Britain’s worldwide exploitation was shaken to the roots by Colonial
Liberation Movements.
The contextual meaning of the word originated metonymically – any
colonial system lives on exploitation, which comprises basis of colonial
power. The corresponding Russian эксплуатация can not be used in this
contextual meaning, the contextual surroundings of exploitation (worldwide,
shaken to the roots) also prevents it. The only possible variant of
translation is by means of metonymic transposition – substitution:
Колониальное могущество Англии было подорвано (потрясено до основания)
национально-освободительным движением во всех колониях.
Contextual meaning of a word is always effective semantically and
stylistically owing to its unexpectedness as well. It often used in
stylistic purposes and therefore a translator runs into two obstacles: he
should avoid (нивелировка) and at the same time not to break the norms of
translation.
The most difficulty presents the translation of emotional coloring that
demands lexical changes. There is a wide range of words in a language that
besides their logical meaning have emotional meanings or co-meaning. One
should not mix emotional co-meaning with the multiple meaning words.
Emotional meaning of words usually presents in paradigmatic meanings of
words, that is it is objective and but subjective, like in the words: hate,
love, friendship. But it is not an exception when emotional meaning
originates from contextual usage. Emotional meaning, based in the word is
usually created by association – positive or negative – which a word causes
and the associations that exist in it despite the context of perception.
A peculiar group of words demanding transformation in translation are
the words that possess different volume of meaning in Russian and English
languages. To this group belong international words, some words of human
perception, mental activity.
But we should mention that the words that belong to these groups are of
different semantic structure. International words and the words of human
perception, mental activity represents polysemantic words in English.
International words are words that are used in a wide range of
languages in one or several forms. These words express scientific and
social-politic notions. The volume meaning of these words does not usually
coincide (except term-words). Though it is well-known that they comprise
the false-friends of translators and the mistakes in their translation are
frequent. These mistakes are caused not only by difference in their
semantic structure but by the difference of their usage as well which
demand lexical changes:
We are told that television this autumn will give a massive coverage to
the General Election.
Сообщают, что нынешней осенью передачи по телевидению будут широко
освещать парламентские выборы.
The word massive along with the meaning массивный, has other meanings
like массовый, грандиозный, огромный, широкий and so on. For example:
massive success – огромный успех, massive problems – важные проблемы.
Since international words possess wider meaning volume they are more
used in English if comparing to Russian:
Never before in the history of the world have there been so many
persons engaged in the translation of both secular and religious materials.
Ещё никогда в истории человечества столько людей не занимались
переводом как светской, так и духовной литературы.
Russian words религиозные материалы are absolutely unacceptable in this
case because of their different usage. In this instance the usage plays the
main role though their meaning is identical in both languages.
Lexical transformations are also caused by necessity to concretize a
word while translating. It is characteristic to English language the
availability of words with wide spread meaning. They can be nouns,
adjectives and verbs, for example: thing, point, stiff; nice, fine, bad; to
say, to go, to come, to get.
Translation of these words depends on the context, which helps to
identify their concrete meaning. Usually they are translated by various
Russian words that have concrete meaning (importance). Practically it
refers to verbs — to verbs of speech and verbs of movement. Concrete
lexical meaning(importance), this or that the lexical-semantic variant of a
verb depends on structure and lexical meaning of words that distribute
them.
At the by-election victory went to the Labor candidate.
На дополнительных выборах победа досталась лейбористам (победу одержал
кандидат от лейбористской партии).
Among nouns of wide meaning a special group comprises abstract
nouns, that frequently demand concrete definitions in translation. So, for
example, despite the presence of a word президентство in Russian - English
word presidency usually refers to the words a пост президента or
президентская всласть.
An ageing Speaker cannot take on the burdens of the presidency.
Престарелый спикер не может взять на себя бремя президентской власти
(в случае смерти президента).
The use of words of abstract meaning strongly differs in various
languages. Therefore follows the necessity of concrete definition in
translating.
The Saigon regime used every form of pressure and violence to compel a
reluctant electorate to go to the polls.
Сайгонский режим прибегал ко всем видам давления и насилия, чтобы
заставить упрямых избирателей принять участие в выборах.
Sometimes it is necessary to concretize some word due to different
qualitative distinction (valeur) the generalizing words have in languages.
The following words belong to them: meal and трапеза that usually
illustrate the this phenomenon and the words limbs and члены, from which
limbs is widely common, and Russian word the члены has much narrower usage.
In the given translation, besides concrete definition of руки and ноги,
we also had to use fixed word phrase.
The following problem which demands careful consideration in lexical
transformations of translation is problem of word combinability. In all
languages there are typical norms of word combinability. The concept of
norm is relative, on the one hand, with system of language, and on the
other hand, it is closely connected with speech, in which the originality
of speech formation is displayed. Each language can form uncountable
number new word combinations that will be understood by its bearers. In any
language there exists generally accepted tradition of word combinations,
which do not coincide with the corresponding tradition of word combinations
in the other languages.
And it makes look for similarly accepted word combinations in the
target language. The main part combined words usually coincides in
translation, but the second one is frequently translated by a word
possessing other logical meaning, but performing the same function, as for
example, trains run — поезда ходят, rich feeding — обильная пища.
Labor Party protests followed sharply on the Tory deal with Spain.
За сообщением о сделке консервативного правительства с Испанией
немедленно последовал протест лейбористской партии.
The wider is the semantic volume of a word, the wider is its
combinability, thus due to this feature it can interact with various word
forms and word combinations. And this features enables the translator to
use his creativity in translation.
Along with traditional combinations in languages unexpected
combinations are also possible, but they are quite clear, for they follow
generally accepted semantic models of word combinability. This phenomenon —
the connection of words with completely various semantic features - is
peculiar to all languages, but in each language it has various rules and
traditions. In English language such unexpected word combinations are
formed very easily. It is probably caused by conversion and easiness in
formation of new words in various ways, heterogeneity of languages
vocabulary and some other reasons. Not only poets and writers, but also
journalists frequently create unexpected word combination that makes their
statements significantly vivid and original. The unexpectedness of word
usage is closely connected with expressiveness of the statement.
Unexpected usage of word combinations hardens the task of translators,
for words interrelate in combinations not only with one word, but also with
a large number of other words of the sentence, for example:
The use of an adjective sharp in this context is unexpected: none of
its meanings given in dictionaries gives the description of a hand. The
difficulty of its translation is aggravated by presence of the second
definition white, which excludes translation by words костлявый and сухой.
Белая, сухощавая рука мадам лежала на широком колене Адама.
In the given translation the sense of the sentence has been rendered
but the unexpectedness of the used word was lost.
The last feature of lexical transformation to be discussed in this
Paper is traditional word usage for every language and which causes
frequent lexical transformations. This traditional usage is to some extent
related to another approach to the phenomena of reality. For example:
The military base is built on terraces rising from the lake.
For Russian the traditional use will be:
Военная база построена на террасах, спускающихся к озеру.
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