Substitution is a universal and widely used translation device.
It is used at the level of parts of speech and at the level of parts of sentence.
Substitution at the level of parts of speech.
The most common is replacing English nouns (Nomina Agentis) by Ukrainian verbs. Most English (verbal) nouns are substituted for (finite) verbs in Ukrainian and Russian. It is objectively predetermined by the difference in the quantitative representation of nouns and verbs in the source and target languages. The quantitative representation of verbs in Ukrainian by far exceeds that in English.
E.g.1: He is an early rise r = He rises early = ³
E.g.2: She is a good dancer = She dances well= .
E.g.3: Hes not a terribly good mixe r.
³ .
E.g.4: Im quite a heavy smoker, for one thing (J.Salinger)
-, , .
Common enough is the replacement of adjectives (transferred epithets) which syntactically express attributive relations while semantically they express adverbial relations by adverbs:
E.g.1: At the age of 18 Charles earned an honest living.
.
E.g.2: Lord Nesby stretched a careless hand.
() .
This kind of substitution is used to make the sentence sound absolutely Ukrainian and semantically transparent.
adjectives derived from geographical names are substituted for nouns and vice versa:
E.g.1: The French president ;
The British Government ;
Congolese Embassy .
E.g.2: But I fear the Indians of Cleveland (Hemingway).
, .
Alongside such substitutions the place of the attribute is changed too.
adjectives used as the predicative are substituted for verbs (more often than not):
E.g.1: He was cross with me. ³ .
E.g.2: She was silent. .
E.g.3: The boy was sad too (Hemingway)
adjectives in the comparative degree are replaced by verbal nouns:
E.g.: The workers demanded higher wages.
.
? (Other cases: An attempted coup in Greece . The English participial attempted is replaced by the Ukrainian noun ; similarly the English phrase: increased military spending is translated )
In many a case replacements are stylistically predetermined:
E.g.1: She nodded her head and smiled (J.London).
, , .
E.g.2: For a moment I suspected that he was pulling my leg, but a glance at him convinced me otherwise (Fitzgerald).
, , , , .
E.g.3: She [Irene] has remained faithfu l to memory (Galsworthy).
.
E.g.4: We fight to live (Hemingway).
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Thus, substitution may be employed not only to make a sense unit semantically more transparent but also to make it sound stylistically more natural:
E.g.5: An industrial accident, the doctor said (Hemingway)
, .
Substitution (replacement) is sometimes the only way of adjusting the English peculiar way of expression to literary Ukrainian.
E.g.1: Piggy looked up miserably from the dawn-pale beach to the dark mountains (W.Golding).
- .
E.g.2: Madame Heron left today Monsieur suddenly, about three oclock. There was illness in her family (Galsworthy)
, , . .
Substitution is almost always employed when dealing with asyndetic substantial clusters:
E.g.: was seated at the breakfast table (C.Doyle)
.
Substitution at the level of parts of the sentence:
When in the English sentence the predicate is expressed by the verb in the passive voice and the doer of the action is known, then very often in the translation of such a sentence the subject becomes the object and vice versa (the object becomes the subject):
E.g.1: The door was opened by Jack. = Jack opened the door = .
E.g.2: Catherine Barkley was greatly liked by the nurses because she would do night duty indefinitely (Hemingway)
, .
E.g.3: Minutes later, it seemed I was awakened by someone shaking me (H.Lee)
, , .
This transformation is predetermined by the quantitative representation of the passive voice constructions in English, which by far exceeds that in Ukrainian.
The subject expressed by a noun that has no meaning Nomina Agentis (denotingthe doer of action) becomes an adverbial modifier of time, place etc in the translation of such sentences as:
E.g.1: Last year saw many political events.
.
E.g.2: The jet-airliner carried 78 passengers.
78 .
It is caused by the difference in the lexical valency between the source language syntaxeme subject+predicate, where the subject is expressed by such a noun, and that of Ukrainian.
? In English a number of nouns which have no meaning Nomina Agentis are used in the construction subject+predicate, denoting the doer of the action, while in Russian/ Ukrainian the use of such a construction is restricted lexically. Thats why its necessary to substitute the construction Subject+Predicate for the construction Predicate+Adverbial Modifier or Adverbial Modifier+Predicate:
E.g.3: The strike closed most of the schools in New York.
.
E.g.4: The air crash killed 106 people.
106 .
