Miram Basic Transl
Miram Basic Transl
Miram Basic Transl
Daineko,
Lyubov A. Taranukha, Marina V. Gryschenko
Aleksandr M. Gon
BASIC TRANSLATION
PART I
Kyiv-2001
Language for Special Purpose Series
PREFACE
Although translation is part and parcel of any LSP Manual, however, with
several rare exceptions (e. g., Military Translation Manual by L. Nelyubin et
al.) there are no translation manuals specifically intended for students of non-
linguistic specialties and this Manual is an attempt to fill the gap. We think
that there are several reasons that might justify our venture. First and most of
all, translation is an effective tool that assists in matching language
communication patterns of the speakers of different languages in a specific
professional field, especially such communication-dependent one as
international relations. This aspect of translation teaching becomes even more
important under the language development situation typical of New
Independent States such as Ukraine. Besides, general linguistic subjects related
to translation are not in the curriculum of the international relations students
and we included in our Manual several lectures that would improve general
linguistic awareness of the students, moreover that we consider this
information a necessary prerequisite for proper understanding of translation.
Last, but not the least the Manual comprises in its training part (exercises
after each lecture and the Appendix) English vocabulary and speech patterns
with their Ukrainian equivalents which are in standard circulation in
diplomatic practice, international law and international finance areas.
The theoretical approaches to translation that we use in our Manual are based
on the most widely accepted modern translation theories, both Western and of
2
Language for Special Purpose Series
the former Soviet Union. An attempt was made, however, to present them to
the readers in a concise and simplified form, which in our opinion is justified
by the purpose and target audience of the Manual. Special accent is made,
however, on communicational theory since it highlights those aspects of
translation process which are of vital significance for practical translation. The
Manual discusses both translation and interpretation since both skills are
desired from international relation specialists.
Acknowledgments
.
We are grateful to the Foreign Languages Chair of the Institute of International
Relations (Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University) for discussions and
valuable comments on the Manual.
We would like to thank Prof. V. Karaban and Ass. Prof. K. Serazhim for
reading and suggesting valuable comments on the Manual.
We highly appreciate and gratefully acknowledge the support of the
Administration of the Institute of International Relations.
Authors
3
Language for Special Purpose Series
This Lecture :
· introduces the notions of a linguistic sign, a concept and a denotatum;
· establishes relations between the above sets of elements;
· shows the difference between the denotative and connotative meanings
of a linguistic sign;
· describes the mental concept of a linguistic sign;
· describes the relations of polysemy and synonymy, and
· explains some causes of ambiguity of translation equivalents
The language sign is a sequence of sounds (in spoken language) or symbols (in
written language) which is associated with a single concept in the minds of
speakers of that or another language.
It should be noted that sequences smaller than a word (i.e. morphemes) and
those bigger than a word (i.e. word combinations) are also language signs
rather than only words. Word combinations are regarded as individual
language signs if they are related to a single mental concept which is different
from the concepts of its individual components (e. g. best man ).1
1In this as well as in many other instances we make use of definitions which
seem the most suitable for the explanation of translation but might be
4
Language for Special Purpose Series
The signs of language are associated with particular mental concepts only in
the minds of the speakers of this language. Thus, vrouw, Frau, femeie, and
kobieta are the language signs related to the concept of a woman in Dutch,
German, Romanian and Polish, respectively. It is important to note that one
can relate these signs to the concept of a woman if and only if he or she is a
speaker of the relevant language or knows these words otherwise, say, from a
dictionary.
One may say that language signs are a kind of construction elements (bricks)
of which a language is built. To prove the necessity of knowing the language
sign system in order to understand a language it is sufficient to run the
following test: read with a dictionary a text in a completely unknown language
with complex declination system and rich inflexions (say, Hungarian or
Turkish). Most probably your venture will end in failure because not knowing
the word-changing morphemes (language signs) of this language you wont
find many of the words in a dictionary.
The relationship between similar concepts and their relevant language signs
may be different also in different languages. For example, among the words
of different languages corresponding to the concept of a women mentioned
5
Language for Special Purpose Series
above: vrouw, Frau, femei, and kobieta, the first two will include in the concept
of a woman that of a wife whereas the last two will not.
The differences in the relationship between language signs and concepts (i.e.
similar concepts appearing different to the speakers of different languages and
even to different speakers of the same language) may explain many of the
translation difficulties.
For example, the German word haben possesses the lexical meaning of to have
with similar connotations and associations and in its grammatical meaning it
belongs as an element to the German grammatical system of the Perfect Tense.
