Intralinguistic meaning – the relation between the linguistic signs of one and the same language.
Aspects of intralinguistic meaning:
- Sound similarity: alliteration, assonance (for ex: in “The Raven” by Poe);
- Morphemic similarity ("Do you know anything about books?" "Yes, sir, I'm a good bookkeeper." - Вы что-нибудь смыслите в книгах? - Да, сэр, я умею вести конторские книги)
- Intralinguistic meaning is also revealed in puns, or plays upon words, which make most puzzling tasks for a translator. In this case a translator cannot use translation equivalents but has to compensate a word by another one that can be also played upon. For example, to translate a children’s riddle into English: Why is a book like a king? – Because it has many pages. (where the word page is associated with two homonymous meanings: 1) страница, 2) паж), a translator compensated the homonymous page by the Russian homonym глава (1.head, 2.chapter): Что общего между книгой и драконом? – У обоих несколько глав).
18. Grammatical aspect of translation Equivalence is achieved by different transformations: grammatical, lexical, stylistic. The causes generating grammatical transformations are not always purely grammatical but may be lexical as well, though grammatical causes naturally prevail due to differences in the SL and TL grammatical structures.
Divergences in the structures of the two languages are so considerable that in the process of translation various grammatical and lexical transformations indispensable to achieve equivalence. These transformations may be classed into four types: 1. transpositions; 2. replacements; 3. additions; 4. omissions.
Transposition- is a change in the order of the target sentence syntactic elements (Subject, Predicate, Object, etc.) as compared with that of the source sentence dictated either by peculiarities of the target language syntax or by the communication intent. (e.g. The flight will be boarding at Gate 17 in about fifteen minutes. Приблизительно через 15 минут на этот рейс будет посадка у выхода номер 17)
Replacement- is any change in the target text at the morphological, lexical and syntactic levels of the language when the elements of the certain source paradigms are replaced by different elements of target paradigms. (e.g. He used to come to Italy each spring. Обычно он приезжал в Италию каждую весну.)
Addition - is a device intended for the compensation of structural elements implicitly present in the source text or paradigm forms missing in the target language. (e.g. The policeman waved me on. Полицейский помахал мне рукой, показывая, что я могу проезжать).
Omission - is reduction of the elements of the source text considered redundant from the viewpoint of the target language structural patterns and stylistics. (e.g. Summer rains in Florida may be violent, while they last. Летом во Флориде бывают сильные дожди). We also omit words that are not necessary for understanding or expressing a certain coloring.One of the cases or superfluity is the use in English of twin-pair synonyms mostly typical of judicial documents. (E.g. regular and normal session – обычная сессия)
This classification, however, should be applied with reservation. In most cases they are combined with one another, moreover, grammatical and lexical elements in a sentence are so closely interwoven that one change involves another.
19. The object of Translation Theory as a discipline The object of theory of translation is translation as a process, i.e. a certain type of human activities resulting in a new target language text and as a result of a certain action, process, i.e. the translated text itself. By the word “process” we mean a certain kind of translation from a SL text into a TL text, i.e. the linguistic aspect proper, rather than psychological or mental work going on in the mind of the translator. By ”text” we mean any stretch of language spoken or written, that is under discussion. Thus, for example, N.Enkwist reduces the notion of “text” to three fundamental linguistic parameters, characterizing it as:
1. topic (the message of the text or its content)
2. forms (the marked units of the text – words, phrases, sentences)
3. linkage (a means of linking various stretches of the utterance)
According to circumstances a text may thus be a whole library of books, a chapter, a paragraph, a sentence etc.
20. Concretization. Generalization. Concretization is a linguistic case when the SL word or word combination with wide primary meaning is replaced by the TL word or word combination with narrow meaning. It may be divide into:
1. linguistic (e.g. student, pupil; thing (abstract meaning) – вещь, предмет, дело, дело, факт)
2. contextual (e.g. the clouds fled before the wind - ветер рассеял облака)
Abstract words in English form a numerous group. Words belonging to this group require lexical and grammatical replacements by words possessing a concrete meaning: Ageing Speaker cannot take the burdens of the presidency.Стареющий спикер не может принять на себя всю тяжесть президентскойвласти. Words of abstract meaning which for some reason or other have no equivalents in the Russian language are translated by some concrete word determined by the context. Their meaning is usually conveyed with the help of replacements or additions.
Another group is formed by a large number of words of wide meaning. Their reference has widened to such an extent that they have come to be used in a variety of contexts. Some of them move towards desemantization, such as piece, place, thing, affair, stuff, stunt etc: The place was full, and they wandered about looking for a table. Ресторан был переполнен; они ходили по залу в поисках свободного столика. Desemantized words form one more group.The word place which is practically desemantized is translated by the concrete word ресторан.
Special attention should be paid to the translation of verbs of wide meaning, such as: to come, to go, to turn, to say, to tell, to get, to die and others. They are rendered either by concrete words suitable to the context or by verb equivalents used in corresponding collocations:The canary got out of the cage. Канарейка выпорхнула из клетки.