It is obvious that there can be no equivalence if the original text is clear and unequivocal while its translation is obscure and hard to understand.

Discussing the problem of equivalence at different levels, we have emphasized the necessity of making the translation as understandable and intelligible as the original text is. We have also taken care to include in the overall meaning of the text all its emotional, figurative and associative implications. The pragmatic adaptation of this kind is an integral part of translation procedures which ensure the necessary level of equivalence.

The pragmatics of the text, which are linguistically relevant and depend on the relationships between the linguistic signs and language users, are part of the contents of the text. It is a meaningful element whose preservation in translation is desirable at any level of equivalence. It is reproduced in translation if TR gets the whole information about the pragmatic aspects of the original text and the pragmatics of the original text are just as accessible and understandable to him as they are to SR. This does not imply that he will be actually influenced by this information or react to it in the same way.

Apart from the pragmatics of linguistic signs, there are also the pragmatics of individual speech acts. In a concrete act of speech the Source has to do with the specific Receptor upon whom he tries to produce the desired effect, and from whom he would like to elicit the desired reaction.

This second type of pragmatics is also present in translation events. A translation event is a kind of speech act and it is performed with a certain pragmatic purpose as well. But here we are confronted with a more complicated process than in ordinary speech.

A translation event is pragmatically oriented in two directions. On the one hand, it is translation which means that its primary purpose is to give the closest possible approximation to the original text. This orientation towards a foreign text is one aspect of its pragmatics.

But on the other hand, a translation event is a concrete speech act in the target language. Therefore, it is not just an act of interlingual communication between the Source and TR, but also an act of speech communication between the Translator and TR. This involves two important implications. First, a translation event may be pragmatically oriented toward a concrete TR, and, second, it is the result of the activities of a concrete translator, who may have some additional pragmatic motivation, may pursue some aims beside and beyond the true reproduction of the original text.

As long as translation is not just an exercise in producing an equivalent text in another language but a pragmatic act under specific circumstances, its results can be assessed both in terms of its loyalty to the original and its ability to achieve the purpose for which it has been undertaken. This necessitates the introduction of the concept of the “pragmatic value” in translation, which assesses its success in achieving this pragmatic super-purpose.

As has been pointed out, the additional pragmatic goal of the translation event may depend either on the particular type of TR or on the translator’s designs beyond his call of duty as a no-nonsense transmitter of the original message.

The users of the translation often make judgements of its quality exclusively on its merits as an instrument in achieving some specific aim. If in doing it, the translation departs from the original text, so much the worse for the latter.

In this way the pragmatics of translation acquire a new dimension. E. Nida introduced the concept of “dynamic equivalence” which should be judged not against the original but against the Receptor’s reactions. For many practical purposes the process of translation is predominantly oriented towards TR. So, translation of the maintenance instructions is considered good if, after reading it, a technician will be able to operate the appropriate piece of machinery correctly.

Sometimes books written for adults are translated for children’s reading with appropriate alterations made in the course of translation. Presumably any text should be differently translated depending on whether it is for experts or laymen, for staging or screening, and so on.

As to the specific aims pursued by the translator, they may also bring about considerable changes in the resulting text with no direct bearing on the original. Each translation is made in a certain pragmatic or social context, and its results are used for a number of purposes. The translator is assigned his task and paid for it by the people for whom his work is not an end in itself but an instrument for achieving some other ends. Aware of this, the translator tries to make his work meet these “extra-translational” requirements, introducing appropriate changes in the text of translation. Sometimes these changes are prompted by the desire to produce a certain effect on the Receptors, which has already been mentioned.

The specific goal, which makes the translator modify the resulting text, often means that, for all practical purposes, he assumes an additional role and is no longer just a translator. He may set himself some propaganda or educational task, he may be particularly interested in some part of the original and wants to make a special emphasis on it, he may try to impart to the Receptor his own feelings about the Source or the event described in the original. In pursuance of his plans the translator may try to simplify, abridge or modify the original message, deliberately reducing the degree of equivalence in his translation.

It is clear that such cases go far beyond the inherent aspects of translation and it is not the task of the translation theory to analyse or pass a judgement on them. But the translator should be aware of this possibility for it will have an impact on his strategy.

