Peculiarities of the paroemiological units vs translation

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PECULIARITIES OF THE PAROEMIOLOGICAL UNITS VS TRANSLATION

S. O. Shvachko, Doctor of Philology, Professor

N. V. Khaba, Student Sumy State University

The research is devoted to the analysis of the paroemiological units from the viewpoint of translation. The notion of paroemia is defined as well and within this notion two main types of paroemiological units are distinguished. The article focuses on the ways of translation ofparoemias and verifies the classification of their translation methods. translation paroemiological reality unit

Keywords: paroemiological unit, proverb, saying, translation, equivalent, adequacy.

Анотація

Розглядаючи переклад як засіб міжкультурної взаємодії, необхідно приділити особливу увагу перекладу стійких, культурно-маркованих одиниць, які передають екстралінгвістичну реальність. До таких одиниць, безумовно, належать пареміологічні одиниці.

Паремії є короткими, вони легко запам'ятовуються і вживаються у повсякденному житті. Протягом століть пареміологічна мудрість слугувала провідником для людей в усьому світі. Паремії демонструють унікальність оцінок життя різних народів і, як правило, передаються у перекладі еквівалентами, які адекватно сприймаються у цільовій культурі.

Дослідження присвячене аналізу пареміологічних одиниць з точки зору перекладу. Нами дається визначення поняттю «паремія» та в межах цього поняття розрізняється два основних типи пареміологічних одиниць - прислів 'їв та приказок. У статті розглядаються шляхи перекладу паремій і верифікується класифікація методів їх перекладу.

Ключові слова: пареміологічні одиниці, прислів 'я, приказки, переклад, еквівалент, адекватність.

Ключевые слова: паремиологические единицы, пословицы, поговорки, перевод, эквивалент, адекватность.

Paroemiological units serve a mirror reflection of the historical experience of the nation, its ideas, believes and customs. The comparison of paroemiological units of different nations shows how much these nations have in common, what in its turn contributes to better understanding and rapprochement. By using one or another paroemiological unit in some specific language situation speaker generally tends to confirm and emphasize his speech. Right here arises the need of the authentic translation, accurate and fine conveying of the speaker's views, intentions and emphasis of his speech.

It is worth noting that the problem of the paroemia investigation attracted attention of such scholars as: Antruschyna G., Alefirenko M., Arnold I., Dombrovan T., Bukovska M., Frances E., Galperin I., Hun S., Dal V., Koren O., Kotsipak M., Kunin A., Lanovyk M., Mieder W., Mokienko V., Pawley A., Pyrogov V., Potebnya O., Semenenko N., Seredina K., Vyaltseva T., Vynogradov V., etc.

Such a scientific interest to paroemiological units among linguists we first of all explain by the fact that they as an important element of spiritual culture contain a semantic wealth, demonstrate semantic language capacity and in a concise way fix outlook of speakers representing certain nation. That's why by now paroemiological units remain under the close scrutiny of national and foreign scientists. But indeed despite the large number of research papers devoted to paroemiological units, the studies namely on translation of paroemiological units are not so numerous. Most of them address to the structural and semantic features of proverbs in different languages. Thus, the novelty of our research lies in study of paroemiological units precisely from the viewpoint of translation.

The relevance of our research we see in its compliance to the problems of modern linguistics and the translation studies need theoretical, empirical and practical material which represents the ways of conveying paroemiological units from the English to Ukrainian language fund.

The subject matter of the research paper represents English and Ukrainian paroemiological units, particularly proverbs and sayings; the scope of the study covers the peculiarities of paroemiological units' translation from English into Ukrainian. Research materials are represented by a sample of 100 proverbs and sayings translated.

The purpose of the study lies in distinguishing the ways of conveying of paroemiological units from the English to Ukrainian language and the visual presentation of their implementation. This involves the fulfillment of the following objectives: 1) define the notion of paroemia; 2) differentiate the specific features of language proverbs and sayings as the main types of paroemiological units; 3) classify paroemiological units according to their translation methods; 4) identify the ways of paroemiological unit translation. To attain the objectives the following methods of linguistic research as comparative, contrastive, descriptive, typological and ontognoseological one were used.

Certainly, when we enter the world of translation especially linguistic expressions we open new doors towards getting familiar with literature, language, religion, and culture of those who think, behave, and look at the world in similar and/or different way. Meanwhile paroemiological unit as one of linguistic expressions is formed by the socio-cultural beliefs and attitudes of an explicative culture.

