TRANSFORMATIONS IN TRANSLATION

1. What is the relation between translation equivalence and style?

2. Define functional style. What functional styles are distinguished by modern linguistics?

3. What are the stylistic devices and expression means?

4. What is metaphor, metonymy, irony, transferred qualifier, zeugma, paraphrase, quotation? Give definitions. Suggest translation ap­proaches.

5. What is pun? What are the ways of translating a pun?

6. What is a transformation?

7. What types of transformations do you know?

8. What is an occasional transformation? Give examples. V

9. What regular transformations are typical for English-Ukrainian translation?

10. Which type of transformations presents major translation problems and why?

EXERCISES

Ex. 1. Define the style of the following texts. Translate into Ukrainian preserving stylistic colouring.

a) The best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may be­come traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrate­ful or treacherous is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer; he will lick the wounds and sores that come in an encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper mas­ter as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains.

When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of ac­companying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his ene­mies. And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death.

(Scoff not at 'Tribute to the Dog.’ The New York Times Magazine, June 1, 1999. By WILLIAM SAFIRE)

b) EMBASSY OF UKRAINE TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

3350 M Street, NW Washington DC 20007-27 December 1998

For immediate release

[Press Releases Home]

Statement of the Ministry Of Foreign Affairs Of Ukraine

On December 25, 1998, the State Duma of the Russian Federation's Federal Assembly ratified the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and Russia.

A long-awaited-for ratification of the Treaty, the bedrock of the legal basis of the relations between the two sovereign states, will permit in­creasing relationships between Ukraine and Russia to a qualitative new level and opening up new opportunities for further comprehensive de­velopment of Ukrainian-Russian relations. This is exactly for what lead­ers and peoples of the two fraternal nations are striving.

Ratification of the Treaty by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on January 14, 1998 and its ratification by the Russian State Duma con­firmed that both Ukraine and the Russian Federation legally recognized the inviolability of the existing between them borders, as well as their sovereignty and territorial integrity. They have also pledged to develop their further relations on the basis of universally recognized standards of international law.

Ratification of the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partner­ship between Ukraine and the Russian Federation constitutes a landmark historic event not only in their bilateral relations, but also in a broader context of European and global security. It testifies to the fact that both Ukraine and Russia are well aware of their role and responsibility in building up a new European security architecture and maintaining stabil­ity and security not only in Europe but also in the world as a whole.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses its satisfaction with the ratification by the State Duma of the major political Treaty be­tween the two states, as well as its confidence that the Treaty's entering into force will provide for further development of equal Ukrainian-Russian cooperation for the benefit of the peoples of the two states.

Ex. 2. Define the underscored stylistic devices and means of expression in the following text. Translate the text into Ukrainian preserving its stylistic colouring.

Ever since the U.S. got voted off the island at the U.N. Human Rights Commission three weeks ago, Congress has been hopping mad and the U.N.-haters have been on a tear. So I have an idea: Let's quit the U.N. That's right, let's just walk. Most of its members don't speak English anyway. What an insult! Let's just shut it down and turn it into another Trump Tower. That Security Council table would make a perfect sushi bar.

No? You don't want to leave the U.N. to the Europeans and Rus­sians? Then let's stop bellyaching about the U.N., and manipulating our dues, and start taking it seriously for what it is - a global forum that spends 95 percent of its energy endorsing the wars and peacekeeping missions that the U.S. wants endorsed, or taking on the thankless hu­manitarian missions that the U.S. would like done but doesn't want to do itself. The U.N. actually spends only 5 percent of its time annoying the U.S. Not a bad deal.

The vote that got the U.S. booted off the Human Rights Commis­sion was to the U.N. what Senator Jim Jeffords's vote to leave the Repub­lican Party was to the Senate - a wake-up call, a signal that the world will push back against radical Bush policies just as Senator Jeffords did.

When President Bush trashed the Kyoto treaty on climate change, the message the world got was that the Bushies will do whatever they please, on a range of issues, and if the world doesn't like it - tough. So, not surprisingly, when the members of this U.N. commission got a chance to vote anonymously on whether the U.S. should be a member, they stuck it to us. People with power often don't think about it; people without power think about it all the time.

(The New York Times, May 29, 2001By THOMAS L FRIEDMAN)

Ex. 3. Translate into Ukrainian preserving the stylistic coloring of the source text.

a)She made an embarrassed laugh, though there was nothing funny.

