2.4. Lexicology

"Hey, " Sally yelled, " could you paint it canary yellow, Fred? "

"Turtle green, " shouted my mother.

"Mouse grey, " Randy suggested.

"Dove white, maybe? " my mother asked.

"Rattlesnake brown, " my father said.

"Forget it, all of you, my Buick is going to be peacock blue. "

(From A Five-Buick by P.Anderson Wood)

In the following extract a family are discussing which colour to paint their new car. It is obvious that the meaning of all these "multi-coloured" adjectives is based on comparison: the second constituent of the adjective is the name of a colour used in its actual sense and the first is the name of an object (animal, flower, etc.) with which the comparison is drawn. The pattern immensely extends the possibilities of denoting all imaginable shades of each colour, the more so that the pattern is productive and a great number of nonce-words are created after it. The pattern allows for vast creative experiments. This is well shown in the fragment given above. If canary yellow, peacock blue, dove white are quite "normal" in the language and registered by dictionaries, turtle green and rattlesnake brown are certainly typical nonce-words, amusing inventions of the author aimed at a humorous effect.

Glossary

Stylistically Neutral words

Stylistically marked words

Informal (Colloquial words: literary, familiar, low; slang words; dialect words)

Formal (learned words: literary, words of scientific prose, officialese, modes of poetic diction; archaic and obsolete words; professional terminology)

International words

Etymological doublets

Translation-Loans

Etymological and stylistic characteristics of words

Word-building

Affixation

Productive/ non-productive affixes

Semantics of affixes

Semi-affixes

Conversion

Composition

Shortening (Contraction)

Sound-Imitation (onomatopoeia)

Reduplication

Back-Formation (Reversion)

Polysemy

Semantic structure of the word

Types of semantic components

Meaning and context

Development and change of meaning

Transference based on resemblance (Similarity)

Contiguity

Broadening (Generalization) of meaning

Narrowing (Specialization) of meaning

Homonyms

Synonyms

Euphemisms

Antonyms

The dominant synonym

Phraseology: word-groups with transferred meanings

2.5. Translation of lexical units

The expression ‘Secretary of Housing and Urban Development’ is lexically non-bound so it should be translated the following way. First you look up the permanent equivalents for each word of the expression:

Secretary – 1) секретарь, 2) руководитель организации, 3) ми­нистр, 4) наперсник.

Housing– 1) жилищные условия, 2) жилищное строительство, 3) пре­до­став­ле­ние жилья, 4) убежище, 5) корпус.

Urban– городской.

Development– 1) развитие, 2) раскрытие, 3) результат, 4) собы­тие, 5) пред­прия­тие, 6) разработка.

Then you choose the most suitable equivalent or use transformation. The word ‘secretary’ has several Russian partial equivalents so you choose the one that fits the context (the text about political develop­ment of the USA) – «министр» (partial absolute equivalent).

The word ‘housing’ does not have an equivalent in Russian. There­fore you use addition to convey its meaning – «жилищное строи­тельство» (addition). Translating the adjective ‘urban’ you use the partial absolute equivalent «городской» (it is partial because the Russian word is more semantically developed). For the word ‘deve­lop­ment’ you choose the partial absolute equivalent «развитие» as it is contextually suitable. So you translate ‘Secretary of Housing and Urban Deve­lop­ment’ as «министр жилищного строительства и городского развития».