Language notes

Первая лексическая трудность перевода заключается в различии признаков, определяющих происхождение слова в различных языках (рис. 1).

Например, происхождение англ. “glasses”, рус. “очки” и нем. “Brille” основано на разных признаках одного и того же понятия (рис.2).

Рис.1 Рис.2

2.1 Compare the origin of these English words with the origin of corresponding Russian words:

MODEL: English a horseshoe < horse + shoe

Russian подкова < ковать

A newspaper, a head-wind, a lighthouse, a face (of a watch), a hair-dresser, a sun-flower, field-glasses, wall-paper, a tail-wind, a watch, a window, a plate-rack, a record-player, a tape-recorder.

2.2. Translate the sentences paying attention to italicized words and word combinations:

1. There were snowdrifts 20 inches deep. 2. He lives nextdoor. 3. He is a well known brainsurgeon. 4. The volume of gas is intimately dependent on temperature. 5. We need accurate weather forecast. 6. That is a result of careful selection. 7. They introduced an automatic control system. 8. It was an old record - player. 9. He couldn't find his pocket - knife anywhere. 10. From the earliest times humanbeings have wondered about the shape of the earth.

2.3. Find the words and word combinations to which Russian words with different signs correspond to and translate them:

1. It's high time to air the room. 2. Our living standards depend greatly on agriculture. 3. I don't need an alarm-clock. I can wake up myself. 4. The balance can measure very small weights. 5. The boy likes his bicycle very much. 6. The brilliant idea occurred to me. 7. He has shot a few very nice pictures with his new camera. 8. Nickel provides the top coat on the telescope mirror. 9. It's a use-and-discard instrument. 10. Could you name any characters of the novel?

2.4. Translate the sentences:

1. Long-distance spacemen will have to drink and re-drink the same water, over and over again. 2. The careful selection of metals and increased accuracy of voltage measuring instruments has made it possible to increase the range of the thermocouple to embrace very low temperatures. 3. The safety of personnel engaged in gamma-inspection of articles is ensured by the construction of protection devices, the reduction of exposure time and by increasing the distance between gamma-sources and attending personnel. 4. A molecule of protein is made from 20 different kinds of amino acid molecules, strung together in a polypeptide chain. 5. The compressor is particularly suitable for filling compressed air bottles.

UNIT 3

ИНТЕРНАЦИОНАЛЬНЫЕ СЛОВА И “ЛОЖНЫЕ ДРУЗЬЯ ПЕРЕВОДЧИКА”

3.1. Read the text below and find answers to the following questions:

1) Is the computerised translation of technical prose more successful than one of literature? Why?

2) Do you agree that translation is an art, not a science? Give your arguments.

3) Why do Italians say, ‘ Traduttore traditore ’ (The translator is a traitor)?

To some extent, technical prose dealing with internationally agreed scientific subjects is probably the easiest type of material to translate, because cultural unification (in this respect), lexical correspondences, and stylistic similarity already exist in this type of usage in the languages most commonly involved, to a higher degree than in other fields of discourse.

Significantly, it is this last aspect of translation to which mechanical and computerised techniques are being applied with some prospects of limited success. Machine translation, whereby, ultimately, a text in one language could be fed into a machine to produce an accurate translation in another language without further human intervention, has been largely concentrated on the language of science and technology, with its restricted vocabulary and overall likeness of style, for both linguistic and economic reasons. Attempts at machine translation of literature have been made, but success in this field, more especially in the translation of poetry, seems very remote at present.

Translation on the whole is an art, not a science. Guidance can be given and general principles can be taught, but after that it must be left to the individual's own feeling for the two languages concerned. Almost inevitably, in a translation of a work of literature something of the author's original intent must be lost; in those cases in which the translation is said to be a better work than the original, an opinion sometimes expressed about the English writer Edward Fitzgerald's "translation" of The Rubaiyai of Omar Khayyam (“Рубаи” Омара Хайяма), one is dealing with a new, though derived, work, not just a translation. The Italian epigram remains justified: Traduttore traditore "The translator is a traitor."

(From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1996)

Дата добавления: 2014-11-18