Translation and the Problems of Style Lecture1- 2 Outline

1. The Problem of Functional Styles

2. The Problem of Stylistic Devices.

1. The Problem of Functional Styles.

Style is the mode of expressing thought in writing or speaking by selecting and arranging words, considered mostly with respect to their clearness and effectiveness.

Thus, colloquial style refers to types of speech or to usages not on a formal level. It is characteristic of ordinary conversation rather than formal speech or writing. Informal means something devoid of formality, without strict attention to set forms, unceremonious, e.g. an informal manner of speaking.

Conversational style refers to a style used in the oral exchange of ideas, opinions, etc.

Literary style is a style pertaining to books and writing, especially those classed as literature.

There are five major functional styles in the literary English language. They are:

1. the language of belles-lettres,

2. the language of publicistic literature,

3. the language of newspapers,

4. the language of scientific documents,

5. the language of official documents.

Texts belonging to different functional styles are characterized by a number of distinctive features:

• the composition of the text,

• syntactic and semantic structure of the text,

• the choice of linguistic devices of each type of the text.

Each functional style is subdivided into a number of substyles.

The belles-lettres style has the following substyles:

1. the style of poetry,

2. the style of emotive prose,

3. the style of drama.

The publicistic and newspaper styles comprise the following substyles:

1. the style of oratory,

2. the style of essays,

3. the style of featured articles in newspapers and journals.

d. the style of brief news items and communiques,

e. the style of newspaper headings,

6. the style of notices and advertisements.

Ukrainian (U) and English (E) newspaper texts are characterized by such common features as:

а) abundance of clichés (block l-ge), e.g. on the occasion of, in reply to, in a statement of, etc.

b) the use of the constructions V+that while referring to other people’s statements ot commenting the statements of political leaders, e.g.: The paper argues that this decision will seriously handicap the country's economy.

c) the use of the phraseological units V+N instead of verbs, e.g.: to have a discussion instead of to discuss, to give support instead of to support

d) abundance of neologisms formed with the help of some productive suffixes and prefixes, e.g.: -ism (Thatcherism), -ist (Gaullist), -ize (to atomize), -ite (Glasgovite), -ation (marshallization), anti- (anti-American campaign), pro- (pro-Arab movement), Inter- (inter-European relations)

e) wide use of impersonal expressions as the introduction of statements, e.g.: it is generally believed that, it is officially announced that, it is rumoured that - …………..

 f) abundance of abbreviations, e.g.: М.Р. = Member of Parliament, Т.U.С. = Trade Union Congress

The syntax of both E. and U newspaper texts is generally simpler than that of scientific/technical l-ge. The newspaper text is subordinated to the general requirement of brevity and conciseness of the layout, which is vividly expressed in newspaper headlines.

U and E newspaper texts are characterized by several distinctive features:

1. U headlines are mostly based on noun phrases while E headlines favour verb phrases:

e.g. Kidnapped General Escapes

2. E headlines use the Present for Past:

e.g. Government Resigns

3. E headlines are full of the so-called “headline words” covering a wide semantic area,

e.g. quit = abandon, withdraw, leave, give up

appeal = bid, try, attempt, initiate, condemn, expose,

whose tr-n usually depends on the context of the whole item

4. The most typical sequence of elements in U lead is as follows:

source + message,

e.g. Як сповіщає агентство ЮПІ, наступний тур голосування відбудеться завтра

In E it is usually message + source,

e.g. The next round of voting will take place tomorrow, the UPI reports.

5. In E the message is typically presented in the following order: event + place+ time, whereas the word order in U lead is often inverted: time + place + event

e.g. Вчора у Вашінгтон прибув посол ...

6. Some E newspaper clichés have parallels in the TL (“trial balloon” – “пробна куля”), but some tend to be polysemantic,

e.g. communication gap – either “відсутність інформації” or “некомунікабельність”

7. Stylistic modifications of newspaper texts are necessary in tr-n as E style here is more colloquial/neutral while U are more bookish/official,

e.g. The secretary told the news conference that…

На прес-конференції секретар заявив/повідомив, що ...

8. Sometimes the tr-tor has to compress or expand the text. It may involve a re-grouping of semes (semantic components):

• Expansion/addition: Could you illustrate this thesis? - Чи не пояснили б ви цю тезу на прикладі?

After Paris or London Washington, D.C. looks provincial - Тому, хто побував у Парижі чи Лондоні, Вашингтон здається провінційним містом

• Compression/ommision: Комітет захисту миру - Peace Committeee

The official document style can be divided into four varieties:

1. the style of diplomatic documents,

2. the style of business documents,

3. the style of legal documents,

4. the style of military documents.

In a way translation of official documents is the opposite of literary artistic translation in what concerns the freedom of translator’s actions and choices. Literary translation is more art than craft. It is unique and unprecedented, it cannot be standardized and obeys almost no rules.

On the other hand, the texts of official documents are highly standardized: this applies both to the structure of the whole text (macrostructure) and to the arrangement of individual paragraphs and sentences (microstructure). At the macro level and official document usually consists of a preamble, main text (body) and a finalizing (concluding) part.

In modern linguistics standard text structures intended for information presentation at different l-ge levels are referred to as frames. A frame is understood as a ser language structure with changeable elements. The changeable elements within a text frame are called slots, e.g.