In many types of translation any attempt by the translator to modify his text for some extra-translational purpose will be considered unprofessional conduct and severely condemned. But there are also some other types of translation where particular aspects of equivalence are of little interest and often disregarded.

When a book is translated with a view to subsequent publication in another country, it may be adapted or abridged to meet the country’s standards for printed matter. The translator may omit parts of the book or some descriptions considered too obscene or naturalistic for publication in his country, though permissible in the original.

In technical or other informative translations the translator or his employers may be interested in getting the gist of the contents or the most important or novel part of it, which may involve leaving out certain details or a combination of translation with brief accounts of less important parts of the original. A most common feature of such translations is neglect of the stylistic and structural peculiarities of the original. In this case translation often borders on retelling or precis writing.

A specific instance is consecutive interpretation where the interpreter is often set a time limit within which he is expected to report his translation no matter how long the original speech may have been. This implies selection, generalizations, and cutting through repetitions, incidental digressions, occasional slips or excessive embellishments.

It is obvious that in all similar cases the differences which can be revealed between the original text and its translation should not be ascribed to the translator’s inefficiency or detract from the quality of his work. The pragmatic value of such translations clearly compensates for their lack of equivalence. Evidently there are different types of translation serving different purposes.

6. MAIN TYPES OF TRANSLATION

Though the basic characteristics of translation can be observed in all translation events, different types of translation can be singled out depending on the predominant communicative function of the source text or the form of speech involved in the translation process. Thus we can distinguish between literary and informative translation, on the one hand, and between written and oral translation (or interpretation), on the other hand.

Literary translation deals with literary texts, i.e. works of fiction or poetry whose main function is to make an emotional or aesthetic impression upon the reader. Their communicative value depends, first and foremost, on their artistic quality and the translator’s primary task is to reproduce this quality in translation.

Informative translation is rendering into the target language non-literary texts, the main purpose of which is to convey a certain amount of ideas, to inform the reader. However, if the source text is of some length, its translation can be listed as literary or informative only as an approximation. A literary text may, in fact, include some parts of purely informative character. Contrariwise, informative translation may comprise some elements aimed at achieving an aesthetic effect. Within each group further gradations can be made to bring out more specific problems in literary or informative translation.

Literary works are known to fall into a number of genres. Literary translations may be subdivided in the same way, as each genre calls for a specific arrangement and makes use of specific artistic means to impress the reader. Translators of prose, poetry or plays have their own problems. Each of these forms of literary activities comprises a number of subgenres and the translator may specialize in one or some of them in accordance with his talents and experience. The particular tasks inherent in the translation of literary works of each genre are more literary than linguistic. The great challenge to the translator is to combine the maximum equivalence and the high literary merit.

The translator of a belles-lettres text is expected to make a careful study of the literary trend the text belongs to, the other works of the same author, the peculiarities of his individual style and manner and sn on. This involves both linguistic considerations and skill in literary criticism. A good literary translator must be a versatile scholar and a talented writer or poet.

A number of subdivisions can be also suggested for informative translations, though the principles of classification here are somewhat different. Here we may single out translations of scientific and technical texts, of newspaper materials, of official papers and some other types of texts such as public speeches, political and propaganda materials, advertisements, etc., which are, so to speak, intermediate, in that there is a certain balance between the expressive and referential functions, between reasoning and emotional appeal.

Translation of scientific and technical materials has a most important role to play in our age of the revolutionary technical progress. There is hardly a translator or an interpreter today who has not to deal with technical matters. Even the “purely” literary translator often comes across highly technical stuff in works of fiction or even in poetry. An in-depth theoretical study of the specific features of technical translation is an urgent task of translation linguistics while training of technical translators is a major practical problem.

In technical translation the main goal is to identify the situation described in the original. The predominance of the referential function is a great challenge to the translator who must have a good command of the technical terms and a sufficient understanding of the subject matter to be able to give an adequate description of the situation even if this is not fully achieved in the original. The technical translator is also expected to observe the stylistic requirements of scientific and technical materials to make text acceptable to the specialist.

Some types of texts can be identified not so much by their positive distinctive features as by the difference in their functional characteristics in the two languages. English newspaper reports differ greatly from their Russian counterparts due to the frequent use of colloquial, slang and vulgar elements, various paraphrases, eye-catching headlines, etc.

