FOCUS ON LANGUAGE

TRANSLATION

If you look up the word “to translate” in a monolingual dictionary, you will read something like “give the meaning of something said or written in another language”. This definition seems to be clear and simple but in fact translating is a very difficult and complex skill. There exist a few basic requirements that a translator (and/or interpreter) is to meet:

1) a good command of foreign and native languages which implies the knowledge of different language aspects – phonetic, grammatical, lexical and stylistic;
2) a good knowledge of customs, traditions and of the foreign country in question;
3) a decent knowledge of the subject that is especially important in the case of social and political journalism, scientific and technical literature;
4) a gift (which not all translators have) for translating fiction and poetry;
5) communicative, sometimes even theatric skills (for interpreters).

And still many experts in the translation art think that: “Точный перевод, по определению, невозможен уже в силу того, что разные языки отличаются как по грамматическому строю, так и по простому количеству слов, не говоря уже о различии культур, что тоже может иметь влияние на способ и результаты перевода. При этом, если сопоставительные грамматики и двуязычные словари существуют…, в том числе и для соотношения русского и английского языков, то практически не существует никаких сопоставительных справочников по культурам разных народов”. (Т.А. Казакова. “Translation Techniques. English – Russian” Практические основы перевода, с.9).
And what translation can be considered to be more or less exact?

“Точность есть максимальная близость к оригиналу при передаче как его содержания, так и формы, с соблюдением всех норм языка, на который делается перевод. Точность нельзя понимать формально... [Она] достигается равноценными заменами – грамматическими, лексико-фразеологическими и стилистическими... Характер точности может быть разным, в зависимости от характера переводимого текста... Но даже при максимальной близости (при переводе научных и официальных текстов) перевод никогда не должен быть буквальным.
Буквализм – это неправильно понимаемая точность, это рабское копирование иноязычных особенностей, ведущее к нарушению норм языка, на который делается перевод, или к искажению смысла, а зачастую и к тому и к другому вместе”. (Т.Р. Левицкая, А.М. Фитерман. “Теория и практика перевода с английского языка на русский”, с.16).

The outstanding Russian poet and translator of the 18th century, V. Kapnist, wrote: “Кто берется за перевод, тот принимает на себя долги, которые уплатить обязан, хотя не тою самою монетою, но такою же суммою”.
А. Pushkin emphatically denied literal translation in his article “О Мильтоне и Шатобриановом переводе “Потерянного рая”: “Нет сомнения, что, стараясь передать Мильтона слово в слово, Шатобриан, однако, не мог соблюсти в своем переложении верности смысла и выражения. Подстрочный перевод никогда не может быть верен”.
A good example of an “exact” translation of poetry is S. Marshak’s translation of the line “And strength by limping sway disabled...” from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 66 as “И мощь в плену у немощи беззубой...” The attribute “limping” (“хромой”) was substituted with the attribute “беззубый” which, bearing on the idea of physical feebleness, is equal from the point of view of imagery.
On the other hand, a literal translation without enough knowledge of Russian customs and gestures causes a comic effect in Leo Wiener’s translation of “War and Peace”:
“Графиня посмотрела на ногти и поплевала с веселым лицом, возвращаясь в гостиную”. (The doctor told her that Natasha was slowly recovering).
“The countess looked at her nails and spat out (плюнула), and returned to the drawing room with a happy face”.
Instead of a gesture which was thought in Russia to protect from the evil eye, the readers get a false impression of the customs and manners of the Russian nobility.
Inadequacy of literal translation may be illustrated by another example. In business correspondence, it is impossible to translate “Dear Sir” as “Дорогой сэр” and “Глубокоуважаемый господин Смит” as “Deeply respected Mr. Smith”, because it would be a violation of the rules of business etiquette.
Poor match of meanings is often the case if we compare two words in English and Russian, e.g. “стол” and “table”? If one is to translate “стол находок” or “стол” meaning “питание”, the word “table” disappears and in its place there will be “lost and found” and “board” respectively.
In general it may be said that “наиболе распространенной ошибкой нaчинающих переводчиков является стремление переводить пословно, то есть однообразно членить исходный текст или высказывание на отдельные слова, находить им соответствие на языке перевода и таким образом составлять переводной текст.” (Т.А. Казакова, с. 27).
“The case of “Он живет в Москве” and “He lives in Moscow” in which correspondence on both formal and semantic levels can be observed is an exception to the rule. One must be very careful when dealing with such seemingly simple sentences, because at first sight, an analogous, sentence “Она живет в ‘Астории’ ” corresponds to an absolutely different lexical-grammatical complex “She is staying at the Astoria”. The reason is that “жить” in Russian may be used in the meanings “жить в населенном пункте” and “жить в гостинице”, while in English “временное проживание в специальном помещении” is expressed by the verb “to stay”. Besides that, an aspectual-temporal specification is necessary: “to be staying”.
On the whole there is a world of difference between English and Russian. For example, on average, Russian words are longer than English words and Russian grammatical constructions are less laconic than English ones (e.g. the absolute participle construction, complex subject and complex object). That is why a Russian translation (or a Russian original text) is usually longer than its English “equivalent”.
One of the differences of paramount importance between the two languages is that of their word order.
Word order in English is of much greater importance than in Russian. Due to a wealth of inflexions, and because inflexions show the function of each word in a sentence, word order in Russian is rather free. As English words have hardly any inflexions and their relation to each other is shown by their place in the sentence and not by their form; word order in English is fixed. We cannot change the position of different parts of the sentence at will, especially that of the subject and the object.
To illustrate this we shall try to change the order of words in the following sentence.
Laura sees Tom.
If we put the direct object in the first place and the subject in the third, the meaning of the sentence will change altogether: the object will become the subject and vice versa.

