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Language units and levels of their faithful translation 1 страница




IV. SEMANTIC ASPECTS OF TRANSLATION

The theoretical principles of faithful translation and their realiza­tion through various devices of the target language testify to the fact that referential meanings of many language units can be equivalents expressed via the same level units of the target language. For ex­ample, the proper names of people and most of geographical names, like the international words can be faithfully translated at the level of words. The phraseological/idiomatic expressions and the bulk of words expressing specific nationally biased units of lexicon are mostly trans­lated at the level of words-combinations/phrases and sentences. Though sometimes the lexical meaning of an idiom or a unit of specific na­tional lexicon can be faithfully turned into the target language with the help of a single word as well (when international).

In other words, a considerable number of simple lexemes and word combinations, stable and idiomatic expressions can be faithfully translated when they are taken isolated, viz. at language level. Thus, the meaning of most pronouns and numerals remains unchanged whether they are used in context or taken as separate words at lan­guage level Cf.: глгеетри, fifteen п'ятнадцять, fifty п'ятдесят, fifth/ sixth п'ятий/ шостий, one-third 'одна третя, zero point nine нуль цілих дев'ять десятих; І я, he він, she вона, nobody ніхто, etc.

Similarly with many nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and func­tion words which are monosemantic both in the source language and in the target language: the sky небо, the moon місяць, geese /swans гуси/ лебеді, lake озеро, the island острів, po//f/ca/політичний, black чорний, white білий, bathe купатися, sing співати, sleep спати, here тут, often часто, firstly по-перше, among серед/споміж, under під, or чи, that (conjunction) що; hallo! anno, ah ax, oh ox, even навіть, yet однак, etc.

A bulk of words belonging to the above-mentioned logico-gram-matical classes of words may also have two or more semantically identical referents, i.e., synonymous meanings. The latter are often stylistically marked and.should possibly be distinguished in the text under translation as well. Among these may be even such seemingly simple words as the English because бо, тому що, через те що; courage сміливість, відвага; dad/daddy тато, татунь/татусь; drake селезень/ качур; everywhere повсюди, скрізь or Ukrainian: дитя


 




baby/kid/child; осел ass, donkey; тьху! phew, pie, pshaw, pooh!; чиж/ик greenfinch, siskin. These words have one referent similarly to many different terms which are translated both at word level and at word-group/sentence level. E.g.: sprint спринт, біг на короткі дистанції; steeple-chase біг з перешкодами; service first stroke (ten­nis) удар, яким уводиться м'яч у гру.

A faithful conveying of a referential meaning at word level may often depend upon some extralingual factors as well. Thus, depend­ing on the readers/listeners addressed, the translator/interpreter should use correspondingly either British or American lexical variants: lorry вантажна машина (Br. Engl.), truck (Amer. Engl.), tin консервна банка (Br. Engl.), can (Amer. English), timetable розклад (Br. Engl.), schedule (Amer. Engl.), sweets цукерки (Br. Engl.), candies (Amer. Engl.), bathroom ванна (Br. Engl.), туалет (Amer. English), maize кукурудза (Br. Engl.), corn (Am. Engl.), cloak-room роздягальня (Br. Engl.), coat-room (Amer. English), etc.

Regional peculiarities of the kind must be taken into consider­ation in order to achieve the necessary national orientation of a pur­poseful written or oral translation.

Most of compound English words having transparent componental semes are translated into Ukrainian either at the level of words (compounds) or at the level of word-combinations, the latter being formed from the componental parts which become separate words in Ukrainian: air-base авіабаза; but air-raid повітряний наліт; birthplace місце народження; cross-road перехрестя шляхів/доріг; steamship пароплав; foofn paste зубна паста; hour-hand годинникова стрілка.

The translation of compounds may sometimes look like de­scriptive though: breadthways у ширину/завширшки; longwise у довжину/завдовжки; southward на південь/у південному напрямку; tenfold десятиразовий; thousandfold у тисячу разів; westward спрямований на захід/у західному напрямку.

A similar approach is often made when translating many Ukrai­nian structural and semantic compounds into English: восьмина the eighth part of smth.; вузькоколійка the narrow-gauge railway; третина, the third part of smth./one-third of smth.; сімсотріччя the seven-hundredth anniversary.