When the translator finds in a newspaper text the headline “Minister bares his teeth on fluoridation” which just means that this minister has taken a resolute stand on the matter, he will think twice before referring to the minister’s teeth in the Russian translation. He would rather use a less expressive way of putting it to avoid infringement upon the accepted norms of the Russian newspaper style.

Apart from technical and newspaper materials it may be expedient to single out translation of official diplomatic papers as a separate type of informative translation. These texts make a category of their own because of the specific requirements to the quality of their translations. Such translations are often accepted as authentic official texts on a par with the originals. They are important documents every word of which must be carefully chosen as a matter of principle. That makes the translator very particular about every little meaningful element of the original which he scrupulously reproduces in his translation. This scrupulous imitation of the original results sometimes in the translator more readily erring in literality than risking to leave out even an insignificant element of the original contents.

Journalistic (or publicistic) texts dealing with social or political matters are sometimes singled out among other informative materials because they may feature elements more commonly used in literary text (metaphors, similes and other stylistic devices) which cannot but influence the translator’s strategy. More often, however, they are regarded as a kind of newspaper materials (periodicals).

There are also some minor groups of texts that can be considered separately because of the specific problems their translation poses to the translator. They are film scripts, comic strips, commercial advertisements and the like. In dubbing a film the translator is limited in his choice of variants by the necessity to fit the pronunciation of the translated words to the movement of the actor’s lips. Translating the captions in a comic strip, the translator will have to consider the numerous allusions to the facts well-known to the regular readers of comics but less familiar to the Russian readers. And in dealing with commercial advertisements he must bear in mind that their sole purpose is to win over the prospective customers. Since the text of translation will deal with quite a different kind of people than the original advertisement was meant for, there is the problem of achieving the same pragmatic effect by introducing the necessary changes in the message.

Though the present manual is concerned with the problems of written translation from English into Russian, some remarks should be made about the obvious classification of translations as written or oral. As the names suggest, in written translation the source text is in written form, as is the target text. In oral translation or interpretation the interpreter listens to the oral presentation of the original and translates it as an oral message in TL. As a result, in the first case the Receptor of the translation can read it while in the second case he hears it.

There are also some intermediate types. The interpreter rendering his translation by word of mouth may have the text of the original in front of him and translate it “at sight”. A written translation can be made of the original recorded on the magnetic tape that can be replayed as many times as is necessary for the translator to grasp the original meaning. The translator can dictate his “at sight” translation of a written text to the typist or a short-hand writer with TR getting the translation in written form.

These are all, however, modifications of the two main types of translation. The line of demarcation between written and oral translation is drawn not only because of their forms but also because of the sets of conditions in which the process takes place. The first is continuous, the other momentary. In written translation the original can be read and re-read as many times as the translator may need or like. The same goes for the final product. The translator can re-read his translation, compare it to the original, make the necessary corrections or start his work all over again. He can come back to the preceding part of the original or get the information he needs from the subsequent messages. These are most favourable conditions and here we can expect the best performance and the highest level of equivalence. That is why in theoretical discussions we have usually examples from written translations where the translating process can be observed in all its aspects.

The conditions of oral translation impose a number of important restrictions on the translator’s performance. Here the interpreter receives a fragment of the original only once and for a short period of time. His translation is also a one-time act with no possibility of any return to the original or any subsequent corrections. This creates additional problems and the users have sometimes; to be content with a lower level of equivalence.

There are two main kinds of oral translation — consecutive and simultaneous. In consecutive translation the translating starts after the original speech or some part of it has been completed. Here the interpreter’s strategy and the final results depend, to a great extent, on the length of the segment to be translated. If the segment is just a sentence or two the interpreter closely follows the original speech. As often as not, however, the interpreter is expected to translate a long speech which has lasted for scores of minutes or even longer. In this case he has to remember a great number of messages and keep them in mind until he begins his translation. To make this possible the interpreter has to take notes of the original messages, various systems of notation having been suggested for the purpose. The study of, and practice in, such notation is the integral part of the interpreter’s training as are special exercises to develop his memory.

Sometimes the interpreter is set a time limit to give his rendering, which means that he will have to reduce his translation considerably, selecting and reproducing the most important parts of the original and dispensing with the rest. This implies the ability to make a judgement on the relative value of various messages and to generalize or compress the received information. The interpreter must obviously be a good and quickwitted thinker.

