Translation of phraseological units

1. Phraseological unities

There are 4 groups of phraseological unities according to the principles of translation:

• Phraseological unities, which have Russian counterparts with the same meaning and similar images. They can often be traced to the prototype: biblical, mythological, sayings etc.

*Not all that glitters is gold.

• Phraseological unities, which have the same meaning but express it through a different image:

To many cooks spoil that broth – У семи нянек дитя без глазу

The equivalents having a local color should be avoided:

*To carry coals to New Castle” – заниматься пустым делом

• Phraseological unities, which have no equivalents in Russian and are rendered by explanation.

Little pitchers have long ears – дети любят слушать разговоры взрослых

• Phraseological unities, which have word equivalents:

shake a leg – отплясывать

hang fire – медлить, мешкать

2. Phraseological fusions. They are usually interpreted.

*To show the white feather – проявить себя трусом

*To dine with duke Humphrey – остаться без обеда

Sometimes these fusions have equivalents in the TL

*Red tape – волокита, бюрократия

The meaning of phraseological fusion may often be rendered by a series of alternative phrases.

*to get the whole hog – делать что-либо основательно; доводить до конца; не останавливаться на полумерах; идти на все

3. Phraseological collocations.

*To take part, to throw a glance, to take one’s temperature

Translating grammar phenomena

The problem of translating grammar phenomena is important bcos while doing it one develops an insight into the meaning of the course as such. Grammar is not only form it is also meaning. Some scholars think that grammar creates no problems and the way an utterance is shaped grammatically is none of translator’s business, because his domain is meaning. But it is not true, because rendition of the meaning depends on the form as well. We should rely not only on the meaning of the words but on the relations among them, which is what grammar takes care of. So the lexical meaning of words goes hand in hand with the grammatical meaning. But the matter is that grammatical phenomena in most cases are not translated exactly, e. g. articles.

*Give me a Dickens to read. – что-нибудь из Диккенса

Here the article is not only the form; it’s also the meaning.

The grammatical form is a matter of equivalents and we may say that it is as important as the lexicon or vocabulary. There are grammatical phenomena that do not exist in the TL. And other meanings and other forms should render them. All these cases may be divided into 3 groups:

• English and Russian belong to the same Indo- European family of languages, so many categories are present in both languages (number, gender, tense). These categories belong to grammatical commonalities (грамматические соответствия).

• The group of optional correspondences (перекрестные соответствия).

*The book the teacher mentioned (= mentioned by the teacher) explains the essence of the law discovered by Newton (= which Newton discovered)” – книга, упомянутая учителем (= которую упомянул учитель)

Participial constructions and attributive clauses are interchangeable so we are guided by the principle of good style when we use one of the constructions.

• The group, which comprises the cases that correspond to one or two meanings in the TL. This is a partial equivalent.

*Six people were detained during the rally (беспорядки). Four of them had been released under a recent amnesty”

We may have complete equivalents when we have to deal with lexical items, but grammatical equivalents are more general by nature. Sometimes the choice of the translator depends not so much on he structure of the sentence as on the words that make the structure. In this case we speak more of lexical-grammatical correspondence rather than grammatical correspondence.

I have a book – есть книга

He had a check to say it – имел наглость

I have some grounds to believe – есть основания

I have the honor to inform you – имею честь

The structure “я имею” is preserved in some cases, therefore we should observe a very important rule: if an object is presented by a noun and this noun has a concrete meaning or denotes a living being the structure “у… есть” is used. But if an abstract noun presents the object, the English structure is preserved; we render the grammatical meaning by lexical means.

There are 3 cases of syntactical difficulties:

• The TL doesn’t possess the grammatical structure that can be adequate to those of the SL

*The weather being good we went out for he walk

Sometimes complete restructuring is of paramount importance

*I saw him run

We need a larger context to express the meaning (бегал, убегал, побежал).

• The meanings of the structure in both languages don’t correspond

*What is important is that both the steel industry was increased and the new technical processes were introduced. – наиболее важным является увеличение масштабов сталелитейного производства и внедрение новых технологий

• The group includes structures whose meaning is absolutely different in both languages.

I haven’t taught for a long time (= I don’t have the necessary experience)

I haven’t been teaching for a long time

The elements of the grammatical structure, such as affixes, inflexions, derivatives, syntactic patterns, word order, functional words serve to carry meanings which are usually referred to grammatical meanings as distinct from lexical meanings, so the rendering of such meanings is an important problem relating to the general problem of translation equivalents.

Grammar is overall system; it is part of the bigger system, which every language possesses. It can be easily classified into categories. There is a certain discrepancy between a norm and a usage of the elements of grammatical structure that presents challenges for the translator. When we cannot find equivalents we can speak about adequate translation. We can speak of partial equivalents, which is that the meanings expressed by grammatical forms though seemingly identical coincide only in part of their meaning & differ in other parts.