One may note similar division of the meanings in the English verb to have or
in the French verb avoir.
6
Language for Special Purpose Series
7
Language for Special Purpose Series
The relationship of language signs with the well-organized material world and
mostly logically arranged mental images suggests that a language is an orderly
system rather than a disarray of random objects. The language system and its
basic rules are the subject of the next lecture.
8
Language for Special Purpose Series
QUESTIONS
Exercises
Ex. 1. Using a dictionary define the lexical meanings of the following words and
word combinations. Find Ukrainian or English equivalents. Compare the lexical
meanings of the English words and their Ukrainian equivalents and vice versa.
malady - disease - illness; unusual - off-beat; efforts - travails; work - toil, gun
- piece; corpse - stiff; rich - well-to-do; quit - buzz off; liquidate - iron out.
9
Language for Special Purpose Series
white knight; white heat; yellow press; common sense; die hard; soft (hard)
figures; pipe dream; red tape
Ex.4. Suggest the missing parts of the expressions below; say where the
associations are similar in English and Ukrainian
…. Tom, … Tom; … Rouges, … Rouge; … sky, …. sky; …. apple; … Apple,
apple … , apple …., Apple …, Apple, apple …, apple …
Ex. 5. Take three homonyms and synonyms in Ukrainian, translate them into
English, point to the cases of similar and different use
10
Language for Special Purpose Series
This Lecture:
· introduces the concepts of a system;
· introduces the notion of language as a system existing in formal and
semantic planes;
· attributes linguistic signs to morphological, lexical or syntactic levels;
· depending on meaning or function, defines what paradigm a unit
belongs;
· analyzes syntactic and semantic valence;
· shows how different syntagmas are activated in English and Ukrainian
in the course of translation;
· gives a definition of translation as a specific coding-encoding process
For example, to take an extreme case, in English speech one will never find
two articles in a row or in an official obituary an English speaker will never
say that the minister pegged out. An evident example of grouping by meaning
and association gives the group of colors in which even a little child will easily
include black, red, blue, etc.
Thus, one may conclude that there is some order organizing hundreds of
thousands of words making it easier to memorize and properly use them in
speech. This order is called the system of a language. Any system is an
organized set of objects and relations between them, but before discussing
objects and relations in the system of a language it is worthwhile to describe
the traditional approach to language system descriptions.
11
Language for Special Purpose Series
In any language system two general planes are usually distinguished: the
formal plane, comprising spoken or written language signs (words and word
combinations as well as minor elements, morphemes) and the semantic,
comprising mental concepts ( meanings) the language signs stand for.
As a simplified example one may again take words from a dictionary (formal
plane) and their definitions (semantic plane):
This example is, of course, simplified since the real semantic content
corresponding to a word is much more complex and not that easy to define.
The general relationship between these planes has been described in the
previous lecture.
For example, -tion, -sion are the English word-building morphemes and
belong to objects of the morphological level, book, student, desk as well as any
other word belong to objects of the lexical level, and the same words (nouns)
book, student, desk in a sentence may become Subjects or Objects and thus
belong to the set of syntactic level objects of the language.
12
Language for Special Purpose Series
For example, the English morphemes s and es enter the paradigm of Number
(Plural). Words spring, summer, autumn, and winter enter the lexico-semantic
paradigm of seasons. All verbs may be grouped into the syntactic (functional)
paradigm of Predicates.
One may note that one and the same word may belong to different levels and
different paradigms, i.e. the language paradigms are fuzzy sets with common
elements. As an example, consider the lexico-semantic paradigm of colors the
elements of which (black, white, etc.) also belong to the syntactic paradigms of
Attributes and Nouns.
It is important to note that the elements of language paradigms are united and
organized according to their potential roles in speech (text) formation. These
roles are called valences. Thus, words black, white, red, etc. have a potential to
define colors of the objects (semantic valence) and a potential capacity to serve
as Attributes in a sentence (syntactic valence).
The paradigms of the language brought together form the system of the
language which may be regarded as a kind of construction material to build
sentences and texts. Language paradigms are virtual elements of the
language which are activated in syntactically interdependent groups of
sentence elements called syntagmas.
The following paradigms were used to form these sentences and the following
paradigm elements were activated in syntagmas during their formation (viz.
Table 1 below)
Table 1
13
Language for Special Purpose Series
Comparing the paradigm sets used to form the above English and Ukrainian
sentences and paradigm elements activated in the syntagmas of these sentences
one may easily note that both the sets used and the set elements activated are
often different.
They are different because English and Ukrainian possess different language
systems. It goes without saying, that this fact is very important for translation
and explains many translation problems.
