Translation and the problems of style

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 - высокие договаривающиеся стороны, done in the city of Moscow - совершено в г. Москве, we, the undersigned - мы, нижеподписавшиеся, 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 - ниже именуемый, the signatories of the present agreement shall be responsible for ensuring the observance thereof-стороны, подписавшие соглашение, несут ответственность за его выполнение). 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 пневмония and not as воспаление лёгких.

In a technical manual it is essential in case of terminological synonymy to use the same term for a given item (e.g. if антенный переключатель 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. повернуть до отказа - turn as far as it will go, повернуть по часовой стрелке - 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 ( Побег похищенного генерала - Kidnapped General Escapes). English headlines use the present for the past (Правительство ушло в отставку - Government Resigns) and an infinitive for the future while in Russian futurity may be expressed lexically (Coal-miners to Strike - Предстоящая забастовка шахтеров) 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.

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 (Как сообщает агентство ЮПИ следующий тур голосования состоится завтра) 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 (вчера в Вашингтон прибыл премьер-министр Англии) 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 пробный шар. Clichés tend to become po­lysemantic which may affect their translation. Thus communications gap may be rendered as отсутствие взаимной информации, некоммуникабельность.

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 круги and therefore should be sometimes alternated with synonyms (e.g. quarters as in official 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. - Спортивные журналисты обрушились на руководителей клубов

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): Производство автомобилей в среднем составляет один миллион в год. - Car output averages a million a year; He могли бы Вы пояснить этот тезис примером? 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: На состоявшейся вчера в Белом доме встрече в верхах - At the summit meeting in the White House yesterday... Defense Panel - Комиссия по реорганизации министерства обороны; After Paris or London Washington looks provincial - Тому, кто по» бывал в Париже или Лондоне, Вашингтон покажется провинциальным городом.

Peace Committee - Комитет за и

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 -Дворецкий: академичен, приличен и скучен.

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 мощная волна выступлений рабочего класса - 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. - Сказать, что в своей заключительной речи на конференции тори Хит обещал журавля в небе, было бы слишком невыразительно. Он обещал жар-птицу в стратосфере. 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. - Поджариваемые юпитерами и распекаемые критиками, участники конкурса нервно вздрагивают и путают реплики обливаясь потом в своих смокингах и вечерних платьях.

The substitution of юпитеры for cameras makes it possible to achieve a similar stylistic effect, based on the etymological end semantical association of the Russian поджариваемые and распекаемые. 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. - но факты свидетельствуют о том, что подавляющее большинство испанского народа смертельно ненавидит Франко.

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 (смертельно) 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" - Но он знает, что "общественный контроль над полицией — вот в этом вся штука".

LECTURE 14