Theory of translation (english and russian)

§1. REASONS FOR DIFFERENCES IN WORD COMBINABILITY

For a correct translation, one must know, besides the precise meaning of a word, the way the word is combined with other words in the sentence, also called the collocation. To analyze a word collocation, it is necessary to consult both bilingual dictionaries and special combinatory dictionaries, for example, The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English,¹¹⁸⁰ Б е н с о н М., Б е н с о н Э., И л с о н Р. Комбинаторный словарь английского языка. - М.: Русский язык, 1990. - 286 с.⁸⁰ which gives the most typical grammatical and lexical collocations in English.

At least three reasons for the lack of collocation convergence in English and Russian may be singled out:

semantic reasons (different semantic structures, different denoted situations);

language varieties (British, American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand English);

different typological tendencies characteristic of Russian and English.

The difference in word semantic structures is of a linguistic nature. The meanings of the source language and target language words do not coincide. Even one meaning in reference to different objects is verbalized by different words. For example, the word heavy implies a great amount or quantity of something and, depending on what the `something' is, it corresponds to different Russian words:

heavy books - тяжелые книги;

heavy crop - богатый урожай;

heavy sky - затянутое небо;

heavy traffic - большое движение;

heavy rain - сильный дождь;

heavy sea - бурное море;

heavy penalty - суровое наказание.

Different situations can be named similarly in one language and differently in another language: провести операцию - to perform an operation (in a hospital); to carry out / conduct an operation (on the battlefield).

Varieties of English predetermine different collocations: in British English, people say they have a bath; whereas Americans take a bath. The British take a decision, Canadians and Americans make a decision. In Russian, it is принимать ванну и принимать решение respectively.

Typologically, English and Russian are opposites as far as their tendencies towards meaning generalization / specification and implicit / explicit expression are concerned.

The English language tends to express more general, abstract meanings than does Russian, whose words are more specific, having an additional seme. Therefore, in translating from English into Russian, we often employ a transformation of specification: Old birds are not to be caught with chaff. - Старого воробья на мякине не проведешь. The specified subject is typical of a corresponding Russian proverb. He went to the shop to get some milk. - Он пошел в магазин купить молока. In this sentence, the verb to get corresponds to the Russian получать, with a seme added (получать за деньги = покупать). Sometimes a translator has to offer two specified words: (Waiter) Would you like to take anything? - Не хотите ли чего-нибудь выпить или закусить?

Another contrast is manifested by the tendencies towards implicit and explicit expression. English tends to be implicit and laconic, which means it verbalizes less than Russian. On the other hand, the Russian language is more explicit than English, since it tends to express overtly all the elements of the situation named. Therefore, Russian translations are usually of greater volume than their English source texts. Examples, both of texts and separate sentences and phrases, can be numerous, one instance being the Russian phrase контроль за ходом проекта that corresponds to a very compressive English phrase the Project Control.

The so called “adverbial verbs” is another example of semantic compression in the English language.

§2. TRANSLATION OF ADVERBIAL VERBS

Adverbial verbs are verbs of complex semantics: they express simultaneously two meanings - that of an action and that of its characteristics. For example, to stare - смотреть пристально; to shrill - пронзительно кричать. A translation equivalent is usually represented in the dictionary either by a verb and adverb or by a simple verb of complex semantics (to stare - уставиться), or by a verb and prepositional phrase: to rumble - ехать с грохотом.