14
Language for Special Purpose Series
vat is the first person singular of the verb vatten (English catch, get);
niet is the negation (English not, no);
dat is a Pronoun (English it, this).
Then being aware of the relevant English words (paradigm elements) one may
render this sentence in English as I do not get it.
From the above one may conclude that a language is a code understood only
by its users (speakers).6 Then, may be, translation is a process of decoding a
message in one code and encoding it in another which is understood by
another group of users using a different code. However, this is the subject of
the next lecture.
QUESTIONS
1. What are the two main planes of a language? What is the relationship
between them?
2. What levels are traditionally distinguished in a language? Give
examples of the objects of each level.
3. What is a language paradigm? Give examples of lexico-semantic and
grammatical paradigms.
4. What is a syntagma? Give a definition.
5. What is the language system? Give a definition.
EXERCISES
15
Language for Special Purpose Series
Ex. 2. Compare the grammatical paradigms which enter the following English
words and their Ukrainian equivalents.
The culture wars that so enlivened the 1980s and 1990s in America are said to
be over. The savage fights that raged full-scale as recently as two years ago
over gay rights, abortion, gun control, environmental protection and general
permissiveness, and that culminated in the Antietam of culture battles, Bill
Clinton’s impeachment and trial, seem to have just petered out.
Pundits say the combatants, exhausted from all the verbal shelling, have
accepted compromise rather than press on for total victory, and this has led to
a new spirit of accommodation. One observer writes that the "crackle of
cultural gunfire is now increasingly distant."
It makes you wonder what country they’re living in.
Ex. 3. Compare the paradigm sets used to form the following English and
Ukrainian sentences and paradigm elements activated in the syntagmas of these
sentences.
16
Language for Special Purpose Series
This Lecture
· introduces the concepts of:
· (a) communication;
· (b) components communication consists of (message, message sender,
message recipient);
· (c ) ways of communicating;
· shows the difference between bilingual communication and translation;
· shows which tools are helpful in coping with ambiguity of messages and
gives their definitions.
For example, if one looks up thewords (sign combinations) elect and college in
a dictionary he will find that they are meaningful for English (as opposed, say,
to combinations ele or oll), moreover, in an English grammar he will find
that, at least, one combination of these words: elect college is also meaningful
and forms a message.
17
Language for Special Purpose Series
If, however, the communication process involves two languages (codes) this
variety is called the bilingual communication.
18
Language for Special Purpose Series
meanings (a noun and a verb) and many lexical ones (e. g., the Bible, a code,a
book, etc. as a noun) but one will easily and without any doubt understand
this message:
1. as Book tickets! in a situation involving reservation of tickets or
2. as Give that book! in a situation involving sudden and urgent necessity
to be given the book in question
So, one of the means clarifying the meaning of ambiguous messages is the
fragment of the real world that surrounds the speaker which is usually called
extralinguistic situation.
Another possibility to clarify the meaning of the word book is provided by the
context which may be as short as one more word a ( a book ) or several words
(e.g., the book I gave you).
To take an example the word combination electoral college will mean nothing
unless one is aware of the presidential election system in the USA.
Apart from being a code strongly dependent on the context, situation and
background information a language is also a code of codes. There are codes
within codes in specific areas of communication (scientific, technical, military,
etc.) and so called sub-languages (of professional, age groups, etc.). This
19
Language for Special Purpose Series
applies mostly to specific vocabulary used by these groups though there are
differences in grammar rules as well.
All said above is undoubtedly important for translation and will be discussed
in more detail elsewhere during this lecture course, however, it is high time to
answer the seemingly simple question "What is translation?". And this is the
subject of the next lecture.
20
Language for Special Purpose Series
QUESTIONS
EXERCISES
Ex. 1. Suggest the elements of the context that clarify the meanings of the
italicized words in the following phrases (messages).Translate into Ukrainian
and English, accordingly.
a) You are doing well! Water is deep down the well. Top-to-bottom structure.
The submarine lies on the sea bottom. College vote. University college. Drugs
plague modern society. The drug is to be taken with meals.
b) Він пишався своєю рідною землею, що дала світу так багато
видатних людей. У цій частині країни всі землі придатні для
вирощування пшениці. На чорній землі біла пшениця родить. На чиїй
землі живеш, того й воду п’єш. Колос плідний до землі гнеться, а пустий
– вгору дереться. Земля багата – народ багатий.
Bottoms up! Her Majesty man-o’-war ‘Invincible’. Bugs in the room. Global
net.
