Введение в теорию и практику перевода (на материале английского языка)
Шрифт:
Another peculiarity of English phrases with preposed attributes is that an attribute may modify a noun which is as it were omitted and only implied (e.g. "dry pruning" does not mean that the process of pruning is dry, the word "dry" denotes the state of branches that are being pruned).
These semantic and structural peculiarities should be taken into consideration when translating attributive phrases with preposed attributes. First of all it is necessary to translate the final noun, which is always the main word in such a phrase. Then one should single out sense groups within the phrase and analyze relations between them. If all these groups modify the final noun they may be translated in the same succession as they are in English, or in a different succession, according to the norms of the Russian language. If they modify each other consecutively the reverse way of translation is often recommended:
There are several ways of translating such attributive phrases.
1. A preposed attribute may be translated with the help of a corresponding Russian preposed attribute: "a fine day" – "чудесный
2. A postpositional attribute may be used in Russian: "always-at-ease-girls" – "девушки, всегда чувствующие себя непринужденно". Often these postpositional attributes are expressed by nouns in the genitive case: "opposition leader" – "лидер оппозиции".
3. A preposed attribute of an English phrase may be expressed in Russian by a postpositional attribute joined to the modified noun by a preposition (usually N + prep + N): "highway robbery" – "грабеж на большой дороге", "youth unemployment" – "безработица среди молодежи".
4. A preposed attribute may be rendered in translation by an apposition: "her millionaire friend" – "ее друг-миллионер".
5. Sometimes one of the components of an English phrase (usually the preposed attribute itself) is best translated descriptively, i.e. by a group of words: "a bargain counter" – "прилавок (отдел) товаров по сниженным ценам".
6. When translating English attributive phrases with preposed attributes it is often advisable or even necessary to rearrange components of the phrase and transfer the attribute to another noun (present in or omitted from the phrase): "free educational institutions" – "бесплатные учебные заведения", though in English the word "free" is connected with "educational" and not with "institutions"; "Parliamentary Labour Party" – "парламентская фракция лейбористской партии" (the word "парламентская" here is an attribute to the noun "фракция" and is introduced into the phrase according to the norms of the Russian language); "the nine Common Market foreign ministers" – "девять министров иностранных дел стран Общего рынка", where two nouns are introduced ("дел" and "стран") to show real semantic connections.
For the purposes of translation an attribute may be transferred to another noun used in the same sentence outside the phrase. E.g. "dismal array of titles" in Mark Twain’s "Running for Governor" should rather be translated as "набор ужасных прозвищ", though in English the adjective "dismal" modifies the noun "array", not "titles".
7. Very often English attributive phrases are translated with the help of Russian adverbial phrases, especially in case of English
"to give a loud whistle" – "громко свистнуть", "to have a good dinner" – "хорошо (вкусно, как следует и т.д.) пообедать", etc.
8. Finally there are cases when due to different reasons it is impossible to preserve the structure of a sentence including an attributive phrase with a preposed attribute, so the structure of the sentence is changed completely: "a girl with whom he had previously had a slight party-going acquaintance" – "девушка, с которой он раньше лишь иногда встречался на вечеринках".
The choice of a particular way to translate preposed attributes is predetermined mainly by semantic relations between the components of the phrase, grammatical norm, and combinability of words in TL.
There is a specific type of preposed attributes in English – attributes with inner predication. Their translation mainly depends on their stylistic properties. If such an attribute is rather extended and used for the purpose of irony, it is usually translated by means of a subordinate clause (mostly an object clause): "one of those quick Send-me-two-hundred-by-messengerold-man-or-my-head-goes-in-the-gas-oven touches" (P.G.Wodehouse) – "одна
Speaking about set phrases it is first of all necessary to differentiate between figurative and non-figurative set phrases. Non-figurative set phrases are translated according to the principles that have already been discussed in connection with words and free phrases. The main guiding principle here is to remember the norms of TL.
Figurative set phrases deserve special discussion. The main peculiarity of these phraseological units is their specific meaning that often cannot be deduced from the meanings of their components. It is the meaning of the whole, not of separate words, that should be rendered in translation. Based on imagery, phraseological units serve to make the text more expressive; they are also often responsible for the stylistic colouring of the text. Since the text in TL must be as expressive as it is in SL and characterized by the same stylistic colouring, it becomes very important to find an adequate variant of translating every phraseological unit.
There are four main ways to translate an image-bearing phraseological unit: 1) the image may be preserved as it is; 2) it may be partially changed; 3) it may be replaced by an utterly different image, and 4) a translated version may contain no image at all.
1. They usually preserve the image (and even the structure) of the so-called international phraseological units. Such units are mostly based on some historical, mythological, biblical, etc. references: "In the seventh heaven" – "на седьмом небе", "to go through the fire and water" – "пройти (сквозь) огонь и воду", "a blue stocking" – "синий чулок", "not to see the wood for the trees" – "за деревьями леса не видеть", etc. Such phraseological units of SL and TL are called equivalents. In case of equivalents, there arise no difficulties of stylistic or any other nature.
Sometimes it is possible to preserve the image underlying a phraseological unit in SL even in the case when there is no corresponding unit in TL. It is achieved through loan translation: "no man can make a good coat with bad cloth" – "из плохого материала хорошего платья не сошьешь", "nothing comes out of the sack but what was in it" – "из мешка не вынешь больше, чем в нем было" (or – "ничего, кроме того, что в нем было"), etc. However, this means may be resorted to only if the image is absolutely transparent for the people speaking TL, that is if the figurative meaning of the phraseological unit is easily and unmistakably deduced from its direct meaning. In this case the translated version is no longer phraseological, but it remains figurative, so it renders the idea of the original phraseological unit and adds to the expressiveness of the whole text. If the image is not transparent and the meaning of the whole (and mainly its figurative meaning) cannot be deduced from the lexical meanings of the components, loan translation is absolutely impossible. "To send somebody to Coventry" (бойкотировать) cannot be translated as "послать в Ковентри", and translating "to find a mare’s nest" ("попасть пальцем в небо") as "найти гнездо кобылы" one really finds a mare’s nest.