She laughed again, an extraneous laugh, something to punctuate the silence. The word [she uttered] was almost nonexistent, squeezed out in the smallest of voices. Her Barbie doll face, devoid of character lines, showed no sign of the adult struggle she was waging. It remained placid, hidden behind the affectless makeup. (R.B.Parker).

b) It was a Babylon of glass and chrome and spandex, where per­sonal trainers trained up people on politically correct way to tone up and be better.

Ex. 4. Translate into Ukrainian. Observe regular transformations in trans­lation.

KING OF THE STAGE

Only those who have talent and willpower can make the most daring dreams come true. Many of us thought that we already knew all about the professional abilities of Bogdan Stupka, People's Artist of Ukraine and winner of numerous prizes. However, the news again held quite a surprise. The news of his tremendous success and the international rec­ognition heaped on him this year reached us quickly and shattered all the long established clichfts in one big bang. Bogdan Stupka won his latest victory in the movie «With Sword and Fire». Jerzy Hofman's film shown in Poland, the United States and Australia raised the Ukrainian actor to the level of international film star. It was indeed his finest hour.

Ex. 5. Translate into Ukrainian. Observe regular and occasional transfor­mations in translation.

THE TROUBLE WITH THE SONS OF ENGLAND IS THEY HAVE NO

FOUNDING FATHERS

The Times, July 6, 2001. PHILIP HOWARD

We are the people of England that never have spoken yet. Accord­ingly, after this water(slurry?)shed of an election it behoves us to speak up for our nation. But it is difficult to decide what our nation is. We lack a foundation myth that defines what it means to be English.

In the Middle Ages King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table were described as the Matter of Britain. But they are improbably cosmo­politan heroes for the British National Party or the UK Idiots' Party. At a literary level, they are anachronistic medieval freelances from an EU elite of bullies. On a historical level (if they existed), their descendants survive in the wild west of Wales. «Lancelot» came from Brittany, and Tristram from Celtic Atlantis in the West. If he is more than legend, you can imag­ine Arthur leading the last stand of the armoured cavalry of the legions against the alien English asylum-seekers. In other words, he was a Ro­man. St George was a Levantine?/ Roman?/ Jew?/ Peculant pork butcher? Definitely not British.

Other nations have less problematic foundation myths. Italians can choose Horace or Garibaldi as their national hero, according to taste. The French have Charlemagne, Joan of Arc or Asterix. The Germans, Hermann or Arminius. The Dutch, snatching a living on land from the sea, make the most of the references in Tacitus to the Batavians, who splashed a living in their watery world. Their cavalry were good at swimming across rivers with their horses. But the Old Testament is an even more powerful foundation myth for the Dutch. Their Calvinist pas­tors taught them that they were the Chosen People, saved from the Flood, threatened on all sides by monarchs, Papists, and the other hosts of Midian, who prowl and prowl around.

Foundation myths come more easily to nations that sprang from revolution, like the Dutch. Or the Americans, who left the Old World to seek religious and political liberty in the West. Their New England preachers also used the Old Testament as a myth to validate their Chosen People.

Political correctness has censored the Western movie, the founda­tion myth and art form of the past century. Dim drums can no longer throb in the hills half heard, as the Comanche appear over the crest. The heroic latter-day Joshuas and Davids no longer stand silent in the white sunlight of their empty midday streets, waiting for the enemies of Zion.

The American bard of the noble savage and the last frontier is even more rubbished than McGonagall as national prophet. But the new edition of his poems reminds us that Longfellow was technically jolly good, in spite of having missed the modernist boat and the Ark of the Cove­nant. My grandfather used to adore Hiawatha in the Albert Hall, with a feathered cast of thousands chanting, «By the shores of Gitche Gumee,/ By the shining Big-Sea-Water».

Longfellow was a skilful versifier when poems still rhymed and scanned. «This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,/ Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight...» Not even Tennyson wrote such good English hexameters. And as many of Longfellow's tags have entered the American quotation bank as Tennyson's have the English. «Under a spreading chestnut-tree,/ The village smithy stands». «I shot an arrow into the air,/ It fell to earth, I knew not where.» «Ships that pass in the night.» «Footprints on the sands of time.» «When she was good, she was very, very good.» «Life is but an empty dream.»

Longfellow spoke up against slavery long before Emerson and Tho-reau. From youth he was a Unitarian, a follower of William Ellery Chan-ning, who believed that human beings are basically good. Longfellow's narrative poetry and visionary preaching are unfashionable. But he is still a ghost in the background of American identity. Kipling and Tennyson are not so influential for English nationalism. Shakespeare is too elusive. Perhaps the nationalists of our old and mongrel race should follow the foundation myths of the Dutch and the Americans by adopting the Old Testament as their manifesto.