21
Language for Special Purpose Series
Tony Blair’s government has made history. What it has yet to demonstrate is
the capacity to change the country’s destiny.
A week is a long time in politics; 48 months is an eternity. Four years ago this
Wednesday, Tony Blair stood before the black door on his sun-dappled first
day in office. ’Enough of talking,’ said the man of action. ‘It is time now to
do’. ‘Strip off the hype which has gushed from Number 10 ever since; blow
away the froth of the daily headlines. How has his government actually done?
Let us try, as clinically as is possible, to assess the performance of New
Labour.
The starter test of any government, I would suggest, is that it is reasonably
accomplished at governing. This sounds an undemanding hurdle, but it is a
first fence many previous governments have failed to surmount. The Blair
government has made serious, self-inflicted mistakes - the Millennium Dome
blasts them still. The unexpected has come close to blowing them over. Foot
and mouth has not been - I am being charitable - a textbook example of how
to handle an emergency. The Government teetered on the lip of the abyss
during last autumn’s fuel protests. It is natural that we should curse their
blunders more than we offer credit for the mistakes they have avoided. But the
Blair government has eschewed perpetrating any spectacular errors.
The novices to red boxes who took office four years ago have broadly run a
competent government. Its life has been punctuated by crises, which have been
invariably generated not by dissident backbenchers or off-message Ministers,
but erupted from the inner core of the regime. There have been gripping soap
operas, none more so than the double resignations of Peter Mandelson. But
the damage done has been to the actors, not to the country at large. There has
22
Language for Special Purpose Series
not been the economic calamity or civil crisis which destroys governments and
wrecks countries.
The Blair government has not inflicted upon us a Suez, a Three Day week or a
Winter of Discontent. There has not been the vicious social conflict of the
inner-city riots and the miners’ strike in the Eighties. There has not been
anything approaching the ruinousness of Thatcher’s poll tax or Major’s Black
Wednesday. Just by being reasonably adept at ruling, the Blair administration
is lifted above the average run of postwar governments.
The next test of any government is whether it has been true to its promises.
Generally, the so-distant People’s Prime Minister has fulfilled the rather low
expectations the people had of him. Blair was elected on a paradoxical
prospectus. The subtext of his campaign was: everything is appalling; we will
change it very slowly. The Conservatives may have left office in May 1997, but
their term of power did not properly end until just two years ago, when
Gordon Brown finally released the Government from the Tory spending
corset. Transformed schools and hospitals await realisation. If not delivered in
the second term, the punishment of the electorate may be terrible.
Blair’s most reckless pledge was to restore faith in public life. Back on May
Day 1997, even the most cynical observer did not anticipate they would have
quite so much sleaze in them. In other respects, this government has delivered
more than it promised. The last manifesto pledged nothing about child benefit
- it has actually risen by 25 per cent. They did not claim to be able to create
full employment, yet they have achieved that historic goal of Labour.
Any set of rulers with an eye on claiming a large place in posterity must aspire
to be more than competent deliverers. The superior rank of government is
occupied by those which make changes lasting beyond their lifetime. It is not
conceivable that the Conservatives could unravel devolution to Scotland and
Wales, an aspiration of progressive governments dating back to Gladstone.
One of the ironies of Blair is that, for all his relentless emphasis on the
modern, his bigger achievements have been based on ambitions set by long-
dead predecessors. A settlement in Ireland has eluded every premier since the
nineteenth century. The minimum wage was a Labour goal when Keir Hardie
founded the party. The Tories have been compelled to accept it, just as they
have been forced to support independence for the Bank of England. This
government could come to a full stop today - and would leave enduring
legacies.
23
Language for Special Purpose Series
There are other elements of the Blair record which the Right accepts because
they are as amazed as many on the Left are disgusted that they have been
enacted by a Labour government.
Which takes us to my next test of a government: has it permanently altered the
framework of political choice? The verdict here is mixed. With a little help
from the grisly pantomime that is William Hague’s Conservative Party, New
Labour commands the centre ground and swathes of territory on both flanks.
Harold Wilson’s unrequited dream of making Labour’the natural party of
government’ is closer to realisation by Tony Blair than under any previous
Labour Prime Minister.
But he has achieved it more by following the consensus than by challenging
the status quo. His government has pandered to illiberality more often than it
has confronted prejudice. It has become a little less bashful about making the
case for the active state and a fairer society, but remains coy of full candour.
Since the Third Way was giggled to death, it has become ever clearer that this
is a government which moves by inches rather than leaps. There is nothing
intrinsically wrong with that: small steps, provided there are enough of them,
can take you on a long journey.
