1. The notion of translation

Translation – a process of conveying or rendering the meaning (content) of SL units in the TL as well as the result of this process.

There are 2 forms of translation: 1) in writing and 2) in viva voce (orally).

Translation conveys the meaning of the following language units:

The phoneme – is a speech sound, the smallest 1-facet language unit, it has a form but has no meaning. Phonemes are graphically represented by letters. Phonemes usually do not take part in the process of translation, but they are used in translation of proper names, geographical names, internationalisms, neologisms and units of specific national lexicon.

“a”, І-в-а-н-о-в - I-v-a-n-o-v

The morpheme – is the smallest indivisible 2-facet language unit (has both form and meaning). It is the smallest sense unit.

superprofit – надприбуток, cloudless – безхмарний

The word – is the basic 2-facet language unit. The word is the smallest independent sense unit. Words are divisible (for morphemes).

blackboard – дошка, strawberry – полуниця, dog – собака

The word group/word-combination – is the largest 2-facet lexical unit comprising more that 1 word.

first night – прем’єра

The sentence – is a 2-facet unit of speech which conveys a more or less complete thought.

Every dark cloud has a silver lining. – Немає лиха без добра.

A cat may look at a king. – Дивитися не заборонено.

The text – is the largest 2-facet language unit, consisting of sentences bound by the same idea.

Two languages are involved into translation process.

The Source language (SL) – is the language of the original / the language from which the process of translation is performed.

The Target language (TL) – is the language of the translation / the language into which the process of translation is performed.

Translation may imply any sense-to-sense substitution of a SL unit for its semantic (=having the same meaning) equivalent in the TL.

I live in Kiev – Я живу в Києві

first night – перша ніч

pretty woman - гарна жінка

Translation may imply any sense-to-sense conveying even if the lexical meaning of the constituents which make up a SL unit is not replaced with the identical lexical meaning in the TL.

First night - прем’єра

pretty woman - красунечка

Translation may imply any functional substitution at the text level. It is aimed at recreating the function of a SL unit. Is used in the translation of titles and stylistic devices.

“The Village” – “Таємничий ліс” (the title was changed for marketing purposes)

“Some like it hot” – “В джазі лише дівчата”

“Over the hedge” – “Лісова братва”

Significance of translation

The importance of translation in the modern society has long been recognized. Not a single contact at the international level or between 2 foreign persons can be established without the help of translation. Translation is important for functioning of different international bodies. Numerous branches of national economies can be kept up with the modern development thanks to the everyday translation. The other branches of human activity dealing with the translation are: nuclear science, exploration of outer space, ecology, mining, medicine, electronics etc. The social and political role of translation has been the most felt in the XX-XXI century when it provided the dissemination (=spreading) of political ideas. Translation is a perfect means of sharing achievements and enriching the national languages, literatures and cultures. Finally, whatever the type of matter is translated, the linguistic and social significance of translation remains unchanged because it promotes the enrichment of lexicon in the target language.

2. Translation as a means of interlingual communication

Translation makes possible an exchange of information between users of different languages by producing the TL text which has an identical communicative value with the SL text.

However, the TLT is not fully identical with the SLT as to its form or meaning/content due to the limitations imposed by the formal and semantic differences between the SL and the TL. But the users of the translation (translation receptors) identify the TLT with the SLT functionally, semantically and structurally. There are 3 types of identification:

The functional identification – the TLT (the translation) functions as if it were the SLT (quoted, published, cited etc.).

The structural identification – the structure of translation (of the TLT) should follow that of the original. There should be no change in the sequence of narration or in the arrangement of the segments in the text (not the structure of every sentence!)

The semantic identification – the TLT (the translation) should have the same meaning as the SLT (the original) (the meaning of the whole text, not every word, otherwise it would be word-for-word translation, not literary artistic/proper).

The translator is allowed to resort to different translation transformations if direct translation is impossible for some reasons.

3-6. Ways of translation

Literal translation is used at the level of separate words, which have the same lexical meaning and similar form in the SL and in the TL.

There are 2 ways of performing literal translation: transcription and transliteration.

Transcription is the substitution of sounds in the process of translation.

New-Castle – Нью-Касл

impeachment – імпічмент (but not імпеачмент)

leader – лідер

Transliteration is the substitution of letters in the process of translation.