Since the number of notions in any language does not coincide with the number of words expressing them, a word-level translation can not always provide a faithful rendering of any single word meaning. Thence, a large number of the source language words are to be trans-


lated into the target language by meafis of word-combinations or even sentences: hi-jack силою змушувати пілотів міняти курс літака з корисливою метою; аЬоипс/бути багатим на щось; agape роззявивши рота (від здивування); armistice коротке перемир'я /припинення воєнних дій; asyndeton пропуск сполучників; aurist спеціаліст із захворювань вуха; banting лікування ожиріння дієтою; Ьг/Ьегтой, хто дає хабарі; casualize переводити на тимчасову роботу; didacti­cism схильність до повчань.

Quite a few monosemantic words in Ukrainian are also notion-ally extended: вчадіти to be affected by the fumes/to die from carbon monoxide poisoning; доба day and night (24 hours); заполоч coloured threads for embroidering; літепло slightly warm/ed water; бути нівроку (to be) healthy looking and fleshy, beautiful, strong; нудьгуватиХо be despirited/to be in the dumps; нюшити to sniff the air (about dogs); окріп boiling/extremely hot water, періодизація division into periods; цяцькатися to take much trouble over smb./smth.

Various evaluating meanings (diminutive, augmentative, etc.) are expressed or rather conveyed in English and Ukrainian both at word level and at word-combination level, the former being predomi­nant, as a rule, in Ukrainian: baggie мішечок; catkin котик (на вербі); coatee пальтечко; горбик hillock; квіточка floweret; чоловічок mani­kin.

Many Ukrainian diminutives expressing also the meaning of endearment through morphological means may have in English two realizations (morphological and lexico-syntactic): матуся mummy/ dear mum; татко dad (daddy), dear dad; сестричка sissy/little sis­ter; книжечка booklet/little book; пташина birdie/little bird; хмаринка cloudlet/little cloud, small little cloud.

It must be emphasized, however, that more Ukrainian words expressing their evaluating meanings morphologically are rendered in English through lexico-syntactic sense units/word-combinations: будиночок a small house or a small little house; рученька a little hand or a small little hand; садочок a small garden or a small little garden/orchard, воріженьки perfidious/cunning enemies.

Higher degrees of diminutiveness and endearment in Ukrainian diminutive words which is expressed as shown above (through suf­fixes and prefixes) can be conveyed in English (though not always to an equal degree) with the help of lexico-syntactic means (at word-combination level): матусенька/татунечко dear/dearly loved (be­loved) mummy/daddy; рученятка /рученяточка small little hands/ dear little hands; манюсінький ґномик small/tiny little gnome;


 




найкращенька рибинка the most beautiful small/tiny little fish; двієчко 67точок two small little babies/two dear kiddies; спатоньки to have a little sleep, have a sweet little sleep, etc.

Negative evaluating meanings, which are mostly expressed at word level in Ukrainian, can also be rendered into English lexico-syn-tactically (at word-combination level): бицюра (про чоловіка) a veri­table man of a bull; собацюра a monster of a dog; рибисько a whale of a fish; ямище a veritable abyss; дідуган (pejorative) a venerable/ staid old man, вітрюга heavy/strong wind, an almost stormy wind; дурощі (напр. куріння) monkey-business, etc.

It must be noted that some pejorative evaluating meanings can be expressed in Ukrainian and sometimes in English by morphological means. Consequently, these meanings are rendered at word level: heavy drunkard п'яничка/п'янюга; dullard тупак/тупиця, «ступа»; kinglet нікчемний король/королик, sluggard леда цюга/ леж ень.

These are by far all Ukrainian and English means which can together with the diminutive/augmentative affixes considerably influ­ence the denotative and connotative (evaluative) meaning of some notional words. The beginning translator must be well aware of this fact while selecting equivalent versions for such kind of words in the target language. Still greater care should be taken when rendering the connotative meanings of words which are not morphologically mani­fested.

Ways of Conveying the Meanings of Polysemantic Language Units

Unlike words with evaluative and other connotation, the denota­tive meaning of a bulk of words can be identified at the level of word-combinations or sentences only. These words constitute a consider­able part of present-day English lexicon and are referred to as polysemantic words. For example, the denotative meanings of the verb (or noun) part can be fully displayed in the word-combinations like: to part the fighting cocks, to part company with somebody, to part one's hair, to take part in something, the sixth part of the melon, to have a small part in the event, etc.

Sometimes it may be difficult to identify without larger context the proper meaning even of such a simple polysemantic word as your. which can be in Ukrainian either ваш, ваша, ваші/твій, твоя, твоє, твоїог свій, своя, своє, свої respectively. The proper mean-


ing of many other polysemantic wordstan be realized already at word-combination level. This can be seen, for example, from the translation of the verbs to break and to come in the following sentences:

He shouldn't be surprised if Він не здивувався б, коли б

they began to break the windows, вони почали бити вікна. (Galsworthy)

Bossiney broke the silence. Боссіні порушив мовчанку.