In simultaneous interpretation the interpreter is supposed to be able to give his translation while the speaker is uttering the original message. This can be achieved with a special radio or telephone-type equipment. The interpreter receives the original speech through his earphones and simultaneously talks into the microphone which transmits his translation to the listeners. This type of translation involves a number of psycholinguistic problems, both of theoretical and practical nature.

7. TECHNIQUES OF TRANSLATION

The study of the linguistic machinery of translation makes it possible to outline the main principles of the translator’s strategy.

When confronted with the text to be translated, the translator’s first concern is to understand it by assessing the meaning of language units in the text against the contextual situation and the pertaining extralinguistic facts. At the same time the translator must take care to avoid “thinking into” the text, i.e. adding the information which is not, in fact, present in ST.

Let us illustrate this procedure by a few examples. Suppose we have the following sentence: ‘The Union executive committee passed a resolution advising the workers to “sit-out” elections where neither party offers a candidate whom labor could support.” Translating this sentence the translator has to solve a number of problems, trying to get to the meaning of some words or word combinations. He has two main pillars to sustain his judgements: the basic meaning of the unit and the contextual situation. Consider the phrase “to sit out the elections”. The basic meaning of “to sit our” is clearly the opposite of “to sit in”. One can obviously “sit in the house, the car, the shade”, etc. or to “sit out of them”, i.e. to be or stay outside some place or space. On the other hand, “to sit out a dance” means not to dance, that is, not to take part in this kind of activities. True, it often implies that you do it unwillingly, that you are just not invited to dance. In our case the workers are recommended to sit out elections by their own will, to show their disapproval of the candidates offered by the two parties. We may conclude that the workers are advised not to go to the polls or to boycott the elections.

Now what is the “Union executive committee” that made the recommendation? Theoretically speaking, any kind of union may have done it. But for practical purposes the translator will take into account the following considerations. First, it is clear that it is some kind of labor organization. Second, it is a union whose activities are directed by an executive committee. Third, the word “union” is often used as a short form for “trade-union” (cf. “a union card”, “a union member”, etc.). All these facts fit well together, while other possible meanings of “union” (cf. “Union Jack”, “union suit” and the like) are obviously out of place. Thus it can be safely concluded that the translation should be «исполнительный комитет профсоюза».

Such conclusions are often made by the translator. What are “out-of-this-world meat prices”? “Meat prices” are prices you buy your meat at, but what is “out of this world”? Evidently, such prices are not “in this world”, i.e. they are not found in it or not common to it. Thus the phrase implies “uncommon prices”. But the major and perhaps the only characteristics of any prices is that they are either high or low. “Uncommon prices” can be either uncommonly high or uncommonly low. Now if the original runs: ‘The people are worried on account of the out-of-this-world meat prices“, the choice is clear. Coming back to the linguistic form, the translator may observe that “out of this world” is a stronger way of putting it than is “uncommon”. It is closer to “extraordinary”, “fantastic”, “unheard of, etc. Accordingly, the translation will be «непомерные (баснословные, неслыханные и пр.) цены на мясо».

Of great importance is the translator’s ability to draw a line of demarcation between the exact information that can be really deduced from the text and the presence of several alternatives between which he cannot choose with sufficient certitude. Suppose a man is referred to in the original as “Price Stabilizer E. Arnall”. The words ‘Trice Stabilizer” are obviously used here as a sort of title. This can lead to a number of important conclusions. “Stabilizer” is obviously not an electrical appliance but “a man who stabilizes”. Since it is not an honorary title it should refer to the man’s position or occupation. The conclusion is that the man is concerned with the problem of price stabilization by virtue of his official duties. As these duties are mentioned as his personal title (observe the capital letters and the absence of the article), he cannot be an insignificant employee but is a man of high standing. He may be even the head of an office dealing with price-stabilization problems. But this is as far as our guesswork can go. We do not know the name of the office (a board, a committee, an agency, etc.) or whether its head (if E. Arnall is one) was referred to as director, manager or superintendent. Therefore we cannot use in the translation the words: «директор, управляющий, руководитель», etc. Nor can we give the name of his office. Unless we can find a way of getting the required information from some outside source, we shall have to stick to some noncommittal variant, e.g. «Э. Арнал, ведающий вопросами стабилизации цен».