Some verbs become adverbial only in context. For example, the verb to roar by itself denotes making a long and loud noise and is equal to реветь, громыхать. In the sentence Tanks roared into the city,¹¹⁸¹ Ш в е й ц е р А. Д. Перевод и лингвистика. - М.: Воениздат, 1973. - С.126.⁸¹ the verb indicates not only producing a loud noise, but also moving. So the sentence corresponds to the Russian Танки с грохотом въехали в город. The seme of movement is easily recognized by the preposition into. The same role is performed by a postpositional element of a phrasal verb: The old jalopy clanked up the hill. - Старый драндулет с лязгом поднимался в гору.¹¹⁸² Там же.⁸²

Semantically, adverbial verbs can be classified into the following groups:¹¹⁸³ Л е в и ц к а я Т. Р., Ф и т е р м а н А. М. Пособие по переводу с английского языка на русский. - М.: Высшая школа, 1973. - С.104.⁸³

verbs expressing movement accompanied by some sound: to jingle - мчаться, звеня бубенцами; to creak - двигаться со скрипом; to bang - с хлопком, etc. These verbs are usually translated with the help of an adverbial participle (деепричастие) or a prepositional and nominal group.

Verbs expressing a shift from one place into another: He danced her out into a quiet corridor. - Танцуя с ней, он увел ее в пустой коридор. The servant bowed the guests out as they left. - Слуга с поклонами проводил гостей. So in this case, either an adverbial participle or a prepositional phrase is used. When it has a metaphoric meaning, the verb can be translated with a simile: He stormed out of the restaurant. - Он, как ураган, вылетел из ресторана.

verbs expressing transition from one state to another: The train slid to a halt. - Поезд плавно остановился. The adverbial feature is rendered in Russian by an adverb.

causative verbs: The slaves were whipped into work. - Рабов заставили работать с помощью кнута. (translation with a prepositional phrase). The threat angered him into activity. - Эта угроза пробудила его гнев и заставила действовать. (translated with parallel verbs). He refused to be blackmailed into silence. - Он отказался молчать, несмотря на шантаж. (translated through substituting parts of speech). He teased her out of making a scene. - Он подтрунивал над ней, чтобы она не устроила ему сцены. (translated with a subordinate clause).

verbs expressing cause and effect: Quietly she sang herself that night into fame. - Она так пела, что незаметно для себя в тот вечер стала знаменитой певицей. (translated through a sentence partitioning). Mary Bignall is long-jumping her way to victory.¹¹⁸⁴Там же. - С.106.⁸⁴ - В состязаниях по прыжкам в длину Мэри Бигнал выходит на первое место. (in translation the sentence is restructured).

Being a compressive means of expressing a meaning, adverbial verbs are widely used in modern English, especially in newspapers and fiction. Some of them have become set phrases: to cry oneself to sleep; to struggle into one's coat; to bang out of the room, etc.

Many adverbial verbs form a structural pattern and, therefore, are easily recognized in the sentence, though their contextual meanings may not be found in the dictionary: The Tatar cavalry burned its way through Eastern Europe. - Сжигая все на своем пути, татарская конница пронеслась по Восточной Европе. The pattern to elbow one's way, to push one's way, to bribe one's way (to, through) has been very frequent recently.

Another pattern is the structure to talk (laugh, joke, tease, etc.) somebody into (out of) something: I've talked her into coming camping with us. - Я уговорил ее поехать с нами отдыхать на природу.

§3. TRANSLATING CONDENSED SYNONYMS

There are rare cases when English proves to be more wordy than Russian. One of these cases is synonym condensation,¹¹⁸⁵ М и н а е в а Л. В. Слово в языке и речи. - М.: Высшая школа, 1986. - С.107.⁸⁵ or usage of a number of parallel synonyms which are very close in meaning: The government resorted to force and violence. In Russian linguistics, this phenomenon is called «парная синонимия».

One of these synonyms is usually of Romance origin, the other is Germanic: Elvis Presley denied being lewd and obscene, with lewd being a Germanic word, and obscene a Latin borrowing . Элвис Пресли не признавал себя непристойным.

As is seen in this example, a translator into Russian normally reduces the synonyms to a single one: the very first sentence in this paragraph might be translated as Правительство прибегло к насилию.

