Файл: Перевод реалий.pdf

INTRODUCTION

This course work is devoted to the ways of translation of realities in the artistic texts. One of the most important problems the translator has to face in the process of translation of the artistic text is that some of its elements have no coincidence in the target language. First of all, they are objects of non-equivalent lexis and realities of the source language. Some researchers, such as famous Bulgarian translation scholars S. Vlakhov and S. Florin, observe realities and lacunas (or accidental gaps) as independent word class in the scope of non­equivalent lexis which means objects and phenomena uncoinciding in comparison of two languages. Moreover, they also distinguish the concept of “reality” from the similar and frequently used terms “lacuna” and “exotism”.

The relevance of the work is connected with the fact that the problem of translation of realities is very common. Realities are the concepts inherent to the one culture and absent from another, that’s why their transmission by means of the translation language presents the special difficulty.

The aim of the work is the research of realities as independent group of lexical units, and the ways of their translation.

In the purpose of achieving the aim, the following tasks were set:

1. to study the term “reality” and its difference from the terms “non­equivalent lexis”, “exotism” and “lacuna”;
2. to classify the types of realities;
3. to consider the ways of their transmission by means of translation language.

The research object is the general ways of translation of realities.

The material for research were the romans “The Master and Margarita” by M.A. Bulgakov and “The Silence of the Lambs” by T. Harris.

The structure of the work: the work consists of the introduction, two chapters, the conclusion and the list of used literature. In the first chapter there is the brief observation of the linguistic worldview, the research of realities as the object of translation; in the second chapter there is a description of difficulties of the translation of realities, characteristics of the ways of their transmission by means of translation language and examples of the translation of realities into Russian taken from the different artistic texts.

The practical value of the work is determined by the possibility of the usage of its separate states. There is a particular importance in the analysis of the ways of the translation of uncoinciding elements from English into Russian and from Russian into English.

1. Reality as an object of translation.
2. Linguistic worldview.

Linguistic worldview is the historically set complex of the world submissions reflected in the language in the trivial consciousness of the linguistic community, it is the special way of the perception of the world arrangement.

The concept of the linguistic worldview on the one hand came from ideas of Wilhelm von Humboldt and neo-humboldtians, and on the other hand from the ideas of American Ethnolinguistics, particularly from the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity (Manakin, 2004: 45)

The term “linguistic worldview” was introduced to scientific terminological system by L. Weisberg. The main characteristics of linguistic worldview are following:

1. Linguistic worldview is the system of all possible contents: immaterial contents determining the originality of the culture and mentality of the given linguistic community, and language contents stipulating the existence and functionality of the language itself;
2. Linguistic worldview on the one hand is the consequence of historical development of the ethnos and the language, and on the other hand it is the reason of original way of their further development;
3. Linguistic worldview is clearly constructed and multileveled;
4. Linguistic worldview is changeable in the time;
5. Linguistic worldview constructs the uniformity of the linguistic entity contributing the fixation of linguistic and cultural originality in the worldview and its denotation by the language means;
6. Linguistic worldview exists in the uniform and original self- consciousness of the linguistic community and it is inherited by the following generations through the world outlook, lifestyle and code of conduct imprinted by the language means.
7. Linguistic worldview of the any language is its transforming power which forms the submission about the world through the language as the “intermediate world” of the native speakers.
8. Linguistic worldview of concrete linguistic community is its cultural domain.

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The perception of the world partly depends on the cultural and national peculiarities of the native speakers of the concrete language. In the linguistic worldviews there is a large amount of discrepancies which are being studied by the ethnology, linguoculturology and other sciences. These discrepancies are caused by lots of factors, and the nature, culture and cognition are the main of them (Manakin, 2004: 49). Nature is the outer conditions of people life; natural conditions influence the peculiarities of people perception of the different natural phenomena. The second factor is the culture. Every peculiarity of the cultural sphere finds its reflection in the language. When talking about cognition it has to be mentioned that every person percepts the world in his own way. Consequently, the ways of the world perception of diverse cultures differs from each other.

As we see, the linguistic worldview of every culture is unique and unrepeatable. This means, while comparison we can see the presence of completely analogous concepts and uncoinciding concepts which are specific only to this culture. Concepts which are inherent to the certain ethnic community’s linguistic worldview are called non-equivalent lexis. One of the word groups of non­equivalent lexis is realities.