In our previous discussions we have noted that the semantic analysis of the text must take into account both the immediate surroundings, i.e. the meaning of other words and structures in the same sentence, and the broad context which comprises the contents of the whole original text, whether it is a small extract, an article or a large book.

The information that can be gleaned from the original text should be supplemented by the translator’s knowledge of the actual facts of life. The words “out of this world” were translated above as «непомерно высокие» as we know that people are not ordinarily worried by prices being reduced.

Analyzing the contents of the original the translator makes the assessment of the relative communicative value of different meaningful elements. In most cases his professed aim is to achieve the closest approximation to the original, i.e. to reproduce its contents in all the details. As long as the linguistic or pragmatic reasons make it impossible and the translation involves a certain loss of information, the translator has not infrequently to choose between several evils. As often as not, one meaningful element of the original can be retained in translation only at the expense of omitting some other part of the contents. The translator has to decide what bits of information he is prepared to sacrifice and what elements of the original meaning are of greater communicative value and should be rendered at any cost.

The choice of the dominant aspect of meaning usually depends on the type of the text and the prevailing pragmatic considerations. While translating, for instance, figurative set expressions the translator may try to preserve their basic metaphorical meaning at the expense of other parts of the contents including the figure of speech that makes up the metaphorical structure of the collocation. In most cases the purport of communication is, first and foremost, to express a certain idea while the figurative way of expressing it is a kind of embellishment, a nice and pleasant luxury which can be dispensed with, if necessary. When “a skeleton in the family cupboard” becomes “a shameful family secret” in translation, there is certainly a loss in expressiveness, but the basic sense is well preserved. The metaphorical meaning will be chosen as the dominant part of the contents in most translations.

In a literary text the poetic or stylistic effect is no less important than the ideas conveyed. The same is true whenever the translator has to deal with a play on words or a sustained metaphor. In such cases the loss of the figurative element may make at least part of the text quite meaningless and it is often considered as the dominant component to be preserved in translation.

By way of example let us discuss the problems involved in the translation of a play upon words. Consider the following sentences:

“He … said he had come for me, and informed me that he was a page.” “Go “long,” I said, “you ain’t more than a paragraph.” (M. Twain)

It is clear that the second sentence would be meaningless but for the play upon the words “page” and “paragraph”. The same is true about its translation which will be unintelligible unless the play on words is duly reproduced in TL. This is the dominant goal which should be achieved at all costs even though it might involve some inaccuracies in the translation of other elements.

This is not an easy task but it is not impossible, either. Here is how it was done by N. Chukovsky:

Он сказал, что послан за мною и что он глава пажей, — Какая ты глава, ты одна строчка! — сказал я ему.

It is worthwhile to observe the method that is used to overcome the difficulty. The Russian equivalent for a page boy has no other meaning (or homonym) which is associated with any part of a book or other printed matter. So the translator introduces another word «глава» and on its basis recreates the original play upon words. It does not matter that in doing it he makes the boy the head of the pages which he was probably not. The accurate information about the boy’s official standing has obviously received a lower rating in the translator’s assessment than the preservation of the stylistic effect. This inaccuracy seems to be a lesser evil, since the dominant aspect of the original contents is duly rendered in translation.

Assessing the relative communicative value of various elements in the original, it should be borne in mind that translations are made at different levels of equivalence reproducing different parts of the original contents. The identification of the situation and especially the purport of communication are indispensable and are preserved in practically all translations. Naturally, it is these components that usually make up the dominant sense to be reproduced, if necessary, at the expense of the rest of the contents.

The purport of communication and the identification of the situation are not, as a rule, expressed by some particular words or structures but by the whole unit of speech. Therefore it is often the case that the general sense of the unit as a whole is of greater communicative value than the meaning of its individual elements. The translator is thus prepared to sacrifice the part to the whole, the meaning of an element to the meaning of the whole.

This predominance of the whole makes an imprint upon some of the techniques used by translators both for understanding the original text and for establishing a kind of semantic bridge to the translation. It can be observed that the translator first tries to get the most general idea of what is said in the original, to find out, so to speak, “who does what and to whom”, to understand the general semantic pattern or framework of the sentence and then fill in the particular details.

