Azərbaycan Respublikası “ÇAĞ” Öyrətim İşlətmələri

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61 
The History of Bible Translation-Modern Translations-In the Middle English 
period John Wycliffe, John Purvey, and Nicholas of Hereford collaborated to pro-
duce the first complete Bible in English. There were two editions of the Wycliffe 
Bible. They were both translations of the Latin text. The first edition was a literal 
translation from Latin into English. There was a second edition completed in 1936. 
It circulated more widely. The focus was one on the meaning of sentences, not mere 
words. 
As a result of this work, Wycliffe and his followers, ``the Lollards``suffered 
persecution as haretics.Purvey and Nicholas were forced to recant their work. In 
1408, the Constitutions of Oxford included a prohibition against the Bible trans-
lation without approval of church authorities. By the sixteenth century, a number of 
events profoundly affected later Bible translation. The Renaissance caused a reco-
very of classical learning. Greek scholars moved westward as Constantinople fell 
to the Turks (1453). The invention of the printing press around 1450 was a pro-
found influence on Bible translation. By 1488, there were printed editions of the 
Hebrew Bible. The Protestant Reformation in 1517 emphasized vernacular versions. 
The break with Rome during the Tudor dynasty in England influenced the course of 
the English Bible. 
The history of Bible Translation-Today’s Translation-William Tyndale (1484-
1536) was a Greek scholar educated at Oxford with a desire to provide a readable 
bible to the average person. He based his English New Testament on aGreek text 
established by Erasmus in 1516. He printed it in Europe in 1526 and revised it in 1534. 
Myles Coverdale produced the first complete English Bible of the sixteenth century 
in 1535. Subsequently in 1611,King James gave his blessing to a new translation, 
Authorized Version or King James Bible. 
Good theory is based on information gained from practice. Good practice is 
based on carefully worked-out theory. 
The ideal translation will be accurate as to meaning and natural as to the recaptor 
language forms used. An intended audience who is unfamiliar with the source text 
will be readily it. The success of a translation is measured by how closely it measures 
up to this ideals. 
In practice, there is considerable variation in the types of translations produced 
by translators. Some translators work only in two languages and are competent in 
both. Others work from their first language to their second language, and still others 
from their second language to their first language. Depending on these matters of 
language proficiency, the procedures used will vary from project to project. In most 
projects in which SIL is involved, a translation team carries on the project. Team 
roles are worked out according to the individual skills of team members. There is 
also some variation depending on the purpose of a given translation and the type of 
translation that will be accepted by the intended audiences. 
 

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IDIOMS IN GENERAL 
Ayaz SOLTANOV 
Qafqaz University Translation Department V 
Supervisor:Narmina Aliyeva 
 
1. DEFINITION OF IDIOMS 
Language grows and changes as well as living things. It is usually said that' 
language is a living thing' and it is important to think about how and why it is 
possible. Present-day English is different from the older one because nowadays it is 
quite popular to use idioms.
1
 There are many different definitions of idioms. Various 
authors define an idiom in different ways. 
"In standard spoken and written English today idiom is an established, universal 
and essential element that, used with care, ornaments and enriches the language."
2
 
Definition of V.H. Collins originates from the year 1958 and emphasizes mainly 
that idioms enrich language, both the written and the spoken form. 
Seidl and McMordie (McMordie and Seidl 1978, 1) claim that: "Idioms are not 
a separate part of the language which one can choose either to use or to omit, but 
they form an essential part of the general vocabulary of English." 
Idioms should not be considered as a separate part of language. It is not necessary 
to be an expert in foreign languages in order to understand that the 
Vocabulary of a language grows together with new developments in knowledge.
3
 
1.1 Enrichment of Language 
Language is enriched by creating new words. Words which already exist in a 
language can express new ideas and they can help a language to grow. Another 
possibility is that new ideas can be expressed by the combination of two or three 
existing words. 
English is a very flexible language and that is why it is easy to give words new 
grammatical functions. The purpose of change in the function of words is to make 
the form of words used shorter and more direct. These short forms are more popular 
than the longer ones because they are more convenient and quicker to use. 
4
 
According to Fromkin, Hyams and Rodman (Fromkin et al. 2003) these main 
types of language enrichment by word coinage are: 
                                                 
