Chapter 10. Translation studies and lexis (cont.)

10.1. Lexical problems of translation at word-group level

Collocational aspect of words plays a very important role in translation, especially when translating from analytical languages such as English. When words occur together in speech they do so according to the combinatorial norms of a particular language, i.e. following the patterns of a given language. The contrastive analysis of collocational aspect of related words in English and in Russian shows that nationally specific features can be discovered in all types of word-groups including free (or variable) word-groups, phraseomatic and phraseological units that must be taken into account in translation.

English premodified noun phrases which are known in translation studies as attributive groups [Зражевская, Беляева 1972; Парахина 1982; Komissarov, Koralova 1990] are especially often used in written registers including publicistic and newspaper styles where they enable to express a very dense packaging of information (e.g. the brink-of-war policy, a take-it-or-leave-it resolution), in academic prose where they acquire a terminological character (the electric equipment supply, information processing activities, Stock Exchange Compensation Fund), in the style of fiction where they contribute to emotional and expressive properties of an utterance (She looked at me with a-please-leave-me-alone expression).

Premodified noun phrases are found both in English and in Russian, and yet there is a lot of difference between them in meaning, form and usage. Of great interest from a translator’s point of view are the so-called noun phrases with multiple premodifiers, e.g. formerly self-sufficient rural feudal economy.

The semantic structure of English premodified noun phrases is characterized by several features:

1) polysemy of a word group which is due to the polysemy of a pattern, e.g. Washington support admits of at least three interpretations – support rendered to smb by Washington, support rendered by smb to Washington, support rendered to smb by smb else in Washington;

2) a broad range of semantic relations between elements within a group which affects the way of translating a word group, e.g. war expenditure (relations of purpose), war profits (source or origin of smth), war suffering (relations of place), war heroes (qualifying relations).

In form English premodified noun phrases are characterized by a number of features:

a) they may be of two types according to the number of premodifiers: two member and multiple member phrases, e.g. wage deadlock, redundancy dismissals, on the one hand, and retail price index increase, risk assets rate, on the other.

b) premodifiers may be expressed by adjectives, participial modifiers, numerals, other nouns which are used in a great variety of forms within such groups, stumbling block (participial modifier), fifty thousand dollars bail (common case noun in the plural), Paris peace talks (a string of common case nouns in the singular), dollars’ worth (genitive noun plural or singular), Britain and China’s war of words (group genitives), guns-instead-of-butter nature of the economy (nominal syntactical complex), disastrous results (adjective), reform-minded Communists (compound adjectives), three-month United Nations World Trade and Development Conference (combination of various parts of speech).

c) Most English premodified noun phrases are formed on the principle of juxtaposition, with a very limited number of formal markers, e.g. ’s (last week’s march), hyphenation in noun syntactical complexes (soil-assessment competition).

The procedure of translating English premodified noun phrases includes 3 stages:

• identification of the semantic and structural centre of a phrase,

• semantic analysis of links between the members within a phrase,

• translation of blocks established within a phrase as a result of semantic analysis.

The identification of the centre of such groups does not cause any problems in most cases as it coincides with the noun head that is easily identified by its final (or pre-final) position. For purposes of translation it is necessary to take into account noun-headed phrases of 4 structural types premodified by:

1. general adjectives (official negotiations, political isolation),

2. ed-participial modifier (fixed volume, restricted area)

3. ing-participial modifier (growing problem, rising inflation rate)

4. nouns (stabilization fund, Square Mile).

True, in some cases the centre of such groups cannot be identified with its final position, e.g. unit length – единица длины, hence the multi-word term flow rate per unit length should be translated as расход на единицу длины. In such cases it is necessary for a translator to take into account the life situation, the context and apply specialist knowledge.

The semantic analysis usually moves from the phrasal centre, i.e. from the last word to the beginning of the phrase, but it often produces ambiguous results due to a wide range of meaning relationships when the exact relationship is not made explicit. This is particularly true of N + N + N +…sequences which according to D. Biber are used to express a bewildering array of logical relations amounting to 15 including location, specialization, time, source, content, identity, purpose etc [Biber et al 1999]. Thus the dense use of such phrases in an English text places a heavy burden on a translator who must infer the intended logical relationship and render it properly in translation. Some recommendations may be helpful to a translator:

1) the plural ending of a noun premodifier can serve as a signal of a complex noun phrase, e.g. the Senate Foreign Relations Committee;

2) noun modifiers that are closest to the head noun prove to be more integral to the identification, classification or description of the head noun referent, e.g. induced electromotive force;

3) not all multiple words in a premodification sequence modify the head noun directly, there are usually embedded relations when some words modify the other premodifiers, e.g. unusually thick naturally-coloured cardigan;

4) adjectives characterized by rather a wide combinability range (every, single, full, total, general, main, external, standard, large, new, old, conventional, local, minimum, normal, usual, uniform) do not always modify the central word in a phrase, e.g. the general contamination level of cities – общие уровни загрязнения для городов;

5) in cases of ambiguous meaning relationship within a phrase it is necessary to rely on one’s pragmatic knowledge which is also very helpful to interpret implicit information. This often happens when a translator is expected to possess sufficient working knowledge of current events which are most commonly associated with such semantic domains as government, business, education, the media, sports.

Translation of such phrases is done on the third stage and the translator generally moves from right to left. The order of Russian premodifiers can coincide with the position of respective English members especially if they do not play a vital role in the identification of the head word, e.g.:

A skid-mounted

local

pump motor starter

control panel

Установленная на салазки местная панель управления пусковым устройством электродвигательного привода насоса.

When dealing with actual multi-word complexes both on the stage of the semantic analysis and translation it is necessary to move in several directions in order to understand them properly and find adequate means of expression in TL, e.g. an old auxiliary mounting pad adapter – переходник старого вспомогательного монтажного фланца.

English premodified noun phrases can be translated in the following ways:

• by existing TL equivalent correspondences which may be full or partial, e.g. random sampling – случайная выборка, whole blood – цельная кровь;

• by borrowed translation including

1) transcription and / or transliteration, e.g. suggestive methods – суггестивные методы, protestant ethic – протестантская этика, surrogate mother – суррогатная мать;

2) translation loans, e.g. golden calf – золотой телёнок, strike warning – предупреждение о забастовке, securities investor protection corporation – корпорация по защите инвесторов в ценные бумаги;

• by variants, e.g. pink elephant – бред алкоголика (Russian equivalent), «розовый слон» (loan translation), чёртики в глазах (analogue);

• descriptive / periphrastic translation, e.g. disaster relief coordinator – координатор по оказанию помощи в случае стихийных бедствий; caustic test – опыт с щелочной обработкой воды.

When translating English premodified noun phrases into Russian a translator has to make a number of transformations caused by both linguistic and extralinguistic factors. In the latter case interlanguage discrepancies are due to the absence of respective notions in the notional system connected with cultural concepts, new coinages, etc. Numerous changes in translation can be made on various levels: lexical, grammatical, lexico-grammatical. Among the most frequent transformations it is necessary to mention grammatical and lexical substitutions of various kinds, repatterning, additions, deletions, etc depending on what language is chosen as a SL, e.g.

delivered duty paid – поставка до порта назначения с оплатой пошлины (parts-of-speech substitution, change of word order, addition of the prepositions and decompression).