Германские языки | Филологический аспект №6 (50) Июнь 2019

УДК 811.111-26

Дата публикации 26.06.2019

Переводческие трансформации как важный инструмент при переводе текстов художественной литературы

Коршунова Елена Сергеевна
канд. философ. наук, доцент, доцент кафедры «Русский и иностранные языки», Омский университет путей сообщения, РФ, г. Омск, Omichka-1@yandex.ru

Аннотация: В статье обосновывается необходимость включения перевода текстов художественной литературы на русский язык в процесс обучения иностранным языкам в вузе. Автор раскрывает сущность переводческих трансформаций, а также классифицирует их виды, предложенные В. Н. Комиссаровым. Автор предлагает широкий спектр произведений как классической, так и современной английской и американской литературы, которые могут быть использованы в качестве учебных текстов. Статья описывает важность вводной лекции о роли и видах переводческих трансформаций. Представлены также этапы обучения переводу текстов, их цели и упражнения.
Ключевые слова: переводческая трансформация, художественная литература, язык оригинала, синтаксическая структура, лексическая единица, оригинальный текст, язык перевода

Translation transformations as a significant instrument of literary texts translation

Korshunova Elena Sergeevna
Candidate of Philosophical sciences, Docent, Associate Professor at the Department of “Russian and foreign languages”, Omsk State Transport University, Russia, Omsk

Abstract: The article substantiates the necessity of including the translation of texts of fiction into Russian language into the process of training foreign languages in higher education institutions. The author reveals the essence of translation transformations and classifies their modes, offered by V. N. Komissarov. The author offers a wide spectrum of both classic and modern English and American literature, which can be used as texts to study. The article describes the significance of introductory lecture about the role and means of translation transformations. The stages of training of text translation, their purposes and exercises are also represented in the article.
Keywords: translation transformation, fiction, original language, syntactic structure, lexical unit, original text, translation language

Non-linguistic higher institutions of our country don’t pay enough attention to the role of translation of the texts of fiction from foreign languages into Russian. Though, studying English and American literature leads to the great acquisition of useful and necessary information about national characters of native speakers, their traditions, customs, historic realities and so on.

While translating the literary text, the translator must recreate the emotional influence to the reader, which the author of the original wanted to give the reader or listener [1].

The translator faces the works of fiction, which were made in different historic periods, written on the language, having a great difference from the modern one. This influences both on the original and the translation. The task about transmitting the historic color is solved in accordance with one of the purposes of literary translation – to acquaint a modern reader with a literary masterpiece, which was also modern for the reader of his era at the moment of creation [2, p. 95]. To achieve this purpose means to use a modern language in translation, choosing the certain word and grammar elements, which could reflect the necessary historic perspective, show the time distance, separating us from the creation time of the original. In this task, it’s not necessary to abuse archaisms and the words, that are out of use, as the text must be primarily understandable for a modern reader.

For achieving a full translation, a teacher should pay a special attention to the training of stages and technics of translation of English and American texts into Russian language. The most difficult task during the training of such translation is teaching the translation modes or transformations. Thanks to such transformations, there is a transition from the original text to the translated one without loss of meaning of the first one. Transformation technics represent the modes, due to which the original text is modified. They are used in cases, when it’s necessary to eliminate or reduce to minimum the contextual inconsistency during the translation of the original text unit.

As a rule, at the beginning of work over translation, a translator refers to the establishment of equivalence on the level of words and word combinations. The refinement of the word meaning subject to the context takes place later. The most difficulties on the level of words and word combinations cause inequivalent vocabulary, which includes such lexical units as terms, interjections, address part of speech, deviations from the common literary standard and realities [3, p. 122].

At present many works are devoted to the translation transformations, although the young age of the Theory of Translation as a science. A translator must know the theoretical ground of the given aspect. Until now, specialists in the field of the Theory of Translation haven’t got the consensus about the nature of the transformation term. There’s a great number of classifications, offered by different researchers, for example, Ya. I. Retsker, V. E. Shchetinkin, V. G. Gak, L. S. Barhudarov and others.

The English language teacher at the University has a right to choose for consideration of students the classification of any author, who described informatively enough all the modes of translation transformations. For example, according to V. N. Komissarov, the translation transformations are represented by such kinds as transcription and transliteration, replication, modulation, generalization, lexical addition and omission, literal translation, partitioning and integration of sentences, grammar substitution and antonymic translation [4].

