Azərbaycan Respublikası “ÇAĞ” Öyrətim İşlətmələri

Materiallar 
                                                                                                                             02 may 2009-cu il
 
 
69 
ces? In these chapters we'll write and inform you about some problematic issues in 
translation of polysemantic words,homonomies and other types of words which 
have various meanings. 
 
 
THEORETICAL PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATİON 
Cahangir ƏHMƏDOV 
Qafqaz University Translation Department IV 
Supervisor: Sheyda Souleymanova
 
 
Firstly, I would like give definition  for translation; translation is ultimately a 
human activity that enables human beings  to exchange ideas and thoughts regardless 
of the various tongues used. Although, there are a great number of translation prob-
lems, I would talk about some general and language problems that we can face 
everyday. 
Problems with the source text; 
Changes made to the text during translation process 
Illegible or difficult to read text 
Misprinted or misspelled text 
Incomplete 
Text which written poorly 
Obvious inaccuracies in the source text 
These are problems which origin from source text .There are also other 
problems which emanate from language problems. 
Dialect terms and  neologisms 
Unexplained acronyms and abbreviations 
Proper names of people, organizations, places and so on 
Obscure jargon 
Obscure idioms 
Slang 
Stylistic and other differences between languages 
Besides these general problems we can also face other subtle problems 
Rhymes, puns and poetic features 
Specific cultural aspects, references 
Insider information 
Words, terms that are commonly known in one culture but generally unknown 
by the layperson in another culture 
Subtle but important properties of language such as euphony or dissonance 
Humor 

«TƏRCÜMƏŞÜNASLIQ VƏ ONUN MÜASİR DÖVRDƏ ROLU»  II Respublika tələbə elmi-praktik konfransı 
 
70 
I think that one of the biggest problems of the translation is the problem of 
untranslatable. Nowadays, untranslatable words are given in specific lists. 
Some words are difficult to translate only if one wishes to remain in the same 
grammatical category. Sometimes we can not find corresponding words for words 
in source language. However, in reality these incredibly culture-laden words are 
the easiest of all to translate, because it is standard practice to translate these kinds 
of words by the same word in the other language. 
Another translation problem is the problem of ambiguity. Ambiguity is a per-
vasive phenomenon in human language. In the best of all possible worlds, every word 
would have one and only one meaning. When a word has more than one meaning, 
it is said to be lexically ambiguous. But when a phrase or sentence can have more 
than one structure it is said to be structurally ambiguous. 
And lastly I would like to talk about Neologisms. Neologisms are perhaps the 
non-literary and the professional translator’s biggest problem. New objects and 
processes are continually created in technology. New ideas and variations on feelings 
come from the media. Terms from the social sciences, slang, and dialect coming 
into the mainstream of language, transferred words make up the rest. As a note I 
would say that each language acquires 3000 new words annually. 
The coinages also pose a problem for a translator. Nowadays, the main new 
coinages are brand or trade names like ‘Bisto’, ‘Persil’, ‘Oxo’. These are usually 
transferred unless the product is marketed in the TL culture under another name. 
 
 
TRANSLATION THEORY 
Ceyran NEZIROVA 
Qafqaz University Translation Department IV 
Supervisor: Narmina Aliyeva 
 
Translation theory was once strictly confined within the scope of linguistics for 
translation was merely referred to as a conversion of languages, from the source 
language into the target language. Nevertheless, when research is carried further 
and deeper, meaning is found not only associated with the language or the text but 
also with the author and the reader, which form the tripartite in understanding of 
the appropriate meaning of any text. My presentation starts with the discussion of 
the relationship of hermeneutics and literary translation and then goes on to propose 
that a perfect theory of translation should be an overall concern of all the three afo-
rementioned factors. 
Translation, according to Nida (1984) consists in reproducing in the receptor 
language the closest natural equivalent of the source language massage, first in terms 

Materiallar 
                                                                                                                             02 may 2009-cu il
 