1
   McMordie and Seidl 1978 
2
   Collins 1958,11 
3
  
McMordie and Seidl 1978 
4
   McMordie and Seidl 1978
 

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1.1.1. Compounds 
These are words created by joining two or more words together, e.g. bitter-
sweet (adjective), poorhouse (noun), to whitewash (verb). 
1.1.2. Acronyms 
Words that are derived form the initials of several words, e.g. NASA from National 
Aeronautics and Space Agency, UNESCO from United Nations Educational, Scientific, 
and Cultural Organization). 
1.1.3. Back-Formation 
A new word may enter the language because of an incorrect morphological 
analysis. For example, peddle was derived from peddler on the mistaken assumption 
that the er was the agentive suffix. It means that verbs can be created from the root 
of nouns. 
1.1.4. Abbreviations 
Abbreviations are words that are created from longer words by shortening 
them, e.g. television= telly, gymnasium= gym. 
1.1.5. Blending 
Blends are combinations of two words similar to compounds but parts of the 
words that are given together or 'mixed' are deleted, e.g. motel from motor + hotel, 
smog from smoke + fog. 
"Knowing a language includes knowing the morphemes, simple words, compound 
words, and their meanings." 
5
 
This phrase means that the knowledge of language is based on knowing fixed 
phrases that consist of more than one word. Idioms can be included in word formations 
because they are created by giving two or more words together. The words acquire 
new meaning when given together and it is important to learn idioms as a whole. 
2. ASPECTS OF IDIOMS 
Idioms are not only colloquial expressions; they also appear in formal style, 
slang, poetry, and in language of Shakespeare. 
According to V.H. Collins there is no clear difference between slang and collo-
quialisms. Many words or phrases that were in the past used by uneducated people 
had been regarded as slang but later they became colloquialisms that are used by 
educated people and nowadays they can become idioms.
6
 
Seidl and McMordie also claim that some words that were considered to be 
slang in the past are nowadays more acceptable and they can be considered as col-
loquial or informal.
7
 They say that: "an idiom is a number of words which, taken 
                                                 
5
  
Fromkin et al. 2003, 205 
6
  
Collins 1958 
7
   McMordie and Seidl 1978 

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together, mean something different from the individual words of the same idiom 
when they stand alone." 
Similar definitions were provided by Huddleston and Pullum who consider idioms 
as: "an expression larger than a word whose meaning cannot be systema-tically 
derived from meanings that the parts have when used independently of each other." 
8
 
Bollinger and Sears define an idiom as: "groups of words with set meanings 
that cannot be calculated by adding up the separate meanings of the parts." 
9
 
Based on this, it can be deduced that an idiom used as a whole means something 
different than its parts separately. 
Idioms in which the word-order is stable are called fixed idioms. Some fixed 
idioms are fixed only in certain parts. For example the idiom to come to a bad/ 
/nasty/sticky/no good/untimely end is not fixed in all parts because different adjec-
tives can be used in its structure. 
10
 
All the above mentioned definitions of idioms are similar because they emphasize 
that idioms consist of more than one word and every word gets a special meaning 
when it is used in an idiom and thus it is difficult to understand idioms. 
3. FEATURES OF IDIOMS 
The main features of idioms are based on the fact that they are unchangeable 
and tight. When idioms are unchangeable, it is impossible to change subject, verb 
or object. On the other hand there are idioms which can allow a limited manipulation. 
This manipulation is often connected with time or person. Transformation of idioms 
is also possible. In these cases a passive of the original idiom can be made. Bolinger 
and Sears mention an example: 
He found fault with them that can be made passive- Fault was found with them. 
11
 
Degree of tightness is likewise connected with idioms. 
"The three idioms to take fright,  to take courage, and to take heart stand in 
order of increasing tightness." 
12
 
There is a question whether everything that is said can be in some way idio-
matic because idioms can vary widely in tightness. Some linguists do not like this 
because they prefer to analyze things down to the smallest elements. Some idioms 
have special features which are connected with the ways in which the words are put 
together. These ways are usually odd, illogical or even grammatically incorrect. On 
the other hand, there are also idioms that are completely regular and logical in their 
vocabulary and grammar. Idioms ought to be learnt in a correct word-order because 
                                                 
8
   Huddleston and Pullum 2002, 273 
9
   Bolinger and Sears 1981, 53
 
10
  
(McMordie and Seidl 1978) 
12  
Bollinger and Sears 1981 
12
  
Bollinger and Sears 1981, 54 

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in some cases this word-order cannot be changed. The idiom has been fixed by a long 
usage.
13
 
