2020-01-14
1679
The matter of lexical transformations is considered in linguistics concerning translation of scientific and social and political texts because new word formations are typical of the above texts (for instance, neologisms of various kind). However, little attention is paid to the features of lexical transformations in terms of literary translation. Mostly, the matter of lexical transformations concerns stylistic norms of the language because lexical transformations are connected mostly with such translation techniques as 1) generalization; 2) omission; 3) concretization; 4) antonymic translation; 5) meaning extension or sense development 6) loss compensation.
Generalization is used when something in the target language is usually expressed using concepts with broader meaning or when the preserving the original concepts with narrower meaning would result in an awkward translation.
| …–How do they call thee?… [1] | …– Как тебя зовут?… [2] |
The original text contains the Middle English pronoun thee. The translator usually faces a challenge in such cases because there should be a choice between the archaic word with certain stylistic colouring and certain stylistic generalization, almost neutralization. In this particular case the translator opted for stylistic generalization and her choice might be explained by the historical context. The Russians had certain idea of Spanish guerillas of that time. If the translator kept the archaic form in the translation, it would sound at least awkward and provoke a smile of the Russian reader. Nevertheless, here the author’s gesture interferes again because Hemingway assigned such awkward phrases to foreigners who spoke English in his works. Thus, English readers could exactly distinguish this inappropriate use of the word thee. But at the same time, if we know the plot of the novel, we should note that the character, who pronounced How do they call thee?, respected very much Robert Jordan, the person who this phrase was addressed to. Therefore, we may suggest that such enigmatic usage of the pronoun thee might have double sense. The translation was effected at the word level.
Omission is used when the clause is redundant, from the point of the target language, and would make the target sentence sound unnatural if it were to be translated. There are cases when certain words are just omitted without compensation and mentioning with the help of some lexical units.
| …He spread the photostated military map out of the forest floor and looked at it carefully…[1] | …Он разложил на земле карту и внимательно вгляделся в нее… [2] |
| On the one hand, the translator omitted several words and didn’t transfer the meaning of these words. But, on the other hand, translator’s decision can be justified by the fact that the word photostated military map is not so important detail to be rendered in an exact way and loss of these two words photostated and military doesn’t affect the context at all. What should be pointed out is that the translator managed to keep the same syntactical structure of the author’s sentence. The unit of translation is a word-combination. | |
Concretization is used when something in the target language is usually expressed using concepts with narrower meaning or when preserving the original concepts with broader meaning would result in awkward translation.
| …He was a short and solid old man in a black peasant’s smock and gray iron-stiff trousers and he wore rope-soled shoes …[1] | …Это был невысокий, коренастый старик в черной крестьянской блузе и серых штанах из грубой ткани; на ногах у него были сандалии на веревочной подошве …[2] |
| Here we should pay attention to the way the word shoes and trousers are translated. The translator used more concrete Russian word to render the description of the elderly man. Shoes have rather broad meaning in English and give no exact description of the image of the elderly man. We know that events of the novel take place in the forest and the mountainous area. Certainly, the type of the elderly man’s shoes is not that important but concretization created more vivid description of the character if given with concretization. Thus, shoes were translated as сандалии. The word trousers are more often translated into Russian as брюки. But here the translator dresses the elderly man in штаны. Actually, that’s right because this word has simpler connotation which is more appropriate for this particular novel. | |
Sometimes concretization causes not only choice of more exact word for translation but also transposition in the sentence and change of syntactical structure of the sentence.
| …His shirt was still wet from where the pack had rested…[1] | …Рубашка на спине еще не просохла после подъема на гору…[2] |
| This transformation has to do with lexical transformation of concretization because the original description of the place where the pack was conveyed into Russian with more exact meaning. The Russian translation is more laconic than the source phrase, thus, following the general demand towards translation of Hemingway’s works – absence of grandiloquence. | |
Sometimes a translator adapts rather general word combinations to the context and translates them with more precise meaning than they were implied in the source text. Due to this translator’s decision, the target text becomes clearer and reflects the contextual background better.
| …It is only by doing nothing that we are able to live in these mountains…[1] | …Мы только потому и держимся в этих местах, что ничего здесь не затеваем …[2] |
| This concretizing transformation would be impossible without knowledge of the context of the novel. The translator implied the real meaning of the phrase doing nothing which was relevant for the context and narration. Sometimes this type of transformation is rather useful because it makes some vague details clear in the text itself and allows the reader to follow the idea better. There is such a translation phenomenon when the translator is able to improve the narration of the author by concretizing something without loss of the original style of the author. | |
Antonymic translation involves translating a phrase or clause containing a negation using a phrase or clause that does not contain a negation or vice versa. Nevertheless, antonymic translation is more related with stylistic devices of translation because it is personal decision of the translator to imply this technique concerning some speech patterns in the source text.
| ...That is simple…[1] | …Это не трудно…[2] |
| This is the classic example of antonymic translation when the affirmative phrase in the source language is translated into the target language with a negation that is sometimes more typical of the stylistic norms of the target language or according to the text. This transformation does not distort the author’s plan style of writing and actually conveys the real meaning of the phrase “ That is simple ”. Moreover, the phrase corresponds with stylistic norms of the target language. This example shows how a sentence can be considered as a unit of translation. | |
Antonymic transformation concerns word combinations more often. This kind of transformations is effected at the phrase or word combination level.