 
71 
of meaning and secondly in terms of style. Style is another indispensable factor 
involved in translation but cannot be treated in this paper for it is not directly rele-
vant to the present topic. I believe however meaning is never concrete and tangible 
as many may claim and translation of meaning can only achieve a sort of approxi-
mation instead of exactness as is believed by some scholars working in the field. I 
reckon that when the translated meaning produces the same or a similar response in 
the target reader or listener as it does the original reader, the translation is success-
ful by my standard. Newmark (1982) says that it is preferable to handle the issue in 
terms of equivalence of intended effects, thus linking judgments about what the 
translator seeks to achieve to judgments about the intended meaning of the ST 
speaker/writer. In other words I do not seek to reproduce the exactness of the original 
but always bear in my mind the rule of having the same effect on the target reader. 
This assertion is grounded on the fact that it is believed by many that translation is 
itself an end, serving a certain purpose. When it comes to a different point of view-
translation is also a medium, or a process, I have something different to say. Simply 
put, translation involves decoding of the original discourse and encoding of the target 
discourse, both done by the translator or interpreter. During this process, absolute 
faithfulness or accuracy is but an illusion, or best, an impossible idealistic pursuit. 
To achieve the maximum effect or impact of the original discourse and to avoid 
failure of communication, accommodations are made for a variety of reasons. In a 
word, translation in my opinion is both a process and a product. Research there fore 
ought to include all factors and elements concerned about them both. In the following 
discussion I will concentrate on the development of translation theory on the herme-
neutic basis. 
There have been many articles and theses on evaluation of a literary work, dig-
ging quite in depth those factors about the author to make sure the interpretation of 
the work is the closest. For example, in translating Shakespeare into Chinese many 
would draw heavily from history. "The 16th century in England was a period of the 
breaking up of feudal relations and the establishing of the foundations of capita-
lism". Together with the development of bourgeois relationships and formation of 
the English national state this period is marked by a flourishing of national culture 
known as the Renaissance" which originally indicated "a revival of classical arts 
and sciences after the dark ages of medieval obscurantism." Shakespeare as a 
humanist held his chief interest not in ecclesiastical knowledge, but in man, his 
environment and doings and "bravely fought for the emancipation of man from the 
tyranny of the church and religious dogmas. He was a dramatist, poet, actor and 
proprietor and he produced 37 plays, two narrative poems and 154 sonnets. All 
these peripheral facts hinted meaning penned by Shakespeare and under his pen the 
medieval story assumed new meaning and significance. 
This trend of determining meaning in a certain work or of  a certain author was 
of high popularity in China and still is, to some extent. In judging translation, 
therefore, the more abundant materials one has, the more say he has and the more 

«TƏRCÜMƏŞÜNASLIQ VƏ ONUN MÜASİR DÖVRDƏ ROLU»  II Respublika tələbə elmi-praktik konfransı 
 
72 
he is convincing. The stress on text results in the supreme status of the structuralism 
and later deconstruction in translation theory. This school accuses the abovemen-
tioned group of staying far away from the essential element and foundation of 
interpreting the meaning of the original. They hold that as soon as the author has 
finished the writing the meaning is fixed in the text and any 'guess' away from the 
text should be abandoned completely. Thus when two translations are compared 
the grammar, diction and sentence structures are valued above anything else. 
This aspect does not attract attention until quite recently. Owing to the above 
schools the interpretation of a certain work used to be looked on as fixed and estab-
lished by authority who have done thorough research about the author and the detailed 
analysis of the text at hand. So any different interpretation tends to be strongly 
attacked, denying the fact that naturally different readers may well have different 
interpretations. To argue with persuasiveness, reception theory is introduced in 
translation theory which is defined as the "approach to literature that concerns itself 
first and foremost with one or more readers' actualization of the text." (Lernout, 
1994) . Re-translation of the same work is now being done by quite a few translators, 
who boldly do the translation in accordance with their own interpretation and with 
originality and creativity without fear of being ferociously attacked by the so-called 
authority. In addition, literary translation itself I firmly believe is more an artistic 
endeavor than a mechanic linguistic conversion as art is always individual and 
immune to the so-called 'scientific deconstruction'. The three factors each have its 
followers and advocates in the Chinese translation circles today and the disputes and 
arguments still go on. I, a Taoist philosophical follower, believe the 'oneness' which 
in this present case means the organic combination of the three aspects, comple-
menttary to one another. 
 