Baby bonds are an eyecatching device to give the poor an asset stake in
society. But this is the safest sort of radicalism. The first beneficiaries of the
scheme will not come into possession of their modest endowments until Mr
Blair is eligible for his pension. He, Gordon Brown, David Blunkett and
Alistair Darling, along with the Institute for Public Policy Research and the
Fabian Society, all claim paternity over baby bonds. When one good notion
has to be spread around four Cabinet Ministers and two think tanks, it tells us
that New Labour is not bursting with bold and innovatory ideas.
This brings me to the last and most demanding test. The outstanding
governments are those which alter the country’s destiny. The project to secure
the exclusion of the Conservatives from power for a generation has withered
as Blair’s enthusiasm for changing the Westminster voting system has
shrivelled. In terms of the private goals he set for his premiership, the most
evident failure has been Europe. Towards Europe as a whole, and towards the
single currency especially, public opinion is more aggressively hostile than
ever.
The greatest wrangling between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor about
the next manifesto is not over what it says about tax, but about the warmth of
the phraseology towards the single currency. The fiercest struggle about that is
within Mr Blair himself. Will he hedge his self-perceived destiny with
24
Language for Special Purpose Series
deadening qualifications or will he articulate the belief that his epochal role is
to make Britain a fully engaged partner in Europe?
The Blair government has demonstrated that it can make history. Only in its
second term will we discover whether it has the capacity to change the future.
25
Language for Special Purpose Series
Usually when people speak about translation or even write about it in special
literature 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. First of all, we are interested in the
process because it is the process we are going to define.
But at the same time we need the result of translation since alongside with the
source the translated text is one of the two sets of observed events we have at
our disposal if we intend to describe the process. In order to explain
translation we need to compare the original (source) text and the resulting
(target) one.
However, the formation of the source and target texts is governed by the rules
characteristic of the source and target languages. Hence the systems of the two
languages are also included in our sphere of interest. These systems consist of
grammar units and rules, morphological and word-building elements and
rules, stylistical variations, and lexical distribution patterns (lexico-semantic
paradigms).
Moreover, when describing a language one should never forget that language
itself is a formal model of thinking, i.e. of mental concepts we use when
thinking.
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.
26
Language for Special Purpose Series
27
Language for Special Purpose Series
28
Language for Special Purpose Series
With these simple examples we want to stress a very important fact for
translation: the co-occurring words or the words situated close to each other in a
source text have invisible pointers indicating various kinds of grammatical,
semantic, and stylistic information. This information is stored in human memory,
and the principal task of a translator is to visualize all of this information.
In the examples with chips that were just discussed we used so called
deduction modeling, that is we built our translation on the basis of our
knowledge about the languages involved in translation and the knowledge of
"the way things are in life" (e.g. that it is hardly reasonable to fry fried
potatoes or fragmented stones). We intuitively formulated hypotheses about
translation of certain words and phrases and then verified them.
So, speaking very generally, when we translate the first thing we do is analyze
the source text trying to extract from it all available information necessary for
generating the target text (build the intermediate model of the target text), then
verify this information against situation and background knowledge and
generate the target text.
For example, let the source text be:
29
Language for Special Purpose Series
Europe’s leaders trust that these criticisms will pale into insignificance when the
full import of expansion begins to grip the public mind
Then, omitting the grammatical context which seems evident (though, of
course, we have already analyzed it intuitively) we may suggest the following
intermediate model of the target text that takes into account only semantic
ambiguities:
Європейські лідери/лідери європейської інтеграції/ вважають/вірять/, що ця
критика вщухне/поступово зійде нанівець/, коли важливість поширення
(Євросоюзу) почне завойовувати громадську думку/, коли суспільство
почне краще усвідомлювати важливість поширення Євросоюзу/.
On the basis of this model we may already suggest a final target text
alternative10:
Лідери європейської інтеграції вважають, що ця критика поступово зійде
нанівець, коли суспільство почне краще усвідомлювати важливість
розширення Євросоюзу.
It is important to bear in mind that in human translation (unlike automatic)
the intermediate representation of the target text will comprise on the
conscious level only the most problematic variations of translation which one
cannot resolve immediately.
We seldom notice this mental work of ours but always do it when translating.
However, the way we do it is very much dependent on general approach, i.e.
on translation theories which are our next subject.
10It
goes without saying that this target text alternative is not the only one -
many other alternatives are possible.
30
Language for Special Purpose Series
QUESTIONS
EXERCISES
1.He stopped for gas at an all-night Texaco with a clerk who seemed
uncommonly friendly.
