The main principles of faithful translation

On the ground of the long practice and rich experience of the preceding and present generations of belles-lettres translators, there were elaborated and unanimously (though tacitly) agreed upon some basic principles of artistic translation.

The main of these principles, which may equally be applied, at least partly, when translating any other type of written matter, may be defined as follows:

1. to hold strictly to the author’s conception and render faithfully the content of the source language work;

2. to maintain in the target language version all the structural peculiarities and syntactic organization of the matter under translation;

3. to preserve the main stylistic means including the artistic images and expressiveness of the original work;

4.!!!unless required to avoid deliberate omissions, enlargements or embellishment and any other forms of free interpretation of the source work;

5. to render in the target language version the pragmatic intention of the author and his force of influence on the reader.

III. Faithful and equivalent translation

The term faithful translation is sometimes viewed as an equivalent to the notion equivalent translation. Being quite similar in their general meaning these notions are characterized by some differences at the same time.

Thus, faithful translation (адекватний переклад) is used mainly to denote the highest level of rendering the denotative and connotative meanings of linguistic units, the expressiveness and pragmatic intention of the SL utterance or text with the help of available means of the TL.

The term equivalent translation (еквівалентний) implies mainly the necessity of quantitative and qualitative representation of all the constituents of the SL units in the TL.

It may be best illustrated with the help of phraseologically bound expressions. For instance, there can be no equivalence but only faithfulness in the translation of the following examples as there is no qualitative and quantitative presentation of the SL constituents in the TL version: a man in the street – пересічна людина; keep up with the Joneses – бути не гіршим за інших; red blood – відвага; fresh blood – новачок etc.

In the given examples we may observe different changes in the structure and components of the SL phrase (additions, omissions, substitutions) which are accounted for by the necessity to achieve the necessary faithfulness, i.e. to preserve the expressiveness and pragmatic intention of the SL utterance.

On the other hand we may preserve the components of the SL message with the loss of the pragmatic intent and implication.

!Therefore, faithful translation is not always equivalent translation.
IV. Equivalence in Translation.

Translation equivalence is the key idea of translation.

According to A.S.Hornby (Hornby A.S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. – Oxford, 1982) equivalent means equal in value, amount, volume, etc. What does it mean if applied to translation? According to Guennadi E. Miram in translation equivalent means indirectly equal, that is equal by the similarity of meaning.

For example, words table and стіл are equivalent through the similarity of the meanings of the Ukrainian word стіл and one of the meanings of the English word table.

!! In general sense and in general case words table and стіл are not equal or equivalent – they are equivalent under specific translation conditions.

This simple idea is very important for the understanding of translation: the words that you find in a dictionary as translations of the given foreign word are not the universal substitutes of this word in your language. These translations (equivalents) are worth for specific case, which are yet to be determined by the translator.

One may conclude, that translation equivalence never means the sameness of this meaning for the signs of different languages. Translation equivalents in a dictionary are just the prompts for the translator. One may find a proper equivalent only in speech due to the context, situation and background knowledge.

Let’s take an example. The English word picture is generally considered equivalent to the Ukrainian word картина. However, already in the context to take pictures (фотографувати) this equivalent is no longer correct and the word picture seems to have no equivalent (zero equivalent); in another context – English in pictures – because of the situation (pictures in the book are small) equivalent картина acquires a diminutive suffix: англійська в картинках. In a different situation, that of a painter’s studio or gallery it is полотно that becomes the Ukrainian equivalent of the English word picture and this equivalent, as well as others, disappears again in the context put me in the picture – введіть мене в курс справ.

Modern translation theory suggests two basic grades of translation equivalents:

a) full translation equivalents.

Full equivalence is presumed when there is complete coincidence of pragmatic meaning of the source and target language units.

The stylistically neutral words with reference (direct) meanings – terms, geographical and proper names, words denoting physical notions and processess – are more likely to have full translation equivalence because semantic and pragmatic parts of their meanings are less ambiguous.

b) partial translation equivalents.