 
“CONTENT WORDS AND FUNCTION WORDS” 
Jale ABBASZADE 
Qafqaz University Translation Department II 
Supervisor: Afaq Shahsuvarova 
 
Languages make an important distinction between two kinds of words-content 
words and function words.Nouns,verbs,adjectives,adverbs are the content words. 
These words denote concepts such as objects, actions, attributes, and ideas that we 
can think about like children, anarchism, soar, and purple. Content words are some-
times called the open class words because we can and regularly do add new words 
to these classes.A new word,steganography,which is the art of hiding information 
in electronic text, entered English with the internet revolution. Verbs like disrespect 
and download entered the language quite recently, as have nouns like byte and email. 

Materiallar 
                                                                                                                             02 may 2009-cu il
 
 
73 
Different languages may express the same concept using words of different 
grammatical classes. For example, in Akan, the major language of Ghana, there are 
only a handful of adjectives. Most concepts that would be expressed with adjectives 
in English are expressed by verbs in Akan. Instead of saying ‘’The sun is bright 
today’’, an Akan speaker will say ‘’The sun brightens today’’. 
There are other classes of words that do not have clear lexical meaning or obvious 
concepts associated with them, including conjuctions such as and, or, and but. 
These kind of words are called function words because they have a grammatical 
function. For example, the articles indicate whether a noun is definite or indefinite-
the boy or a boy. The preposition of indicates possession as in ‘’the book of yours’’ 
but this word indicates many other kinds of relations too. 
Function words are sometimes called closed class words. It is difficult to think 
of new conjunctions, prepositions, or pronouns that have recently entered the 
language. The small set of personal pronouns such as I, me, mine, he, she, and so 
on are part of this class. With the growth of the feminist movement, some proposals 
have been made for adding a neutral singular pronoun that would be neither 
masculine nor feminine and that could be used as the general, or generic, form. If 
such a pronoun existed, it might have prevented the department chairperson in a 
large university from making the incongruous statement. The UCLA psychologist 
Donald Mackay has suggested that we use’’e’’, pronounced like the letter name, 
for this pronoun with various alternative forms. Others point out that they and there 
are already being used as neutral third-person singular forms,as in ‘’Anyone can do it 
if they try hard enough’’or’’Everyone can do their best’’The use of the various forms 
of they is standard on the BBC(British Broadcasting System) as pronoun replace-
ments for anyone and everyone, which may be regarded as singular or plural. 
The difference between content words and function words is illustrated by the 
following test that circulated  recently over the Internet: 
Please count the number of F’s in the following text: 
Finished Files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the 
experience of years. 
If you are like most people, your answer will be 3. That answer is wrong. The 
correct answer is 6. Count again. This time pay attention to the function word OF. 
What this little test illustrates is that the brain treats content and function words 
differently. Indeed, there is a great deal of psychological and neurological evidence 
to support this claim. For example, the effect that we just illustrated  with the OF 
test is much more pronounced in brain-damaged people. The two classes of words 
also seem to function differently in slips of the tongue produced by normal 
individuals. For example, a speaker may inadvertently switch words producing 
‘’the journal of the editor’’instead of’’the editor of the journal’’,but the switching 
or exchanging of function words has not been observed. There is also evidence for 
this distinction from language acquisition. In the early stages of development, children 

«TƏRCÜMƏŞÜNASLIQ VƏ ONUN MÜASİR DÖVRDƏ ROLU»  II Respublika tələbə elmi-praktik konfransı 
 
74 
often omit function words from their speech, for example. Content words have 
semantic content (meaning). 
Lexical contentm,or root morphemes constitute the major word classes-nouns, 
verbs, adjectives, adverbs. These are open class items because their classes are 
easily added to. 
Grammatical morphemes or function words constitute a closed class;that is, 
new function words do not enter the language. Function words and bound inflectional 
morphemes are inserted into sentences according to the syntactic structure. The past 
tense morpheme, often written as –ed , is added as a suffix to a verb, and the future 
tense morpheme will, is inserted in a sentence according to the syntactic rules of 
English. 
 
