Translating by Practical Transcribing

Translating via Transcribing/Conveying the Sounding Structure

Many genuine internationalisms are also faithfully rendered into the target language in their sounding form. This kind of translating provides the rendition of the lexical meaning of a lot of internationalisms originating from English, French and some other languages, which have their orthographic systems based on other than phonetical principles. Cf.: English: boom бум, box бокс, yeans джинси, knock-out нокаут, leader лідер, га/с/рейд, round раунд, frac/стрек; French: boulevard бульвар, bouquet букет, bourgeoisie буржуазія, bureau бюро, drape драп, prize приз, pince-nez пенсне, etc.

The English and French international lexemes above belong to the lexico-grammatical class of nouns. But the number of genuine internationalisms, whose lexical meaning is faithfully conveyed in their unchanged original lingual form is small. More units of the layer of lexicon in English and Ukrainian do not fully coincide in their orthographic, sounding and morphological (structural) form. This is to be explained by the differences in the phonetic and morphological systems of the two languages and also by the possible influence of a third language as an intermediary between the source/target language and the language from which the international lexeme originates. To render faithfully the denotative meaning and the lingual form of these genuine internationalisms other ways of translating are to be employed.

International morphemes and lexemes are adopted in all languages according to the historically established traditions of their own. These find their expression in stereotype models for each lexico-grammatical class of words. As a result, any international word, whatever the language of its origin and irrespective of the source language, from which it is translated, will have one and the same lingual and structural form in the target language. Thus, whether it is bankruptcy in English, bankerott in German, banqueroute in French or bancarotta in Italian, it will always remain «банкрутство» in Ukrainian. Hence, only some degree of likeness is retained between the lingual form of bankruptcy and its Ukrainian equivalent «банкрутство». The adopted word has obtained in the target language an orthographic, sounding and morphological/structural form, which is only similar to that of English, French, German, or Italian. This kind of adopting internationalisms is traditionally called «practical transcribing» or translator's transcription.

Hense, some internationalisms may retain still less similarity/ likeness in their lingual form when they are translated from English into Ukrainian: bacne/огбакалавр, cocoa какао, crown корона/крона, dance танець, giant пїант, grade градус, nocus-росизфокус, mother-of-pearl перламутр, mosque мечеть, о/У олія, outpost аванпост, papa/папський, pound фунт (from German Pfund), etc. The number of internationalisms making up this group is comparatively small in the two contrasted languages. The bulk of international lexemes, when conveyed by way of practical transcribing, still retain a considerable degree of lingual and structural similarity in the two languages. These are first of all nouns of Greek and Latin origin and also some adjectives, adverbs and verbs. They may often differ considerably in their morphological structure, mostly taking additional affixal morphemes in Ukrainian: ambition амбіція, apathy апатія, condenser конденсатщ, devil диявол, diplomacy дипломатія, hierarchy ієрархія, lecturer лектор., vegetarian вегетаріанський, condense конденсувати, criticize критикувати, stabilize стабілізувати, seriously серйозно, economic економічніш, etc.

Translating of genuine and mixed-type international compounds is performed on the basis of and in accordance with the lingual form and structure of their componental parts. As a result, English international compounds can be rendered in the following ways:

a) with the help of corresponding compounds having the same international root morphemes as in the source language: electro-biology електробіологія, f/Vm-acfor кіноактор, gas-meter газометр, motor-cyclist мотоцикліст, radio-active радіоактивний, six-footer шестифутовий, etc.

b) by word-combinations consisting of the same componental parts as in the international English compound words but of different than in the source language morphological structure and nature of a componental part of speech: dance-music (N+N) танцювальна (adj.) музика, gas-collector газовий (а.) колектор, nerve-centre нервовий (а.) центр, olive-coloured оливкового (а.) кольору, police-station поліційне (а.) відділення, radio-active element радіоактивний (а.) елемент, telegraph-line телеграфна (а.) лінія, etc. Thus, only radio-active and радіоактивний are adjectives in both languages.

Mixed-type compounds consisting of international and common Ukrainian root morphemes are translated in accordance with their complex nature. Their equivalents in Ukrainian, however, may be both compound words and word-combinations consisting of international and non-international (as in the original) component parts (or even simple words): gas-mask протигаз, taxi-cab таксі, river-basin басейн річки, toilet-table туалетний столик, torpedo-boat торпедний катер, turning-point поворотний пункт, etc.

4. Descriptive Translating of International Lexemes Many genuine international lexemes are semantically condensed and can be translated into the target language only in a descriptive way. Depending on the nature of the lexemes, their translation may have two somewhat different realizations:

a) the lingual form of the source language lexeme/s can be retained as the main lexeme/s of the target language word-combination/sentence: civilizable той (та.те), що піддається цивілізуванню/цивілізації; classifiable той (та,те), що піддається класифікації; barony 1.володіння барона; 2.титул барона; energize викликати (збуджувати) енергію; examinee той, що екзаменується/складає іспит; golf-club 1. клуб гравців з ґольфу; 2. ключка для гри в ґольф;

b) the lingual form of the internationalism is not or can not be retained in the target language. It happens when the internationalism has not been adopted yet by the target language. Thus, the noun epilogue is a genuine internationalism in many European languages but the adjective epilogic derived from it, though semantically quite pellucid, is unknown in Ukrainian. Besides, some internationalisms can be substituted in the process of translation with the aim of achieving expressiveness (for the reasons of style) or for the sake of explaining their denotative meaning: deputize (v) виступати (бути представником) від когось; epilogic заключний, кінцевий; park (parking) ставити машину на стоянку; percenter лихвар («процентник»); twopenny нікчемний/копійчаний (вартий двох пенні).

5. Translating by Way of Synonymous Substitution An international lexeme of the target language can be often substituted in the process of translation for another international lexeme of synonymous or close to it (or of the same) meaning. The substitutions are mostly performed in larger context, though sometimes they may also be carried out at language level. This kind of substitution becomes possible due to the existence in the target language of internationalisms borrowed by it at different previous historical periods. Such international lexemes are of the same logico-grammatical/ lexico-grammatical class. The faithfulness of translation achieved through this kind of synonymous substitutions may be usually established in a text only, though it may partly be traced at the word-group level as well. This can be seen from the following examples: athletics гімнастика and not атлетика, diagram схема and not діаграма, phase період and not фаза, fashion paper журнал мод and not журнал фасонів, base фундамент and not база, committee комісія and not комітет, gangster бандит and not ґанґстер, standard еталон and not стандарт; ангар garage and not hanger, бульвар avenue and not boulevard, графік plan/diagram and not graph, естрада variety and not estrade, party line політичний курс and not партійна лінія, nationa есопотународне господарство and not національна економіка. The use of such and the like forms of internationalisms is always predetermined, naturally, only by context.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-04