Linguistic difficulties in literary translation

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Ministry of education and science of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Eurasian national university after L.N. Gumilyov

Pedagogical faculty

The English philology department

Course work

Theme: Linguistic difficulties in literary translation

Code 050119

The 3 year student

Group FL 31: Zh.K. Alshinbayeva

Supervisor

Candidate of pedagogical

sciences S.A. Meiramova

Astana 2008

Content

Introduction

I. Literary translation as a specific coding-encoding process

1.1 Literary translation as functional interaction of languages

1.2 Context and its role in literary translation

1.3 Literary translation of words having no correspondence in target language

II. Philological analysis of linguistic difficulties in literary translation

2.1 Literary translation of specifically English grammatical forms

and constructions

2.2 Lexical transformations

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Translation is a process and the result of turning a text from one language into another, which means expressing the same by the signs of a different language. Bearing in mind that every sign has two planes (plane of expression and plane of content) the essence of translation could be described as changing the elements of the plane of expression while the plane of content remains constant.

The language of the original text is called "source language", the language into which the text is translated is called "target language" (the corresponding Russian terms are "исходный язык" and "переводящий язык").

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 (characterized by their denotative and connotative meanings and stylistic reference), syntactic meaning of sentences and utterances larger than sentences, suprasegmental elements and lexico-semantic connections between words and phrases. That is why this course work has a great importance in studying literary translation.

Topicality of the course work is importance of studying linguistic difficulties of literary translation, as adequate translation of literary texts has a great importance in the field of philology.

The aim of course work is to analyze the importance of the adequate translation and define linguistic difficulties that are faced in literary translation.

The objectives are:

- to give a general concept of literary translation;

- to define linguistic difficulties in literary translation;

- to give a classification of linguistic difficulties in literary translation;

- to determine the ways of solving these problems.

The subject of course work is translation of literary texts.

The object of course work is the linguistic difficulties of literary translation.

The methods of investigation are comparative analysis, descriptive analysis and studying linguistic and methodological literature.

The theoretical significance is in determining the theoretical statements of defining the linguistical difficulties of literary translation on the basis of native and foreign scientist's works such as Komissarov V.N., Garbovski N.K., Breus E.V., etc. translation philological grammatical

The practical significance is in the fact that the materials of course work can be widely used in teaching process of disciplines as "Theory and practice of translation", "Translation problems", "The basis of Translation".

The materials under analysis are works of native and foreign scholars in this field, books on the theory and practice of literary translation and supplements for the teachers and students of foreign languages institutes and departments.

The structure of the course work. The given course work contains Introduction, two parts: theoretical and practical, Conclusion, bibliography and Appendix. In introduction was considered the aim, objectives, subject, object, methods of investigation, theoretical, practical significances and materials under analysis of the course work. In the theoretical part "Literary translation as a specific coding-encoding process" have been considered following questions "Literary translation as functional interaction of languages", "Context and its role in literary translation", "Literary translation of words having no correspondence in target language".

The practical part "Philological analysis of linguistic difficulties in literary translation" consists of two parts: "Literary translation of specifically English grammatical forms and constructions" and "Lexical transformations".

In conclusion it is given a summary of the course work.

The bibliography contains 15 works of native and foreign scientists that were analyzed during the investigation.

In appendix it is offered a list of words that have difficulties in literary and adequate translation.

I. Literary translation as a specific coding-encoding process

1.1 Literary translation as functional interaction of languages

Usually when people speak about translation they are seldom specific about the meaning. The presumption is quite natural - everybody understands the meaning of the word. However, to describe translation intuitive understanding is not sufficient - what one needs is a definition. Translation means both a process and a result, and when defining translation we are interested in both its aspects.

In order to explain translation it is important to compare the original (source) text and the resulting (target) one. Every language is characterized by a specific structure of its lexico-grammatical fields and has its own lexical, morphological and syntactic systems. It may result in lack of coincidence between the means of expressing the same content in SL (source language) and TL (target language).

That is why 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 and be guided by a number of principles worked out by the theory of translation. These principles are connected both with linguistic and extralinguistic aspects. In translation we deal with two languages (two codes) and to verify the information they give us about the extralinguistic objects (and concepts) we should consider extralinguistic situation, and background information.

In short, translation is functional interaction of language and to study this process we should study both the interacting elements and the rules of interaction [4,142].

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.

One of the main demands 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 extralinguistic factors discussed above. It leads to preserving the meanings of separate words and at the same time it distorts the meaning of the whole text, thus often creates an undesirable comic effect.

Also we can distinguish between literary and informative translation, on the one hand, and between written and oral translation (or interpretation), on the other hand.

In this work it is considered literary translation. Literary translation deals with literary texts, for example, works of fiction or poetry whose main function is to make an emotional or aesthetic impression upon the reader. Their communicative value depends, first and foremost, on their artistic quality and the translator's primary task is to reproduce this quality in translation.

