Заняття № 1 III year, V term

Translation as a notion is of polysemantic nature. It may imply the process of conveying the meaning of a word, word-group or sentence/text from one language into another and also the result of the conveying.

Translation can be performed either in writing or in viva voice (orally). Hence the people whose duty is to convey some spoken/recoded matter in viva voce are referred to as interpreters. Those whose duty is to convey some written mater are referred to as translators.

As a result the process of a written translation has always a materialized expression in the form of a word, word-group, sentence or passage which is left behind as a testimony of some work performed. The translated matter can sometimes become rather important for a country and enrich its history, literature or culture (e.g. the translation of "the Iliad" and "The Odyssey" into Latin by Livius Andronicus in the 3 rd century B.C. or Martin Luther's translations of the Old and the New Testament into German in the 16th century).

There are some terms and notions which are frequently used in the theory and practice of translation and should be clearly distinguished. Since some of them have a different wording in English and Ukrainian it is necessary to give them now in two languages:

exact/accurate translation/interpretation – точний переклад;

faithful translation/interpreting – адекватний переклад;

faithfulness of translation/interpreting – адекватність перекладу;

free adaptation/free interpreting – вільний переклад; переробка;

free interpretation/interpreting – вільний переспів; перелицювання;

free/lose translation/ interpreting – вільний переказ;

consecutive translation/interpreting – послідовний переклад;

descriptive translation/translating – описовий переклад;

good/successful translation – вдалий переклад (тексту, книжки);

independent translation/translating –самостійний переклад;

interlinear translation/translating – підрядковий переклад, підрядник;

interpreting/interpreter – тлумачення/тлумач;

interpretation/oral translating – усний переклад;

literal translation/translating – буквальний переклад;

verbal translation/translating – дослівний переклад;

word-for-word – переклад слово в слово;

literary translation/translating – літературний переклад;

off-hand translation/translating – переклад без підготовки;

rehash – вільна переробка твору (в перекладі);

sight translation/interpreting at sight – переклад з аркуша;

the source language – мова оригіналу (з якої перекладається);

the target language – мова, на яку здійснюється переклад;

synchronous interpreting/interpretation – синхронний переклад;

versification – віршований (поетичний) переклад;

rough translation/translating – робочий варіант перекладу;

"Translation" is also referred to any sense-to-sense conveying even if the lexical meanings of the componental parts which make up the language units are not substituted for their equivalent lexical meaning in the target language:

penny-in-the slot – прилад/пристрій-автомат (торгівля);

the land of the golden fleece – Австралія;

red blood –мужність, відвага, хоробрість;

let George do it – Іван киває на Петра;

agonic – що не утворює кути (геометрія).

Similarly with the term "interpretation" which can denote "the way of presenting" the social and aesthetic, moral etc. background, i. e. the trend of the source language works in the target language.

"Free interpretation" may denote a free adaptation of foreign literatures works to other national literatures like that of I. P. Kotliarevskyi's "Eneid" which has very little in common with Vergil's work.

But our duty is to have a deal with the aspective translation. Aspective translation deals with different aspects of the source language and the target language. Their own language units represent each aspect of the source language and the target language.

LEVELS OF TRANSLATION

Translation is performed on several levels.

e.g. –The phonetic/phonological level is represented by phonemes or sounds which are expressed through different letters or letter-combinations.

The morphological level is represented in all languages by morphemes (root-morphemes) affixal, inflection morphemes.

The syntactic level units are represented in the source language and in the target language by word-groups and sentences.

When translating separate words (proper names, family names, geographical names) the translator/interpreter always substitutes not only the meaning or sense but very often also these structural forms of the corresponding language units.

e. g. At the phonetic/phonological level we substitute in the process of translation different English (etc.) sounds for corresponding or not corresponding Ukrainian sounds/phonemes.

student – студент

New York – Нью Йорк

Faith –Фейт/Фейс

Hope – Гоуп

Brooklyn – Бруклін

Джон

John Іоан

Іван

At the lexical level many words may have direct equivalents.

e.g. to learn – вчити, вивчати

leader – лідер

boycott – бойкот

sport – спорт

borsch – борщ

to participate – брати участь

Kutia (-ya) – кутя – peeled rice, wheat or barley, boiled and mixed up with honey, nuts, raisins and ground poppy seeds with some boiled water served on Christmas Eve.