Transcription – the translation of lexical unit of the original by means of reconstruction its form with the help of letters of the translation language. Transcription reproduces the audible form of the foreign word and transliteration its literal composition: flag – флаг, skateboarding – скейтбординг. As phonetic and graphic language systems have considerable differences, the transmission of the word form of the foreign word is always approximate. Replication – the translation of the lexical original unit with the help of morpheme replacement or words their lexical compliances in the language of translation: horizon – горизонт [5, p. 28].

Such translation mode when a word or a word combination of foreign language is replaced with a word of the translation language, which meaning is logically derived from the meaning of the original, is called modulation or semantic development: “it looked like the flag of permanent defeat” – он (парус) напоминал знамя наголову разбитого полка [6].

With lexical additions in the translation language, some extra words are inserted for more correct and understandable interpretation of the sense of the original material: imaginative child – ребенок, наделенный живым воображением [7]. Lexical omissions exclude semantically redundant words in the translation process, which don’t have any significant meaning: “as long as the one room of the shack” – такой же длины, как хижина [6].

Transformation of syntactic original structure into similar one in the translation language is called syntactic assimilation or literal translation: “Sherlock Holmes waved our strange visitor into a chair” – Шерлок Холмс усадил нашего странного гостя в кресло [8].

Partitioning of sentences represents such a way, when there’s a transformation of the original syntactic structure of a sentence into two or more predicative structures of translation language: ”I must surely have felt some little desire at least to try the door – yes, I must have felt that …” – У меня, вероятно, тогда явилось желание хотя бы приоткрыть эту дверь. Иначе и не могло быть …» [7].

Integration of sentences supposes modification of two or more original syntactic structures into one compound sentence in the language of translation: “She looked straight into his eyes. Her own were large, of a very dark brown, and starry” – Она посмотрела ему прямо в глаза своими огромными темно-карими лучистыми глазами [9].

With such a method of translation as grammar substitution, grammatical unit in the original is transformed into a unit of the translation language with another grammar meaning. The word form, the speech part, the part of the sentence or the certain sentence type can be substituted: “Eighteen of them all in a row, some short, some deep, some branching” – Смотрите, всего 18 палочек – есть короткие, есть длинные, а некоторые раздваиваются [10]. In the first two repetitions in the translation, the pronoun “some” is replaced with the verb «есть».

Antonymic translation – lexico-grammatical   transformation under which a statement in the original is changed to negation in translation or vice versa: “Bill opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind” – Его товарищ открыл было рот, но так ничего и не сказал [11].

Generalization is the replacement of the particular concept with the general one, the species concept with the generic one. For example, the word combination “olive-coloured face” (смуглое лицо) was translated with the help of the generalization of the epithet “olive-coloured”. In the other example the epithet “cream-coloured” has a translation «желтоватый» [12] – here the translator also uses the means of generalization.

At the beginning of studying the teacher should select the necessary works of both classic and modern English and American fiction needed for analysis. From the English classic literature the students can be offered such famous writers as Oscar Wilde, Agatha Christie about the detective Poirot and the woman-detective Miss Marple; A. C. Doyle about Sherlock Holmes; L. Carroll “Alice in Wonderland”; Jerome K. Jerome and others. Among American classic literature it’s worth to underline J. London “White Fang”; M. Twain “The adventures of Tom Sawyer”; F. S. Fitzgerald “The Great Gatsby”; T. Dreiser “The American Tragedy”; H. B. Stowe “Uncle’s Tom Cabin”; J. D. Salinger “The Cather in the Rye” and many others. As for modern British literature there are some world known authors as Tom Stoppard, Joanne Rowling, Nick Hornby, Michael Bond, Doris Lessing, Stephen Fry. American modern writers are Suzanne Collins, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, Don DeLillo, Stephen King, Tom Wolfe, Jennifer Egan. Poetry (W. Shakespeare, J. Milton, T. S. Eliot) can also be included into the plan, though it is more difficult to translate as a prose.

The volume and the level of difficulty of texts on the translation depend on the degree of the linguistic training of a group. It’s necessary to conduct an introductory lecture about the role and means of translation transformations, giving the examples from various works of literature.