According to a study that is conducted by Lazar, Warr-Leeper, Nicholson and 
Johnson, “approximately 6.7% of the sentences in third-to eighth-grade reading 
materials used idioms”.
14
 Similarly, Pallio, Barlow, Fine, and Pollio, in order to figure 
out the rate of idiom use, worked on political debates, psychological texts, novels, 
and psychotherapy sessions and found that “most English speakers utter about 10 
million novel metaphors per lifetime and 20 million idioms per lifetime. This works 
out to about 3000 novel metaphors per week and 7000 idioms per week”. 
4. SOURCES OF IDIOMS 
Idioms come from different sources. When the source of an idiom is known, it 
is much easier to understand its meaning. According to Seidl and McMordie ‘many 
idioms are connected with home life (e.g. to make a clean sweep of something), 
food and cooking (e.g. to be in the soup), agricultural life (e.g. to go to seed), nautical 
and military life (e.g. to be in deep waters, to fight a pitched battle), parts of body, 
animals and colors.
15
 
Idioms come from all different sources - from the Bible to horse racing, from 
ancient fables to modern slang. Sometimes famous authors and storytellers such as 
Homer, Aesop, Geoffrey Chaucer, or William Shakespeare made them up to add 
spark to their writings.
16
 
5. TYPES OF IDIOMS 
Idioms can be either short or long; they can have different forms or structures. 
Their structure can be irregular or even grammatically incorrect. Seidl and 
McMordie distinguish three main types of idioms: 
1. Idioms those are irregular or illogical in their grammatical structure. For 
example in the idiom I am good friends with him, the form is irregular but the 
meaning is clear. 
2. Idioms whose form is irregular but the meaning is not clear, e.g. to have a 
bee in one‘s bonnet. 
3. Idioms whose forms and meanings are both irregular, e.g. to be at large. 
It has been found out by Seidl and McMordie that most idioms belong to the 
group of idioms whose form is irregular and the meaning is not clear. There is also 
a difference among idioms in this group because some of them are clearer than 
others. Meaning of idioms that are easy to understand can be guessed from the 
                                                 
13
   McMordie and Seidl 1978 
14
   in Harris, 1999, p.142 
15
   McMordie and Seidl 1978 
16
   http://www.sky-net-eye.com/eng/dictionary/english/idioms/idiom-articles/where-did-idioms-
come-from 

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context. On the contrary, it is very difficult to size up the meaning of idioms that 
have nothing in common with the original meaning of the individual words. 
17
 
Now it is clear that the meaning of idiom is the most important but different 
authors who delays with idioms have different opinions. 
V.H. Collins claims that meaning of the idiom is not the main problem. Its origin 
can also cause inconvenience because there is a difference between using idioms in 
the past and nowadays. 
18
  Seidl and McMordie divided idioms into these groups: 
•  idioms combining adjectives and nouns 
•  idioms with verbs and nouns 
•  idioms with prepositions and adverbs 
•  adjectives with prepositions 
•  verbs with prepositions and adverbial particles 
•  idioms with the verb TO BE 
•  idioms with common verbs 
•  idioms based on special situations and categories 
•  idioms of comparison 
 
 
CHALLENGES IN TRANSLATION OF                
POLYSEMANTIC WORDS 
Aysel ASGEROVA 
Qafqaz University Translation Department II 
Supervisor:Afaq Shahsuvarova 
 
In our daily life, at work, at university we meet different type of problems. 
While talking to people, explaining our thoughts, writing essays, translating some 
materials we face to some kind of challenging situations. Our thesis is dealing with 
one of these problems in translation process. This problem is polysemy and polyse-
mantic problems in translation. There is much kind of problems during translation 
procedure, but why did we choose this one? Let's think firstly about what is transla-
tion? How the one can achieve the best translation? The main aim of the translator 
is to produce as nearly as possible the same effect on his readers as was produced 
on the readers of the original. We assume that all translation is partly science, partly 
craft, partly art, partly a matter of taste. But we have no right to improve an autho-
ritative text ,however wayward ,clichéd, quirky, jargonized, innovative, unnatural 
                                                 