Very many syntactic level units may be translated descriptively:

e.g. Jack Ketch – кат;

Mrs. Grundy – вищий світ;

What will Mrs. Grundy say? – як на це подивляться люди;

Uncle Sam – Сполучені Штати Америки.

Therefore translation of language units greatly depends on the meaning, structure and nature of the language units.

e.g. to sit on the fence (the cock sits on the fence)

The labourists sit constantly on the fence in the Parliament – займають очікувальну позицію.

Ways of translating.

Translating is unseparable frоm the understanding and conveying of the content and sometimes even of the form of language units. As a result the process of translation, provided it is not performed at the level of separate simple words, involves simultaneously some aspects of the source language and of the target language.

The level of the degree of faithfulness of translating is mostly predetermined by some factors which are of objective and subjective nature. The main of them are purpose of the translation to be performed, the skill of the translator, the type of the matter selected for translation. Depending on these factors the following ways of translating should be recognized.

1. Literal translating which is to be employed when dealing with the separate words whose surface face and structure as well as their lexical meaning in the source language and it the target language fully coincide. These are international by origin morphemes, lexemes/words, rare word-groups having in English and Ukrainian (and often in some other languages too) a literally identical and (or) very similar representation and identical lexical meaning: administrator – адміністратор; director – директор; region – регіон; hotel/motel – готель/мотель; samоvar – самовар.

It is easy to notice that in some words thus translated not only the morphemic but also the syllabic structure is fully conveyed (e.g. an-ti – ан-ти; es-cort – ес-корт).

In many a case, however, the lingual form of the source language words is only partly reproduced. That happens when the common word is borrowed by the orthographic peculiarity anti-alcohol – протиалкогольний; music – музика; constitution – конституція; zoology – зоологія; atom bomb – атомна бомба; chemical process – хімічний процес.

Close to the literal way of translating by means of which partly the orthographic and partly the sounding form of the source language lexemes/words are conveyed: archbishop – архієпископ; card – картка/карта; European – європейський; Moscovite – москвич; Kyivite (Kyivan) – киянин; organized – організований; stylized – стилізований.

Literal translating, however, can pervert the sense of the source language lexemes when their lingual form accidentally coincides with other target language lexemes having quite different meaning: artist – митець, художник (and not "артист"); decoration – відзнака, нагорода (and not "декорація"); matrass – колба (and not "матрац"); replica – точна копія (and not "репліка")… So literal translating has restrictions in its employment and does not always help (to) convey the lexical meaning of words (morphemes, word-groups) having identical lingual form in the source language.

2. Verbal translating is also employed at lexeme / word level. But unlike literal translating it never conveys the orthographic or the sounding form of the source language units but their denotative meaning only: fearful – страшний; fearless – безстрашний; helpless – безпорадний; incorrect – неправильний; mistrust – недовір’я; superprofit – надприбуток.

All the words above are practically translated at the lexico-morphological level as their lexical meanings and morphological stems are identical to those of the English words (help-less – без-порадний; mis-trust – не-довір’я; super-profit – над-прибуток).

Verbal translating, however, does not and cannot provide a faithful conveying of sense at other than word level. When employing at the level of word-combinations or sentences the verbal translation may often make the language units ungrammatical and prevent or completely ruin their sense: "I am reading now" – is not "я є читаючий зараз" but "я читаю зараз"; "never say die" – is not "ніколи не кажи помираю" but "не падай духом"; "first night" – is not "перша ніч" but "прем’єра".

