groups and sentences of the source language almost always partly influence the placement of their component parts in the Ukrainian target language and thus facilitate their memorizing as well.

 

General principles of translation

One of the main difficulties of translating lies in the fact that the meaning of the whole text is not exhausted by the sum of meanings of its elements. The meaning of a text is made up by words, syntactic meaning of sentences, lexica semantic connections between words and phrases.

Good practical knowledge of the two languages is quite necessary but not sufficient for translating. Besides this knowledge one must possess a number of skills in translation and be guided by a number of principles worked out by the theory of translation. These principles are connected both with linguistic and extra-linguistic aspects. While translating one must keep in view typological characteristics of both the languages and remember that the same idea may be expressed lexically in one of them and grammatically in the other.

Besides purely linguistic difficulties, translation involves a great number of problems caused by numerous extra linguistic factors. The content of any text is based upon extra linguistic reality, the text itself reflects the cultural background of the author and of the whole people speaking the language, it also reflects the history of the people, their habits and traditions, a peculiar national way of thinking, etc. All these things should necessarily be taken into consideration in order to translate the text adequately. Another demand upon a person translating any text is that he should be well acquainted with its subject matter.

If all these principles are taken into consideration there will be no danger of so called "literal" translation, which means a word-for-word translation. This type of translation with all its seeming accuracy ignores both linguistic and extra linguistic factors. It leads to preserving the meanings of separate words and at the same time it distorts the meaning of the whole text (sentence), thus often creates an undesirable comic effects.

Furthermore the problem of translation is closely connected with the stylistic aspect of translation - one cannot reach the required level of equivalence if the stylistic peculiarities of the source text are neglected. Full translation adequacy includes as an obligatory component the adequacy of style, i.e. the right choice of stylistic means and devices of the target language to substitute for those observed in the source text. This means that in translation one is to find proper stylistic variations of the original meaning rather than only meaning itself. A translator is to distinguish between neutral, bookish and colloquial words and word combinations, translating them by relevant units of the target language. It sometimes is hard to determine the correct stylistic variety of a translation equivalent. But the final decision is taken on the basis of the context, situation and the background information.

As it is known there are different types of correspondences between the elements of the SL and TL lexical systems. The meaning of equivalents practically does not depend on the context, so to translate them one should merely look them up in a dictionary. But the demand to consult dictionaries is essential. No guesswork is allowed in translation: a word should be either known or looked up; otherwise there is always a risk of translation the word "data" as "дата" or "billet" as "билет" or writing some other nonsense of the kind.

It is much more difficult to translate those words of SL which are characterized by partial correspondence to the words of TL. Such words are mostly poly semantic. That is why in order to translate them correctly it is necessary first of all to state which particular meaning of such a word is realized in the utterance. The most reliable indicator in this case is the context in which the word is used.

In the process of translating a translator has to find it by himself which of the meanings of a poly semantic word is realized in a particular context. A translator has 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. 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 ridiculous translation a translator has to resort to some special devices worked out by the theory of translation and known as lexical and grammatical transformations(or contextual substitutions). Lexical transformations are classified as transformation by means differentiation and concretization, transformation of generalization, semantic development, antonymic translation, and compensation. Grammatical transformations deal with transposition, replacements, additions, and omissions.

Main Types of Translation

Translation can be realized at all levels of the language hierachy:

1) at the level of phonemes: The Clyde – Клайд;

2) at the level of morphemes: table – стіл, tables – столи;

3) at the level of words: late – пізно, to come – приходити;

4) al the level of word combinations: to catch the fire – загорітися;

5) at the level of sentences: Make hay white the sun shines. – Коси, коса, поки роса;