- •1. Methodological background of the definition of translation
- •2. Techniques in the process of translation
- •3. Transformation technique in the process of translation
- •4. The definition and classification of translations
- •5. Causes of lexical and grammatical transformations
- •6. Types of transformations: lexical, grammatical, stylistic
- •7. Adequacy in translation
- •8. Ways of achieving adequacy in translation
- •9. Adequacy and equivalence in the theory of translation
- •11. Aspects of translation
- •12. Pragmatic aspects of Translation
- •13. The problem of conveying pragmatic meaning
- •14. Pragmatic factors and the problem of translation (Shveitser’s approach)
- •15. Pragmatic adaptation and pragmatic reconstruction
- •16. Pragmatic meaning and its constituent parts
- •17. The problem of conveying intralinguistic meaning
- •18. Grammatical aspect of translation
- •19. The object of Translation Theory as a discipline
- •20. Concretization. Generalization.
- •21. Omission. Addition.
- •22. Loan translation
- •23. Transcription. Transliteration
- •24. Occasional lacuna and the problem of translation
- •26. Unit of translation
- •27. The Levels of Equivalence (Komisarov’s theory)
- •28. Ways of conveying referential meaning
- •29. Ways of conveying realia
- •30. General reinterpretation
- •31. Logical development
- •32. Differentiation of meaning in translation
26. Unit of translation
Unit Of Translation - The smallest entity in a text that carries a discrete meaning. It varies all the time, ranging from individual words through phrases and sentences right up to entire paragraphs.
Linguistic hierarchy:
1. phoneme/grapheme
2. morpheme
3. word
4. phrase/word combination
5. sentence
6. text
Levels of translation:
1. phonemic level
2. morphemic level
3. word level
4. phrase/word combination level
5. sentence level
6. text level
27. The Levels of Equivalence (Komisarov’s theory)
The theory of levels of equivalence is the model of translation based on the assumption that relations of equivalence are established between the analogues levels of the contents of the SL and TL texts.
V.N. Komisarov distinguishes the following levels of equivalence viewed as different stages of semantic similarity between the TL and SL texts:
1. the level of language signs (words)
2. the level of the utterance (syntactic structures)
3. the level of the structure of information
4. the level of the description (identification) of the situation
5. the level of the aim of communication.
The aim of the process of translation is to convey the whole contents of the SL text. To achieve this aim it is necessary to establish the relations of ultimate (maximum) equivalence between the corresponding levels.
The mechanism of the theory of translation is the following:
At the first stage an interpreter consecutively determines all the levels of the contents of the SL text starting from language signs to the aim of communication.
At the second stage using the language code of the TL text the interpreter studies the level hierarchy in the reverse order. He tries to determine whether each level of the text contents presents the final variant of translation. In case any level requires some definite forms the interpreter chooses the variant of translation irrespective of the SL text. If there is no limit of this kind the interpreter starts to choose variants of translation on the level of language signs trying to establish relations of equivalence with the corresponding level of the SL text. The variant chosen by the interpreter should not contradict the contents of the higher levels. In case it’s impossible to establish the relations of equivalence between the units on the level of language signs the interpreter shifts to the next level and so on. Thus, the units of the SL and TL texts will be equivalent to each other on different levels of the contents. The upper limit of translatability will be the equivalence on the first level (the level of language signs) and vice verse – the lower limit will be on the upper level (the level of the aim of communication). At the same time equivalence on the lower level automatically implies the equivalence on the higher level.
The theory of levels of equivalence overcomes the incompleteness of the denotational and transformational models of translation. It describes this process completely, divides the semantic complex and gives the criteria for the general evaluation of the translation quality.