І слгиі-иггий іггпжяяний і

WAYS OF TRANSLATING

Translating is unseparable from understanding and it goes along with conveying content and sometimes even 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 those of the target language. These are morphology (word-building and word forms), the lexicon (words, phraseologisms, mots), syntax (the means of connection and the structure of syntaxemes), stylistics (peculiarities of speech styles, tropes, etc.).

The level or the degree of faithfulness of translation is mostly predetermined by some factors, which may be both of objective and of subjective nature. The main of them are the purpose of the translation to be performed, the skill of the translator/interpreter, the type of the matter selected for translation, etc. Depending on these and some other factors, the following methods of translating are traditionally recognized in the theory and practice of translation:

1. Literal translating, which is to be employed when dealing with separate words whose surface form and structure, as well as

their lexical meaning in the source language and in the target lan­guage, fully coincide. These are predominantly international by origi­nal morphemes, lexemes/words, rarer word-groups having in English and Ukrainian (and often in some other languages too) a literally identical or very similar presentation and identical lexical meaning: administrator адміністратор, director директор, region реґіон, hotel/motel готель/ мотель, hydrometer гідрометр, Tom Том, etc.

It is easy to notice that in some words thus translated not only the morphemic but also the syllabic structure can sometimes be fully conveyed (cf. an-ti ан-ти, es-cort ес-корт, direct-or директ-ор, ex-presid-ent екс-прези-дент).

In many a case, however, the lingual form of the source lan­guage words is only partly conveyed in the target language. This happens when the common word is borrowed by each of the two languages in question from different source languages or when its lingual form is predetermined by the orthographic peculiarities of the target language: anti-alcoholic протиалкогольний, music музика, constitution конституція, zoology зоологія, atomic weight атомна вага, chemical process хімічний процес, national opera theatre національний оперний театр.

The literal translation in all the examples above provides an equivalent rendering of the lexical meaning of each language unit despite the augmentation in the number of morphemes/syllables in the target language (cf. atomic атом-н-а, alcoholic алкоголь-н-ий).

Close to the literal method of translating or rather reproduction is the so-called way of translator's transcription by means of which partly the orthographic and partly the sounding form of the source language lexemes/words is conveyed: archbishop архієпископ, card картка/карта, European європейський, Muscovite москвич/ москвичка, organized організований, stylized стилізований, therapeutic терапевтичний.

Literal translating, however, can pervert the sense of the source language lexemes or sentences when their lingual form accidentally coincides with some other target language lexemes having quite dif­ferent meanings: art/sf митець, художник (rarer артист); decoration відзнака, нагорода (and not декорація); matrass колба (and not матрац); replica точна копія (and not репліка), etc. Hence, literal translating has some restrictions in its employment and does not always help to render the lexical meaning of words or even morphemes

having often even an identical lingual form (spelling) in the source language and in the target 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 (недовіра), superprofit надприбуток, non-interference невтручання, weightlessness невагомість etc.

All the words above are practically translated at the lexico-mor-phological level, as their lexical meanings and morphological stems are identical to those of the English words (cf. help-less без-порадний, mis-trustне-дов\р'я, super-profit над-прибуток, etc.).

The overwhelming majority of other words, when translated ver­bally do not preserve their structure in the target language. That is explained by the differences in the morphological systems of the Eng­lish and Ukrainian languages: abundantly рясно, bank берег (береговий), cliff бескид (скеля, круча), myself я, я сам/сама; автомат automatic machine/rifle, заввишки high/tall, письменник writer (author), червоніти to get/grow red, etc..

Verbal translating of polysemantic words permits a choice among some variants which is practically impossible in literal translating, which aims only at maintaining the literal form.

Thus, the Ukrainian word автомат can have the following equivalent variants in English: 1. automatic machine; 2. slot-machine; 3. automatic telephone; 4. submachine gun (tommy gun). Similarly, the Englsih word bank when out of a definite context may have the following equivalent variants in Ukrainian: 1. берег (річки); 2. банк; 3. вал/насип; 4. мілина; 5. замет; 6. крен, віраж (авіац.); 7. поклади (корисних копалин). The literal variant/equivalent of the noun ban/fin Ukrainian can be, naturally, «банк» only.

Verbal translating, however, does not and can not provide a faithful conveying of sense/content at other than word level. When employed at the level of word-combinations or sentences verbal trans­lation may often make the language units ungrammatical and pervert or completely ruin their sense, cf: / 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; to grow strong is not рости міцним but ставати дужим; to take measures is not брати міри but вживати заходів; first night is not перша ніч but прем'єра, etc.

Дата добавления: 2014-11-20