Literary works are known to fall into a number of genres. Literary translations may subdivide in the same way, as each genre calls for a specific artistic means to impress the reader. Translators of prose, poetry or plays have their own problems. Each of these forms of literary activities comprises a number subgenres and the translator may specialize in one or some of them in accordance with his talents and experience. The particular tasks inherent in the translation of literary works of each genre are more literary than linguistic. The great challenge to the translator is to combine the maximum equivalence and the high literary merit.

All branches of the theory of translation are concerned with important aspects of the translator's work and constitute a body of theoretical thought of indisputable practical value.

1.2 Context and its role in literary translation

The meaning of equivalents practically does not depend on the context, so to translate them literary one should merely look them up in a dictionary. The demand to consult dictionaries is essential. No guesswork is allowed in translation. 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 polysemantic. 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.

They usually differentiate, as it has been mentioned above, between linguistic context and extralinguistic context (or context of situation). Linguistic context in its turn is subdivided into narrow (context of a phrase or a sentence) and wide (utterance-length context or sometimes context of the whole text). Very often the meaning of a word is revealed in the minimum context, i.e. in a phrase ("green" - зеленый, юный, незрелый, etc., but there is no problem in translating the phrase "green trees" - "зеленые деревья" or "green years" - "юные годы"). However, there are such cases when we need at least a sentence to see what the word means, e.g. "I'll be sitting in the 3rd carriage from the front of the train" - "Я буду в третьем вагоне от начала поезда". The whole sentence is necessary here to understand the meaning of the word "carriage" and to choose the variant "вагон" but not "экипаж, повозка". Sometimes linguistic context is closely connected with extralinguistic factors.

So literary translation of any word begins with contextual analysis of its meaning after which it becomes possible to choose correctly the corresponding word of TL. All types of context can help to identify the meaning of words in SL characterized by partial correspondence to the words of TL, as well as the meaning of words that do not correspond to any words of TL. Literary translation of the latter group causes many difficulties and requires special means.

1.3 Literary translation of words having no correspondence in target language

There are several ways of translating such words. The simplest way is to transcribe them (lobby - лобби, lump - ламп, etc.). This method is widely used for rendering personal names, place names, titles, etc.

Sometimes transliteration is used for the same purpose, but transcription is preferable because it renders the original sound-form of the word, while transliteration is based upon its graphical presentation (for example, two ways of rendering the name of Shakespeare in Russian: its transcription is Шекспир while its transliteration is Схакесneape). It is evident that for the purposes of oral communication it is necessary to know the sound-form of the names, so with the growth of contacts between the countries transliteration is being gradually ousted by transcription. Those names which have already been rendered by means of transliteration are now traditionally used in this form (King George - король Георг, not король Джордж) and there is no need to change them. Such names should not be translated anew, they have their translated equivalents. However, in translating those names which have no equivalents, it is preferable to use transcription. Being a very good way of rendering proper names, transcription is not very convenient for translating notional words. Substitution of the Russian sounds for the English ones does not make the English word understandable for the Russian readers. The words "драгстор" or "ламп" are hardly more informative for them than the original "drugstore" or "lump". That is why transcription is often combined with footnotes or explanations introduced into the text by the translator. As soon as the new word is thus explained it can be freely used in the text in its transcribed form.

It is necessary to remember that explanations and footnotes contain additional information which is not expressed directly in the original text and is introduced by the translator. So it demands great knowledge on the part of the translator. The next method of translating words having no correspondence in TL is based on approximate rendering of the notion. It can be described as "translation on the analogy". If a word in SL expresses some notion that has no name in TL it is necessary to look for some analogous, similar (though not identical) notion in TL. E.g.: if we are not translating a cookery book but a story or a novel it is quite possible to translate the Russian "кисель" as "jelly", though actually they are different things (they use starch for "кисель" and gelatin for jelly).

The last way out of the difficulty caused by lack of correspondence between words of SL and TL is the so-called descriptive translation. In this case the meaning of one word in SL is rendered by a group of words in TL ("spacewalk" - "выход в открытый космос", "районирование "division into districts", etc.).

So above wre odered some ways of translating words that have no direct lexical correspondences in TL. They all have certain drawbacks and their use is limited both by linguistic and extralinguistic factors (explanations make the text too long and sometimes clumsy, analogues are not always accurate enough, etc.). However, proper combination of these means makes it possible to translate any literary text rendering all the necessary information. When choosing the means of translating it is also important to keep in view stylistic characteristics of the text itself and of different words in both the languages. Special attention should be paid to peculiarities of word combinability in TL, which may differ greatly from that of SL.