Come to think of it, we have. The lost ten tribes of Israel were car­ried away into Assyria in 721BC, about 140 years before the Babylonian captivity exiled the tribes of Judah. Since at least 1649 various religious and nationalist nutters have suggested that the English are the lost tribes. This is as dotty as the first verse of Blake's Jerusalem, which opens with three questions, the answer to each of which is, «Certainly not: don't be silly.» But that does not stop Jerusalem being a battle hymn of True Eng­lish nationalism. Just as Gideon, Joshua and Noah were once seen as Dutch or New England patriots.

Ex.6.Translate the following sentences paying attention to the infinitive or infinitive constructions.

The Security Council is so organised as to be able to function con­tinuously.

The Trusteeship Council is composed of members of the United Na­tions administering Trust Territories, permanent members of the Secu­rity Council which do not administer Trust Territories and enough members to make an equal division between countries which administer Trust Territories and countries which do not.

The function of the Trusteeship Council is to supervise the admini­stration of Trust Territories.

Subsidiary and ad-hoc bodies are set up to fulfill a special task and are dissolved after completion of the job.

The increasing population of the world creates unprecedented waste and the methods used to dispose of it - burying it, burning it, or dis­charging it into streams or lakes - have further polluted the environ­ment.

Members of the Organisation, whether developed or developing, should undertake to lend their assistance towards the success in settling economic difficulties.

United Nations efforts to rectify this issue have been ineffective be­cause some nations disregard its decisions.

In the Charter of the United Nations, the peoples express their de­termination to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war which has brought untold sorrow to mankind.

In 1957 the Assembly called for collective action to inform and enlighten the peoples of the world to the dangers of the armament race, and particularly to the destructive effects of modern weapons.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (also called the «Conven­tion on Life») is not only a legal instrument to protect and manage en­dangered species and habitats, but it also includes the far-reaching con­sequences of modern biotechnology.

Recently the Conference of the Parties agreed to start negotiations on a protocol on biosafety.

We urge the United States to ratify the Basel Conventionthat regu­lates the export and import of dangerous waste.

In so doing, we are simply trying to shoulder the responsibilitythat we all share for our common future.

Ex.7. Translate the following sentences paying attention to the gerund or gerundial constructions:

Should the president falter in these races, some politicians speculate, he might step aside as Lyndon Johnson did after running into trouble in early 1968.

If a business cannot make a profit, the government cannot prevent it from declaring bankruptcy.

The result is a complicated interaction of business and society, and the key to understanding this interaction is the systems theory.

Disregarding feedback has led to the demise of many once-powerful companies.

Basic research is aimed at discovering new knowledge. Applied re­search is aimed at discovering new knowledge that has some specific po­tential use. Development is aimed at putting new or existing knowledge to use in producing goods or services.

The poison pill describes a situation in which the target-company adds large amounts of corporate debt through borrowing.

None the less, the professor does not present legal theory as a given at the beginning of the course; the students must themselves construct the legal theory by working from the texts or from concrete problems.

The Constitution provides for the protection of works of authorship in these terms: 'Congress shall have Power... to promote the Progress of Science... by securing to Authors... for limited Times the exclusive Right to their... Writings.'

Authors may use parts of the work (e.g., tables, figures) in subse­quent works without requesting permission from the AHA. If a joint work, all co-authors must transfer rights in said work to the AHA by exe­cuting this Agreement.

Ex. 8. Translate the following sentences paying attention to the participles or participial constructions.

I wasn't looking for any more difficult jobs in this world, but the near possibility of one coming along allowed me to enjoy my slippered days with a quieter conscience.

In developing rules and regulations, care must be taken to insure that the conditions are not changed.

It is next to impossible to convey here even an approximate impres­sion of the essence and range of this brilliant, content-packed volume.

It is not possible for contamination to occur here.

Much more stringent constraints than the requirement of fofmal consistency associated with formalist philosophies are posed here.

My father was watching them with mild blue eyed interest.

Numerous articles have appeared dealing with this intricate prob­lem.

Ex. 9. Divide the words below into two groups: those having the same form for singular and plural; and those having '-s' ending but singular in their meaning. Can you find any similar examples in Ukrainian?

Barracks, news, crossroads, statistics, mathematics, physics headquarters, means, series, species, works, Swiss, draughts, measles, politics

Ex. 10. Translate the sentences paying special attention to the pronouns.

God send everyone their heart's desire (Sheakspear). Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Bible) If anyone wants my umbrella they can take it. Nobody called me, did they? Whoever is late tell them to wait till the break. Everybody in this group thinks they are cleverer than the other group. If a person does not know what they want from life they find it hard to be a success.

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