If the synonym condensation is used in an oratorical register, to make speech more emphatic and expressive, it is compensated by intensifiers: I have been open and sincere … - Я абсолютно искренен… I am safe and sound. - Я жив-здоров. (This is, probably, the only case of synonym reduplication in Russian)

Chapter 9. TRANSLATING NEW COINAGES: DIFFERENCES IN RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH WORD BUILDING

One of the formal differences between the English and Russian languages causing semantic difficulties in understanding the text is dissimilarity in word building tendencies. To begin with, English words are apt to be mono-morphemic, whereas Russian has a majority of two- and more morpheme words.

There is a disparity between various types of word building processes in English and Russian. Let us discuss the most important of them.

§1. COMPOUNDS

A compound is a unit of vocabulary which consists of more than one lexical stem functioning as a single item, with its own meaning and grammar.¹¹⁸⁶ C r y s t a l D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English language. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. - P.129.⁸⁶ For example, secondhand, waterbike; солнцестояние, водонепроницаемый.

Compounds exist in both English and Russian, but they are comparatively predominant in English, where compounds are found not only among nouns and adjectives, but also among verbs (to ill-use) and adverbs (crosslegs).

English compounds are formed mostly in the agglutinative way, that is by joining directly two or more stems: two-year-old, chewing-gum, doorknob, widespread, earthquake. Unfortunately, orthography is not a foolproof criterion to signal a compound. The parts of a word may be linked by a hyphen (fire-light), written without a space (moonlight), or stand separately (candle light)¹¹⁸⁷ Т р у е в ц е в а О. Н. Английский язык: особенности номинации. - Л.: Наука, 1986. - С.21.⁸⁷. Note that American English uses fewer hyphens than does British English:¹¹⁸⁸ C r y s t a l D. Op. cit. - P.129⁸⁸ cell yell (loud talking into a cellular telephone), ego wall (wall with framed awards, diplomas, and pictures of a person with famous people).

In Russian compounds, stems are mostly joined by a linking vowel, -e- or -o-: пароход, дикорастущий, землемер, кораблестроение. An English compound may also have (though not very often) a linking element, mostly the consonant -s- (sportsman, statesman, spokesman), and occasionally vowels -o-, --a-, -i- (washomat, sportsarama, pluridimensional)¹¹⁸⁹ Ibid. - P.129.⁸⁹ - though the cases with the linking vowel belong rather to stem reduction than to stem composition.

It is typical of English to make a compound out of a phrase, with subordinate links between the elements: son-in-law, jack-of-all-trades, day-to-day (rare in Russian: сумасшедший); coordinate links: hide-and-seek (not as usual in English as in Russian; e.g., научно-технический, scientific and technological). The tendency towards compounds is so strong in English that it is not infrequent that we come across compounds formed out of clauses: They say that what's-his-name fellow has been staying at her house ever since he came to town. (Caldwell).

A lot of compounds used in speech are occasional coinages, not fixed by dictionaries. For example, this sentence from U. Sinclair: The baby was eight months old, and he was at the crawling stage and the looking-about stage and the putting-things-into-his-mouth stage.

To translate a new compound, especially one not included in the dictionary, it is necessary to analyze syntactic relations between the compound elements and their meanings. These relations may be as follows:

predicate relations, i.e. subject to verb: earthquake (the earth quakes), headache; землетрясение, снегопад;

object relations, i.e. verb to object: scarecrow (scares crows), sightseeing; водомер, бракодел;

attribute relations: goldfish, postman; чернозём, голубоглазый;

adverbial relations: much-improved (improved a lot), night-flying (flying at night); вышеупомянутый, долгоиграющий.

