Lecture 5. TRANSLATION AND STYLE

This Lecture

deals with the style as an essential component of adequate translation;

introduces:

 

• major styles: belles-lettres (prose, poetry, drama); publicistic style; newspaper style; scientific style; official documents style;

• stylistic devices and expression means (metaphor, metonymy, pun, irony, transferred qualifier, zeugma, paraphrase, overt and covert quotations and allusion).

The problem of translation equivalence is closely connected with the stylistic aspect of translation - one cannot reach the required level of equivalence if the stylistic peculiarities of the source text are neglected. Full translation adequacy includes as an obligatory component the ade­quacy of style, i. e. the right choice of stylistic means and devices of the target language to substitute for those observed in the source text. This means that in translation one is to find proper stylistic variations of the original meaning rather than only meaning itself.

For example, if the text You'll see... everything will be hunky-dory is translated in neutral style (say, Побачиш...усе буде добре) the basic meaning will be preserved but colloquial and a bit vulgar connotation of the expression hunky-dory will be lost. Only the stylistically correct equivalent of this expression gives the translation the required adequacy: (e. g., Побачиш...усе буде тіп-топ).

The expression of stylistic peculiarities of the source text in translation is necessary to fully convey the communication intent of the source text.

Stylistic peculiarities are rendered in translation by proper choice of the target language translation equivalents with required stylistic color­ing. This choice will depend both on the functional style of the source text and the individual style of the source text author.

The types of texts distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of communica­tion are called functional styles. Modern stylistics distinguishes the follow­ing varieties of functional styles²⁸

1. belles-lettres (prose, poetry, drama);

2. publicistic style;

3. newspaper style;

4. scientific style;

5. official documents

Any comparison of the texts belonging to different stylistic varieties listed above will show that the last two of them (scientific style variety and official documents) are almost entirely devoid of stylistic coloring being characterized by the neutrality of style whereas the first three (belles-lettres (prose, poetry, drama), publicistic and newspaper style) are usually rich in stylistic devices to which a translator ought to pay due attention.

Special language media securing the desirable communication effect of the text are called stylistic devices and expression means.

First of all a translator is to distinguish between neutral, bookish and colloquial words and word combinations, translating them by relevant units of the target language. Usually it is a routine task. However, it sometimes is hard to determine the correct stylistic variety of a transla­tion equivalent, then - as in almost all instances of translation - final de­cision is taken on the basis of context, situation and background infor­mation.

For example, it is hard to decide without further information, which of the English words - disease, illness or sickness - corresponds to the Ukrainian words хвороба and захворювання. However, even such short contexts as infectious disease and social disease already help to choose ap­propriate equivalents and translate the word disease as інфекційне захворювання and соціальна хвороба, accordingly.

This example brings us to a very important conclusion that style is expressed in proper combination of words rather than only in stylistic coloring of the individual words.

• Stylistic devices are based on the comparison of primary (dic­tionary) meaning and that dictated by the contextual environment; on the contradiction between the meaning of the given word and the environment; on the association between words in the minds of the language speakers and on purposeful deviation from accepted grammatical and phonetic standards.

The following varieties of stylistic devices and expression means are most common and frequently dealt with even by the translators of non-fiction texts.

Metaphor is the transfer of some quality from one object to another.

Usually the metaphors (especially trite²⁹ ones) are rather easy for translation: they are translated either by keeping to semantic similarity (e. g. ray of hope - промінь надії) or by choosing an appropriate prag­matic equivalent (e. g. flood of tears - море сліз).

Trite - commonplace, not new.

 

•► Metonymy is similarity by association, usually one of the con­stituents of an object replaces the object itself

As a rule translators keep to literal translation when translating the cases of metonymy. For example, crown (meaning the royal family) is usually translated as корона, hand - рука (є. g. in: He is the right hand of the president), etc.

•► Irony is expressed through words contradicting close text environment.

Cases of irony do not present serious problems for translation and the approaches similar to those mentioned above (semantic or pragmatic equivalence) are commonly used. For example, the ironical expression paper war may be translated as паперова війна or війна паперів.

