Additions

Additions are caused by various factors. Very often they are necessitated by what may be called "lexical incompleteness" of certain word groups in the source language. Thus, in English in many cases words are omitted that can be easily restored from the context, while in Russian their actual presence in the word is necessary, which calls for additions in translation; compare: pay claim -требование о повышении заработной платы;

gun license - удостоверение на право ношения оружия;

oil talks - переговоры по вопросу о нефти;

solid engine - двигатель на твёрдом топливе;

the Watergate judge - судья, назначенный для рассмотрения Уотергейтского дела.

Sometimes, additions are required to compensate for the lack of grammatical forms in the target language. Thus, the lack of plural forms of the corresponding nouns in Russian calls for lexical additions when translating the following phrases: workers of all industries - рабочие всех отраслей промышленности; modern weapons - современные виды оружия; enemy defenсes -оборонительные сооружения противника; other philosophies - другие философские направления (теории).

OMISSIONS

Omissions are the reverse of additions and are used to ensure a greater degree of what is called "compression", that is, reducing the redundancy of the text by omitting words which can be easily restored from the context. Thus, the following sentence from J. Salinger's novel: "So I paid my check and all. Then I left the bar and went out where the telephones were" is translated by R. Rait-Kovaleva as: «Я расплатился и пошёл к автоматам».

The words "left the bar" are omitted because of their redundancy (the bar was mentioned in the preceding context and "leaving" is implied by the subsequent use of "went out"). Note also other transformations here, such as unification of sentences and replacement of a complex sentence by a simple one, all of which greatly reduce redundancy of the original text.

For other examples of additions and omissions, as well as of other transformations, see also Л. С. Бархударов, Язык и перевод, гл. 5.

LEXICAL PROBLEMS