1. Reality in the theory of translation.

The word “reality” is Latin origin (lat. “realis” - material, actual). The translation of realities is the important and difficult problem in transmitting the national colouring and cultural peculiarities which has been faced in the very beginning of formation of the translation theory as scientific discipline. Firstly the term “reality” in its modem understanding was used by L.N. Sobolev in 1952. Realities also were described by G.V. Chernov who mostly used the term “non­equivalent lexis” and A.E. Suprun who observed realities as “exotic” lexis (Vemigorova, 2010: 184). E.M. Kolomeitseva and M.N Makeeva, relying on the works of L.S. Barkhudarov, also used the concept “non-equivalent lexis” interpreting it as “the lexical units of the language which have no full neither partial coincidences among the lexical units of another language” (Kolomeitseva, Makeeva, 2004: 38). E.M. Vereschagin and V.G. Kostomarov pointed that the words which meaning is impossible to compare with lexical units of foreign language have to be considered as non-equivalent. (Vereschagin, Kostomarov, 2005: 80). These words in the strict sense are untranslatable. Famous poet and translator Penkovsky mention, that, for example, in Heine’s poems there are a lot of proper names, geographical names and other realities which can’t be translated or changed, they must be saved during the translation. So, Penkovsky equals realities to the nen-equivalent lexis in the interpretation of Vereschagin and Kostomarov. G.D. Tomakhin in his work “Realities-Americanisms” gives the following explanation to this concept: “Realities are the names of subjects of material culture, historical facts, governmental institutes, the names of national and folk heroes, mythical creatures etc., which are inherent to the only one nation.” (Tomakhin, 1988: 5).

In this course work we are of the view of Bulgarian translation scholars S, Vlakhov and S. Florin, who observe realities as the independent word class within the frameworks of the non-equivalent lexis.

1. Lexical units uncoinciding in translation.

The term “non-equivalent lexis” (further - “NEL”) is met in the works of lots of authors, but it is differently interpreted by them: as a synonym for the word “reality”, as words of one language and culture absent from another, and just as untranslatable words. Non-equivalent lexis is the lexical and phraseological units which don’t have any translation coincidences in the target language (Vlakhov, Florin, 1980: 42). The concept “NEL” is wider by its contents then “realities”, which are the independent word group within the frameworks of NEL; terms, interjections, onomatopoeia, abbreviations, and derogations from literal norm are usually out of these frameworks; realities deal with proper names and phraseologisms. Moreover, NEL includes words which actually can be called non­equivalent lexis, or NEL in the narrow sense of the word, i.e. the units for some reason or another without lexical coincidences in the target language (Vlakhov, Florin, 1980: 43). There is one more sign differing the reality from the non­equivalent word: word can be a reality for all or for the great number of languages, but non-equivalent - only within the frameworks of the given language pair. Thus, if the amount of realities is permanent and doesn’t depend on the target language, the vocabulary of NEL changes for different language pairs.

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The term “exotism” also requires the proper attention because lots of scientists use it as the alternative of the concept “reality”. Exotism is determined as the foreign word with following elaborations: 1) it came from little-known languages, generally from Indo-European languages; 2) it detennines the reality; 3) it is used for adding the special colouring to the speech. S. Vlakhov and S. Florin mention the more narrow sense of the concept “exotism” than “realities” giving the following arguments: firstly, exotism is only the foreign word for the target language; therefore, the source language’s own reality can’t be an exotism; secondly, exotism is the word already accepted in the given language, when the reality can be the occasionalism. Furthermore, in Russian the word “exotic” more frequently used in the meaning “strange, bizarre”, not “borrowed, foreign” (Vlakhov, Florin, 1980:40).

The tenn “lacuna” is understood as the “gap” or “omission” in the linguistic worldview of some nation, i.e. the absence of concrete concept in the target language, which is indicated as the lexical unit in the source language. This doesn’t mean the impossibility of describing this concept by means of the target language, but the absence of the analogical unit for indication this concept. The examples of suchlike words can be concepts absolutely absent in the target language, which are transmitted with the method of explication, i.e. the multiword explanation. The examples of Russian lacunas for English can be such words as “сутки”, “именины” etc. Thus, the difference of lacuna from reality is that there is the concept of the idea, which is the lacuna, in the target language, but there is no lexical unit for its indication. (Khashimova, 2004: 96).

Taking in account everything above mentioned, the following definition of reality can be given: these are words and word combinations which name objects specific for one nation and extraneous for another; being the carrier of national and/or historical colouring, they, as the rule, have not got the accurate coincidences in other languages, and, as follows, can’t be translated on the common grounds requiring the special approach (Vlakhov, Florin, 1980: 47)

1. Classification of realities.

There are a lot of classifications of realities by different features. In this course work the classification of S. Vlakhov and S. Florin will be shown:

I. Object division:

1. Geographical realities, including names of geographical objects related to the human activity, and also endemic types: taiga, tundra; kiwi, kangaroo, koala, sequoia.
2. Ethnographical realities:
3. Daily life:
4. food and drinks: борщ, щи, пирожки, окрошка, квас;
5. clothes: сарафан, кафтан, валенки, лапти;
6. accommodation, furniture: изба, сени, самовар, хрущёвка;
7. transport: жигули, тройка;
8. Labor:
9. people of labor: бригадир, стахановец;
10. tools: соха, трактор;
11. organization of labor: колхоз, совхоз;
12. Art and culture:
13. musical instruments: балалайка, гусли, домбра;
14. music and dances: казачок, частушка, кюй;
15. folk: былина, богатырь, батыр;
16. traditions and rites: Масленица, Старый Новый Год, коляда;
17. holidays and games: День Победы, Первомай, салки, Наурыз;
18. mythology: кикимора, домовой, леший;
19. cults, their followers, cult building and objects: раскольники, староверы, волхвы, распятие, скит;
20. Measures and money:
21. measure units: сажень, аршин, верста, пуд;
22. currencies: рубль, копейка, тиын, грош, алтын;
23. slang: сотка, пятак, червонец;
24. Social-political realities:
25. Administrative-territorial organization:
26. administrative-territorial units: волость, губерния, уезд;
27. localities: хутор, станица, аул;
28. Authorities and titles:

a)authorities: вече, дума, b) titles: царь, хан;

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1. Social-political life:
2. political events and politicians: перестройка, сталинизм, опричники, большевики;
3. patriotic and social movements: декабристы, западники, “Народная воля”;
4. social events and their representants: продразвёрстка, нэп, коллективизация, нэпман;
5. rank, titles, degrees: народный артист, заслуженный артист, титулярный советник;
6. institutes: ЗАГС, РОНО, ЖКХ, КСК;
7. estates and their members: купечество, кулаки;
8. Military realities:
9. military units: сотня, дружина, орда;
10. weapon: палица, шашка, Катюша;
11. equipment: гимнастёрка, кольчуга;
12. servicemen: воевода, есаул, атаман.
13. Local division. In its basis there is not extra-lingual, but language principle which allows to observe realities 1) within the frameworks of one language, and 2) within the frameworks of language pair.
14. Within the frameworks of one language:
    1. Own realities - native words of the given language;
       1. National realities - name objects owned by the given nationality and extraneous outside the country (баня, матрешка);
       2. Local realities - owned by the dialect of the language of the other ethnic group representants on the territory of the given language (чум, яранга, айран, кумыс);
       3. Microrealities - words specific for one city, village or even family;
    2. Foreign realities - borrowings, caiques or transcribed words of other language:
       1. International realities - words spread into the row of languages (космонавт, спутник);
       2. Regional realities - words came out of the one country (большевик, колхоз).
15. In the plane of the language pair:
    1. Outer realities - equally extraneous for both languages (пудинг - outer reality for both Russian and French);
    2. Inner realities - belong to the one of the language pair (пудинг - outer reality for Russian, but inner reality for English).
16. Time division. On the basis of time criterion all realities can be divided into 1) modem (перестройка) and 2) historical (кушак).

Conclusion of the chapter I: in the first part of the work there was a short review of the concept of the linguistic worldview, the explanation and the examples of the term “reality”, the explanation of its difference from the tenns “non-equivalent lexis”, “exotism” and “lacuna”, and also the classification of realities by the various signs.

1.5 Difficulties in translation of realities.

Realities are the component of the background knowledge which is necessary for successful comprehension of the foreign texts. Insufficient knowledge of the country’s geography and history, its great historical figures, non­acquaintance with its culture and art can lead to the distortion of the facts in the translation process. The lack of background knowledge can lead to the literalism in the translation because of inability of detecting realities in the text.

The concept “translation of realities” is rather arbitrary because realities are untranslatable, but, wherein, they are transmitted in the context, because every lexical unit can be translated into other language, at least descriptively. The main difficulties in transmitting realities are 1) reality, as the rule, has not got an equivalent in the target language because of the absence of this object or phenomenon denoted by this reality and 2) the necessity of the transmitting national and historical colouring of this reality (Vlakhov, Florin, 1980: 47). It’s necessary to translate realities so that recipient would not have problems in comprehension of the text and would feel the local or national colouring by the means of reality the author of original used to transmit it. The most successful way of adding reality to the translation text is the way when the translator doesn’t use any special means for its explanation, and the reader has no problem with its understanding. Some realities, such as regional and international words, don’t require any special explanation at all (tequila, kangaroo). Moreover, in some occasions the author of translation can hope that the meaning of reality can be understood from the context. However, very often the translator doesn’t explain the meaning of these words overestimating background knowledge of the public and hopes that reared can find its meaning in the vocabulary himself. Sometimes reality can be changes by the neutral synonym in the target language. But this translation can’t be considered as successful in the case if the author of original paid the special attention to this reality or stressed on its importance (Tyulenev, 2004: 214).

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So, the problem of transmitting reality is of the great importance for the translator: insertion of these elements is connected with their role given by the author of the text, and the means the translator used for their meaning disclosure. The total omission of reality is only possible after proper comprehension of its importance in the text and its dependence on the surrounding words.1.6 The ways of translation of realities in the artistic texts.

There are a lot of methods for transmission the reality to the target language. In general, they can be divided into two: borrowing and translation. Moreover, in some cases the reality can be omitted. In this course work it will be presented the classification of reality transmission on the basis of V.N. Komissarov’s classification (Komissarov, 1990: 148).

The ways of translation of realities

in artistic texts

1. Borrowing

Borrowing - is the most appropriate way of transmission the local colouring of reality. Transcription and transliteration are its methods.

1. Transcription - is the formal phonemic recreation of the source lexical unit with the phonemes of the target language, phonetic imitation of the source word.
2. Transliteration - is the formal letter recreation of the source lexical unit with the letters of the target language’s alphabet, letter imitation of the source word. It is used rarer than transcription. Because the transmission of the sound is better than the transmission of the graphical form in facilitating the comprehension of national colouring.

Using these methods the translator gets over above mentioned difficulties, but the failed input of transcription/transliteration to the text can complicate its comprehension.

The translation of realities is used in the cases when the usage of transcription or transliteration by some reasons is unwanted. It can be released by the following methods:

1. Input of neologism - is the creation of the new word or word combination. After the borrowing it is the best way of transmission the content and colouring of the reality, but at the same time is the least used way.
   1. Caique -is the metaphrase, reproduction not of sound but the combinatorial structure of word or the word combination, when the morphemes are translated by the matching elements of the target language.
   2. Semicaique - is the partial borrowing when one of the elements of reality is translated with the transcription/transliteration, and another with caique.
   3. Familiarization - is the adaptation of foreign reality, giving to it the word form on the basis of foreign material owned by the target language. When using this method reality often loses its part of semantic contain.
   4. Semantic neologism - conditionally new word or word combination made up by the translator to transmit the meaning of the reality. It differs from reality with the absence of etymological connection with original word.
2. Approximate translation - is frequently used for the transmission of reality. In this case it is possible to transmit the content of reality losing its colouring.
   1. Hyponymic translation - is the change of the specific concept on the generic (more rare - the change of the generic concept on the specific), i.e. the explanation of the meaning of reality using the lexical unit with wider (narrower) meaning.
   2. Assimilating translation - helps to change the unknown reality on the well-known. This method is based on the usage of functional element which recalls the same associations in the mind of the translation reader as in the original reader’s mind.
   3. Descriptive translation - is used when the translator by some reasons cannot use any other method and has to explain the unknown concept. In this case the reality is not translated with the analogical unit of the target language, and the possibility of not-full understanding as in the cases of transcription or caique is completely excluded.
3. Transfonnational (conceptual) translation - the usage of this method shows that the translator relies on the context when choosing the proper equivalent. There is no accordance for the reality - its meaning is transmitted by the transfonnation of the context.
4. Omission

Omission is not the method of translation (in this case the translation is absent); it is one of the possible ways of dealing with reality during the translation

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