THE ROLE OF CONTEXT

 

My last point, in fact, is that, in translation, the translator indeed has to be aware of all the varieties of contexts - so many it is idle to list them again - but this does not mean that context is the overriding factor in all translation, and has primacy over any rule, theory or primary meaning. Context is omnipresent, but it is relative. It affects technical terms and neologisms less than general words; it permeates a structured text and touches disjointed texts rather lightly. Where a writer deliber- ately innovates, the translator has to follow him, and blow the context.

A translator with his eye on his readership is likely to under-translate, to use more general words in the interests of clarity, simplicity and sometimes brevity, which makes him 'omit' to translate words altogether. (A translator has to account for every SL word, not to translate it.) Under-translation is justified if an informa- tive text is deficient in clarity. It is not justified if it is unnecessary and is a mere retreat from a literal translation. You must not write down to your reader.

A good literal translation must be effective in its own right. If it shows SL interference, that must be by the translator's conscious decision. Some mild translationese in a tourist brochure has a gentle charm, like the local colour of a transferred word. 'New means of creative work ripened and brought fruit later.' The translator unconscious of SL interference is always at fault. The less context- bound the words (e.g. lists, technical terms, original metaphors, 'unacceptable' collocations), the more likely a literal translation - whilst the more standard are the collocations, colloquialisms, idioms, stock metaphors, the less likely is a literal translation. Inevitably, there is a proper place for literal translation as a procedure in all good translations.

Half the misunderstanding about translation in Britain is due to the fact that so many teachers tell their pupils to avoid translating an SL word by a similar-looking TL word whenever possible. Thus the pupils expand their TL vocabulary and distort their translations.

 

From Korunets:

Literal translating, which is to be employed when dealing with separate words whose surface form and structure, as well as their lexical meaning in the source language and in the target language, fully coincide. These are predominantly international by original morphemes, lexemes/words, rarer word-groups having in English and Ukrainian (and often in some other languages too) a literally identical or very similar presentation and identical lexical meaning: administrator адміністратор, director директор, region регіон, hotel/motel готель/мотель, hydrometer гідрометр, Tom Том, etc.

It is easy to notice that in some words thus translated not only the morphemic but also the syllabic structure can sometimes be fully conveyed (cf. an-f/ан-ти, es-cort ес-корт, d/recf-огдирект-ор, ex- pres/d-enfeKC-прези-дент).

In many a case, however, the lingual form of the source language words is only partly conveyed in the target language. This happens when the common word is borrowed by each of the two languages in question from different source languages or when its lingual form is predetermined by the orthographic peculiarities of the target language: anti-alcoholic протиалкогольний, music музика, constitution конституція, zoology зоологія, atomic weight атомна вага, chemical process хімічний процес, national opera theatre національний оперний театр.

The literal translation in all the examples above provides an equivalent rendering of the lexical meaning of each language unit despite the augmentation in the number of morphemes/syllables in the target language (cf. atom/сатом-н-а, а/сопо//салкоголь-н-ий).

Close to the literal method of translating or rather reproduction is the so-called way of translator's transcription by means of which partly the orthographic and partly the sounding form of the source language lexemes/words is conveyed: archbishop архієпископ, card картка/карта, European європейський, Muscovite москвич/москвичка, organized організований, stylized стилізований, fnerapeuf/стерапевтичний.

Literal translating, however, can pervert the sense of the source language lexemes or sentences when their lingual form accidentally coincides with some other target language lexemes having quite different meanings: artist митець, художник (rarer артист); decoration відзнака, нагорода (and not декорація); matrass колба (and not матрац); replica точна копія (and not репліка), etc. Hence, literal translating has some restrictions in its employment and does not always help to render the lexical meaning of words or even morphemes having often even an identical lingual form (spelling) in the source language and in the target language.

 

[1] Maksimov, G.Miram, O. Seme nets, S.Shvachko, O.Vasylchenko, etc), Rus­sian (L Barkhudarov, G.Chernov, A. Chuzhakin, A.Fedorov, V.Komissarov, R.Minyar Beloruchev, Ya. Retsker, A. Shveitser, etc) and western (M Baker, M.A.K Halliday, D. Hatim, R. Jones, J Munday, V. Taylor-Bouladon. L.Vysson, etc) scholars.

According to this understanding translation is a process of transforming speech messages in the source language (SL) into the speech messages in the target language (TL) under condition that theirsense and communicative in­tention remain unchanged [Чернов 1987: 6]. It is quite natural that in the