The most part of students of technical universities have limited opportunities because of low basic knowledge since school. Non-linguistic universities have few audit hours for studying English or other foreign languages. That’s why it’s possible for students to find adapted texts, for example, stories, tales, novels, fairy tales of the English and American classical and modern writers. The volume and the difficulty of the text are determined by the teacher.

There are three stages in training the translation technics: pre-translation, translation and post-translation.

On the pre-translation stage a teacher offers students to do different lexico-grammatical exercises, for example, matching Russian words and their equivalents on the English language; choosing the variant of translation from several ones to the given word or phrase; comparison of the original text with its translation and searching for translation transformations, which were used by the translator professional and so on. During the translation stage students translate the original text of English or American fiction, using modes of translation transformations. The tabulation with all means of translation transformations with examples from the text and translation from English language into Russian is an effective exercise on this stage. The post-translation stage may include creative tasks, such as comparison of the text translation between students, detecting mistakes and discussing common and distinctive features; holding a contest on the best translation, etc.

In conclusion, it’s worth mentioning that the difference in the system of two languages leads to the great difficulties for translation. These difficulties hesitate in a wide range: from some untranslatable elements to the whole original text. Solving such problems is achieved by the ability to produce correctly different translation transformations. That’s why for a student, not for a professional translator, is not a simple task to get an absolute translation without not knowing some key moments during translation literary texts [13, p. 527].

The translation of the original fiction is a very laborious process, demanding great efforts, time, force and patience. A teacher as an instructor should do everything possible to teach correctly students this difficult, but attractive activity.


Список литературы

1. The role of punctual formalization of the text during translation of the work of art (on the example of the translation the work of L. Carroll “Alice in Wonderland” by V. Nabokov). The collection of articles “Actual Issues of Practice and Theory of Translation”. URL: https://www.alba-translating.ru/ru/ru/articles/2019/ (date of access: 25.06.2019).
2. Popovich A. A. The problems of literal translation / A. A. Popovich // Series: Corps of Humanities. Baudouin de Courtenay Publ., 2015. 198 p.
3. Fedotova O. V., Kuz’micheva Y. G. The peculiarities of pragmatic adaptation at the translation of a literary fairy-tale (on the example of the fairy-tale of Roald Dahl “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”) // The Bulletin of Russian State University for the Humanities. Series: Psychology. Pedagogy. Education. 2018. no. 3 (13). P. 118-131.
4. Classification of translation transformations. URL: //https://vuzlit.ru/861852/klassifikatsiya_perevodcheskih_transformatsiy (date of access: 31.03.2019)
5. Ilushkina M. Yu. The Theory of Translation: the main concepts and issues. Yekaterinburg: The Ural University Publ., 2015. 84 p.
6. The Old Man and the Sea. Ernest Hemingway – parallel translation. URL: https://studyenglishwords.com/book/Старик-и-море/274?page=1 (date of access: 23.03.2019).
7. Herbert Wells. The Door in the wall. URL: https://www.weblitera.com/sync/?id=135&l1=2&l2=1&l=ru#.XFxozysueUk (date of access: 28.02.2019).
8. The Hound of the Baskervilles. Arthur Conan Doyle – parallel translation. URL: https://studyenglishwords.com/book/Собака-Баскервилей/305?page=6 (date of access: 10.06.2019)
9. The Theatre. William Somerset Maugham – parallel translation. URL: https://studyenglishwords.com/book/Театр/212?page=1(date of access: 26.05.2019)
10. The Lost World. Arthur Conan Doyle – parallel translation. URL: https://studyenglishwords.com/book/Затерянный-мир/146?page=1 (date of access: 12.05.2019).
11. White Fang. Jack London. – parallel translation. URL: https://studyenglishwords.com/book/Белый-Клык/121?page=5(date of access: 10.04.2019)
12. The Picture of Dorian Gray – parallel translation. URL: https://studyenglishwords.com/book/Портрет-Дориана-Грея/142?page=1(date of access: 18.04.2019).
13. Trubinova Y. A. Peculiarities of work with the text of fiction. Translation transformations in the literary texts // The Young Scientist. 2014, no. 19 (78): in 6 p., P. 5, pp. 526-528. URL: https://moluch.ru/archive/78/13617/ (date of access: 25.06.2019).

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