Часть II. Тексты различной тематики для отработки навыков перевода

Раздел 1. Роль переводчика в современном мире. Язык и перевод.

Текст № 1

Упражнения перед переводом текста.

1. Найдите в тексте предложения с as и проанализируйте закономерности их передачи на русский язык.

2. Переведите следующие предложения:

1) There was a stampede to leave [from Cologne] as masses of refugees gathered with their few possessions at the Rhine bridges.

2) The civilian population had faced unspeakable horror as it fled in panic.

3)  China's military has set up a new logistics support force as part of efforts to reform and modernize the world's largest armed forces, state media has reported.

4) Reinhardt, a firm regime loyalist, wrestled with problems of conscience ... as he struggled to reconcile responsibility to those under his command with obedience to Hitler.

5) Rachel smiled at him as they took their seats on opposite sides of the table.

6) Join the conversation with people from around the world as they discuss the state of political affairs and the citizen uprising in Egypt.

7) They have done some amazing work to really revolutionize their curriculum in computer science so that it is friendly to women as well as men.

Interpreting: Perils of Palaver

When a Japanese sucks in his breath and tells a Westerner that "your proposal is very interesting and we will consider it carefully" — meaning, in a word, "no!" — what is the honest interpreter to say?

The answer is that the professional interpreter is duty bound to report the words of the Japanese as faithfully as possible. But according to Gisela Siebourg, who regularly interpreted for Chancellor Kohl of Germany, it would also be legitimate for the interpreter to draw his or her client aside after the conversation and explain the complexities of Japanese double-speak. It would depend on the degree of trust between the client and the interpreter, she said.

This illustrates the need for the interpreter to be taken into the client's confidence, Siebourg said. It also indicates the qualities required of an interpreter — the discretion of a priest in the confessional and the mental subtlety of a professional diplomat. Rule number one for the interpreter, she said, is never to repeat outside a meeting what was learned in it.

Siebourg is a president of the International Association of Conference Interpreters — set up in Paris in 1953 with 60 members, and now including 2,200 members — which is holding its triannual assembly here this week.

The association, which has worked since its inception to raise the standing of the interpreters' calling, thinks a lot about such ethical issues as well as seeking better working conditions for its members.

The profession is at least as old as the Book of Genesis in which Joseph outwitted his brothers by, as the book says, speaking "into them by an interpreter." But the modern practice of simultaneous interpretation through headphones dates only from the post-war Nuremberg trials and the formation of the United Nations.

Before that, even in the League of Nations, speakers had to pause at intervals to allow the interpretation — a process known as consecutive interpretation. This is still the method most often used in tete-a-tete conversations.

The method is not suitable for large modern conferences at which several languages are used simultaneously.

Interpreting often is, but ought not to be, confused with translating. The translator has time and a battery of dictionaries at his or her command in order to find the precise word. The interpreter, by contrast, has to get across the right meaning rather than the exact wording (формулировка) without a second's hesitation. This often requires a deep knowledge of culture as well as language, an ability to understand expression as well as content.

Diplomats such as former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq, who speaks excellent English, often work through interpreters either to conceal precise meaning or to give themselves time to think. In such cases, the interpreter must be careful not to go beyond the speakers' words, even if they make apparently little sense. As Confucius put it, "If language is not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success."

Being used as part of a negotiating ploy again points to the need for the interpreter to be taken into the diplomat's confidence. The interpreters association always tells clients that "if you are not prepared to trust an interpreter with confidential information, don't use one." The failure to provide in advance background information and specialized terminology involved in complex negotiations makes the interpreters' job all the more difficult, Siebourg said.

Several years ago the association — speaking either in English or French, its two working languages — started discussing improved contacts with colleagues in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe when the East was opening up. One difficulty is that the East European languages often contain no terminology to describe many of the private-market terms used in the West.

Russian interpreters also have practice of working from their own language into a foreign language, while most Western interpreters. Siebourg said, prefer to work from a foreign language into their mother tongue.

