Any attempt at word-for-word (literal) translation (apart from very simple and short sentences) is doomed to failure. In the course of translation, it is always necessary to perform various grammatical and lexical changes of transformations to achieve translational equivalence. These transformations can be divided into four types: (1) transpositions: (2) replacements: (3) additions; (4) omissions. It should be borne in mind, however, that this classification is, to a great extent, arbitrary and that in practice it is hardly possible to find these elementary transformations in their "pure form": in most cases they are combined with one another, so that we observe is a combined use of more than one type of transformation.
TRANSPOSITIONS
What is known as transposition is a change in the order of linguistic elements, such as words, phrases, clauses and sentences. Most often, this due to the necessity preserving in fact what is called "functional sentence perspective", namely, the division of the sentence into two main parts from the point of view of communication: "the known" or "theme" and "the new" or "rheme", in Russian this division of the sentence is usually expressed by means of word order: what is already known or supposed to be known to the receptor (usually from the preceding context), that is, the "theme" is placed at the beginning of the sentence whereas what is new, that is, communicated for the first time and, therefore, what forms the semantically most important part of the message ("rheme") is placed at the end. In English the word order is arranged, on the whole, along the same lines; however, in certain cases the "theme" is placed at the end and the "rheme", at the beginning due to the fact that the "rheme" is marked differently, namely, by the use of the indefinite article (or, with plural forms of nouns and with uncountable nouns, the "zero article") with the noun which is the subject of the sentence. Therefore, in Russian the word order in such cases must be reversed, that is, the sentence subject which is the "rheme" of the sentence must be placed at the end. Cf.:
A boy came in - .
But: The boy came in - .
Within a complex sentence, a similar tendency is observed: in Russian, the first place is occupied by that part of the sentence (main or subordinate clause) which must logically precede the second, whereas in English the position of both clauses, though not quite fixed, is in most cases governed by purely syntactical rules; namely, the main clause precedes, in most cases, the subordinate one. This often calls for a change in the order of the clauses in translation, as, for instance: He trembled as he looked up - , . (Note here also the rendering of the English subordinate clause by means of the Russian verbal adverb; see above, the preceding lecture).
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Within a passage of discourse, independent sentences are also transposed, as in the following example: "You goin' to court this morning?" asked Jim. We had strolled over. (H. Lee, To kill a Mockingbird). . - ? - . (. . . ) Here the transposition of the sentence is used to make up for the absence in Russian of the difference between the Past Indefinite and the Past Perfect (the action of the second English sentence precedes that of the first). See also below, on additions.
REPLACEMENTS
Replacements are by far the most common type of grammatical transformations. Replacements can affect practically all types of linguistic units: word forms, part of speech, sentence elements, sentence types, types of syntactic relations, etc.
(a) Word forms
Replacement of word forms are quite common in translation. A few examples will suffice:
A novel about the lives of common people - .
(replacement of Plural by Singular)
He said he knew the man - , .
(replacement of Past by Present)
The door was opened by a middle-aged woman - .
(replacement of Passive by Active).
See also the preceding lecture.
(b) Parts of Speech
This type of replacement is also fairly common. Especially typical is the replacement of English nouns, derived from verbs and denoting actions ("Nomina Actionis") by Russian verbs:
It is our hope that... , ...
...The abandonment by Irene of all the glittering things he had given her.... (J. Galsworthy, In Chancery) - , .
The same is also true of the so-called "Nomina Agentis", which in English are usually represented by nouns with the suffix - er. Russian either has no such nouns at all (e.g. corresponding to such English nouns as riser, packer, drinker, sleeper) or uses them to denote people of permanent occupation, as, say whereas in English the word writer may denote simply " a person who writes or has written something", as in "the writer of this note" - , . Compare:
is an early riser - .
John is a sound sleeper - .
55555 I'm a very rapid packe r - (J.Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye) - .
She is a very good dancer (ib.) - .
Fairly often, English adjectives are replaced by Russian nouns (in an oblique case or preceded by a preposition):
Australian prosperity - () .
youthfu l joblessness - .
generational style of life- , .
(The above examples are very typical of the so-called "journalese")
English comparative forms of adjectives such as higher, lower, l onge r, shorter, better, etc. A frequently replaced by Russian nouns (derived from adjective stems which, in their turn are verbalized) , , , , etc.: "They demand higher wages and better living conditions" - .
(c) Sentence elements
This is sometimes referred to as syntactic restructurings of the sentence in the process of translation. It consists in changing the syntactic functions of words in a sentence, a process which is usually due to the same tendency as is observed in transpositions, viz., preserving the functional sentence perspective. In English, as in Russian, the "theme" is generally (with some exceptions) placed at the beginning of the sentence; however, this place is, of course, reserved for the sentence subject. As a result the "theme" of the English sentence is, as a rule, also its subject, though semantically it is not always the doer of the action expressed by the predicate verb: it may be its object ("goal") or even denote some adverbial relation such as time, place, cause etc. In Russian the word order is relatively free, therefore the first word or word group within a sentence (its "theme") must not necessarily be at the same time its syntactic subject. Hence the subject of the English sentence is often replaced in Russian by a corresponding secondary element, such as object, adverbial of time, place, cause, etc., with concomitant changes in the syntactic pattern of the whole sentence, often also with necessary lexical changes. See the following examples:
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He was met by his sister - .