 
EYE IDIOMS AND THEIR MEANINGS 
Durnisa SAFAROVA 
Qafqaz University Translation Department II 
Supervisor: Afaq Shahsuvarova 
 
WHAT ARE IDIOMS? 
An idioms is a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is diffe-
rent from the dictionary definitions of the individual words, which can make idioms 
hard for students and learners to understand. 
Idioms are words, phrases or expressions that are unusual either grammatically, 
as in, “long time, no see!” or there is a meaning that can not be derived from the 
conjoined meanings of its elements, as in “It’s raining cats and dogs!” Every language 
has idioms, and they are challenging for foreign students to learn. 
Compare 
Literal meaning: Before the bartender made the drink he broke the ice with a 
spoon and dropped in  into the glass. 
Idiomatic meaning: Before the conference, the speaker broke the ice with a joke. 
To break the ice = 
1. to make a beginning 
2. to get through the first difficulties in starting a conversation or discussion 
WHAT IS THE IDIOM CONNECTION? 
The idiom connection is a collection of idioms phrasal verbs and proverbs. 
These expressions are common expressions that one would generally expect to find 
in the average home family workplace or community in most English speaking 
countries. They can be found either in spoken English or in written English. 

Materiallar 
                                                                                                                             02 may 2009-cu il
 
 
75 
Idioms are words, phrases or expressions that are unusual either grammatically, 
as in, “long time, no see!” or there is a meaning that can not be derived from the 
conjoined meanings of its elements, as in “It’s raining cats and dogs! ” Every lan-
guage has idioms, and they are challenging for foreign students to learn. 
Now I want to speak about eye idioms and their meanings... 
in the public eye 
- known and talked about by many people. 
Example: The former senator remained in the public eye even after retirement. 
We need to keep education in the public eye if we want support for improvements 
in our schools. 
- Hemise diqqet merkezinde olmaq, taninmaq ve insanlarin dilinde olmaq 
see eye to eye 
-  if two people see eye to eye, they agree with each other. 
Example: He's asked for a transfer because he doesn't see eye to eye with the 
new manager. (often negative; often + with) We see eye to eye on most important 
issues. (often + on) 
- Insanlarin bir biri ile razilasmasi, ortaq mexrece gelmek 
pull the wool over someone's eyes 
- to deceive someone. 
Example: These people who claim to have paranormal or supernatural powers 
are just pulling the wool over people's eyes. 
- Kimise aldatmaq 
have eyes in the back of your head (informal) 
- to know everything that is happening around you. 
Example: Parents of young children have to have eyes in the back of their heads. 
- Etrafinda bas veren hersey haqqinda melumati olmaq 
do something with your eyes closed 
- to do something very easily. 
Example: I've filled in this form so many times, I can do it with my eyes closed. 
- Herseyi asanliqla (gozuyumulu )etmek 
turn a blind eye 
to choose to ignore behaviour that you know is wrong. 
- I knew Kenny was taking the money but I turned a blind eye because he was 
my sister's child.  Example: Management often turn a blind eye to bullying in the 
workplace. (often + to) 
- Sehv oldugunu bildiyin herekete goz yummaq 
turn a blind eye (to something) 
- to ignore something. 