Barry James

Комментарии

sucks in his breath — втягивает дыхание;

duty bound = obliged;

draw aside — отвести в сторону;

double-speak — зд. что имеется в виду (см. "1984" by G.Orwell);

to be taken into confidence — завоевать доверие;

discretion of a priest in the confessional — такт исповедника;

mental subtlety — тонкость ума;

to raise the standing of the calling — зд. поднять престиж профессии;

Book of Genesis — книга Бытия (Библия);

outwitted — перехитрил;

to get across — передать;

expression as well as content — зд. форму и содержание;

ploy — уловка (ср. ловушка);

opening up — зд. расширяют связи

(Текст взят из Чужакин А. «Мир перевода-2»)

Текст № 2

Упражнения перед переводом текста:

A) Обратите внимание на предложения, подчеркнутые в тексте. Какую характерную особенность оформления сложноподчиненного предложения в английском языке они иллюстрируют?

B) Найдите в тексте Breaking the Language Barrier предложения, в которых дополнительная информация вводится причастным оборотом с предлогом with. Предложите варианты трансформации предложения для передачи таких оборотов.

C) Переведите следующие предложения:

1) By the early 21^st century, with the former KGB officer Vladimir Putin in power, Stalin was more alive in Russia than at any time since his death.

2) These are simply the common paper napkins you might find around the house or at most stores in the party goods section. They come plain and in patterns, with the patterned varieties tending to be thicker.

3) In 1996 geologists discovered a spectacular specimen [of fulgurite] in Florida, USA, with one branch that extended as deep as 5.2 m (17 ft) below the surface.

4) With American troops now openly stationed along Syria’s northern and southern borders, however, one tiny incident — real or staged — could spark a full-blown American invasion.

5) With 38 production sites around the globe (20 in Europe, 12 in North America and 6 in Asia), and a service network in over 100 countries, the SGL Group is a globally operating company. 

6) With about a third of votes counted, more than 99% of voters were in favour of retaining the holiday, officials said.

Breaking the Language Barrier

At a recent business dinner a chief executive was extolling the export achievements of his UK support services group. When China was mentioned, with regard to business, he looked askance at the very word. "God no," he said. "They don't even try to speak the language there."

Although there is some evidence of a growing awareness among UK companies of the importance of understanding other languages, their linguistic prowess still lags far behind that of European competitors.

Stephen Hagen, languages professor at the University of Wolverhampton and adviser to the UK's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), says, compared with its European partners, the UK is "the bottom of the pile of language ability."

Professor Hagen believes Europe's linguistic and cultural barriers are proving harder to break down than trade blocks. "There is a legal framework to enable us to export easily," he says. "The only thing that's preventing us from going further is that we don't have the cultural and linguistic competence to cope."

A European Union-funded (financed) survey of exporters, conducted in July, suggests that 49 per cent of companies have experienced language barriers. The survey of firms with up to 500 employees found a further 20 per cent which had encountered cultural barriers and 12 per cent which had lost business because of these barriers.

The survey also found that only 13 per cent of the companies had formulated any languages strategy to deal with the problem. Most — 83 per cent — used translators.

Several studies concur in the growing importance of cultural competence. Professor Hagen says, "When you ask exporters whether they need to learn German, they say no. When you ask whether they need to understand how the German mind works, they all say yes." The problem is that "in this country we don't link languages with culture enough."

However, there is evidence of improvement. With 60 per cent of the UK's exports going to non-English speaking countries, Robert Holkham, at the UK Department of Trade and Industry says: "There is a growing awareness that learning a customer's language and culture increases the chance of doing business overseas."

A benchmark survey of 500 small to medium-sized companies conducted by the DTI in each of the past three years has found that while 34 per cent said they had no language proficiency two years ago, the figure had dropped to 30 per cent in 1996.

The campaign highlights the kinds of problems communication difficulties can cause. These range from the tale of receivers finding a large order written in German left unread in a collapsed company in the UK, to the non-English airline which boasted that it would "send your luggage in all directions."

Studies suggest linguistic proficiency is related to company size, with those employing fewer than 250 suffering the most problems. Companies less than five years old with young managing directors are also more likely to employ linguists.

Many in the industry feel they have an uphill task. John Fergusson at the Association for Language Learning, says that with English considered a world language "there's a feeling that one doesn't need to put oneself out too much."

He puts part of the blame on an education system which, until recently, made just three years of language training compulsory until the age of 14.

He believes that the national curriculum, adopted in England and Wales in 1988, will improve matters, but only gradually. He also feels it did not go far enough — it should introduce language learning in primary schools, he said.

