6) Semantic paraphrase

Dealing with the transformation of meaning implies a semantic variation, or semantic paraphrase of the source language utterance. For example, the sentence in the original can be translated as if the situation were viewed from a different angle: He was not unlike his mother. – Он довольно похож на свою мать. He is my son. – Я - мать этого мальчика. Or some words of the source language sentence are paraphrased in translation: After her illness, she became as skinny as a toothpick. – После болезни она стала худая, как щепка. Or the target sentence can verbalize the idea in more detail than the source language sentence: Сегодня Борису не до шуток. – Boris is in no mood for joking today.

On this level of equivalence, the source and the target sentences have the same function (aim), they describe the same situation, and their meanings are approximately identical, whereas their grammar structures are different. As is known, the meaning of each word consists of semes, the smallest sense component. The set of semes in the source and target sentences is the same, but they are grouped differently and, therefore, are verbalized in different ways and do not have the same syntactic structure.

V. Komissarov states that on this level the two sentences match because they have approximately the same method of the situation description.45

7)Transformational equivalence

On this level, the target and the source language sentences manifest grammar transformations: the passive predicate can be translated by the active: The port can be entered by big ships only in tide. – Большие корабли могут заходить в порт только во время прилива. Likewise, part of speech can be changed in translation: We had a long walk. – Шли мы долго. Or the structure of the sentence can be modified: Jane was heard playing the piano. – Было слышно, как Джейн играла на пианино, where the sentence is translated by a complex one). Any other change of the grammar meaning within the sentence testifies to the equivalence on the transformational level, which is called by V. Komissarov the level of the invariant meaning of the syntactic structure.46

This level of equivalence presupposes retention of the utterance function, the description of the same situation, the same meaning of the source and target sentences, and a very close (but variable) grammatical meaning.

8) Lexical and grammatical equivalence

On this level, the most possible semantic semilarity between the source and target sentences is found: Every mother loves her children. – Каждая мать любит своих детей. I will write you every week. – Я буду писать тебе каждую неделю. As a matter of fact, this is a word for word translation where each word and the whole structure retains its lexical and grammatical meaning, the situation designated by the sentences is identical, and the communicative function of the utterances is the same. Every form of the target sentence is equal, with no variations, to that of the source language sentence.47 Therefore, this level might be called the level of formal equivalence.

THE LEVELS OF EQUIVALENCE HIERARCHY

The relationship between the levels of equivalence is not random. Each subsequent level presupposes a preceding one. Thus, the level of lexical and grammatical equivalence implies that the phrases have the same grammatical and lexical meanings (transformation and semantic equivalence), refer to the same situation, and have the same function. Phrases equivalent at the semantic level have similar semantics, describe the same situation and perform the same function; however, they do not have close grammatical meaning, since this level of equivalence is higher than the transformational level. Thus, the hierarchy observed between the level of equivalence is unilateral, the lower levels presupposing the higher ones, but not the other way about.

The hierarchy of levels does not imply the degree of evaluation. A lower level of equivalence does not mean a worse level. A higher level of equivalence is not a better one. A translation can be good at any level. This depends on a number of factors, such as the aim of the author, the requirements of the text, the perception by the receptor. What level of equivalence is better in translating the phrase The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain in the famous musical “My Fair Lady”? In Russian musicals Eliza pronounces another tongue twister: Карл у Клары украл кораллы, and it is much better than might be a word for word translation Дождь в Испании выпадает главным образом на равнинах, since the author’s (and the translator’s) aim was to show Miss Doolittle’s cockney speech but not convey the weather forecast. Pragmatics of translation seems to dominate all other aspects of this type of communication.

9. TYPES OF TRANSLATION TECHNIQUES

To transfer a form from one language to another with different alphabets, the translator either copies the form by the letters of the target language or changes it by making transformations.

Mechanical copying, or transfer, of the source language words includes:

• Transcription, or copying the sound form of the source language word by means of the target language letters: eau de cologne – одеколон, hake - хек;

• transliteration or copying the letters of the source language by the target language letters of another system: London – Лондон, Washington - Вашингтон.

Some linguists (V. Komissarov, for one) consider calque (blueprint) translation as mechanical copying. Calque is translation by parts: extralinguistic – внеязыковой, carry-out – на вынос, старовер – Old Believer. Since the calqued word is not just a mechanical borrowing of the form but it undergoes some changes, this device is, to some extent, an actual translation, which includes form transformations.

Translation transformations are complete changes of the appearance of a translated word, phrase, or sentence. In foreign translation theory, transformations are known as shifts of translation. Translation transformations can be of three categories:

• grammatical transformations,

• lexical (semantic) transformations,

• complex (lexical and grammatical) transformations.