Partial equivalence is the absence of one or more of equivalence aspects, i.e. of syntactic, semantic or pragmatic aspect.

· Syntactic equivalence of translation units longer than several words is a rare case if one deals with two languages having different systems and structures (like English and Ukrainian). Moreover, it is hardly a translator’s target to preserve the structure of the source texts and in many instances this means violation of syntactic and stylistic rules of the TL

· Semantic similarity between the source and the target texts is desirable but again its not an ultimate goal of a translator. More often than not slight differences in meaning help to adapt the idea of the original message to the target audience. What is really important for translation adequacy is the pragmatic equivalence.

· By pragmatic meaning of a translation equivalent we understand the reaction of the translation user/ receptor to the verbal message in the target language. When the original message is lost for the target audience it is a failure of the translation and no semantic or syntactic similarity will redress the damage.

For example, книга as an equivalent of the English word book is full in all equivalence aspects because it has similar syntactic functions (those of a Noun), its lexical meaning is also generally similar, and the pragmatic aspect of this equivalent (the message intent and target audience reaction) coincides with that of the English word.

However, the Ukrainian word протестувати is a partial equivalent of the English word protesting (say, in the sentence “ Protesting is a risk” – Протестувати ризиковано) because of different grammatical meaning (a Gerund and a Verb), the semantic and pragmatic aspects being similar.

In this lecture we rely upon the Theory of Translation Equivalence developed by prof. V.Komissarov who distinguishes 5 types of translation equivalence depending on the degree of semantic similarity between ST and TT.

In the first type of equivalence it is only the purport of communication – a certain communicative effect – that is retained in translation.

This type of equivalence can be illustrated by the following examples:

(1) Maybe there is some chemistry between us that doesn’t mix.

Буває, що люди не сходяться характерами

(2) That’s a pretty thing to say.

Посоромився б! (Як тобі не соромно!)

(3) Make hay while the sun shines

Куй залізо поки гаряче. (? Коси коса поки роса)

From the examples we саn see that common to the original and its translation in each case is only the general intent of the message, the implied or figurative sense, in other words, the conclusions the Receptor can draw from the total contents or the associations they can evoke in him/ her. The translation doesn't convey either “what the original text is about” or “how it is said”, but only “what it is said for”, i.e. what the aim of the message is.

The information that characterizes the second type of equivalence can be designated as identification of the situation

Let us regard the following examples:

(1) He answered the telephone.

Він підняв слухавку.

(2) It was late in the day.

Наближався вечір.

(3) Stop, I have a gun.

Стій, я буду стріляти.

!! This group of examples is similar to the first one, as the equivalence of translations here does not involve any parallelism of lexical or structural units. Most of the words or syntactical structures of the original have no direct correspondences in the translation. At the same time it is obvious that there is a greater proximity of contents than in the preceding group: besides the purport of communication there is some additional information contained in the original that is retained.

In the third group of translations the part of the contents which is to be retained is still larger. It presupposes retention in the translation of the three parts of the original contents which are conventionally designated as (1) the purport of communication; (2) the identification of the situation; and (3) the method of its description.

This type of equivalence can be exemplified as follows:

(1) Scrubbing makes me bad-tempered.

Від миття підлоги у мене псується настрій.

(2) That will not be good for you.

Це може для вас погано скінчитися.

(3) You are not serious.

Ви жартуєте?

In this case the translation retains two preceding informative complexes as well as the method of describing the situation. In other words, the translation is a semantic paraphrase of the original, preserving its basic notions with their free reshuffle in the sentence. Consider the first of the examples cited. Both in the translation and in the original the situation is described as a “cause-effect” event with a different pattern of identical notions (semes).

In the original: A (scrubbing) causes B (I) to have C (temper) characterized by the property D (bad).

In the translation: C (temper) belonging to B (I) acquires the property D (bad) because of A (scrubbing).

