COLLOCATIONAL ASPECTS OF TRANSLATION

Lecture 4:
1. Handling Attributive Groups
2. Handling Phraseological Units
Key words:
Dissimilarity, semantic structure, attribute, multi-member attributive structures, internal semantic relationship, phraseological units, figurative set expressions, idioms.

Handling attributive groups
There is a considerable dissimilarity in the semantic structure of attributive groups in English and in Russian.
This dissimilarity gives rise to a number of translation problems.

Handling attributive groups
The first group of problems stems from the broader semantic relationships between the attribute and the noun.
The attribute may refer not only to some property of the object but also to its location, purpose, cause, etc.

Handling attributive groups
A thorough analysis of the context :
1. to find out what the meaning of the group is in each particular case.
2. to be aware of the relative freedom of bringing together such semantic elements within the attributive group in English that are distanced from each other by a number of intermediate ideas.

Handling attributive groups
e.g. the Executive Committee — (исполнительный комитет)
a word-for-word translation of the name of the executive body may satisfy the translator.

E.G. The next attributive group -
“the Executive resolution“
may be described as a resolution submitted by an executive body of an organization and
can be rendered into Russian as
«резолюция, предложенная исполкомом»

Handling attributive groups
“The Executive majority”
means the majority of votes received by such a resolution
and will be translated as
«большинство голосов, поданных за резолюцию, которая была предложена исполкомом».

Handling attributive groups
The second group of problems results from the difficulties in handling multi-member attributive structures.
The English-speaking people make a wide use of "multi-storied" structures with complicated internal semantic relationships.

Handling attributive groups
The tax paid for the right to take part in the election is described as "the poll tax".
The states where this tax is collected are "the poll tax states" and the governors of these states are "the poll tax states governors".
Now these governors may hold a conference which will be referred to as “the poll tax states governors conference" and so on.

Handling attributive groups
The semantic relationships within a multi-member group need not be linear.
E.G.
It was the period of the broad western hemisphere and world pre-war united people's front struggle against fascism.

Handling attributive groups
A whole network of semantic ties between the attributes and the noun:
"broad" is directly referred to "struggle",
"western hemisphere" is joined with “world”
and together they express the idea of location, i.e. "the struggle in the western hemisphere";

Handling attributive groups
"pre-war" may be referred either to "struggle" or to the "united people's front";
"united" and "people's" belong to "front" and together they qualify the "struggle" implying either the "struggle by the united people's front"
or the "struggle for the united people's front".

Handling attributive groups
In translation this complexity of semantic ties will result in replacing the group by a number of different structures in which the hidden relations within it will be made explicit:
Это был период широкой предвоенной борьбы против фашизма за единый народный фронт в Западном полушарии и во всем мире.

Handling attributive groups
Given multiplicity of possible translations of such structures should be analysed in terms of factors influencing the choice of TL variants rather than with the aim of listing regular correspondences.

Handling attributive groups
The same goes for attributive groups with latent predication where a whole sentence is used to qualify a noun as its attribute.
“The Judge's face wore his own I-knew-they-were-guilty-all-along expression”.
“На лице судьи появилось обычное выражение, говорившее: «Я все время знал, что они виновны».

Handling attributive groups
Here correspondences can also be described in an indirect way only by stating that the attribute is usually translated into Russian as a separate sentence and that this sentence should be joined to the noun by a short introductory element.

Handling attributive groups
There was a man with a don't-say-anything-to-me-or-I'll-contradict-you face. (Ch. Dickens)
Там был человек, на лице которого было написано: что бы вы мне ни говорили, я все равно буду вам противоречить.

Handling attributive groups
There is one more peculiar feature of the English attributive group which may be the cause of trouble for the translator.
It may be transformed into a similar group with the help of a suffix which is formally attached to the noun but is semantically related to the whole group.

Handling attributive groups
Thus "a sound sleeper" may be derived from "sound sleep"
or the man belonging to the "Fifth column" may be described as "the Fifth columnist".

Handling attributive groups
As a rule, in the Russian translation the meanings of the original group and of the suffix would be rendered separately,
e.g.: человек, обладающий здоровым (крепким) сном (крепко спящий человек),
and человек, принадлежащий к пятой колонне (член пятой колонны).