E.g.5: The war saw terrible destruction on the island.
ϳ .
E.g.6: The second grade was grim (H.Lee)
.
The same transformation takes place when we deal with cliches typical of English newspaper (stock phrases):
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E.g.: The communiqué says
The resolution declares
The note strongly protests.
ADDITION
implies supplementing some elements in the TL version to adequately render the meaning of the source language utterance.
Addition is semantically and stylistically predetermined. It is often used to compensate for the absence in the TL of some SL grammatical category, to fill out SL elliptical expressions, to amplify implications. Additions in translation from English into Ukrainian stem from differences in the syntactic structure of these languages.
Addition is caused by:
differences in the structure of sentences: English constructions with complex object and complex subject are extended into a subordinate clause in Ukrainian.
E.g.1: She had only to express a wish for him to fulfill (Maugham).
, . (for+the infinitive Construction)
E.g.2: There was no room for us to sit down (Galsworthy)
, .
the need to compensate for the equivalent lacking grammar forms and categories.
It happens very often when we translate words formed with the help of conversion.
E.g.1: The roads were sentinelled by oaks.
, ( ), .
E.g.2: The peace campaign has snowballed rapidly.
().
E.g. 3:. Dr. Courtras was startled by it and amazed. And he was awed. (Maugham)
..
E.g.4: The country had to establish whole new industries which did not exist before.
, .
Addition is caused here by the absence of the corresponding form of the noun industries in the TL.
differences in norms of word combinability (lexical valency):
E.g.1: It was customary for the men in the family to remain on Simons homestead, Finchs Landing, and make their living from cotton (H.Lee).
, , Գ, , .
E.g.2: The new American secretary of State has proposed a world conference on foodsupplies.
.
They become necessary here in order to maintain the peculiar way of expression in Ukrainian.
compression of English sentences that are extended (decompressed) in the process of translation for the sake of more adequate and explicit expression:
E.g.: He shrugged the stare off.
.
It often concerns cases when the translator has to handle a non-causative verb used in the typical causative complex (to beckon, to wave, to help). Preserving its basic meaning the verb acquires an additional causative sense.
E.g.1: He waved her into a car.
³ , .
E.g.2: He helped him into the car.
³ .
Such English structures are usually formed with the prepositions into and out of.
the necessity to take into consideration pragmatics of translation when dealing with specifically national notions (realia, proper nouns, geographic names) to amplify implications.
For example, translating into Ukrainian local place names, it is necessary to add such words as , , etc:
E.g.: Where you girls from? I asked her again Seattle, Washington (J.Salinger)
? ѳ, .
Thus what is implicit in the English sentence becomes explicit in the translation.
Additions often become necessary to clarify the meaning of some SNN of the SL in the TL: E.g.: It was Frida y and soon theyd go out and get drunk (J.Brain Room at the Top)
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, , (. . .)
It was necessary to use the additional words in the TL version as the Ukrainian reader as a rule doesnt know that English workers get their wages every week on Fridays.
Additions are resorted to with the aim of achieving some stylistic effect (the necessary expressiveness).
OMISSION
is leaving out some elements in the TL version as superfluous.
The phenomenon of redundancy is typical mostly of English. Redundant elements in a sentence may be expressed by a word, word combination or a phrase: In Ukrainian redundant elements are used mainly as a stylistic device that of pleonasm: , . Thus the redundant elements are as often as not omitted in the Ukrainian version.
Omissions are conditioned first of all by the absence of the corresponding grammar phenomena in the TL (auxiliary verbs in some constructions, articles or pronouns etc.).
E.g.1: He spat on the ground and shook his head (Hemingway).
³ .
E.g.2: She helped him with his English, corrected his pronunciation, and started him on arithmetic.
, .
When translating paired (pairs of) synonyms with identical or very close meaning:
E.g.1: The treaty was declared null and void.
().
E.g.2: The garden was old and cosy, with plenty of nooks and corners (A.Christie)
.
A sense unit may be omitted in the language of translation for stylistic reasons (subjectively introduced), for example, to avoid unnecessary repetition (smth that is obvious or smth mentioned in the preceding part)
E.g.: She turned aghast towards the bed.
. (the bed was mentioned in the previous sentence)
Casual subjective omissions usually do not change the general content of the sentence/ passage though they may alter to some extent the authors emphasis made in the sentence of the source language. (! The main thing here is to avoid sense losses).
REDUCTION (, )