!! In the previous types of equivalence the translation gave the information of “what the original message is for” and “what it is about”, here it also indicates “what is said in the original”, i.e. what aspect of the described situation is mentioned in the communication

The fourth type of equivalence presupposes retention in the translation of the four meaningful components of the original: (1) the purport of communication; (2) the identification of the situation; (3) the method of its description; (4) the invariant meaning of the syntactic structures.

It can be illustrated by the following examples:

(1) He was never tired of old songs.

Старі пісні йому ніколи не набридали.

(2) He was standing with his arms crossed and his bare head down.

Він стояв, склавши руки на грудях та опустивши голову.

!! An important feature of this type of equivalence is that it implies the retention ofthe linguistic meaning of the syntactic structures. We can say that here the translation conveys not only the “what for”, the “what about” and the “what” of the original but also something of the “how-it-is-said in the original”

Last but not least, comes the fifth group of translations that can be discovered when we analyse their relationships with the respective originals. Here we find the maximum possible semantic similarity between texts in different languages. These translations!! try to retain the meaning of all the words used in the original text.

The examples cited below illustrate this considerable semantic proximity of the correlated words in the two sentences.

(1) I saw him at the theatre.

Я бачив його в театрі.

(2) The house was sold for 10 thousand dollars.

Будинок був проданий за 10 тисяч доларів.

Summing up our observations we may say that all translations can be classified into 5 types of equivalence which differ as to the volume and character of the information retained in each. Each subsequent type of equivalence retains the part of the original preserved in the previous types.

V. Types of Equivalents according to various criteria.

The structural similarity between of ST and TT presupposes the relationships of equivalence between correlated units in the two texts. These equivalents can be found at any language level:

– at the level of phonemes;

– at the level of morphemes;

– at the level of words;

– at the level of word-combinations;

– at the level of sentences.

Equivalents at the phonetic level: speaker – спікер; Liverpool – Ліверпуль.

Equivalents at the morphemic level: table-s – стол-и; strict-ness – сувор-ість.

Equivalents at the lexical level: he came home – він прийшов додому.

Equivalents at the word-combinations level: to take part – брати участь; to come to the wrong shop – звернутись не за тією адресою; to spill the beans – видати секрет. In the given examples the word combinations in the original and translation are equivalent on the whole, but they comprise no words that are equivalent to each other.

Equivalents at the sentence level: Keep off the grass! – По газонам не ходити!; There’s a good boy! – От молодчина!; In the equivalent sentences in the ST and TT there are no words that can be correlated with each other. But the Ukrainian sentences are often used for rendering the meaning of the corresponding English sentences and are without any doubt their rightful equivalents.

The main attention in the description of the translation equivalents system is traditionally given to the equivalents of lexical, phraseological and grammatical units of the SL, possessing a stable meaning that can be realized in a great number of utterances.

(As a rule, this equivalent is represented by a TL linguistic unit of the same level. But as often as not translation equivalents are of interlingual level).

* Thus, from the point of view of the language level to which the correlated units in the SL and TL belong equivalents are subdivided into lexical, phraseological and grammatical.

* As language units are often used in their accepted meanings many SL units have regular equivalents in TL.

** Some of these regular equivalents are permanent (fixed) in TL. Thus “ Kyiv ” is always rendered as “ Київ ”, “ a sentence” – as “речення” and so on. As a rule this type of correspondence is found with words of specific character, such as scientific and technical terms, proper or geographical names and similar words whose meaning is more or less independent of the particular contextual situation.

** Other SL units have variable/ multiple (i.e. different) equivalents. Such one-to-many correspondence between SL and TL units is characteristic of most regular equivalents.

* If the equivalent used is not registered as a regular one and is valid only for the given context then we deal with the occasional (situational) equivalents.

A variety of equivalents implies the necessity of selectinfg one of them in each particular case, taking into account the way the unit is used in ST and the points of difference between the meaning of its equivalents in TL.

For example, the English word “ attitude” can be translated as: (1) ставлення;

(2) політика;

(3) позиція.

