Текст книги "Введение в теорию и практику перевода (на материале английского языка)"

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 consecutively the reverse way of translation is often recommended:

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 лейбористской партии" (the word "парламентская" here is an attribute to the noun "фракция" and is 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", not "titles".

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

«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 the 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 the stylistic colouring of the text. Since the text in TL must be as expressive as it is in SL and characterized by the same stylistic colouring, 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 nature.

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 in English they 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 sense 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: "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 the particular «thing» or «stuff» that 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. In English they 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 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 meanningless 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 is 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, also known as modulation (in Russian the transformation is called смысловое развитие, or модуляция). 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» does not sound 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 … 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) conventional 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); 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 conventional 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 acceptable in 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. Its essence 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 colouring. 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 utterance 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 can’t omit sounds in any of the words in the sentence either. 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]1
  A wonderful example of compensation is described in: Я.И. Рецкер. Теория перевода и переводческая практика. М., 1974. С. 61–62.


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