17
   McMordie and Seidl 1978 
18
   Collins 1958 

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its language may be; we have to pursue the same style ,making slight concessions 
for the different stylistic norms of the target language ,but assuming on the whole 
that the personality of the author is more important than any norms of language. The 
translation should be easily identified when compared with the original quotation; 
possibly the greater the authority, the closer the translation. The main criterion for 
improvement is the translator’s conviction that he is helping the source language 
writer to get his message or information across without distorting it. 
Many translator's say you should never translate words, you translate sentences 
or ideas or messages. In our opinion they are deceiving themselves. The source lan-
guage text consists of words that are all that is there, on the page. We should translate 
words that are more or less linguistically, referentially, culturally and subjectively 
influenced in their meaning, words conditioned by a certain linguistic, referential, 
cultural and personal context. There is cultural context, words related to ways of 
thinking and behaving within a particular language community, and words which 
may be cultural (e.g., keçə, an Azery head-dress) or universal (e.g.,” tea") denoting 
a specific material cultural object. There is other context, words related to different 
meanings which release difficulties and problems in translation process .About 
these types of words we are talking about in our thesis. Why did we choose this 
problem, or why did this field attract us? Is it really challenge or problem for translator, 
is this problem really inescapable, how can we remove and solve it and make it easy 
for ourselves to work with such kind of words. 
In our opinion this is very important field of research too. Why did we choose 
this field? Because, this field had not been worked out before and it could be very 
essential and vital handout for students. They can use and evaluate it in their future 
works. Let's think a little bit about what should be done to avoid distorts of meaning, 
what is the object and subject of this theme? How helpful and useful may this 
theme be? There are such kind of words which have different, more than one meaning, 
and this can be challenging in translation procedure. To avoid this problem it is 
very important to pay attention words, especially key words and the words with 
more than one meaning then look up in the dictionaries. It is important first of all to 
pay attention to context of a text because such kind of words may really be challen-
ging and problematic .How such kind of words should be distinguished? In our 
thesis we will be dealing with such kind of questions.’ Translated words always lie, 
but translated texts only lie when they are badly translated'. So many thousand 
English words have other meanings. And we will try to clear up this matter in our 
thesis We will clear up that, an important word in a text which is used in a peculiar 
sense by the writer can be first translated literally with an explanation or definition 
and then by a word relating it more closely to the target language translation, used 
first as translation label. The latter may be adopted for subsequent recurrence, 
leading the reader 'gently' into a more accepted use of a word 
In our days many scholars have been interested in polysemy and ploysemantic 
challenges in translation process and in differentiating plysemantic and other rela-

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ted words. How a translator should distinct them from each other or what kind of 
situations he faces to. What kind of types they find and how they compare the lexical, 
meaning based and other types. In our opinion it is really challenging task. Let’s 
take a look to the scholar’s researches and their outcomes. For.eg.,Lyons  states the 
following features of lexical polysemy in the form of criteria. 
a)  There must be a clear derived sense relation between the polysemantic senses 
of a word. 
b)  The polysemantic senses of a word must be shown to be etymologically 
related to the same original source word. 
c)  Lexical polysemy is a sense relation within a particular syntactic category. 
i.e.lexical polysemy does not cut across syntactic word class boundaries. 
More recently Taylor applied traditional semantic tests which were used  to 
distinguish between vagueness and ambiguity, to differentiate between monosemy 
and polysemy.He comes to the following conclusion.Unfortunately,the result from 
ambiguity tests are frequently far from unambiguous themselves. According to 
Taylor a word is homosemous if it is vague, and it is polysemous if it is ambiguous. 
Geeraerts states that "clashes between the definitions of polysemy can be found" 
Dunbar comes to the conclusion that the definitional test is unreliable, but he 
finds some use in the logical and linguistic tests. Allen and De Stadler also identify 
the problem of differentiating between polysemy and both homonymy. (For.eg., 
'bank' as financial institution and 'bank as the side along which a river flows') and 
vagueness as the main issues in identifying the polysemy and solving its challenges 
and barriers that it builds up. 
Tuggy states that only semantic distinctions whish are conventionalized are 
'part of mental structure of language' thus, in principle agreeing that vagueness and 
polysemy are unrelated issues. 
These scholars have brought their thoughts and opinions about polysemy, poly-
semantic structure, differences and challenges that it forms for translation. How they 
might be and must be removed. Their thoughts of course are very important but we 
shall give our own opinions on this matter and we hope our thoughts, examples, 
researches, sources, opinions will be evaluated and used by students as handout. 
Afterwards our researches we hopefully believe in that this aim that we put it into 
our mind will be reached successfully. Our thesis will be consist of abstract, intro-
ducetion, and in its main(body)part there will be given 2 chapters. Each chapter 
will be consist of several semi chapters and punkts.In the 1chapter we will write 
about What is polysemy,how to resolve ambiguities and differ homonymy and 
other vague and ambigious words from polysemantic words. In the second chapter 
of our thesis there will be given the deepest information about translation and the 
challenges that translator faces to during translation procedure.We'll deal with such 
kind of questions and try to answer them adequately and correctly.What kind of 
relation exist between these two ideas?,how do they affect to each other in senten-