(Ibid.)

If Irene broke such laws what Якщо Айрін порушила такі

does it matter? (Ibid.) закони, то що це означає?

When the evening came Car- Коли настав вечір, Керрі

rie hurried eagerly away, поспішила хутенько зник­
ай reiser) нути.

«But don't come near thewa- «Але не підходь близько/не

ter, or else you may be attacked наближайся до води, бо на
by sharks. (J.AIdridge) тебе можуть напасти акули.»

Stilll other meanings of these and other verbs can be realized and consequently faithfully rendered into the target language only at sentence level as in the following examples: The first prize came to me. and the 2nd and the 3rd went to students of the Stanford and Berkely Universities. (J. London) Перша премія дісталась мені, а другу й третю одержали студенти Стенфордського і Берклійського університетів. But being very lonely I read everything that came my way. (Ibid.) Але будучи самотнім/нудьгуючи на самоті, я читав усе, що потрапляло мені до рук.

The verb come has some quite different realizations in set/idi­omatic expressions, cf.: to come under one's eye/notice -привернути до себе увагу; to come under one's thumb -викликати підозру; to come under the yoke - примиритися з поразкою (вгнути голову); to come unstuck- провалитися, піти прахом; соте what may- що буде, те буде; to come Yorkshire over one- обдурити, обманути когось.

Some meanings of polysemantic verbs and other parts of speech are not quite easy to identify even at sentence level, as can be seen from the examples below:

«Shall I take you round the «Може, сер, я пошлю кухаря

house, sir, while I send the cook повідомити його про це. доки я to break it to him?» (Galsworthy) показуватиму вам будинок?»


 




Translation of polysemantic words may often require a deep insight into content of a part or of the whole passage/text comprising some sentences. This can be partly seen from the meanings of the nouns sfuff and run in the sentences below:
Since it is always the concrete context that predetermines the real meaning of a polysemantic word, the translator has to study first of all the original passage/text thoroughly and only then suggest an equivalent which would fit in for the translation:

Christine made a fourth at the table. (Cronin)

... it it had not been for my wife having a little money of her own, I couldn 't ha ve carried on as I have done. (J.Priestley)

«But isn't there time before your train to get all your stuff to­gether?» (M. Wilson)

All that kind of antiwar talk you hear nowadays from your fellows is the worst kind of subversive stuff. (Ibid.)

Now, of course, there was as much business in machine tools at least as there had been in 1929, what with this European stuff going on. (M. Wilson)

But what happens when he gets to the heavy stuff? And it's the heavy stuff we're interested. (Ibid.)

«Oh, stuff it up your nose!» one of the companions said. (D.Carter)

«Then I'll finish up the grids and get ready for the run just as I was going to do.» (Ibid.)

«... I am going to give young Dr. Anthony Haviland the run of his goddamn life.» (Ibid.)


Крістін була четвертою за столом.

... коли б не якась копійка у моєї дружини, я не міг би стільки терти лямку (не протяг би, не витримав би так довго).

«Та невже у тебе не буде часу до відходу поїзда зібрати всі свої манатки /речі

Усі ці патякання проти війни, які чуєш серед молоді, -та це ж найгіршого штибу підривна діяльність.

Зараз, звичайно, роботи вистачає, на станки попит не менший, ніж 1929 року, адже он які події розгортаються в Европі.

Ну а як воно покаже себе на важкому станку? Адже нас саме важкі станки цікавлять.

«Заткни пельку/замовкни!» -гримнув один із тієї компанії.

«Тоді я закінчу з захисними сітками і приготую їх до досліду, який я саме й мав намір проводити...»

«... Я цьому молодому докторові Ентоні Гевіленду дам такої нагінки, що він усе життя пам'ятатиме.»


Lately, we've had a run of ' Останнім часом ми
shocking bad luck at the Depart- отримали кілька відмов у
ment. (Cronin) міністерстві.

Their stores were already rurt У них уже закінчувалися

ning low. (Stevenson) (завершувалися) запаси

продуктів.

«They seem to be running «Вони, здається, готують

wild». (J.AIdridge) бунт» (щоб захопити владу).