2. Here was the most powerful country on earth in suspended animation: in the
age of Internet, the age of instant information, the race between Al Gore and
George W. Bush was frozen by a laborious manual recount.
3. All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was an old man with a
staff.
“Good morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun is shining, and the grass
was very green. But Gandall looked at him from under his long bushy
eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.
“ What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean
that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this
morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?
“All of them at once,” said Bilbo. And a very fine morning for a pipe of
tobacco out of doors, into the bargain. (Tolkien)
4) Як поет, він вперше серйозно заявив про себе під час відлиги. Час
минає, гласність стала асоціюватися з конкретним історичним періодом
перебудови, на зміну їй прийшов термін прозорість. Спілкуючись з
31
Language for Special Purpose Series
Ex. 2. Build an intermediate model of translation and suggest final target text
for the source text below.
32
Language for Special Purpose Series
33
Language for Special Purpose Series
34
Language for Special Purpose Series
35
Language for Special Purpose Series
36
Language for Special Purpose Series
instance, when we substitute words of the target language for those of the
source, this is considered as an equivalence.
In the transformational approach we shall distinguish three levels of
substitutions: morphological equivalencies, lexical equivalencies, and syntactic
equivalencies and/or transformations.
In the process of translation:
at the morphological level morphemes (both word-building and word-
changing) of the target language are substituted for those of the source;
at the lexical level words and word combinations of the target language are
substituted for those of the source;
at the syntactic level syntactic structures of the target language are substituted
for those of the source.
37
Language for Special Purpose Series
38
Language for Special Purpose Series
39
Language for Special Purpose Series
One may note that the communicational approach pays special attention to
the aspects of translation relating to the act of communication, whereas the
translation process as such remains unspecified, and one may only presume
that it proceeds either by a transformational or denotative path (see their
relevant descriptions above).
However, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the
communicational aspect in the success of translation.
To understand this better let us consider an example of message formulation
(encoding), message translation (encoding/decoding), and message receipt
(decoding).
Let the original message expressed by a native speaker of English (encoded
using the English language as a code to convey the mental content of the
message) be:
Several new schools appeared in the area.
Let us assume then that the message sender, being a fisherman and using
relevant subject thesaurus, by schools meant large number of fish swimming
together rather than institutions for educating children, and the correct
translation then had to be:
У районі з’явились нові косяки риби
40
Language for Special Purpose Series
whereas the translator who presumably did not have relevant information in
his subject thesaurus translated schools as institutions for educating children:
У районі з’явились нові школи,
which naturally lead to misunderstanding (miscommunication).
The above example shows a case of miscommunication based on the
insufficiency of extralinguistic information. However, there are also cases of
miscommunication caused by the insufficiency of linguistic information.
This example is, of course, an exaggeration, but it clearly illustrates a dividing
line between linguistic and extralinguistic information in translation as
visualized by the communicational approach to translation.
Thus, the communicational approach to translation, though saying little
about translation as such, highlights a very important aspect of translation.
41
Language for Special Purpose Series
QUESTIONS
EXERCISES
Ex. 1. Compare the Ukrainian text and its English translation, find mismatching
text elements. Suggest the approach used by the translator.
Слово може обманути. Очі, руки, ритм серця - ніколи... Задля цієї правди
якась дитина сьогодні вперше одягне пуанти і стане до станка... І з тої
миті, якщо вистачить їй волі і бажання, кожен день власним різцем на
власному тілі буде годинами "відсікати все зайве" ...
Words deceive, while the eyes, hands and heart never do... Learning this
simple truth, another youngster dons her toe shoes and approaches the bar for
the first time... From this very moment, if she has enough will and desire, she
will start shaping her body several hours a day...
42
Language for Special Purpose Series
The Clinton foreign policy is in for an overhaul For a President who took
office with the reputation of being almost exclusively interested in domestic
policy, George W. Bush has moved with remarkable speed and concentration
to distance his Administration’s foreign and security policies from those of the
Clinton era. Almost every major aspect of America’s international profile is
under intensive scrutiny. Even on missile defence, where there is no doubting
President Bush’s determination to press ahead, if possible with the assent and
co-operation of America’s allies and of Russia but if need be without, analysts
have been sent back to the technical and diplomatic drawing boards. But it is
already clear how different will be the priorities and style of this
Administration.