TRANSLATION TRANSCRIPTION

Transcription is a method of writing down speech sounds.

It is essential to differentiate between a phonetic transcription and a practical (or translation) transcription. In a phonetic transcription, sounds are depicted by special symbols on the basis of their articulatory and auditory identity. A phonetic transcription is an intralinguistic operation, that is, it deals with only one language: Anchorage [`xNkqrIG], Oakland [`qVklxnd].

A practical transcription is an interlinguistic operation as it deals with two languages: the sounds of the source language word are rendered by the letters of the target languge: Anchorage – Анкоридж, Oakland - Окленд. Because the English (Latin) and Russian (Cyrillic) alphabets and sounds do not coincide, there are special rules48 for representing English sounds by Russian letters and Russian sounds by English letters.

The most important rules are as follows:

1. Transcribing English sounds with Russian letters:

• Interdental [q, D] correspond to the Russian Т: Thatcher – Тэтчер, Thackeray – Теккерей. Sometimes these sounds correspond to the Russian C, which is a bit outdated: Galsworthy – Голсуорси. In Greek words, the interdental sound is rendered by the Russian Ф: Athens – Афины, Themistocles – Фемистокл.

• The English [w] is transmitted by the letter У if followed by a vowel: William – Уильям, Wilder – Уайлдер. But when followed by the vowel [u], the consonant [w] is rendered by the letter В: Woolf – Вулф, Wodehouse – Вудхаус. However, there are some traditional cases of the sound [w] represented by the letter В: Washington – Вашингтон, Walter Scott – Вальтер Скотт. The same is true in reference to the borrowed (mostly German) names: Wagner – Вагнер, Wilhelm – Вильгельм.

• The English [h] can be represented in two ways: either by Х: Hailey – Хейли, or by Г: Hamilton – Гамильтон. Thus some words acquire two forms in Russian: Hoffman – Хофман, Гофман.

• [N] is transliterated by НГ: Jennings – Дженнингс.

• The vowel [з:] after the consonant corresponds to the Russian Ё: Burns – Бёрнс. In the beginning of the word, this sound is represented by the letter Э: Earl’s Court – Эрлз-Корт.

• [æ] is represented in Russian by Э/Е/А: Batman – Бэтмен, Jack – Джек, Glasgow – Глазго.

Russian sounds in English transcription are usually represented as follows:

• [j], represented in writing by the letter Й, corresponds to the English Y/I in the end of the word: Толстой – Tolstoy, Троцкий – Trotsky/ Trotski; to I in the beginning of the word: Йошкар-Ола – Ioshkar-Ola. If [j] makes part and parcel of a vowel letter (Е, Ё, Ю, Я) it is represented by Y or I: Енисей – Yenisei, Порфирьевич – Porfirievich, Югославия – Yugoslavia, Ялта – Yalta.

• The Russian [ж] is rendered by ZH: Житомир – Zhitomir.

• [х] corresponds to KH or, rarely, H: Находка – Nakhodka.

• [ц] is represented by TS: Целиноград – Tselinograd. Care should be taken, however, with foreign words: they usually have their native form: Цюрих – Zurich, Цейлон – Ceylon, Цзянси – Jiangxi.

• [ч] may correspond either to CH or to TCH: Чехов – Chekhov, Чайковский – Tchaikovsky.

• [щ] is represented by the cluster SHCH or SCH: Щелково – Shchelkovo.

• [ы] usually corresponds to Y: Куйбышев – Kuibyshev.

One should pay special attention to transcribing East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) words into English and Russian, especially when doing tertiary translation of Asian words from English into Russian or vice versa.

It is neccessary to remember that because of the difference in phonetic systems, East Asian sounds are designated differently in English and Russian. Thus, in Japanese words, the sound symbolized by the English sh is somewhere between [s] and [S]; therefore, in Russian it is transcribed by the letter C: e.g., Hiroshima – Хиросима, shogun – сёгун. The letter L can indicate the sound quality between [l] and [r]. For example, the name of the Korean president Kim Il Sung corresponds in Russian to Ким Ир Сен.

TRANSLITERATION

Abroad, transliteration, defined as writing a word in a different alphabet,49 is often associated with transcription.However, strictly speaking, the notion of transliteration is based on representing written characters of one language by the characters of another language.

There are a number of different systems for transliterating the Cyrillic alphabet. Different languages have different equivalents for Russian letters. Thus, the Russian name Лапшин can be rendered in English as Lapshin or Lapšin, in French as Lapchine, in German as Lapschin, in Italian as Lapscin, in Polish as Lapszyn. Even in English there are several systems for transliteration of modern Russian, which range from the system suitable for works intended for the general reading public to those suitable for the needs of special in various fields.