| …The mountain sloped gently where he lay… [1] | … Склон в этом месте был не крутой …[2] |
| As we can see in the example, antonymic translation again takes place and affirmative construction is translated with a negation in the target text. Sometimes the choice of such transformations depends on personal views of the translator but actually it corresponds with literal norms and purposes to express the idea better in terms of literature and stylistics. | |
The whole subordinate clause can be transformed with antonymic translation that proves effectiveness of this method if a translator has the purpose to keep author’s taciturn and laconic style of writing.
| …He knew how to blow any sort of bridge that you could name … [1] | … Нет такого моста, которого он не сумел бы взорвать…[2] |
| In fact, here we observe antonymic translation at the phrase level because the translator transforms the meaning of the whole phrase. We pointed out earlier that translation can be effected at several possible levels: word, word combination, phrase, sentence and so on. Here we come across the phrase level. | |
So, meaning and use of Russian and English word-building suffixes diverge considerably. Every language has rather productive suffixes, for example, the English suffix –er. “ The suffix –er is capable of forming a noun which means an agent of an action derived from practically any word. <…> That is why verbs are often used when nouns with –er are translated into Russian”.[1] Actually the following example shows how a translator can apply meaning extension or sense development. It regards the word driver and the way how it was translated. Meaning extension involves translating a cause by its effect or vice a versa.
| …They had dismounted to ask papers of the driver of a cart…[1] | …Они спешились, чтобы проверить документы у крестьянина, который ехал на телеге…[2] |
| The noun with –er - driver was translated with the Russian finite verb ехал. Actually, the morphological transformation took place. As for lexical transformations, they often occur alongside with morphological ones because it requires change of the lingual components which are closely related with a word that converts into other part of speech. The word крестьянин in the target text appears from the context and is very appropriate there because it complements the entire picture where the novel takes place. The translator has such a right to add some lexical units to make the description more complete and clear in the target language. Thus, here the translator applied concretization, addition, and morphological transformations. | |
Translation often practices when one part of speech is converted into other one. An English verbal noun with –er is “frequently and regularly”[2] converted into a Russian finite verb.
Sometimes a translation technique of addition is used to translate words with –er according to stylistic norms. A translator often uses by his personal view.
While literary translation, one should consider not only word-forming peculiarities but also “rich stylistic resource of the Russian language in comparison with the English language”[6]. This factor should be taken into account when emotional and expressive constructions typical of literary texts are translated. So, a great number of various Russian diminutive, affectionate, pejorative suffixes allow a translator to convey the speaker’s attitude to the subject.
Loss-of-meaning compensation involves adding to or reinforcing a target text in one place to compensate for something that hasn’t been translated in a different place in the source text. Sometimes it can concern the reproduction of certain parallel lexical and syntactical model as it is observed in the examples below.
| …That is your right and how it should be done… [1] | …Вот что нужно, и вот что от вас требуется…[2] |
| Translation is effected at the sentence level and the translator employed some possible techniques for that. In fact, we have no source construction reproduced in the target sentence but we have rather an idiomatic Russian construction with a sort of parallelism. This has expressive colouring and renders the mood which was conferred to the phrase by the speaker. We classified this example as a lexical transformation because as we can see the translator used absolutely different set of lingual units as compared with the source sentence. But it is sure to have relation with syntactic transformations as well because the structure is changed completely and has nothing in common with the original structure. | |
The considerable part of translator’s work is dedicated to rendering various colloquial phrases. Such situations usually occur while translating some dialogues when characters interchange utterances of sub neutral stylistic level and the translator must confer the same colouring to the target text.
| …– Not even in a joke…[1] | …– Да, тут шутки плохи … [2] |
| Colloquial phrases are one of the most difficult matters to be translated because the target phrase must correspond with the source one in expressiveness, it must be of lower style. The key word for translation of this particular phrase became the word “ joke ”. The translator managed to find the equivalent phrase in Russian and the translated phrase sounds as idiomatic as the original one in English. Translation is at sentence level because the syntactical structure and set of lingual units were changed. | |
A translator can employ paraphrasing to reach the equivalent energy of the phrase or render the atmosphere and the mood which are relevant to the situation described.
| …I understand that… [1] | …Ясно…[2] |
| The translation was effected at the sentence level and the sentence with a finite verb was translated with an adverb in Russian that is an impersonal sentence. | |
| …Look at the seal. – he said…[1] | …Что эта за печать?…[2] |
Imperative Mood and an exclamatory sentence were transformed into Indicative and an interrogative sentence though a rhetorical one. Such transformations occur when translating colloquial sentences and immediate utterances. Actually, the present example can be considered as a case of concretization because the translator made the idea of exclamation more exact and showed that the speaker had no idea of the seal but didn’t ask whose it was, or some other reasons.
It is possible to point out the following concluding the subject of lexical transformations:
1. Word-building suffixes and prefixes are different in various languages in terms of their productivity and their additional meanings. The most productive English suffix –er is usually translated into Russian as a finite verb corresponding with the meaning of the verb form which the noun with –er was derived. Transformation of the noun with –er provoked some syntactical transformations as well.
2. Though there are more affixal formations in English than in Russian, Russian possesses more affixes of higher stylistic value than English does. In this respect a translator has to use lexical means introducing modal words and emotional lexis to reach adequate translation.
3. Various parts of speech and phraseology can be employed when English formations are translated in order to make an adequate translation. It concerns some set expressions which are typical of and natural for the target language.
4. It is important to know the literal style of the author because it limits the number of translation techniques and the translator makes conveying closer to the original. In this particular case, the translator should not have used grandiloquent lexis
