13)Translation of Polysemantic Words

Different meanings of polysemantic words are revealed in the context. The term "context" is understood as the minimum stretch of speech diagnosing each individual meaning of the word. The context individualizes the meanings, brings them out.

The context reveals concrete or abstract meanings of a word, its direct or transferred meaning, e.g. the word "truth" is used in its concrete everyday meaning in the phrase "Tell me the truth" - «Скажи мне всю правду», while in the following sentence "To understand and to know the reality, it is necessary to have a theory of knowledge corresponding to truth (R. Fox, Marxism and literature) the word "truth" is used in its abstract philosophical meaning «истина». Для того, чтобы постигнуть и понять действительность, необходимо иметь теорию познания, соответствующую истине. In the following examples the context reveals direct and transferred meanings of the word "to cripple". "Smith was crippled in the war" - «Смит был искалечен на войне» (direct meaning), "Reactionaries cripple the national movement in Africa" - «Реакционеры подрывают национально освободительное движение в Африке» (transferred meaning).

The context also reveals a free or bound use of the word. He made a pace or two forward, (free) - Он сделал шага два вперед. Не kept pace with the times (bound) - Он не отставал от века. In this latter case the word "pace" forms part of a phraseological unity and is translated by a corresponding phraseological unity.

Here are some more examples. The adjective "brittle" developed a new figurative meaning used to describe "tone", "looks", "temper", etc.

"He has a brittle - easily loses his temper. (Hornby)

A brittle smile -деланная улыбка - (a forced smile) Kathleen was as white as Cade had been the day Scarlett called, white and hard and brittle( M. Mitchell) Катлин была бледна как Кейд в тот день, когда Скарлет заехала к ним. На её лице было застывшее, жестокое выражение. The context is not always limited to a minimum stretch of speech (microcontext). Sometimes macrocontext ( a paragraph, a chapter or even a whole book) is necessary for a correct interpretation of the meaning. Describing Becky Sharp Thackeray writes: "The wretched woman was in a brilliant full toilet". Knowing Thackeray's negative attitude toward Becky, of the two meanings of the word "wretched" - (1) несчастная, (2) негодная the latter should be used in the translation of this sentence: Негодная/коварная/ женщина была в ослепительном туалете.

14)§1. Metaphor and the phraseological unit

A phraseological unit is a set expression consisting of a group of words in a fixed order having a particular meaning, different from the meanings of each word understood on its own.166

Metaphor is a figurative expression, transferring the meaning from one thing to another based on their similarity: table legs – ножки стола; to strain one’s memory – напрягать память.

Phraseological units may be both metaphorical (keep to the beaten track – идти по проторенной дорожке; make a mountain out of a molehill – делать из мухи слона) and non-metaphorical (to live beyond one’s means – жить не по средствам; to take part in – принимать участие в). Metaphorical phraseology is usually called idioms.

Metaphors can belong to language and speech. Language metaphors (Дождь идет. I had my teeth capped because they were in a terrible state.) are common and hardly expressive. Normally, a native speaker is not conscious of the image, though foreign learners of the language often find it rather expressive, since its figurative meaning may be new to them. Dead metaphors are not difficult to translate, as they are provided by the dictionaries.

Speech metaphors are brighter, for they are mostly situational, individual metaphors: A stubborn and unconquerable flame creeps in his veins and drinks the streams of life.167 Спит Земля в сиянье голубом. Speech metaphors conjure up a certain image. They are called genuine metaphors.

Metaphors may be single (one word) and extended (a collocation, sentence, proverb, complete imaginative text).168

Language and speech metaphors may be prolonged or sustained. In this case their figurative meaning is livened up and played upon: It was raining cats and dogs and two little puppies fell on my writing table.

15)§4. ABBREVIATION

Abbreviation, or shortening a word, is one of the most noticeable features of the English language, and it is used both in formal and informal registers.

Based on the level of their usage, abbreviations can be divided into three groups:

* Graphical abbreviations, used only in writing, and, therefore, pronounced and translated in its full form. These abbreviations are widely employed in faxes: e.g., agst = against, f/b = feedback, ETA expected date of arrival, ETD = expected date of departure, etc. However, though rarely, some of these abbreviations enter the common stock of vocabulary and, pronounced in a shortened way, they become new words of the language: asap = as soon as possible, AGAP = As Gorgeous As Possible.

* Phonetic abbreviations, or a non-standard way of writing some common words based on their pronunciation; typical of advertising. For example, u = you, thru = through. Of the same type is the word OK (all correct). Normally, in translation this type of abbreviation is lost.

* Lexical abbreviations, including initialisms, spoken as individual letters (BBC, MP, USA); acronyms, pronounced as single words (NATO, UNESCO, AIDS; WAP = Wireless Application Protocol); clippings, or parts of words which serve for the whole (ad, phone, sci-fi = science fiction; m-commerce = mobile-commerce, business conducted over a mobile telephone system; e-bucks = electronic money); blends, or words made out of the shortened forms of two other words (brunch= breakfast + lunch, smog = smoke + fog, Eurovision = Europe + television; anetsitized = anesthetized + net + sit = numb from spending many consecutive hours on the Internet).Initialisms and acronyms may be rendered through transcription (BBC - Би-Би-Си, IBM – Ай-Би-Эм, IREX - АЙРЕКС), transliteration (NATO - НАТО, USIS – ЮСИС, UNESCO – ЮНЕСКО), or their full form can be translated with a calque and then abbreviated (USA – США, AIDS – СПИД, CIA – ЦРУ). To make the word clearer to the receptor, an abbreviation may be deciphered and/or explained: USIS – Информационная служба США, TESOL – международная ассоциация преподавателей английского языка как иностранного. To translate words of this type, it is necessary to consult a special dictionary of abbreviations, both monolingual (e.g., J. Rosenberg, McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Wall Street Acronyms, Initials & Abbreviations. – New York a.o.: McGraw-Hill, 1992;

A standard form of a translation, if it exists, should be used by a translator. It must be kept in mind that sometimes a standard form can require some shifts, for instance, a change of letters in the initialism: PRC (People’s Republic of China) – КНР (Китайская Народная Республика).

Clippings usually have a regular equivalent in the dictionary (ad – объявление, phone – телефон, sci-fi – научная фантастика).

Blends are either transferred into the target language (through transcription / transliteration (smog – смог), explained (brunch – плотный поздний завтрак; coffee-zilla < coffee + Godzilla – очень крепкий кофе), or substituted by an analog (physed – физкультура).

When translating abbreviations, one should pay attention to the style of the text. Whereas in English abbreviations are mostly neutral and can be used both in formal and informal speech, in Russian abbreviations are strongly separated by styles. For example, clippings are typical of very formal style: тяжмашстрой, совнархоз, универсам ; these require explanatory translation, which is sometimes combined with transcription. In informal speech, abbreviations with affixes are widely used: телик, видик, велик. As often as not, similar words exist in English: telly, bike. For видик, there is a shortened form, video (from video set).

Before suggesting a TL equivalent, it is important to find out the precise meaning of the word. Care should be taken of words that differ in various varieties of English, like the informal adjective dinky< which in British English means “small and attractive”: a dinky little bag, while in American English it has the antonymous meaning of “too small and often not very nice”: It was a really dinky hotel room.

16)Chapter 3. TRANSLATING TERMS