«TƏRCÜMƏŞÜNASLIQ VƏ ONUN MÜASİR DÖVRDƏ ROLU»  II Respublika tələbə elmi-praktik konfransı 
 
76 
Example: Sometimes a store might sell stolen goods because the owner has 
turned a blind eye to where they come from. 
- Neyise gormemezlikden gelmek 
not bat an eye/eyelash/eyelid 
- to not show any shock or surprise. 
Example:  'So what did she say when you told her you were leaving?' 'She 
didn't bat an eyelid.' 
- Teeccubunu buruze vermemek 
catch someone's eye 
- to attract someone's attention. 
Example: Out of all the beautiful things in the garden, the fountain was what 
really caught my eye. It's a good car, but it doesn't catch the customers' eye. 
-Kiminse diqqetini celb etmek 
raised eyebrows 
- raise (a few) eyebrows - to shock or surprise people. 
Example: There were raised eyebrows and coughs of disapproval when the 
speaker turned up drunk for the lecture. 
- Gozu kellesine cixmaq, insanlari teeccublendirmek 
keep your eyes peeled (for something) 
- to watch carefully for someone or something. 
Example: Keep your eyes peeled for a taxi. 
- Gozunu zillemek, neyese diqqetle baxmaq 
have an eye for something 
- to be good at noticing a particular type of thing. 
Example: She has an eye for detail.  He had an eye for the unusual and the 
exotic which made him a very good shopping companion. 
- Goz atmaq, nezerden kecirmek 
 
 
CULTURAL ELEMENTS İN TRANSLATİON 
Elvina MUSTAFAYEVA 
Qafqaz University Translation Department II 
Supervisor: Afaq Shahsuvarova 
 
One language cannot express the meanings of another, instead, there is a dis-
tinction between. The meaning built in and the meanings that must be captured and 
expressed. In this sense, different languages predispose their speaker to think diffe-
rently, direct their attention to different aspects of the environment. 

Materiallar 
                                                                                                                             02 may 2009-cu il
 
 
77 
Translation is therefore not simply a matter of seeking other words with similar 
meaning but of finding appropriate ways of saying things in another language. Dif-
ferent languages, then may use different linguistic forms. But these forms are only 
one of the aspects of the difference between the two language systems. 
Cultural meanings are intricately woven into the texture of the language. The 
creative writers’ ability to capture and project them is of primary importance for; 
this should be reflected in the translated work. Caught between the need to capture 
the local color and the need to be understood by an audience outside the lingual 
and cultural situation, a translator has to be aware of two languages. 
One of the main goals of literary translation is to initiate the target- language 
leader into the sensibilities of the source-language culture. 
The process of transmitting cultural elements through literary translation is a 
complicated and vital task. Culture is a complex of collection of experiences which 
condition daily life; it includes history, social structure, religion, traditional customs 
and everyday usage. This is difficult to comprehend completely. Especially in rela-
tion to a target language, one important question is whether the translation will have 
any readership at all, as the specific reality being portrayed is not quite familiar to 
the reader. 
We shall discuss some of the problems a translator encounters while translating 
a text from one language to another in the Indian context. 
A name in the linguistic cultural element and an author uses it for its associative 
value. It resists translation; therefore its evocative value is lost. 
In the Indian culture, people show respect to their elders by addressing them in 
plural. 
A simple he/she cannot be substituted, because then the idea behind the use of 
plural address would be lost .It seems artificial here for family members to greet 
one another with ‘good morning’, ‘have a nice day’, to apologue, or to express gra-
titude by saying ‘thank you’. 
One may say that this extended-family lifestyle keeps many family values alive. 
In some texts, awareness of the society’s or the families’ values must be stressed, 
the linguistic manifestations 
Of these values cannot be translated into a language where the audience is 
unfamiliar with these values. 
Dress code or ornaments used and the symbols behind each of them also pose a 
problem for a translator .Here some of the ornaments are meant for only woman 
whose husband is alive. A widow has certain restrictions. This idea of widowhood 
is non-existent in western countries. The pain behind this widowhood cannot be 
conveyed to such an audience. 
Regarding food habits the very flavor behind a food or its significance is 
untranslatable to an audience who has never heard of it. For instance, in a Christian