He was given money - .
The new film is much spoken about - , (and other passive-active transformation; see above)
Last week saw the 500-strong meeting of shop stewards and trade-union officials... (Morning Star,11.III.75) - , 500 .
The tent sleeps six people - .
Rhodesia has hanged five African guerillas - .
New terrorists attacks have injured six persons - .
The fog stopped the traffic - - .
Figure 2 gives a summary of the results of such experiments - . 2 .
It is self-evident that during translation from Russian into English the process is reversed; cf.: s.
- The room turned silent, - Radio equipment often includes systems of electronic wires....
(d) Sentence types
A very common transformation is the replacement of a simple sentence by a complex one and visa versa. Thus, while translating from English into Russian it often becomes necessary to render English structures with non-finite verbal forms by means of subordinate clauses, thus turning a simple sentence into complex, as, for instance:
I want you to speak English - , -.
I heard my mother go out and close the door (Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye) - , .
Here is a book for you to read - , .
The General's a good man to keep away from (S.Heym. The Crusaders) - , , , .
A subtype of this transformation is known as unification, or, conversely, division of sentences in translation, that is, a replacement of two simple sentences by one complex or compound and visa versa; cf.:
Thousands of Algerians tonight fled from the dead city of Orleansville after a 12-second earthquake had ripped through central Algeria, killing an estimated 1.100 people. (Daily Worker)
This is a typical "lead", that is, the first sentence (and the first paragraph) of a news item which contains the bulk of the information the details of which are given below in the main text of the report (See the lectures on style). Such a device is alien to Russian newspaper articles, which makes it necessary to divide the English sentence into two or more Russian sentences, as below:
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, . , , 1100 . . (Note also a change in the order of sentences).
More rarely, unification of two or more sentences into one complex or compound sentence takes place, as in the following case:
The only thing that worried me was our front door. It creaks like a bastard (Sallinger, The Catcher in the Rye) - - .
(e) Types of syntactic relations
Both English and Russian have such types of syntactic relations as co-ordination and subordination. However, the former is more characteristic of spoken Russian; hence it is often necessary or desirable to replace subordination of sentences by co-ordination while translating from English into Russian; cf.:
...He had a new father whose picture was enclosed... (H. Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird)- - .
55555 So I started walking way over east, where the pretty cheap restaurant are, because I didn't want to spend a lot of dough. (Salinger, the Catcher in the Rye) - , : .
From a purely, grammatical point of view this transformation is optional; however, taking into account what was said concerning the relative frequency of grammatical forms (see the preceding lecture), such transformations are necessary if we want our translation to sound "natural".
Likewise, both English and Russian make use of syndetic and asyndetic co-ordinate structures, but their relative frequencies differ: Russian, especially spoken Russian, prefers asyndetic co-ordination in multi-member structures where English often employs the syndetic type, as, for instance:
All I have in it is two dresses and my moccasins and my underwear and socks and some other things. (J. Salinger) , , , ,
In the original, the conjunction and is used four times while in the Russian translation it appears only once, before the last constituent, the rest being joined asyndetically.
Cf.: also , , . Masterly performance was displayed by boat crews, airmen and paratroopers.
ADDITIONS
Additions are caused by various factors. Very often they are necessitated by what may be called "lexical incompleteness" of certain word groups in the source language. Thus, in English in many cases words are omitted that can be easily restored from the context, while in Russian their actual presence in the word is necessary, which calls for additions in translation; compare: pay claim - ;
gun license - ;
oil talks - ;
solid engine - ;
the Watergate judge - , .
Sometimes, additions are required to compensate for the lack of grammatical forms in the target language. Thus, the lack of plural forms of the corresponding nouns in Russian calls for lexical additions when translating the following phrases: workers of all industries - ; modern weapons - ; enemy defenes - ; other philosophies - ().
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OMISSIONS
Omissions are the reverse of additions and are used to ensure a greater degree of what is called "compression", that is, reducing the redundancy of the text by omitting words which can be easily restored from the context. Thus, the following sentence from J. Salinger's novel: "So I paid my check and all. Then I left the bar and went out where the telephones were" is translated by R. Rait-Kovaleva as: .
The words "left the bar" are omitted because of their redundancy (the bar was mentioned in the preceding context and "leaving" is implied by the subsequent use of "went out"). Note also other transformations here, such as unification of sentences and replacement of a complex sentence by a simple one, all of which greatly reduce redundancy of the original text.
For other examples of additions and omissions, as well as of other transformations, see also . . , , . 5.
LEXICAL PROBLEMS
LECTURE 6