It would be wrong to assume that only polysemantic notionals can realize their actual meanings at the level of word-combinations and sentences. Some meanings of functionals can also be identified only at the level of sentences or external word-groups. Among these may be even the meanings of conjunctions as, for example, that of and in the following sentence: The poem was long and he could not learn it by heart. Here and may have either the meaning of the co-ordinate conjunction / or the implicit meaning of the subordinate conjuction оскільки/тому. (Why could he not learn the poem by heart? - Because it was long.) - Оскільки/тому що вірш був великий, він його не вивчив напам'ять.

Similarly with some other functionals whose implicit meanings, functions and sometimes even their logico-grammatical nature can be clearly established only at the level of word-groups or sentences. This becomes clearly evident from the following sentences in which the lexical and logico-grammatical nature of the word but is most explic­itly realized:

«He is bul a boy!» «Та ж він ще хлопчина/

(R.AIdington) дитина!»

All of us but a few have come Ми всі, за винятком/крім

to this conclusion. (G.Greene) небагатьох, прийшли до

цього висновку.

But for his open eyes, he might Якби очі не були

have been asleep. (Glasworthy) розплющені, можна було

подумати, що він спить. The contextual environment of but, therefore, predetermines the lexico-grammatical nature of the word (and not only of this word), which may be adverb (We can not but try. - Нам залишається тільки ще раз спробувати) or conjunction (Never a week passes but he comes. - He минає і тижня, щоб він не навідався.)

The word but is also used in different functions in idiomatic expressions. Cf.: «But me no buts, sir, interrupts the diddler, apparently in a very high dungeon.» (E.Poe) - «а ти мені не


 




«алекай» (не відхрещуйся), - грубо обірвав його голос причепи ніби/мов із глибокої темниці. The last but one - передостанній, but for - якби не /коли б не. but for your help we should not have finished in time - якби не твоя допомога, ми не закінчили б роботу вчасно; but then крім того: London is a busy place, but then it is also the place where you get fhe best entertainment. (CADE) Лондон - місто великої ділової активності, а крім того ще й місце, де можна найкраще порозважатися.

The choice of a definite meaning out of some inherent in the semantic structure of an English language unit can also depend upon the style of the matter under translation. For example, the idiomatic expression to loose one's reason and its synonyms to loose one's mind, to go out of one's head, to go insane are confined in their use to literary speech styles, while to go mad or to go crazy are used in colloquial and low colloquial speech styles, as a rule.

Similar stylistic restrictions are observed with the use of Ukrai­nian equivalents and analogies of this idiomatic expression too. Cf.:

literary/neutral style: зійти з розуму/рішитися розуму, з'їхати з глузду.

colloquial/low colloquial: блекоти/чемериці наїстися, здуріти, сказитися.

No need to prove that the lexical meaning of each of these variants, even when taken out of context, already predetermines at the same time the speech style, in which it can and should be used in the target language.

A considerable number of other sense units, however, which are endowed with particular emotive, stylistic or extralingual mean­ings, can not exaustively explicate these characteristics at the level of a word-group or even sentence, but only at the level of passage/ text. This becomes especially evident when translating belles-lettres/ publicistic and some other styles texts.1

Conveying the Meanings of Language Units at Passage/Text Level

The text as a term is in the true sense of the word a segment of written/oral speech or a whole work consisting of grammatically and


logically arranged language units fofming with their meanings its gen­eral content. Text as a speech unit may be smaller or larger, but irrespective of its dimension it always remains a macrostructure, which is not an indivisible monolith but a harmonious unity of different lan­guage units. A larger text usually falls into several constituent parts -supra-phrasal units and different types and kinds of sentences. All of them due to their communicative completeness and logical succes­sion1 constitute something of a semantic and structural backbone of any text. These parts together with their various meanings make the general contextual stream of the text, whose content can be fully and faithfully conveyed only when all contents of each block are fully and exaustively expressed. As the blocks/supra-phrasal units are made of sentences, hence, the necessary degree of faithfulness in any trans­lation of texts/passages can be achieved only through faithful transla­tion of all types of their ingredient sentences.

It must be emphasized, however, that it is not only content (the semantic plane), in other words, not only the lexical meanings of various sense units, that have to be fully and faithfully transplanted in the process of translation. No less important is to fully convey apart from many denotative meanings of language units also their connota-tive characteristics, as well as their stylistic and structural peculiari­ties. A faithful translation of supra-phrasal units or passages/text of any speech style, therefore, presents a complex process, which in­volves a full and faithful expression in the target language of all the main constituent parts forming the semantic, structural, stylisitic and other planes of a text. In view of all this it will be expedient to empha­size that all characteristics (nothing to say about the denotative and the connotative meanings of words and the means of expression in general) are identified, as a rule, by way of a thorough analysis of the original text. This analysis inevitably involves apart from the particu­larities of content also the pragmatic toning/orientation, which can be exhaustively established, however, only at deep level structure of the communicative units.