Комментарии

to extoll = to praise, boast of;

support services group = зд. consulting firm;

to look askance — смотреть искоса; зд. скривился, сделал гримасу;

awareness — зд. осознание;

prowess = proficiency, skills (навыки);

lags far behind — далеко отстает от ... ;

lost business — зд. потеряли выгодные сделки;

concur in — зд. указывают на ...;

benchmark survey — рейтинговое исследование;

receivers — зд. судебные исполнители collapsed = bankrupt, ruined;

uphill = very difficult, hopeless;

to put oneself out — зд. прилагать усилия, «напрягаться»;

national curriculum — национальная программа обучения;

Текст №3

Second Language Works Alone in Brain

When people think in a language they learned in adulthood, they employ special brain circuits not used for their native tongue, a study suggests.

But if adults started learning two languages in infancy, they use the same circuits for both, researchers found.

The difference appeared in a critical language centre of the brain called Broca's area, which lies near the left ear in righthanded people.

There is no evidence that the study explains why kids learn a second language more easily than adults do, cautioned senior author Joy Hirsch.

The work appeared in the current issue of the journal Nature1.

It included six people who had been exposed to two languages in infancy and six who picked up a second language as adults. Their brains were scanned as they silently told themselves what they'd done the previous day, thinking first in one language and then in the other.

The finding fits with prior reports that in bilingual people, strokes or brain tumours can hinder ability in just one language, Hirsch said.

Arturo Hernandez, who studies bilingual people at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said it's not clear what it means that two languages are associated with different brain circuits.

It could mean the brain stores each language in a different place, or that it gets access to each language through a different circuit, or simply that it works harder to use the language learned in adulthood, he said.

Текст № 4

Web Translator Is Quite Not Perfect Yet

In matters of diplomacy, the U.S. is the world's sole superpower, wielding more influence than any other nation. But that's nothing compared with the American influence in cyberspace.

On the Internet's World Wide Web, America rules — and so does the English language. While figures are hard to come by, it seems clear that most of the content of the Web today is from the U.S. When you add in the Web content provided by other English-speaking nations, the dominance of English is overwhelming. Even many of the Web sites published in non-English-speaking lands are produced in English.

Ironically, the Web itself was invented in Switzerland (though the Internet was a U.S. innovation). But there are many more people with computers in America, and many more of those machines are linked to the Internet than are computers anywhere else. As of today, if you don't read English, you miss nearly everything on the Web.

Words for the Wise

Technology is attempting to the rescue of many non-English-speaking people. A new software product for Windows called Web Translator, from Globalink Inc. of Fairfax, Virginia, promises to rapidly translate English-language Web pages into French, Spanish or German. You just click on a button labeled "translate" and Web Translator grabs the page from the Netscape Navigator Web browser, renders it in one of the three languages in less than a minute and displays the translation in Navigator, with all graphics and links intact.

Web Translator also works in reverse. Following the same process, it will take a Web page that's in French, Spanish or German, and turn it into English. That will help English speakers catch up with the fast-growing number of Web sites in those tongues.

Globalink's product is fundamentally different from similar-sounding Web software, such as Accent Software's highly regarded Internet with an Accent program. These programs merely let your PC view Web sites written in foreign alphabets. They don't attempt translation. And, after trying out Web Translator for a few days, I can understand why.

Literal and Laughable

Web Translator does such a crude job of translation that it can't really be relied upon for anything requiring any degree of accuracy or nuance. Like most computer-based translation, it is so literal as to be laughable, and fails to grasp many common idioms.

You can get the basic idea of what a Web page says, but not much more. To be fair, Globalink doesn't claim perfection. On the box, the company promises only a "draft translation" and concedes your translations may contain some "rough spots."

I'll say! For instance, I tried translating into English some articles from French-language press. A reference to the Canadian foreign minister came out as "the alien Business minister of Canada," and Prime Minister Chretien was referred to as "the Christian prime minister."

Elsewhere on the Web, a headline in Germany's Die Welt came out: "Cabbage: Future of the grandsons do not lose." This may be an article about the passing down of cabbage farms through the generations, but who can tell?

Walter S. Mossberg (" Wall Street Journal Europe")

Комментарии:

wielding-having 

crude – грубый, примитивный;

chrétien – христианский, фр. ;

cabbage = kohl, нем.;

garble = confuse, mix;

garb = clothes;

has a long, long way to go – зд. еще весьма далек от совершенства.

Из учебника А.Чужакин «Мир перевода-2»

Текст №5

Следующий текст, как и текст № 4, посвящен проблеме машинного перевода, однако он представляет собой образец научного стиля. При переводе обратите внимание: