Grammatical transformations in translation

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 - Вошел мальчик.

But: The boy came in - Мальчик вошел.

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 - Взглянув наверх, он задрожал. (Note here also the rendering of the English subordinate clause by means of the Russian verbal adverb; see above, the preceding lecture).

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). Мы подошли. - Вы в суд пойдете? - спросил Джим. (пер. Н. Галь и Р. Облонской) 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 - роман о жизни простых людей.

(replacement of Plural by Singular)

He said he knew the man - Он сказал, что знает этого человека.

(replacement of Past by Present)

The door was opened by a middle-aged woman - Дверь отворила пожилая женщина.

(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... Мы надеемся, что...

...The abandonment by Irene of all the glittering things he had given her.... (J. Galsworthy, In Chancery) - Когда Ирэн оставила все безделушки, которые он ей подарил.

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" - тот, кто написал эту записку. Compare:

Не is an early riser - Он рано встает.

John is a sound sleeper - Джон крепко спит.

55555I'm a very rapid packer - (J.Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye) - Я очень быстро укладываюсь.

She is a very good dancer (ib.) - Она очень хорошо танцует.

Fairly often, English adjectives are replaced by Russian nouns (in an oblique case or preceded by a preposition):

Australian prosperity - (экономическое) процветание Австралии.

youthful joblessness - безработица среди молодежи.

generational style of life- образ жизни, свойственный данному поколению.

(The above examples are very typical of the so-called "journalese")

English comparative forms of adjectives such as higher, lower, longer, shorter, better, etc. A frequently replaced by Russian nouns (derived from adjective stems which, in their turn are verbalized) повышение, понижение, увеличение, сокращение, улучшение etc.: "They demand higher wages and better living conditions" - Они требуют повышения заработной платы и улучшения жизненных условий.

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:

He was met by his sister - Его встретила сестра.

He was given money - Ему дали денег.

The new film is much spoken about - О новом фильме много говорят, (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) - На прошлой неделе состоялось собрание цеховых старост и профсоюзных деятелей, в котором приняло участие 500 человек.

The tent sleeps six people - В палатке могут спать шесть человек.

Rhodesia has hanged five African guerillas - В Родезии были казнены пять африканских партизан.

New terrorists attacks have injured six persons - В результате новых нападений террористов шесть человек было ранено.

The fog stopped the traffic - Из-за тумана движение транспорта было остановлено.

Figure 2 gives a summary of the results of such experiments - На рис. 2 показаны сводные результаты этих экспериментов.

It is self-evident that during translation from Russian into English the process is reversed; cf.: s.

В комнате установилась тишина - The room turned silent, В радиотехнических устройствах часто встречаются системы из электрических проводов - 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 - Я хочу, чтобы Вы говорили по-английски.

I heard my mother go out and close the door (Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye) - Я услыхал, как мама вышла из комнаты и закрыла двери.

Here is a book for you to read - Вот книга, которую Вы должны прочитать.

The General's a good man to keep away from (S.Heym. The Crusaders) - Генерал, конечно, неплохой человек, но лучше от него держаться подальше.

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:

Сегодня ночью в центральных районах Алжира произошло землетрясение, длившееся двенадцать секунд. Число жертв, по предварительным подсчетам, составляет 1100 человек. Тысячи жителей бежали из полностью разрушенного города Орлеанвилля. (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) - Одно меня беспокоило - наша парадная дверь скрипит как оголтелая.

(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)-У него новый папа -это он снят на карточке.

55555So 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) - Я пошёл к восточным кварталам, где были дешёвые рестораны: не хотелось тратить много денег.

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) В нем только два платья, туфли, белье, носки и всякие мелочи,

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 Своё мастерство демонстрировали экипажи судов, лётчики, парашютисты. 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 -требование о повышении заработной платы;

gun license - удостоверение на право ношения оружия;

oil talks - переговоры по вопросу о нефти;

solid engine - двигатель на твёрдом топливе;

the Watergate judge - судья, назначенный для рассмотрения Уотергейтского дела.

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 - рабочие всех отраслей промышленности; modern weapons - современные виды оружия; enemy defenсes -оборонительные сооружения противника; other philosophies - другие философские направления (теории).

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: «Я расплатился и пошёл к автоматам».

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 Л. С. Бархударов, Язык и перевод, гл. 5.

LEXICAL PROBLEMS

LECTURE 6