II. Philological analysis of linguistic difficulties in literary translation

2.1 Literary translation of specifically English grammatical forms and constructions

To translate English grammatical forms and constructions one should not necessarily look for the same forms and constructions in Russian - as it was mentioned, there may be none. Nevertheless, it is always possible to translate them adequately since it is not the form itself but its meaning and function in the sentence that should be rendered in literary translation. That is why translation of any such unit should begin with its semantic and functional analysis. It can be illustrated with the problem of rendering the definite and indefinite articles. Unless articles have some special role in the sentence or some additional meaning, they are not translated at all - they are merely omitted. However, there are cases when articles are used to mark the rheme of the sentence. Sometimes, besides their usual meaning of definiteness or indefiniteness articles have some additional meaning, e.g., the indefinite article used with personal names has the meaning "some, a certain", showing that someone is unknown to the speaker. Such meaning should be rendered by corresponding means of the Russian language: "a Mrs. Smith" "некая миссис Смит, какая-то миссис Смит". The indefinite article may also coincide in its meaning either with the pronoun "one" ("I remember a friend of mine buying a couple of cheeses..." -"Я помню, как один мой приятель. . .") There are many more meanings which the article may combine with its main grammatical function. In this respect translation of articles does not differ from translation of other words - first its meaning should be analyzed and then a proper word of TL can be chosen. The same is true of prepositions and conjunctions. It is most important to remember that even such a "simple" conjunction as "and" has at least 10 different meanings; in different contexts it may correspond to the Russian "a" ("they stayed at home, and we left" - "они остались дома, а мы ушли"), "неужели" ("And you did it?" - "Неужели Вы это сделали ?"), etc. Speaking of conjunctions, it should also be mentioned that besides their main function (connecting and introducing different clauses and parts of the sentence) they enter idiomatic constructions the meaning of which cannot be guessed: it should be known or looked up in the dictionary (" if anything" - "если уж на то пошло, во всяком случае, как бы то ни было"). One and the same preposition is also translated differently in different constructions and contexts. As for the so-called notional parts of speech, they may differ in SL and TL in the set of syntactic functions that they fulfill in the sentence. That is why translation should always be based on a thorough syntactic analysis since it is not the grammatical form itself but rather its function in the sentence that predetermines the way of translation. For example, before translating an infinitive it is necessary to state its role in the sentence - to see if it functions as a subject, object, attribute, or adverbial modifier, etc. If it is an adverbial modifier, it is essential to see its type - an adverbial modifier of purpose, of result, of attendant circumstances, etc. After this functional and semantic analysis it is possible to render the infinitive into Russian using any part of speech in the corresponding function (or changing the structure of the sentence in order to express the same idea according to the norms of TL). It is impossible to warn a beginner against all possible difficulties. However, it seems reasonable to point out some English constructions that are most likely to cause trouble. Most frequent among them are the so-called absolute constructions. There are two main difficulties in dealing with them: first of all they are not always easy to recognize and besides they do not correspond to any particular construction of the Russian language. Based on secondary predication, these constructions usually express some additional thought, something that happens in connection with the main action, but still "outside" it. It is often hard to say if the construction indicates time or cause of the main action - it may indicate them indiscriminately.

Generally speaking, translation of specifically English grammatical constructions consists of two stages: first it is necessary to understand their meaning and then find a corresponding way of expressing it in Russian. For the purpose of translation, grammar does not exist separately. It is not the grammatical form but the grammatical meaning that is of primary concern for a translator or an interpreter. A mistake in grammar (whether it is a misunderstood construction of SL or a wrong variant in TL) always tells on the sense and logic of the text. As soon as the sense and logic of a sentence stop to be transparent it is necessary to stop and look for a mistake in the translation.

2.2 Lexical transformations

They say that translation starts where dictionaries end. Though somewhat exaggerated, this saying truly reflects the nature of literary 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). 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. 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. 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.

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". 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 centimeters for feet and inches wouldn't make it much better: "On 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.).

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. 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 verb "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: 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 : "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. 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 omitted 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.

5. The fifth transformation is usually called "compensation". To be exact, it is not so much a transformation but rather a general principle of rendering stylistic peculiarities of a literary 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. 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. With the help of these five types of transformations one can overcome practically all lexical difficulties.

Conclusion

To make a conclusion, literary translation has a great role in cultural development of humanity. Thanks to literary translation people can get introduced with history, literature of different countries. Literary translation activities are characterized by a great variety of types, forms and levels of responsibility. The translator has to deal with works of great authors of the past and of the leading authors of present days. Also as it is considered in this course work, translator should be aware of translating literary texts following the original words exactly. In this work it is proved that translation shouldn't be literal. It is one of the most important things in literary translation. That is why the main target of the course work was to study linguistic difficulties of literary translation and adequate literary translation. Theoretical and practical research concerning this problem confirmed the topicality of the course work.

Here are given resumes after investigation of the course work:

- was given a general concept of literary translation;

- were defined linguistic difficulties in literary translation;

- was given a classification of linguistic difficulties in literary translation;

- were given comparative analyses;

- were determined the ways of solving these problems.

Taking into consideration all these factors there is no wonder that literary translation causes interest of different kind of scholars, and above all linguists. And it's natural, that translator couldn't get through this field either, who is always looking forward to finding adequate equivalence in his (her) native language. There is a huge tasks standing behind the translator in translating literary texts. For this reason, literary texts should be translated very carefully; otherwise their meaning is distorted, this problem arises scholars' and our interest greatly. We consider that this work has a significant contribution in studying linguistic difficulties in literary translation and ways of their solution.

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