The problems of style, affecting translation, may be subdivided into two major categories: the problem of functional styles and the problem of stylistic devices.
The problem of functional styles pertains to the specific features of texts of different genres in the source and target languages. Texts, belonging to different functional styles, such as official documents, scientific papers, technical manuals, news items and fiction, are characterized by a number of distinctive features that vary from language to language. These variations affect the composition of the text, its syntactic and semantic structure and the choice of linguistic devices for each type of a text. Official documents are replete with set phrases for which there are usually standard equivalents in the target language (of. the High Contracting Parties - , done in the city of Moscow - . , we, the undersigned - , , etc., typical of the text of a treaty). Their syntax is usually characterized by complex structures and their lexicon by the highest degree of formality (hereinafter referred to - , the signatories of the present agreement shall be responsible for ensuring the observance thereof-, , ). Scientific and technical texts are characterized by the use of special terminology, equivalents, for which should be
selected at the appropriate style level (for instance, in a medical text pneumonia should be translated as and not as .
In a technical manual it is essential in case of terminological synonymy to use the same term for a given item (e.g. if is translated as antenna switch, the latter should be consistently used throughout the text for the use of the synonymic duplexer gives the impression that reference is made to two units rather than one. Special attention should be paid to the so-called technical phraseology (e.g. - turn as far as it will go, - rotate clockwise).
Text analysis and translation. Russian and English newspaper texts are characterized by a number of common features (an abundance of neologisms and clichés, a wide stylistic range, preference for compressed structures, etc.) Yet these texts display several distinctive features. These features may be illustrated by the English news item and its Russian counterpart.
The Headline of a Russian news item is more frequently based on noun phrases while an English headline favours verb phrases ( - Kidnapped General Escapes). English headlines use the present for the past ( - Government Resigns) and an infinitive for the future while in Russian futurity may be expressed lexically (Coal-miners to Strike - ) English headlines are full of the so-called "headline words", short words, covering a very wide semantic area (e.g. quite abandon, withdraw, leave, give up, resign; bid = appeal, try, attempt, initiative; rap = criticize, condemn, expose) whose translation usually depends on the context of the item itself.
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The lead should ideally answer the 6 wh'-s (who? when? where? what? why? how?) - of course, not necessary all of them.
The most typical sequence of elements in a Russian lead is as follows: Source + Message ( ) In English it is usually Message + Source (The next round of voting take place tomorrow, the UPI reports). The Message in English is typically presented, in this order: Event + Place + Time (The British Prime-Minister yesterday arrived for top-level talks in Washington/ The British Prime-Minister arrived yesterday for top-level talks in Washington. The word order of the Russian lead is often inverted: Time + Place + Event ( - ) Another problem, involved in the translation of newspaper texts, is that of newspaper cliches. Some of them have close-parallels in the target language (cf. the English trial balloon and the Russian . Clichés tend to become polysemantic which may affect their translation. Thus communications gap may be rendered as , .
The frequency parameters of lexical items should be taken into account in choosing their equivalents in the target language (e.g. the English circles is not used in English newspaper texts as frequently as the Russian and therefore should be sometimes alternated with synonyms (e.g. quarters as in offi cial quarters) or contextual substitutes (as, for instance, community in the business community).
Stylistic modifications of the text are among the most frequent transformations, used in translation. A typical modification in translating newspaper texts from Russian into English is from bookish to neutral and sometimes even colloquial while in translating into Russian a typical change is from colloquial or neutral to bookish:
Sport writers banged away at club officers. -
Compression and expansion of the text. A contrastive analysis of Russian and English newspapers reveals a considerably greater proportion of compressed structures in English. This calls for expansion (an increase in the number of syntactic elements) when translating into Russian and compression (their reduction) when translating into English.
Compression and expansion may involve a mere re-grouping of semantic components, i.e. choosing a more or less economical form of their expression (using a word instead of a phrase or vice versa): . - Car output averages a million a year; He ? Would you please illustrate this thesis? On the other hand, they may amount to the omission or addition of semantic components, implied in the linguistic or extralinguistic context: - At the summit meeting in the White House yesterday... Defense Panel - ; After Paris or London Washington looks provincial - , , .
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Peace Committee -
The problem of stylistic devices centers around the relative functional value of seemingly identical stylistic resources. In case their functional role is different in the source and target languages, a different stylistic device should be employed in the target language to achieve e comparable stylistic effect. Thus the stylistic effect of alliteration, very widely used in English but relatively uncommon in Russian, except in poetry, is compensated for by using such devices as, for instance, rhyme: Butler; donnish, dignified and dull -: , .
It should be borne in mind that news media, both in Russian and in English, tend to use stereotyped stylistic devices rather than freshly minted ones. To evoke a similar response an equally stereotyped device is sought; in the target language, even if it involves
some modification of the underlying image. Cf.: the swelling tide of wording-class opposition and - a similar, sufficiently stereotyped metaphor in Russian.
A change in the image, underlying an extended metaphor, becomes inevitable if the metaphor in question is a phraseological unit which cannot be rendered verbatim:
Pie in the sky is too colourless a phrase to describe Mr. Heath's closing speech to the Tory Party's conference. It was more like caviar in the stratosphere. - , , . - . Shifts in the denotational (referntial) meaning are therefore inevitable in many instances when a stylistic effect is as important as the informative content of the message. It is particularly true in translating puns whose humorous effect can, harder be conveyed without sacrificing part of the denotational meaning:
At the television cameras gan contestants and the critics pan the show, muscles twitch, words are flubbed, sweat drenches dinner jackets and gowns. - , .
The substitution of for cameras makes it possible to achieve a similar stylistic effect, based on the etymological end semantical association of the Russian and . Another powerful expressive device is 'code switching1, i.e. an abrupt change to an altogether different style register to achieve a stylistic effect. Very often this is done merely to reinforce the expressive power of the phrase:
But the fact remains that the people of Spain in their overwhelming majority hate Franco's guts. - , .
The English slang phrase hate Franko's guts becomes particularly expressive against a stylistically neutral background of the rest of the sentence. But that does not mean that the same device should be used to Russian. A literary lexical intensifier () will serve the same purpose.
On the other hand, the use of slang as a characterization device calls for the use of a similar style register in the target language:
But he knows that "community control of police is where it's at" - , " ".
LECTURE 14