Paroemias (from Greek `pareimia' - proverb, or Latin `proverbium' - saying, proverb) are a source of studying languages and at the same time character and outlook of nation. Paroemias contain an idea about the nature of the interaction among people and carry their values. Paroemiological units are defined as special, fixed, unchanged phrases which have special, fixed, unchanged meanings. They represent the history and culture, an important component of the nation's colour. The traditional function of them is didactic, as they contain 'wisdom, truth, morals and traditional morals' [1, p. 3]: A bad workman quarrels with his tools; Beggars should not be choosers; If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch; If you cannot bite, never show your teeth; Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness; Spare the rod and spoil the child.

Paroemia is a specific denotation of small folklore genres with aphoristic direction which in a concise, precise form expresses the opinion about certain phenomena of life, the reality, human characters and behavior by their main specific features [2, p. 320]. Taken from various sources of folklore on the basis of the direct observation of life around they are marked by the expression accuracy and the opinion concentration.

Paroemiological units are represented by the linguistic expression of cognitive structures that define the perception of reality by the linguistic and cultural community [3, p. 300]. Paroemiological unit as the language sign of culture correlates with the reality that is reflected in its logical and semiotic nature [4, p. 259]. Paying due consideration of ethno-linguistic and socio-cultural sides of understanding of paroemiological units, we can specify them as national cultural expressions, shaped in a generalized sense, syntactically closed and being semantically integral constructions. They express the peculiarities of individual and community life and fulfill the directive function [5, p. 14]. From the epistemological point of view paroemiology serves as the specific form of reflection of national and universal concepts. The conceptual field of paroemiological units in terms of philosophy involves the interpretation of an assessment which sends the ideological content in the form of artistic image.

The quintessence of the English language paroemiological units involves the representation of human values, identifying people's history within brief statements, due to that they seamlessly joined and ingrained in the people minds [6, p. 4]. In view of this we found common and different concepts in systems of two different nations and cultures. Basing on our analysis we can say that the value system of Ukrainian and English people includes a lot of common concepts, such as homeland (East or West - home is best; В гостях добре, а вдома краще), hard-working nature (No pains no gains; Без труда нема плода), family (A merry life forgets father and mother; Все купиш, лише тата й мами - ні), human (Every man has his faults; Усякий добрий, та не для всякого), knowledge (З умом жить -- тішиться, а без ума -- вішаться; A little knowledge is a dangerous thing), poverty and richness (One law for the rich, another for the poor; Багатому і під гору вода тече, а бідному в долині треба криницю копати), love and friendship (Love is blind, as well as hatred; Любов сліпа - доведе до біди й попа; Old friends and old wine are best; Старий вірний друг - краще двох нових), war and heroism ( Бій хоробрих любить; Where courage is, there is victory), money (Bad money drives out good; І грішник буде праведним, коли за його гроші по-моляться), happiness (Happiness takes no account of time; Щасливі часу не знають).

Considering the language specificity of paroemiological units it should be noted that the features of the language are verbalized, among other factors, through proverbs and sayings. A large number of them indicate the specific national features and their roots reach the long-standing history of people, their way of life, customs and traditions. Proverbs and sayings are endless linguistic treasure which was formed over the centuries and now contains centuries-long experience of the national thought.

Prior to distinguish proverbs and sayings, it is necessary to take into account, firstly, their common binding characteristics: brevity (conciseness); stability (reproduction ability); connection with speech (proverbs and sayings in their natural form exist only in speech); belonging to the art of the word; wide use [7]. Proverbs and sayings, both being short, stable in speech use, rhythmically organized dictum of an edifying character, are represented within a sentence structure folk expression with instructive content, which forms a vital regularity or rule that is a broad generalization of centuries-long observation of people, their social experience.

By determination of the linguistic status of proverb the most appropriate terms which describe the sense of `proverb' are `text of small form' or `atypical text of small form', as its specificity lies in the lack of a clear plot, structural and compositional parameters of typical texts, fixed authorship and characters [8, p.201]. The characteristic linguistic features of proverb actualized in speech as the communicative and nominative bifunctional unit is conciseness, syntactic isolation and intonation uniformity.