The major systems for transliterating Russian words into English are the British Standards Institution (BSI), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the Library of Congress (LC), and the Permanent Committee on Geographic Names (PCGN) systems.50 The chart in Appendix 1 will give the idea of the differences between these systems and will be helpful in practicing transliteration.

When transliterating, it is best to use the version which most closely approximates the source language word. Thus the forms ruble, kopek, tsar are preferable to the alternatives rouble, kopeck, czar.

The mute r is always transliterated in Russian: Morning Star – газета ’’Морнинг Стар” whereas the mute e is usually omitted: Fosse – Фосс.

Transliteration and transcription often compete, so that sometimes it is difficult to state how to render a word (especially a personal or place name) in the other language. But transliteration is preferred to transcription in bibliographical citations found in publications: Arakin, V. Sravnitelnaja tipologija anglijskogo i russkogo jazykov.

In the dispute between transcription and transliteration, some factors should be kept in mind:

• modern and outdated traditions: these days the English great physicist Newton is known in Russia as Ньютон (transcription), though in the 18th century M. Lomonosov wrote about Невтон (transliteration).

• national traditions: in the source language the form of a name can follow the spelling traditions of its original country. The target language form often follows the original pronunciation tradition: Mozart – Моцарт; Dvořak – Дворжак, Singer – Зингер.

Special attention should be given to transliterating Chinese words into Russian and English, especially in tertiary translation. There are two ways of transliterating Chinese syllables (and words) into English. In the English-speaking world since 1892 Chinese words have usually been transliterated according to a phonetic spelling system called Wade-Giles romanization, propounded by British Orientalists Sir Thomas Wade and Herbert Giles. Since 1958 another phonetic romanization known as Pinyin (spelling) has had official standing in the People's Republic of China, where it is used for telegrams, mass media and in education. Therefore a Chinese loan word can have two English scripts: e.g., Мао Цзэдун – Mao Zedong, Mao Tse-tung; Пекин – Beijing, Peking (in these words the difference in form is caused, beside the transliteration systems, by different dialect origins of borrowing). When translating words borrowed from Chinese, it is recommended to consult special charts of transliteration Chinese syllables (see Appendix 2).

The main principles of correspondence between English and Russian syllables in transliterating Chinese words are as follows:

• the English combination ng corresponds to the nonpalatalized Russian н, e.g. kung fu – кун-фу;

• the English n corresponds to the the Russian palatalized нь: fen – фэнь (фынь);

• the difference between voiced and voiceless consonants is phonologically irrelevant in Chinese; therefore, the Pinyin and Wade-Giles systems may differ: baihua, pai-hua – байхуа;

• in Pinyin, the vowel letter o before the non-palatalized ng corresponds to the Russian у; in the Wade-Giles it corresponds to u: e.g., Dong, Tung – Дун, Тун;

• the Russian Ж corresponds to the Pinyin R or Wade-Giles J (before front vowels): renminbi – женьминьби;

• care should be taken not to confuse the Pinyin palatalized J (Wade-Giles CH) corresponding to the Russian ЦЗ: Jiang (Chiang) – Цзян; in Japanese words the letter J before a front vowel corresponds to the Russian ДЖ / ДЗ’: jiu jitsu – джиу-джитсу, дзю-дзюцу;

• the nonpalatalized ЦЗ corresponds to the Pinyin Z or Wade-Giles TS: Zang, Tsang – Цзанг, Мао Цзэдун – Mao Zedong, Mao Tse-tung. The Japanese Z corresponds to the Russian ДЗ: Zen Buddhism – Дзэн Буддизм;

• the Pinyin palatalized X is equal to the Wade-Giles HS and corresponds to the Russian С: Xianggang, Hsiangkang – Сянган;

• the Pinyin palatalized Q (pronounced [tò]) is equal to the Wade-Giles CH and corresponds to the Russian Ц: Qinghai – Цинхай;

• the Pinyin ZH, equal to the Wade-Giles CH, corresponds to the Russian ЧЖ: Zhejiang – Чжэцзян.

CАLQUE TRANSLATION

Blueprint translation is the translation of a word or a phrase by parts:

kitchen-ette – кух-онька, brainwashing – промывка мозгов, AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) – СПИД (синдром приобретенного иммунодефицита), Залив Золотой Рог - Golden Horn Bay.

There can occur half-calques in cases where half of the word is borrowed through transcription or transliteration and the other half is translated: South Korea – Южная Корея, Old Jolyon – Старый Джолион.

Calque translation can be very tricky as it may result in “translator’s false friends”, i.e. misleading translations: high school – средняя школа (not высшая школа); restroom – туалет (not комната отдыха); дом отдыха – resort (not rest home).