21.2. Sermon (Religious Genre)

Recently translators more often have to translate sermons – addressing to laymen, for a long time existing basically in oral variant. But this text is so specific, that experience of translation of other texts will not be helpful. Expansion of missionary work makes this problem so much actual as never before.

The main content of sermon is instruction (admonition), based on two cognitive items, uniting the priest (preacher), speaking on behalf of his church, and congregation (here – recipient). First of all, performance of this kind contains the text of the Holy Scripture, well-known to believers, as well as the information about the visual environment, typical household situations, familiar or new cases of daily life, used as a basis for admonition.

Means of implementing the communicative task are applied within strict framework of the canon. In all modern European languages one of its basic stylistic signs is the use of old literary norm of elevated style. In Ukrainian and Russian sermons there are very many archaic features, therefore while translating, the archaic stylization of the original should be strengthened in every possible way. Thus the translator should familiarize with the texts of similar sermons both in the language of original, and that of translation, without speaking about knowledge of the Bible.

The important feature of a sermon is the use of direct or latent citations from the Holy Scripture. One should to translate them, taking ready fragments from the available text of the Bible, and it is desirable not to resort to improvisation.

In sermons the Biblical names and toponyms (place-names), having steady traditional equivalents, are often mentioned.

Emotional influence of sermon is formed on rhetorical syntactic means: intonations, rhetorical questions, exclamations. But in translation rendering these features by equivalent means usually does not cause any difficulty.

Conclusions: Lexical and syntactic means of high archaic style, rendered by means of variant correspondence and transformations are the dominants of translating sermons. Biblical names and toponyms are rendered by traditional equivalents. Citations from the Bible are reproduced according to the initial text.

21.3. Art Criticism Genre (Lecture, Excursion, Report)

Art criticism genre includes performances, dedicated to fine arts, sculpture, architecture, theatre and cinema, where the author’s personality, emotional coloring and aesthetics play a significant role.

Cognitive function: standard terminology, terms are frequently invented by the author himself (neologisms), as well as the terms, used by a small group of the authors, professing similar aesthetic views.

Other means: absolute present tense, passive constructions, impersonal semantics of Subject, complex syntactic structures, means of compression (basically abbreviations) – are frequent enough. The background of literary norm which, gravitating to elevated style, covers a wide range of sub-styles, depending on individual style, and may include “fashionable words”, vernacular speech, slang, is distinguished. Syntax widely varies as well: from complex syntactic periods up to parceling. Means of formal cohesion are often absent, semantic cohesion is almost always present, but purely associative transitions from one micro-topic to another, which contain emotional-evaluative lexicon, emotional inversion, etc., are also registered.

Aesthetic information is presented by a great range of art means: expanded comparison, syntactic parallelism. When it is impossible to reproduce a stylistic figure in the place, where it is positioned in the original, translator may apply the device of positional compensation.

Conclusions: Dominants in translating such performance are the means which arrange the complex of three kinds of information:

• standard art criticism terms are rendered by means of mono-semantic, unequivocal equivalents;

• terms-neologisms are rendered through modeling according to word-formation model;

• professionalisms;

• absolute present tense, passive constructions, compression and other traditional means of arranging cognitive information may be transformed;

• specific version of literary norm is observed (with variant correspondences of vernacular speech, slang, “fashionable words”, high lexicon being preserved);

• complex syntactic periods, sentences are sometimes connected in associative manner – i.e. rendering by means of grammatical and variant correspondence;

• characteristic features of syntax, typical of individual author’s style (contrast of simple and compound sentences, prevalence of coordination), are reproduced by means of grammatical correspondences or positional compensation;

• lexical figures of style are reproduced with preservation of their semantic specificity and figurative structure;

• emotional-evaluative means are rendered by means of variant correspondences and, if necessary, transformations;

• precision information, basically alphabetic, – names, names of works, genres – is completely preserved;

• it is desirable to preserve foreign expressions (Latin, French).

Questions for discussion:

1. How is judicial two-way interpretation performed?

2. What are the specifics of interpreting in religious genre?

3. What should be known about interpretation in art criticism genre?

4. What differences should be specified concerning translation of lectures, excursions and reports in this genre?