A peculiar group of words demanding transformation in translation are the words that possess different volume of meaning in Russian and English languages. To this group belong international words, some words of human perception, mental activity.
But we should mention that the words that belong to these groups are of different semantic structure. International words and the words of human perception, mental activity represents polysemantic words in English.
International words are words that are used in a wide range of languages in one or several forms. These words express scientific and social-politic notions. The volume meaning of these words does not usually coincide (except term-words). Though it is well-known that they comprise the false-friends of translators and the mistakes in their translation are frequent. These mistakes are caused not only by difference in their semantic structure but by the difference of their usage as well which demand lexical changes:
We are told that television this autumn will give a massive coverage to the General Election.
Сообщают, что нынешней осенью передачи по телевидению будут широко освещать парламентские выборы.
The word massive along with the meaning массивный, has other meanings like массовый, грандиозный, огромный, широкий and so on. For example: massive success - огромный успех, massive problems - важные проблемы.
Since international words possess wider meaning volume they are more used in English if comparing to Russian:
Never before in the history of the world have there been so many persons engaged in the translation of both secular and religious materials.
Ещё никогда в истории человечества столько людей не занимались переводом как светской, так и духовной литературы.
Russian words религиозные материалы are absolutely unacceptable in this case because of their different usage. In this instance the usage plays the main role though their meaning is identical in both languages.
Lexical transformations are also caused by necessity to concretize a word while translating. It is characteristic to English language the availability of words with wide spread meaning. They can be nouns, adjectives and verbs, for example: thing, point, stiff; nice, fine, bad; to say, to go, to come, to get.
Translation of these words depends on the context, which helps to identify their concrete meaning. Usually they are translated by various Russian words that have concrete meaning (importance). Practically it refers to verbs - to verbs of speech and verbs of movement. Concrete lexical meaning(importance), this or that the lexical-semantic variant of a verb depends on structure and lexical meaning of words that distribute them.
At the by-election victory went to the Labor candidate.
На дополнительных выборах победа досталась лейбористам (победу одержал кандидат от лейбористской партии).
Among nouns of wide meaning a special group comprises abstract nouns, that frequently demand concrete definitions in translation. So, for example, despite the presence of a word президентство in Russian - English word presidency usually refers to the words a пост президента or президентская всласть.
An ageing Speaker cannot take on the burdens of the presidency.
Престарелый спикер не может взять на себя бремя президентской власти (в случае смерти президента).
The use of words of abstract meaning strongly differs in various languages. Therefore follows the necessity of concrete definition in translating.
The Saigon regime used every form of pressure and violence to compel a reluctant electorate to go to the polls.
Сайгонский режим прибегал ко всем видам давления и насилия, чтобы заставить упрямых избирателей принять участие в выборах.
Sometimes it is necessary to concretize some word due to different qualitative distinction (valeur) the generalizing words have in languages. The following words belong to them: meal and трапеза that usually illustrate the this phenomenon and the words limbs and члены, from which limbs is widely common, and Russian word the члены has much narrower usage.
In the given translation, besides concrete definition of руки and ноги, we also had to use fixed word phrase.
The following problem which demands careful consideration in lexical transformations of translation is problem of word combinability. In all languages there are typical norms of word combinability. The concept of norm is relative, on the one hand, with system of language, and on the other hand, it is closely connected with speech, in which the originality of speech formation is displayed. Each language can form uncountable number new word combinations that will be understood by its bearers. In any language there exists generally accepted tradition of word combinations, which do not coincide with the corresponding tradition of word combinations in the other languages.
And it makes look for similarly accepted word combinations in the target language. The main part combined words usually coincides in translation, but the second one is frequently translated by a word possessing other logical meaning, but performing the same function, as for example, trains run - поезда ходят, rich feeding - обильная пища.
Labor Party protests followed sharply on the Tory deal with Spain.
За сообщением о сделке консервативного правительства с Испанией немедленно последовал протест лейбористской партии.
The wider is the semantic volume of a word, the wider is its combinability, thus due to this feature it can interact with various word forms and word combinations. And this features enables the translator to use his creativity in translation.
Along with traditional combinations in languages unexpected combinations are also possible, but they are quite clear, for they follow generally accepted semantic models of word combinability. This phenomenon - the connection of words with completely various semantic features - is peculiar to all languages, but in each language it has various rules and traditions. In English language such unexpected word combinations are formed very easily. It is probably caused by conversion and easiness in formation of new words in various ways, heterogeneity of languages vocabulary and some other reasons. Not only poets and writers, but also journalists frequently create unexpected word combination that makes their statements significantly vivid and original. The unexpectedness of word usage is closely connected with expressiveness of the statement.
Unexpected usage of word combinations hardens the task of translators, for words interrelate in combinations not only with one word, but also with a large number of other words of the sentence, for example:
The use of an adjective sharp in this context is unexpected: none of its meanings given in dictionaries gives the description of a hand. The difficulty of its translation is aggravated by presence of the second definition white, which excludes translation by words костлявый and сухой.
Белая, сухощавая рука мадам лежала на широком колене Адама.
In the given translation the sense of the sentence has been rendered but the unexpectedness of the used word was lost.
The last feature of lexical transformation to be discussed in this Paper is traditional word usage for every language and which causes frequent lexical transformations. This traditional usage is to some extent related to another approach to the phenomena of reality. For example:
The military base is built on terraces rising from the lake.
For Russian the traditional use will be:
Военная база построена на террасах, спускающихся к озеру.
In this case preposition is omitted in translation because as the originality of the English word usage required complete transformation.
To the traditional word usage can also be referred the so-called cliches - order, and the cliches in wider sense.
Hands up!
Руки вверх!
Long live America!
Да здравствует Америка!
The assault of the castle was followed by continuous bombing. Loss of life was uncountable.
За штурмом крепости последовала длительная бомбардировка. Жертвы были бесчисленны.
The Commonwealth countries handle a quarter of the world's trade.
На страны Британского содружества приходится четверть всей мировой торговли
As you can see from the examples given above - in translations corresponding Russian cliches are also used.
2.3 Stylistic difficulties of translation
In the previous chapters we carefully considered the grammatical and lexical transformations that occur while translating political literature from English into Russian. And we have figured out that most of these reasons are rooted in national and cultural settings of both languages.
Practically, stylistic devices in almost all languages are similar still though their functions in speech vary. Identical stylistic devices are used differently in languages; they perform different functions and have different value in stylistic system of their language what actually explains their necessity when transformations in translation occur. The stylistic changes are as necessary as grammatical or lexical ones. While applying some grammatical or lexical transformation in translation the translator is guided by principle of rendering grammatical of lexical meaning. When rendering stylistic meaning of the source text a translator should be guided by the same principle - to recreate in translation the same impression that might be left by the original text.
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