London – Лондон (but not Ландан)

Dublin - Дублін

bank – банк

club - клуб

Literal translation renders the meaning of the following words: 1) proper names (Іванов – Ivanov), 2) geographical names (Дніпро –Dnipro), 3)international words (football – футбол), 4)units of specific national lexicon (вареники – varenyky), 5)neologisms (metrosexual – метросексуал).

The translator’s false friends are those words that have similar form but different meaning in the SL and in the TL.

magazine – журнал (but not магазин)

lunatic – божевільний, шалений (but not лунатик)

artist – художник, митець (but not артист)

Verbal translation is used at the level of separate words, which have the same lexical meaning but different lingual form in the SL and in the TL.

Verbal translation renders sometimes the morphological structure of the SL words (ex. helpless – безпорадний, superprofit – надприбуток).

In most cases, the morphological structure is not preserved because of the differences in the morphological systems of the SL and the TL.

bomber – терорист

manager – управляючий

Verbal translation permits the choice of variants, which is practically impossible in literal translating:

minister – міністр (literal), посланник, священик (verbal)

bank – банк (literal), берег (річки), край, мілина, вал/насип (verbal)

Verbal translation, however, does not provide a faithful conveying of sense/content at other than word level. When employed at the level of word-combinations or sentences it may often make the language units ungrammatical and pervert or completely ruin their sense:

I am reading now – is not Я є читаючий зараз but Я читаю зараз

to take measures – is not брати міри but вживати заходів

Word-for-word translation/ consecutive verbal translation (дослівний послідовний) is used at the level of word-combinations and sentences, which have the same structure, word order, and the same lexical meanings of the constituents in the SL and the TL.

Who took my book? – Хто взяв мою книжку?

Word-for-word translation is often used at the initial stage of translation. It does not always work with phraseological units (cold as a cucumber – незворушний) except some cases when a phraseological unit is taken from a third language – Latin or Greek (to cross the Rubicon – перейти Рубікон).

Interlinear translation is used for a faithful rendering of the meaning (but not structure) expressed by word-combinations and sentences, which are different in structure, at the level of some text. The sense of phraseological units is not conveyed.

Interlinear translation may be practically applied to all speech units (sentences, passages etc.)

It is used at the higher level of translator’s activity. It is performed with transformations when there is no identical form in the TL.

Interlinear translation offers more variants than word-for-word translation.

Who took my book? – Де моя книжка?/ У кого моя книжка?

Various transformations in interlinear and literary translations are inevitable because of grammatical/structural, stylistic and other divergences in the SL and in the TL.

She said she would come. – Вона сказала, що прийде.

Transformations are also inevitable when there is no direct equivalent for the SL units in the TL.

a trip – коротка подорож, to ski – їздити на лижах

Interlinear translation is widely practiced at the intermediary and advanced stages of studying a foreign language.

But it doesn’t convey the literary merits/artistic features and beauty of the original (e.g. translation of a stanza or passage)

Literary translation represents the highest level of a translator’s activity. It can be either literary artistic or literary proper depending on the type of the matter under translation.

Literary artistic translation (художній літературний) is used to translate prose or poetry and faithfully conveys the content and artistic merits of belles-lettres /bel’letr/ texts or passages of the literary text.

Literary proper translation (власний літературний) is used to translate some texts that may include scientific or technical matter, business correspondence, newspapers and documents. In short, any printed or recorded matter devoid of artistic merits (epithets, metaphors etc.).

Literary translations are always performed with many transformations because of stylistic differences between the SL and the TL. Transformations are necessary to convey the meaning of the original, and to achieve ease and beauty of the original composition.

Literary proper/artistic translation of a larger passage often requires some additional research or linguistic, historical and other enquiries in order to clarify the obscure places (historic events, units of specific national lexicon, neologisms, archaisms etc.). Sometimes even the title of a work may require a philological or historical inquiry.

Ex. «Слово о Полку Ігоревім» - “A word about Ihor’s Regiment” (in a word-for-word translation, which doesn’t correspond to the real meaning)

“The Tale/ lay of the Host of Ihor”, “The Song of Igor’s Campaign”, “Prince Igor’s Raid against the Polovtsi” (which corresponds to the real meaning of the title – повість, пісня про Ігореве військо, дружину)

«Тихий Дон» (М.Шолохов) – “And Quiet Flows the Don” or “The Don Flows home to the Sea” (a word-for word translation “The Quiet Don” or “The Still Don” would not convey the poetic flavour of the original title)

These variants could have been suggested by the translator only after a deep inquiry into the novel’s content, into its main idea and into the whole system of images of these works.