3. A consecutive verbal translating performed at the level of word-combinations and sentences is referred to as word for word translation. When employed to convey the meaning of other than stable/phraseological units this way of translating can sometimes provide a faithful conveying of sense units. It happens when the lexical meaning of the componental parts, the structure, and the word order both in the source language word-groups/sentences and in their target language equivalents fully coincide: many interesting English books – багато цікавих англійських книг, to write and translate exercises – писати і перекладати вправи.

Therefore word for word translating represents a regular substituting of the source language words for the target language words in word-groups or sentences having in both languages identical denotative meaning and function and occupying the same place. When the denotative meaning, the function or the place of words in the language units do not coincide their word for word translating results in a senseless heap of words: "The doctor is sent for" – не "лікар є посланий за" but "за лікарем послали"; "the boy has his hands in his pockets" – не "хлопець має свої руки в кишенях", but "хлопець тримає руки в кишенях".

No wonder that word for word translating is rarely employed when dealing with stable and phraseological expressions. Though a few phraseologisms with identical word order and meaning of their component parts were originally translated in this way: "all roads lead to Rome" – всі дороги ведуть до Риму; "to take the bull by the horns" – брати бика за роги; "better late than never" – краще пізно, ніж ніколи.

To convey faithfully the sense of word-groups or sentences having a different structural form, the order of words, and the means of connection than in the target language other ways of translating should be used.

4. The interlinear way of translating is a conventional term for a strictly rendering of sense expressed by sentences at the level of text. It may be a passage, a stanza, an excerpt of a work or the work itself. Since the way of translating provides a faithful rendering of sense only, it permits various transformations of the language units like reduction, extension, addition and the like. For example, the sentence "Who has my book?" admits only one word-for-word variant, namely: "Хто має мою книжку?" But using the interlinear way of translating we can have some variants: "У кого моя книжка? Хто взяв мою книжку? Хто має мою книжку?" The choice of a variant is predetermined by the aim of the translation, by the circumstances under which the translating/interpreting is performed or by the requirements of style (in order to avoid the unnecessary repetition of the same structures close to each other).

Various transformations in interlinear translations like in literary ones are inevitable. Transformations are also necessary where there exists no identity in the form of expressing the same notion in the source language and in the target language: a trip – коротка подорож;

to ski – їздити на лижах;

to participate – брати участь;

to become a widow/wіdower – овдовіти.

The interlinear way of translating also provides faithful sense-to-sense translations which are used by masters of pen to create on their bases artistic variants of works in rare languages and thus acquaint the readers with brilliant literary samples of other nations. Such literary translations become necessary because even the best interlinear variants convey faithfully the content of the poetic/prose works but not their artistic values.

5. Literary translating constitutes the highest level of a translator's activity. The matter skillfully turned into the target language by a regular master of pen may acquire a faithfulness of the source language.

Depending on the type of the matter, literary translating may be either literary proper or literary artistic.

Literary artistic translating represents a faithful conveying of content and of artistic merits of belles-lettres passages/work only. The latter may be cither prose or poetic work (verse).

Literary proper translating is performed on any other than belles-lettres passages/work. These may include scientific or technical matter, didactic matter (different text-book, business correspondence, the language used in documents). In short, any printed or recorded matter is of artistic value.

Literary translations are always performed in literary all-nation languages and with many transformations which help achieve the beauty of the original composition. The quantity of phrases and sentences in a literary translation is never the same as in the source language passage/work. All the translations are made in order to achieve faithfulness in conveying the content and the expressiveness of the passage/work under translating. They also help to convey the features of style and in still greater measure the genre peculiarities.

Literary proper/literary artistic translating of a longer passage/work often requires philological, historical and other inquiries to clarify the obscure places (historical events, nations of specific national lexicon, neologisms…). Sometimes even the title of a work may require a philological or historical inquiry:

e.g. "Слово о полку Ігоревім"

"The lay Igor's Host "

"На дне" – by M. Gorky

"On the Bottom" (USA), later "The Lower Depths"

"Тихий Дон" – by M. Sholokhov

"The Quiet/Still Don"→ "And Quiet Flows the Don"→"The Don Flows Home to the Sea ".