Proverbs can formulate either a direct permanent consistency (There is a black sheep in every flock; Zeal without knowledge is a runaway horse; Радість красить, а печаль палить. Двічі молодим не бути) or predetermined one (If you want a thing well done, do it yourself; Невесело на світі жити, коли нікого любити; Не купити ума, як нема).

Often proverbs are represented in the form of tips, instructions, warnings, recommendations suggested by certain life experience pattern: Eat at pleasure, drink with measure; Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it; Never make two bites of a cherry; Чого сам собі не зичиш, того й другому не жадай.

Proverbs should be distinguished from sayings. The main difference between saying and proverb lies in that saying does not bear synthesis and moralistic sense. Proverbs represents completeness and didactic content; saying differs by the non-completed conclusion: when the pigs fly; to be born with a silver spoon in one's mouth; between the devil and the deep blue sea. Proverb is characterized by the pragmatic factor, while saying just nominalize referents that are deprived of certain guidelines: as snug as a bug in a rug; the lion's share.

The deep structure of proverbs is represented by subtext, being subjective information which can't be easily transferred basing on the direct meaning of the utterance. The subtext in proverbs is extremely important, because it includes emotional, evaluative and expressive information and has strong national and cultural connotation [9, p. 98].

The difference between proverb and saying is traced on the grammatical level: proverb has the shape of simple or complex sentences, while saying is usually expressed by simple phrase. The proverb has finished judgments, proposals represented by the subject and predicate, and sayings usually are represented just by an accurate expression [10, p. 132]. To verify this difference, we provide a vivid example of saying `to wash dirty linen in public', in which the pragmatic factor is implied not enough clear, but when we supplement this saying with a precept `Don't wash your dirty linen in public ', it becomes the proverb.

There is an opinion [11, p. 102] that paroemiological units should be considered within the functional aspect. From the viewpoint of functioning in the speech acts sayings realize nominative function, while proverbs communicative one. Sometimes saying does not give any advice and does not contain any warning, but it can be easily transformed to proverb implying advice or warning. For example, when the saying `to cry for the moon ' acquires the form of advice, it becomes the proverb: `Don't cry for the moon '.

Referring to the above we can state that proverbs and sayings are closely related, but the sayings are the separate paroemiological units which differ from proverbs by syntactical incompleteness, nominative character and absence of generalizing and deductive sense.

Now after having defined the proverbs and sayings and their common place in the language fund of any nation we can consider them from the viewpoint of translation.

We believe that due to the fact that paroemiological units contain metaphorical element they can not be translated literally (word-for-word). From this perspective M. Kocherhan divided proverbs into three groups [12, с. 41]. In our turn we extended this classification with sayings and obtained the following results.

The first group involves such English proverbs and sayings, which fully coincide with Ukrainian - by meaning, by form, and by image and by the composite components. Compare English and Ukrainian version:

Better late than never. - Краще пізно, ніж ніколи.

Habit is the second nature. - Звичка - друга натура.

As a man sows, so shall he reap. - Як посієш, так і пожнеш.

New brooms sweep clean. - Нова мітла по-новому мете.

Such proverbs and sayings have no problem in rendering to another language because they share the same cultural context. This type of paroemiological units that are the same in different languages, have their source common prototype and often are linguistic calque from Greek, Latin or other languages.

The second group covers paroemiological units which convey the contents, but are based on the different images. By translation such paroemiological units are recommended to use these equivalent units that are common for TL:

April showers bring forth May flowers. - Квітень - з водою, а травень - з травою.

Pigs might fly. - Буває, що й корова літає.

Baker's dozen. - Чортова дюжина.

No fool like an old fool. Молода була - дурна була; стара стала - дурніша стала.

The third group contains paroemiological units that have no equivalents in the TL - neither by content nor by image. They are translated either descriptively or by using individual units created by translator:

Rob Peter to рау Раиі - Позичати гроші в одного, щоб віддати іншому.

Little pitchers have long/ wide ears. - Діти люблять слухати розмови дорослих; В малих дітей великі вуха.

Fools rush in. - Малодосвідчений часто вплутується в те, чого досвідчені люди уникають.