The translator may first resort to the word-for-word translation imitating the syntactic structure of the original and using the most common substitutes of all words. The same method can be used to facilitate understanding if the general meaning of the original text eludes the translator.

Thus the translating may begin with an imitation of the original structure in TL to see whether a word-for-word translation is possible or should be replaced by a different structure. In this way the translator decides upon the syntactic framework of his future translation. This technique is not infrequently used as the choice of lexical units may depend, to a large extent, on the syntactic pattern they fit into.

Let us give an illustration. Suppose the original sentence runs as follows: ‘The computer and the man-made satellite were, by all rules of heredity, conceived in the small Northern towns of England, the seat of the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century.”

The general idea is dear. The sentence implies that the Industrial Revolution initiated the technological progress which is today characterized by such outstanding achievements as computers and artificial satellites. The first step will be for the translator to try a parallel structure in Russian: «Компьютеры и тд. были созданы (зародились, появились, возникли и пр.) по всем законам наследственности…». It appears that no matter what lexical units are used within the structure, the Russian sentence will somehow imply that modern computers actually were built, invented, or at any rate thought of, in Britain as early as in the 18th century. Now the translator’s technique will be to draw up a list of Russian structures used to convey the idea that something which exists today can have its origin traced to much earlier time. He may think of such structures as «X уходит своими корнями в …», «Y положил начало X», «Здесь находится начало пути, который привел к X», «Здесь были посеяны семена, всходы которых привели к X», etc. Trying to fit the Russian variant into a meaningful whole with the phrase “by all rules of heredity”, the translator will probably choose the expression «X ведет свою родословную от Y».

The choice of the structure in translation often calls for a good deal of ingenuity and imagination on the part of the translator. He should be able to make an accurate assessment of the semantic possibilities of the given syntactic structure in order to see whether the latter can be used to convey the original meaning.

Suppose the English sentence is structured with the help of the verb “to add”, e.g.: “A new excitement was added to the races at Epsom Downs last year.” The problem is to decide whether in Russian it is possible to express this idea in a similar way, that is by saying that a feeling is added to a competition. If the translator finds it unacceptable as being alien to the semantic structure of the Russian language which seems to have less freedom in joining heterogeneous ideas within a syntactic structure, his second problem will be to think of the acceptable Russian way to say “the same thing”. Russian would reject “excitement added to the race”, but it permits such structures as “the race evoked a new excitement”, or “the race was more exciting”, or “the race was watched with greater excitement”, etc. Thus the translator can make his syntactic choice and then look for appropriate substitutes for “excitement”, “race” and other lexical units in the original.

A word of caution may be in order here. In the practical course of translation great pains are usually taken to teach the future translator to replace the original syntactical structures by using appropriate transformations which produce acceptable TL structures without any great loss of information. As a result, some translators get into the habit of turning every original structure inside out syntactically, irrespective of whether it serves any useful purpose.

It should be borne in mind that parallel TL structures are as good as any and they should by no means be avoided or considered inferior. On the contrary, the practical rule that the translator will do well to follow is that he should use the parallel structure whenever possible, and resort to syntactic or semantic transformations only if it is unavoidable.

Thus in all cases the translator makes a choice between a parallel structure and a transformed one in TL. Selecting the transformation to be used in a particular case he draws upon his knowledge of syntactic equivalents and the theory of equivalence.

The choice of the syntactical structure of the translated sentence often depends on the TL co-occurrence rules. The problem of co-occurrence is one with which the translator has not infrequently to come to grips in translating different word combinations, as the rules of combinability in SL and TL do not dovetail. This lack of correspondence limits the freedom of the translator’s choice and compels him to employ special techniques to overcome this barrier.

Translations from English into Russian give ample proof of the significance of this difference in co-occurrence. Just try to render into Russian such combinations as “a hopeful voice”, “a successful leader”, “a cooperative assistance”, etc. and you will see that they are easy to understand but cannot be translated “as they are” since the corresponding Russian words do not come together.

Dealing with such problems translators use one of the following methods: they either replace one or both members of the original combination to make possible the same type of structure in translation, or they transfer the dependent member to another structure, or they introduce some additional elements (words) through which the members of the combination can be joined syntactically.

Let us give examples.

- Some of these countries have established new constitutions.