It is only by assessing the meaning of SL units in ST against the linguistic and situational context that the translator can discover what they mean in the particular case and what equivalents should be chosen as their substitutes.

Let us regard the examples:

(1) I don’t like you attitude to your work.

(2) There is no sign of any change in the attitudes of the two sides.

(3) He stood there in a threatening attitude.

It is obvious that in the first sentence it should be the Ukrainian “ ставлення (до роботи)”, in the second sentence – “ позиціі (обох сторін)” and in the third sentence “ поза (загрозлива)”.

The fact that a SL unit has a number of regular equivalents does not mean that one of them will be used in each particular translation. An equivalent is but a potential substitute, for the translator’s choice is, to a large extent, dependent on the context in which the SL unit is used.

Not infrequently the context does not allow the translator to employ any of the regular equivalents to the given SL unit. Then the translator has to look for an ad hoc way of translation that will successfully render the meaning of the unit in this particular case.

The particular contextual situation may force the translator to give up even a permanent equivalent. For example, the name of the American town of New Haven (Conn.) is invariably rendered into Ukrainian as “ Нью-Хейвен”. But the sentence “ I graduated from New Haven in 1980” will be hardly translated in the regular way since the Ukrainian reader may not know that New Haven is famous for its Yale university. The translator will rather opt for the occasional equivalent: “ Я закінчив Йельський університет у 1980 р.”

The fact that regular equivalents are by no means mechanical substitutes goes for the lexical (analyzed above) as well as for phraseological and grammatical equivalents.

Phraseological units may also have permanent or variable equivalents. For example, an English idiom “ the game is not worth the candle” is usually translated by the Ukrainian idiom “ гра не варта свічок”. On the other hand an idiom may have several equivalents. For instance, the meaning of the English proverb “ Do in Rome as the Romans do” may be rendered in some contexts as “ з вовками жити – по-вовчи вити”, and in other contexts as “ у чужий монастир зі своїм уставом не ходять”. But here, again, the translator may not infrequently prefer an occasional equivalent which may be formed by a word-for-word reproduction of the original unit: “ У Римі поводься як римляни”.

The choice of the grammatical equivalents greatly depends on the meaning and lexical combinability of the elements. Due to semantic dissimilarity and differences in word combinability in the SL and TL there are practically no permanent grammatical equivalents, i.e. one and the same grammatical structure can be rendered in several different ways. E.g.: in the following English sentence “ He was a guest of honour at a reception given by the British government” both the Ukrainian participle “ влаштованому” and the attributive clause “ який був влаштований” can be substituted for the English participle “ given.”

As often as not such equivalents are interchangeable and the translator has a free choice between them.

The use of occasional equivalents is here more common than in the case of the lexical or phraseological units.

VI. Pragmatics of translation.

Words in language are related to certain referents, which they designate and to other words of the same language with which they make up syntactic units. These relationships are called semantic and syntactic respectively. Words are also related to the people who use them. To the users of the language its words are not just indifferent, unemotional labels of objects or ideas. The people develop a certain attitude to the words they use. Some of the words acquire definite implications, they evoke a positive or negative response, they are associated with certain theories, beliefs, likes or dislikes. In other words, we speak about different connotations (associations) that make up an important part of a word meaning and may produce various impacts on the Receptor.

The communicants involved in interlingual communication speak different languages, but they also belong to different cultures, have different general knowledge, different social and historical background. This fact has a considerable impact on the translator’ strategy since the most truthful rendering of ST contents may sometimes be partially misunderstood by the receptors of the translation or fail to produce a similar effect on them.

Since the pragmatic effect plays an important part in communication, its preservation in translation is the primary concern of the translator, though it is by no means an easy task.

! The pragmatics of the text is part of the contents of the text. It is a meaningful element whose preservation is desirable at any level of equivalence. The pragmatics of the original text should be as understandable to TR as they are to SR.

! An adequate rendering of the message by TR may necessitate expanding or modifying the original message to make it meaningful to the members of a different language community.

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