•► Semantic and syntactic irregularities of expression used as stylis­tic devices are called transferred qualifier and zeugma, respectively.

A good example of a transferred qualifier is he paid his smiling atten­tion to... - here the qualifier smiling refers to a person, but is used as an attribute to the state (attention). Translator's task in this case consists in rendering the idea in compliance with the lexical combination rules of the target language. For instance, in Ukrainian it may be expressed as Посміхаючись, він звернув увагу...

Zeugma is also a semantic irregularity, e. g. if one and the same verb is combined with two or more nouns and acquires a different meaning in each of such combinations. For example, He has taken her picture and another cup of tea. Here again the translator's task is to try to render this ironical comment either by finding a similar irregularity in the target language or, failing to show a zeugma (and irony of the author), stick to regular target language means (i. e. separate the two actions Він зробив її фото і випив ще одну чашку чаю or try to render them as a zeugma as well Він зробив її фото і ще один ковток чаю з чашки).

A pun (so called 'play of words') is righteously considered the most difficult for translation.

Pun is the realization in one and the same word of two lexical meanings simultaneously.

A pun can be translated only by a word in the target language with similar capacity to develop two meanings in a particular context. English is comparatively rich in polysems and homonyms, whereas in Ukrainian these word types are rather rare. Let's take an example of a pun and its fairly good Ukrainian translation.

- What gear were you in at the moment of impact?

- Gucci's sweats and Reebok.

-На якій передачі ви були під час зіткнення?

- «Останні новини».

Another stylistic device is a paraphrase. Its frequent use is character­istic of the English language. Some of the paraphrases are borrowed from classical cources (myths and the Bible); others are typically English. To give an example, the paraphrases of the classical origin are «Beware Greeks...», «Prodigal son» (Бійтеся данайців...», «Блудний син») whereas «Lake Country» («Озерна країна») is a typically English paraphrase. As a rule paraphrases do not present difficulties for translation, however, their correct translation strongly depends on situation and appropriate background information.

Special attention is to be paid by a translator to overt and covert quotations. Whereas the former require only correct rendering of the source quotation in the target language (Never suggest your own home­made translation for a quotation of a popular author!), the latter usually takes the shape of an allusion and the pragmatic equivalence seems the most appropriate for the case. For example, «the Trojan horse raid» one may translate as напад, підступний, як кінь троянців (i.e. preserving the allusion) or as підступний напад (loosing the meaning of the origi­nal quotation).

A translator is to be ready to render dialect forms and illiterate speech in the target language forms. It goes without saying that one can hardly render, say, cockney dialect using the Western Ukrainian dialect forms. There is no universal recipe for this translation problem. In some cases the distortions in the target grammar are used to render the dialect forms but then again it is not 'a cure-all' and each such case requires an individual approach.

Thus, any good translation should be fulfilled with due regard of the stylistic peculiarities of the source text and this recommendation applies to all text types rather than only to fiction.

 

Література:

1. Комиссаров В.Н. Современное переводоведение. Учебное пособие. – М.: ЭТС. – 2002. – 424 с.

2. Мирам Г.Е. Профессиональный перевод. - К., 2003. – 134 с.

3. Комиссаров В.Н. Лингвистика перевода. - М, 1981.

4. Корунець І.В. Теорія і практика перекладу. - Вінниця, 2003. - 448 с.

5. Мірам Г.Є. Дейнеко В.В. Основи перекладу. - К., 2003.

6. Мирам Г.Е. Переводныe картинки. Профессия: переводчик. - К., 2001.

7. Мирам Г.Е. Профессия: переводчик. - К., 1999.

8. Нелюбин Л.Л. Переводческий словарь. - М., 1999.

9. Федоров А.В. Основы общей теории перевода. - М., 1975.

 

Questions

1. What is the relation between translation equivalence and style?

2. Define functional style. What functional styles are distinguished by modern linguistics?

3. What are the stylistic devices and expression means?

4. What is the metaphor, metonymy, irony, transferred qualifier, zeugma, paraphrase, quotation? Give definitions. Suggest translation approaches.

5. What is pun? What are the ways of translating a pun?