It must also be added that despite the differences in their actu­alization, the planes of a text are impossible to separate from each other, since they are closely interconnected and form the surface and the deep structures complexity of any text. Hence it follows, that the characteristic features of each plane manifest themselves and are fully realized at text level, which can sometimes be restricted, as has


 


1 See: Nida Є.А. Componentat Analysis of Meaning. - The Hague - Paris: Mouton, 1975. Hoey M. Patterns of Lexis in Text. - Oxford: Ox.University Press, 1991.


1 See: Москальская О.И. Грамматика текста. -М.: Вьісшая школа, 1981, р.14.


 




been said, to a supersyntactic unit/paragraph reflecting its main struc­tural, stylistic, pragmatic and other peculiarities. These peculiarities should be rendered in the faithful variant of the target language text/ passage as well, though usually by other than in the target language means of expression.

But whatever the divergences in the means of expression of the source language and of the target language, and irrespective of the fact that far from all the characteristic features of any text are fully reflected in its main componental parts, the translation of a text can be succefully performed only on the basis of its constituent sentences. This is because all syntactic level units are endowed with predication and modality, they have mostly a stuctural and sense completion, they are stylistically and pragmatically in full conformity with the whole text. In view of all this only the sentence can fully meet the require­ments laid before a unit of translation, when the object assigned to translation is a text which usually consists of different types and kinds of sentences joined in supra-syntactic structures.

Since a faithful translation of any passage/text is performed sentence after sentence, their ideas/thoughts, the main structural, stylistic, genre and pragmatic characteristics are mostly conveyed in a consecutive succession too. Their constituent words, word-groups and set expressions/idioms functioning as different parts of the sen­tence or forming constituent elements of the latter (or even being in­dependent elements in the sentence) are all first translated as single units. In other words, prior to translating the sentence as a whole (provided it is not a one-member sentence, like Winter. Bitter frost. Evening time), its parts and functionally independent elements are to be translated as separate sense units. E.g.:

All day we had been sitting in Цілісінький день ми просиділи
the piano box waiting for the rain в ящикові з-під піаніно, чекаючи,
to stop. (Е. Caldwell) доки перестане дощ.

As can easily be ascertained, only through translation of the component parts 1) All day, 2) we had been sitting, 3) in the piano box, 4) waiting, 5) for the rain to stop could the translation of the sentence be fully and faithfully accomplished.

Similarly in the following simple two-member sentence:
There was an old two-storey Того року на ФілдінґАве-

yellow house on Fielding A venue ню ще стояв старий двопо-
thatyear. (W.Saroyan) верховий жовтий будинок.


This sentence too could be translated faithfully into Ukrainian only after its component parts, which also function as parts of the sentence, were translated one after another, though not necessarily in absolutely the same, as in the source language, succession. Cf.: 1) that year, 2) on Fielding Avenue, 3) was, 4) an old two-storey yel­low house. There is no need to adduce any further proofs in support of the existence of a preliminary stage of translation preceding the final one, i.e., complete and faithful translation of the whole communica­tive sense unit. One must acknowledge, therefore, the existence of translation at all main language levels represented by the correspond­ing sense units. Consequently, one can speak of the existence of some language units having their separate levels of translation. This was already exemplified more than once on the foregoing pages and it will be shown in the process of translating several supersyntactic level units/paragraphs a little further. And yet a language unit in which all possible meanings pertained to other language units, which are hier­archically lower in rank than the sentence and thus function as its componental parts, are fully realized at the level of the communicative unit or text as a whole. There will be more than one chance to ascer­tain in that in the process of the commented translation of an excerpt from D.Parker's short story Arrangement in Black and White below. Some other excerts representing different language styles and as­signed for independent translation will also testify to the pointed above statements.

The selected passage to be analysed belongs to the belles-lettres style and consequently abounds in various features character­istic of it1. Besides it represents a dialogue with many colloquialisms peculiar of spoken American English. The authoress employed many other stylistic means to make the narration lively and the develop­ment of the plot dynamic and interesting. The story is a masterly piece of psychological motivation of each character's behavior and speech part. The text abounds in many shortened and elliptical sen­tences and other stylistic means which are used to create some prag­matic subtext which the translator has to comprehend and then fully convey with the help of some functionally relevant stylistic, syntactic and lexical/semantic means of the Ukrainian target language.




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