In Russian such changes of word order are in most cases possible.
e.g. Гарри Каспаров занял первое место.
Первое место занял Гарри Каспаров.
Due to the absence of case distinctions, word order is practically the only means of distinguishing between the subject and the direct object in English.
Direct word order in an English declarative sentence is as follows:

1) the subject;
2) the predicate;
3) objects;
4) adverbial modifiers.
e.g. Mrs. Winter sent the little boy with a message to the next village one December day. (Hardy).

An adverbial modifier (especially if there is more than one adverbial modifier or if one wants to bring it into prominence) may be placed at the beginning of the sentence.
The inverted order of words is widely used when a word or a group of words is put in a prominent position, i.e. when it either opens the sentence or is withdrawn to the end of the sentence so as to produce greater effect. Thus, word order often becomes a means of emphasis. In this case inversion is not due to the structure of the sentence but to the author’s wish to produce a certain stylistic effect, to make the speech lively.

Теперь наступил момент для решительных действий.
“Теперь” placed at the beginning is not enough. As an adequate translation, one may perhaps use “именно теперь”.
Something needs to be added or is to be changed in the following sentence – Thus spoke Mr. Pickwick edging himself as near as possible to the portmanteau. (Ch. Dickens) – because “Так говорил мистер Пиквик” is stylistically neutral in Russian.
So inversion in English is a much more expressive means of the language than that in Russian.
Would you like to translate the following sentences with inverted word order and send us your variants by October 20. In one of the upcoming issues you will see our comments.

1. Out went Mr. Pickwick’s head again. (Ch. Dickens)
2. Eagerly I wished the morrow... (E.A. Poe “The Raven”)
3. Dimly and darkly had the sombre shadows of a summer’s night fallen upon all around, when they again reached Dingley Dell. (Ch. Dickens)
4. Suddenly in bounced the landlady: “There’s a letter for you, Miss Moss.” (K. Mansfield)
5. Bright eyes they were. (Ch. Dickens)
6. Passage after passage did he explore, room after room did he peep into! (Ch. Dickens)
7. The room was very still... On the table was a runner of gold threaded Chinese fabric, four magazines, a silver box and three gift-books. (S. Lewis).
8. Then came the dreaded night! (J. Galsworthy)
9. Not a second before ten o’clock came the Jameses. (J. Galsworthy)
10. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. (O. Wilde)

By Natalia Zilova