Before we can establish the legitimacy of the translation process, we must identify the goal of translation which is to transfer the meaning of a text from one language to another language . It has been clarified that if the translator does not master the English cultural backgrounds, he/she will not be able to understand the proverbs' true meanings and connotations. So according to the different characteristics of proverbs and sayings in both languages, we can specify four translation methods to be adopted:

1) By complete equivalent. This method is used when in the target language there is proverb or saying, which is equivalent to the one in the by the meaning, content, function and stylistic characteristics to the proverb in its original language [13, p. 185]: Spare the rod and spoil the child. - Пошкодуєш різку - зіпсуєш дитину. Strike the iron while it is hot. - Куй залізо, поки гаряче.

This method retains the original image of the proverb or saying in a way that does not give the reader an error in receiving the message of the proverb or saying being translated. Still waters run deep. - Тихі води глибокі.

2) By quasi-equivalent. The meaning of a considerable number of proverbs and sayings originating in both languages from a common source may sometimes have, unlike complete equivalents, one or even most of their components different, than in the target language. Hence, the quality of their images is not identical [14].

To buy a pig in a poke. - Купити кота в мішку.

Dog doesn't eat dog. - Вовк вовка не кусає.

3) By choosing genuine idiomatic analogies. This method is frequently adopted when the content of the proverb is related to a SL cultural or lexical reference and has no equivalent in another language yet can be substituted with a cultural or lexical items that have, as close as possible, the same meaning as that found in the source proverb.

When the lexical substitutes are unavailable in the TL, equivalence is not achieved at all. When the translator comes across such a problem of not finding a corresponding TL equivalent to the source proverb, the best method to be followed is to resort to a noncorresponding equivalent function in the TL culture:

As for the example of “Newcastle” which is a city full of coal, so it is useless to carry coal to it. We can substitute this proverb with a similar proverb that holds the same meaning since there is a shared concept between the proverb equivalents in SL and TL:

One shouldn't bring coals to Newcastle. - У чужий монастир зі своїм статутом не ходять.

Such rendering not only provides a complete transmission of the idea of the proverb, but also of its functions to convey the same effect on the TL receivers as it did on the SL ones.

4) Literal (word-for-word) translation. The goal of a literal translation is to reproduce the form of the source text as much as possible into the target text since no translation is ever too literal or too close to the original. In other words, the translator stays with one-to- one correspondence until it is necessary to alter this for the sake of meaning [15, p. 156]. In this case paroemias are reproduced word for word, and their meaning can be clearly understood within the context: Red rag to a bull. - Червоний колір для бика (i.e. one that irritates).

5) Descriptive translation, used due to the absence of equivalents in the TL and the impossibility of literal translation [13, p. 190]. It is believed that the usage of descriptive translation is evidence of limited creative possibilities, but it is not so. Proverb can be expressed in a TL by a single word, free combination of words, explanation:

Be born with a silver spoon in one's mouth. - Народитися у багатій сім'ї.

To shake one's leg. - Вести розпусний спосіб життя.

Conclusions. Within this research we have fulfilled the set tasks:

1) We defined the term “paroemia” as the paroemiological unit, characterized by aphoristic nature, persistence, mainly deductive content, and a language sign which a) conveys a certain kind of information about traditional values and attitudes, based on national life experience, and b) indicates a typical life situation.

2) We differentiated the specific features of language proverbs and sayings: sayings unlike the proverbs do not convey the generalizing and deductive sense; they are characterized by incompleteness and syntactic nominative character.

3) We classified the paroemiological units according to their translation methods into two groups: paroemias which coincide by meaning and form; paroemias which convey meaning, but with other figures. The inclusion of the paroemiological unit in one or another group was determined by the following factors: availability or absence of translation equivalent in the target language, preservation or non-preservation of meaning, form, function, image and composite components of the paroemiological unit of SL in paroemiological unit of TL.

4) We identified the ways of paroemiological unit translation. Here it should be noted that many English and Ukrainian proverbs and sayings are polisemantic, which makes them difficult to interpret and compare. It is important to remember that, developing under different historical conditions English and Ukrainian proverbs and sayings for expressing the same or similar thoughts often used different images, what, in its turn, reflects the different social order and way of life of the two nations. That's why often they have no complete equivalents.

So the task of translator is to provide the most accurate and appropriate translation for the recipient's understanding, which means to choose the best equivalent for the translation of proverb or saying. Here translator can rely on the following ways of translation: translation by complete equivalent, by partial and zero equivalent, by choosing genuine idiomatic analogies, literal and descriptive translation.

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