10.4. Grammatical translation transformations.

1. Word for word reproduction of syntactic structures, which is regarded as a “zero transformation”.

2. Transposition is a change in the order of words in phrases and sentences, which is often caused by the structural differences in expressing the theme and the rheme in different languages. E.g.: A girl entered the room – У кімнату увійшла дівчина; An old man was sitting by the side of the road – Біля краю дороги сидів старий; A column 185 feet high with a statue of Admiral Nelson on top was erected in Trafalgar Square in 1867 – У 1867 році на Трафальгарській площі була споруджена колона 185 футів заввишки, на верхівці якої була встановлена статуя адмірала Нельсона.

3. Replacement is substitution of a word belonging to one part of speech by a word belonging to another part of speech (morphological replacement) or substitution of one syntactical construction by another one (syntactical replacement). E.g.: He is a good runner – Він гарно бігає; I saw her standing there – Я бачив, що вона там стояла; The Times wrote editorially (...) – У передовій статті газета Таймс писала (…).

4. Addition is used to compensate for semantic or grammatical losses and often goes along with transposition and grammatical replacement. E.g.: His wife had been beautiful – Його дружина колись (або у молодості) була красунею. Workers of all industries – робітники всіх галузей промисловості. Candidates will purchase a logbook listing all the modules – Бажаючі прийняти участь у програмі купують облікову книжку учасника курсів, яка містить перелік всіх навчальних модулів.

5. Omission is a transformation opposite to addition and is used with the aim to avoid redundant information. E.g.: the right to rest and leisure – право на відпочинок. Equality in trade and commerce – рівні права у галузі торгівлі. (...) regardless of age, education, experience or background – незалежно від віку, освіти та досвіду роботи.

10.5. Lexical and grammatical transformations in translation

The transformations listed below have been labelled as lexical and grammatical because lexical changes often are caused by the need to adapt the meaning to the grammatical peculiarities of the target culture. Most of the scholars single out the following transformations of this kind:

1. Antonymic translation is the substitution of the source language notion by its opposite in translation with the relevant restructuring of the utterance aimed at faithful rendering of its content. Here belong such techniques as the use of an affirmative construction instead of a negative one or the use of semantic antonyms. E.g.: Let a sleeping dog lie – Не чіпай лиха, коли воно спить. The woman on the other end asked him to hang on – Жінка на іншому кінці проводу сказала, щоб він не вішав трубку. Keep foreign goods out – Не допускати імпорту іноземних товарів or підтримувати вітчизняного виробника.

2. Total reorganization of the text segment (Rus. целостное преобразование) [Рецкер 2004: 59-68]. This transformation rearranges the inner form of any segment of the text: starting with a word, a phrase and ending up with a complete sentence. Such reorganization is of an integral nature, so that visible structural relationships between the inner form of the source and target languages segments cannot be traced any more. However, total reorganization does not mean that logical and semantic relationships between the two segments disappear. If it were so, translation would not be equivalent. On the contrary – total reorganization presumes that equivalence of the content is retained in translation, though it is achieved by different means. Total reorganization is very often used in rendering colloquial set expressions and idioms. Examples are: be my guest – ласкаво прошу; bottleneck – вузьке (слабке) місце; don’t move!, freeze! – ані руш!; I’ll be damned! – провалитися мені на цьому місці, хай йому чорт!; out of the blue – несподівано, раптом, як грім серед ясного неба, як сніг на голову; shut up! – заткни рота!; to sort things out – ставити все на свої місця.

3. Compensation for the losses in translating. According to A.V.Fedorov [Федоров 2002: 169-170] in the practice of translation there are instances when a word or another element of the source text is not rendered at all or is substituted by a formally different one. However this omission does not contradict the principle of translatability because such elements belong to the text as a whole unit of language. These elements are essential for understanding of the text fragments as parts of a system, which are formed by their interrelationships and links, thus ensuring cohesion of the text. Within this coherent system there is a room for replacements and compensations. Therefore if a separate element, which doesn’t play a key role in text organization, is lost in translating, it may be of no importance for the text as a whole because this element is dissolved in the general context or substituted by other elements, which sometimes do not exist in the source text.

1. Therefore compensation for losses in translation should be understood as substitution of the “untranslatable” source element by a different target language element in compliance with the general contents of the source text and in the place, which is in line with the rules of the target text.

2. Compensation is often applied to rendering of such “untranslatable” elements as culture-specific units of the source language culture and specific national idioms but not only to them. Mona Baker [1992: 78] writes that the strategy of compensation “means that one may either omit or play down a feature such as idiomaticity at the point where it occurs in the source text and introduce it elsewhere in the target text. This strategy is not restricted to idiomaticity or fixed expressions and may be used to make up for any loss of meaning, emotional force, or stylistic effect which may not be possible to reproduce directly at a given point in the target text”.

3. If it is necessary to sacrifice either stylistic colouring or expressiveness of the text element in translation, it is worthwhile to retain at least its expressive characteristics. However, if stylistic colouring is essential for the source text, it should be by all means rendered in translation at least in some other “place” of the target text, which the technique of compensation is aimed at. The following example from “Life and adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit” by Ch. Dichens illustrates an attempt to compensate for certain losses in translation: The education of Mr. Jonas had been conducted on the strictest principles of the main chance. The very first word he learned to spell was gain, and the second (when he got into two syllables), money Виховання пана Джонаса було саме суворе та із народження мало на увазі передусім користь. Перше слово, яке він навчився складати, було «гроші», а друге (коли він дійшов до трискладових слів) – «нажива».

In the original text Ch.Dickens writes not about the strictness of education as such but about “the strictest principles of the main chance”, i.e. about “чіткі принципи не втратити свій шанс” or “чіткі принципи отримати наживу”. Unfortunately this hypocritical idiomaticity has not been rendered in translation. However, the translator tries to compensate for this loss by increasing the level of irony further on in translation. Translation of the words gain and money also illustrates the technique of compensation: in the source text the first word Mr. Jonas learned to spell is gain and the second – money. In the Ukrainian translation гроші appears to be the first and нажива – the second due to the different number of syllables in the target language. Correspondingly the translator substitutes the phrase when he got into two syllables by коли він дійшов до трискладових слів [Контекстуальні заміни при перекладі].