Translation of Polysemantic Words

The denotative meaning of most words can be identified at the level of word-combinations and sentences only. These words constitute a considerable part of present-day E lexicon and are referred to as polysemantic words. For example, the denotative meaning of the verb or noun “part” can be fully displayed in the word-combinations: to part the fighting cocks, to part company with somebody, to part one’s hair, to take part in smth, the fifth part of the cake, to have a small part in the event, etc. Sometimes it is difficult to identify without a larger context the proper meaning of such words as “your” which may be rendered as ваш, ваше, ваша, ваші/твій, твоє,твоя, твої/свій, своє, своя, свої respectively.

The context also reveals free or bound use of the word,

e.g. He made a pace or two forward (free use) – Він зробив крок чи два вперед.

He kept pace with the time (bound use) – Він ішов в ногу (не відставав) з часом.

Here “pace” is a part of a phraseological unit and is translated by a corresponding phraseological unity,

e.g. “brittle” – хрупкий; a new figurative meaning applied to “tone”, “looks”, “temper”, etc.

He has a brittle temper = easily loses his temper – запальна вдача

She gave a brittle smile – штучна (силувана) посмішка

The context is not always limited to a minimum stretch of speech or microcontext. Sometimes macrocontext (a paragraph, a chapter, even the whole book) is necessary for a correct interpretation of the meaning.

Thus, describing Becky Sharp in “ Vanity Fair “ W. Thackeray writes the following:

The wretched woman was in a brilliant full toilet.

Knowing the author’s negative attitude to the character, of the two meanings of the word “wretched”: 1. несчастная, 2. негодная the tr-tor chose the latter:

Негодница (коварная женщина) была в ослепительном туалете.

It would be wrong to assume that only polysemantic notional words can actualize their meanings in the context. Some meanings of functional words can also be identified at the level of sentences only,

e.g. The poem was long and he could not learn it.

Here “and” may have the meaning of the coordinate conjunction “i” or of the subordinate conjunction “тому”, “тож”.

He is but a boy! – Та ж він ще тільки хлопчина.

All of us but a few have come to this conclusion. – Ми всі, за винятком небагатьох, дійшли цього висновку.

The selection of a definite meaning of a polysemantic word can also depend upon the style. For example, idiomatic phrase to loose one’s reason and its synonyms to loose one’s mind/to go out of one’s head/to go insane are confine to the literary style while their synonyms to go mad/to go crazy are used in colloquial and low colloquial speech styles only.

Similar restrictions on the use of synonymous idioms are observed among the U equivalents of the phrase:

literary/neutral style: зійти з розуму/рішитися розуму/з’їхати з глузду

colloquial and low colloquial speech styles: ----------

Apart from their purely denotative or referential meanings many language units may have emotive, extralinguistic, stylistic, and other kinds of meanings. Some of these meanings can not always be identified at a word/word combination and sometimes even at the sentence level but only at the level of a text.