When the meaning and grammatical relations of the compound elements are clear, it is possible to look for a proper means of translation. It may be

another compound: tax-payer - налогоплательщик; law-abiding - законопослушный;

analogue: hangman - палач; homesick - ностальгический; childcare - детский сад; air-headed - ветер в голове;

calque: waterbike - водный мотоцикл; breathtaking - захватывающий дыхание. Compounds with object and adverbial relations between the elements are often translated in the reverted linear order: tax-free - свободный от налогов; far-advanced - продвинутый вперед; home-grown vegetables - овощи, выращенные дома;

half-calque: pop-star - поп-звезда; surfspeak - язык серфистов;

transcription or transliteration: popcorn - попкорн; videobusiness - видеобизнес; audioplayer - аудиоплейер. This technique is normally employed when a word, denoting a piece of realia, is borrowed into the target language;

explication and extension: flypaper - липкая лента от мух; gravity-challenged - не способный прыгнуть высоко;

substitution of one or both of the components: popcorn - воздушная кукуруза; blackboard - классная доска; пылесос - vacuum cleaner. It is important that a translator not invent a new word, but use a standard word, fixed in the dictionary (it is of particular significance in translating terms).

§2. CONVERSION

Conversion is transferring a word from one part of speech to another without the use of an affix.

This way of building new words is most typical of English as compared with Russian.

There may be various directions of conversion:

a verb may come from a noun: to word, to bicycle, to gangster;

a noun may come from a verb: a try, a drive, a drive-in; that's a must;

an adjective may be converted to a noun: a round, a monthly, the bitter;

an adjective may be changed to a verb: to empty, to better, to calm down;

adverb to noun: Yesterday was my birthday;

a structural word may be converted to a noun: too many ifs and buts;

affix to noun: “ologies” and “isms”;

grammatical word to verb: to down tools; to up and do it.¹¹⁹⁰ Ibid. - P.129.⁹⁰

Compound words and phrases may also be converted: to dog's-ear - загибать уголки страниц; a would-be president - будущий президент; free-for-all - соревнования, дискуссия и т. п., в которых может участвовать любой; situps - приседания.

Root conversion takes place in Russian too, but it is not as characteristic there as it is in English, and is usually accompanied by other word building processes. For example, круглый (adj) - круг (n) - кругом (adv) - вокруг (prep) - округлять (v). In this case conversion is used along with stem reduction and affixation. Mostly, conversion in Russian is a process of changing noun to adverb: утром, шагом, осенью; adjective to noun (based on ellipsis): столовая, рабочий, учащиеся; participle to noun: раненный - раненый; noun to grammatical word: в связи с, в заключение, etc.

It should be kept in mind that not all the meanings of a word are carried through into the derivative form. Therefore, a translator should be careful about the equivalent. For example, the noun paper has several equivalents: бумага, газета, научная работа. However, the verb to paper refers only to the first of these, which is manifested in its collocation. Lecturers and editors may paper their rooms. - Преподаватели и редакторы могут оклеивать свои комнаты обоями. But they cannot *paper their audiences and readers.¹¹⁹¹ Ibid. - P.129.⁹¹ The verb to paper has no equivalent correlating with the second and third meanings of the noun.

Converted words are often very expressive and metaphorical: Sweat beads her upper lip. (F. King) - Капельки пота выступают у нее на верхней губе. Therefore, this form of coinage is often used in conversation, fiction and journalism.

The converted words with metaphorical meaning may be translated with the help of a simile: What can you do with a woman who sits and sponges all day long? - Что поделаешь с женщиной, которая весь день только и сидит, напиваясь, как сапожник. Enjoy your food. Don't just wolf it down.- Наслаждайся пищей. Не набрасывайся на нее, как волк.

Translating converted coinages requires addition and extension of the sentence elements which are able to explain the meaning of the English word: For the first ten years of their marriage, the Bacons had holidayed in Bournemouth, because Arnold's parents had always done so. (J. Archer) - Первые десять лет совместной жизни супруги Бэйкон проводили отпуск в Борнмуте, поскольку там всегда раньше отдыхали родители Арнольда.

Substituting parts of speech and restructuring of the sentence are often typical of utterances with converted words: e.g., For those who still prefer the traditional `at home' office party, there are a number of dos and don'ts. - Для тех, кто до сих пор предпочитает устраивать торжества “по-домашнему” на рабочем месте, следует напомнить несколько правил о том, что можно и чего нельзя делать.

§3. AFFIXATION