Handling attributive groups
Translating the meaning of an English attributive group into Russian may involve a complete restructuring of the sentence, e.g.:
To watch it happen, all within two and a half hours, was a thrilling sight.
Нельзя было не восхищаться, наблюдая, как все это происходило на протяжении каких-нибудь двух с половиной часов.

Handling Phraseological Units
Phraseologism- is a set- expression with complex semantics, which meaning can not be deducted from the literal definitions and arrangements of its parts.

The levels of phraseological units:
Phraseological units (Phr.U.)fixed in the corresponding dictionary ;
Phraseological units, which are going out of use but are fixed in the dictionaries ;
Phraseological units that are known only to certain groups of society;
Phraseological units that are known to everybody but they are not fixed in the dictionaries.

Handling Phraseological Units
Translating a Phr.U. is not an easy matter as it depends on several factors:
different combinability of words,
homonymy,
polysemy,
synonymy of Phr.U.,
presence of falsely identical units.

Handling Phraseological Units
Besides, a large number of Phr.U. have a stylistic-expressive component in meaning, which usually has a specific national feature.
Types of Phr.U.:
phrasemes and idioms.

Handling Phraseological Units
Phraseme – a unit of constant context consists of a dependent and constant indicators.
An idiom – a unit of constant context which is characterized by an integral meaning of the whole and by weakened meaning of the components, and in which the dependant and the indicating elements are identical and equal to the whole lexical structure of the phrase.

Handling Phraseological Units
Main types of phraseological conformities in different languages:
1. complete conformities,
2. partial conformities,
3. absence of conformities.

Main types of phraseological conformities
1. Complete conformities (complete coincidence of form and content)
To draw a line (phraseme)
To bring oil to fire (idiom)

Main types of phraseological conformities
2. Partial conformities (assume lexical, grammatical, and lexico-grammatical differences with identity of meaning and style, i.e. they are figuratively close but differ in lexical composition, morphologic number and syntactic arrangement of the order of words.
1) by lexical composition
To get out of bed on the wrong foot (idiom)– встать с левой ноги.

Main types of phraseological conformities
2) by grammatical parameters (morphological arrangement / number)
To fish in troubled waters (idiom) – ловить рыбу в мутной воде,
To agree like cats and dogs (phraseme) – жить как кошка с собакой.

Main types of phraseological conformities
3) syntactical arrangement
Egyptian darkness – тьма египетская,
All is not gold that glitters – не все золото, что блестит.

Choosing the TL correspondence
the most important components of the phraseological unit meaning are:
- figurative component;
- direct component, which makes the basis of the image;
- emotional component;
- stylistic component;
- national ethnic component.

Translation difficulties
One of the most difficult tasks of translation is to reproduce equivalently the meaning of the figurative phraseological units.
Semantics of these units is a complex informative set, containing both subject-logical and connotative components.

The ways of conveying phraseologisms by means of:
Phraseological equivalents, i.e. such an image-bearing phraseological units, which fully corresponds in meaning to English phraseological units and are based on the same image.
e.g. The game is not worth the candle
Игра не стоит свеч.

The ways of conveying phraseologisms by means of
Phraseological analogues. There are few image-bearing phraseological units having the same meaning and image in both languages, that is why a translator has to find a corresponding analogue having the same meaning but bearing different image.
e.g. Make hay while the sun shines.
Куй железо пока горячо.

The ways of conveying phraseologisms by means of:
Word- for-word translation, when phraseological unit has a certain image that can be easily perceived by a Russian reader and creates the feeling of naturalness and can be adopted as a source one.
e.g. Black gold.
Черное золото.

The ways of conveying phraseologisms by means of
Descriptive way of translation, that is describing of the phraseological unit with a help of free word combinations.
e.g. To cross the floor.
Перейти из одной партии в другую.

The ways of conveying phraseologisms by means of
Contextual substitution.
The translator has to find such Russian word combination that would render fully enough its meaning in a particular context.
e.g. I know, I do not express myself properly, I am a bad hand at sentimentality.
Я знаю, что сентиментальность не по моей части.