It will be scrupulously polite, as Tony Blair found, but on substance it will be
a good deal less emollient than the Clinton White House. It will have a
preference for the bilateral over the multilateral; and it is deeply sceptical of
the Clintonite mantra of “constructive engagement” with governments, such
as China’s, North Korea’s or even Russia’s, which in the words of the
Secretary of State, Colin Powell, “do not follow international standards of
behaviour”. The new Administration may also, although the Bush team does
not yet, and may not in future, speak with one voice, be more reliable to deal
with than the Clinton White House, which was disconcertingly prone to
abrupt policy shifts.
This is no “new look” team. Mr Bush has drawn his biggest hitters from his
fathers generation, and in so doing has created a novel variation on the
tensions, familiar from the days of Henry Kissinger, between the State
Department, Defence and the National Security Adviser. Both General Powell
at State and, to a lesser extent, Condoleezza Rice at National Security are
finding themselves outpaced by the formidable duo of Donald Rumsfeld at
Defence and Richard Cheney, who shows no sign of settling into the
conventional near-anonymity of the vice-presidency. Both men view the
present through the prism of the Cold War and its immediate aftermath and
are more at home assessing “the true threats facing America” than they are
with the rhetoric of opportunity. Those threats are, in the new conspectus,
heavily concentrated in Asia, where China is seen not as a “partner” but a
43
Language for Special Purpose Series
potential strategic challenge and North Korea — with which Mr Bush has
cancelled plans for talks and in effect told Pyongyang that the road to
Washington lies through Seoul — as an unpredictable, unreformed menace.
Chinas conciliatory reaction goes some way towards proving the wisdom of
this more sceptical approach. Time was when Beijing would have taken loud
offence at being told that its Foreign Minister must wait in the White House
queue behind Japans lame duck Prime Minister; instead, yesterday, it hastened
to issue its own invitation to Mr Bush. Its chief arms negotiator, Sha Zukang,
has even announced that China will not contest US plans to deploy a missile
defence system in Asia to protect US troops there — a with its hitherto shrill
opposition to missile defence in any form. With Russia showing interest in
missile defence and European Union resistance slackening, China fears being
left out in the cold. Above all, it wants to dissuade the US from equipping
Taiwan, as it is inclined to do, with anti-missile defence systems.
There is some risk that Europeans will misinterpret Washington’s intentions.
On European defence, a muted tone should not be mistaken for assent to EU
plans for a rival military structure to Nato; the US will accept no such thing.
A second mistake would be to see “realism” towards Russia as any; there is
more intense US scrutiny of Moscow in Washington than there has been for
some time. US foreign policy is undergoing a thorough spring-cleaning.
Foreign governments would do well to turn out their own attics.
44
Language for Special Purpose Series
Even in routine translation practice one can see that there are different ranks
of translation, that one rank of translation consists of rather simple
substitutions whereas another involves relatively sophisticated and not just
purely linguistic analysis.
Several attempts have been made to develop a translation theory based on
different translation ranks or levels as they are sometimes called. Among those
one of the most popular in the former Soviet Union was the "theory of
translation equivalence level (TEL)" developed by V. Komissarov14.
According to this theory the translation process fluctuates passing from
formal inter-language transformations to the domain of conceptual
interrelations.
V. Komissarovss approach seems to be a realistic interpretation of the
translation process, however, this approach fails to demonstrate when and
why one translation equivalence level becomes no longer appropriate and
why, to get a correct translation, you have to pass to a higher TEL.
Ideas similar to TEL are expressed by Y. Retsker15 who maintains that any
two languages are related by "regular” correspondences (words, word-building
patterns, syntactical structures) and "irregular” ones. The irregular
correspondences cannot be formally represented and only the translators
14See:
Комиссаров В. Н. Слово о переводе. М., 1973 ; Комиссаров
В. Н. Лингвистика перевода. М., 1981
15Рецкер Я. И. Теория перевода и переводческая практика. М.,
1974
45
Language for Special Purpose Series
knowledge and intuition can help to find the matching formal expression in
the target language for a concept expressed in the source language.
According to J. Firth16, in order to bridge languages in the process of
translation, one must use the whole complex of linguistic and extralinguistic
information rather than limit oneself to purely linguistic objects and
structures.
J. Catford17, similar to V. Komissarov and J. Firth, interprets translation as a
multi-level process. He distinguishes between "total" and "restricted"
translation - in "total" translation all levels of the source text are replaced by
those of the target text, whereas in "restricted" translation the substitution
occurs at only one level.
According to J. Catford a certain set of translation tools characteristic of a
certain level constitutes a rank of translation and a translation performed
using that or another set of tools is called rank bound. We have borrowed this
terminology and call the theories that divide the translation process into
different levels theories with translation ranking.
Generally speaking, all theories of human translation discussed above try to
explain the process of translation to a degree of precision required for
practical application, but no explanation is complete so far.
16
J. R. Firth. Linguistic Analysis and Translation. In: For Roman
Jakobson. The Hague. 1956.
17 J. Catford. A Linguistic Theory of Translation. London. 1967
46
Language for Special Purpose Series
47
Language for Special Purpose Series
48
Language for Special Purpose Series
49
Language for Special Purpose Series
50
Language for Special Purpose Series
51
Language for Special Purpose Series
QUESTIONS
EXERCISES
Ex. 1. Translate into Ukrainian. Divide translation equivalents into regular and
occasional.
Only those who have talent and willpower can make the most daring dreams
come true. Many of us thought that we already knew all about the
professional abilities of Bogdan Stupka, People’s Artist of Ukraine and
winner of numerous prizes. However, the news again held quite a surprise. The
news of his tremendous success and the international recognition heaped on
him this year reached us quickly and shattered all the long established clichйs
in one big bang. Bogdan Stupka won his latest victory in the movie With
Sword and Fire. Jerzy Hofman’s film shown in Poland, the United States and
Australia raised the Ukrainian actor to the level of international film star. It
was indeed his finest hour.
Ex.2. Translate into Ukrainian using appropriate ranks (levels) of translation as
required by the source text content and style. Comment on your decisions.
1) “I am trustworthy, loyal, and helpful. But I struggle with obedient.”
Tripp smiled faintly. “I am not looking for a boy scout,” he said.
“Next best thing,” I said.
“Well” Trip said, “Lieutenant Quirk said you could be annoying, but you
were not undependable.
“He’s always admired me,” I said.
“Obviously you are independent,” Tripp said. “I understand that. I’ve had my
moments. ‘He who would be a man must be a non-conformist.’ ”
(R.B.Parker).
52
Language for Special Purpose Series
There everyone is, caught between horror at the ghastly enormity that is foot-
and-mouth and ennui that it has dragged on for so long, when suddenly from
the ashes there rises the sacred calf, Bambi reincarnate. With her fluffy white
fur, ox-eyed gaze and perfect pink pout Phoenix is the prettiest page 3 star
Fleet Street has had in years. Suddenly amid the big, ugly world of slaughter
trip the words “tiny”, “white” and “innocent”. Ministers quail and policy is
made on the hoof.
People talk about causes needing a human face, but on the whole prefer an
animal countenance. Mute bestial appeal is considered easier on the ear than,
say, the guttural petition of asylum-seekers. We can be fairly indifferent to our
own kind; it takes an animal to make us human. Phoenix’s life would have
been pretty dreadful under normal circumstances, but no matter. She has
assumed the symbolic status of The Cow That Changed History.
Animals have altered the course of events more often than might be imagined.
Many’s the time when mankind has felt himself to be sturdily at the helm,
when in fact matters have been bunted along by beak or snout. Europe itself
began this way when Europa was carried off into the ocean by a bullish Zeus,
kicking and flailing before submitting to become a continent. For Christians
the instigating beast is the serpent, worming his way into Eve’s confidences
with sinuous insinuations.
Ancient history is a positive bestiary of cloven goings on. The noblest
incidence of animal magic came in the form of the sacred geese whose cackling
alerted their masters to a stealthy advance upon the Capitoline Hill. Caligula’s
bestowal of a consulship upon his horse was rather less successful, being one
of all-too-many final straws that broke the populace’s back and led to his
being dispatched at the Palatine Games. Cleopatra’s exit pursued by an asp
showed far better judgment.
Animals also throw up historical “what-ifs”. What if Richard III had traded
his kingdom for a horse, Dick Whittington not been so bounteous with his cat,
or Catherine the Great been less pony crazy? In the multimedia age pets can
win the ultimate prizes and emerge as global megastars. The orbit of Sputniks
dog, Laika, made him the fantasy comrade of the worlds youth.
The Prime Minister’s personal intervention as Phoenix’s saviour is a bow to
the electoral beasts of the apocalypse. It is a case of chicken, but the public
will see only a happy ending to The Calf’s Tale.
53
Language for Special Purpose Series
Ex. 2. Translate into Ukrainian. Suggest the ranks (levels) of translation and
explain your decision.
The first plant you will notice by the glass doors of the terminal will be a
tangerine tree with tangerines "for real". The aroma, the color of their warm
peel and even tiny dimples on the surface are so attractive that you, sick and
tired of stony winter landscapes, will feel very much like putting some
tangerines in your pocket. This country is fun already!
54