Handling translator’s false friends.
There are words in the source and target languages which are more or less similar in form. The formal similarity is usually the result of the two words having the common origin, mainly derived from either Greek or Latin. Since such words can be found in a number of languages, they are referred to as "international".
As a matter of fact, very few international words have the same meanings in different languages. In respect to English and Russian we can cite the words like the English "parliament, theorem, diameter" and their Russian counterparts "парламент, теорема, диаметр". In most cases, however, the semantics of such words in English and in Russian do not coincide and they should rather be named "pseudointernational". Their formal similarity suggesting that they are interchangable, is, therefore, deceptive and may lead to translation errors. For that reason they are often refered to as the translator's false friends.
The pseudointernational words can be classifyed in two main groups.
First, there are words which are similar in form but completely different in meaning. E.g. English words as "decade, complexion, lunatic, accurate, actual, aspirant" and the like.
Second, there are many pseudointernational words which are not fully interchangable though there are some common elements in their semantics. They may become the false friends if the translator substitutes one of them for the other without due regard to the difference in their meaning or to the way the English word is used in the particular context. The translator should bear in mind that a number of factors can preclude the possibility of using the formally similar word as an equivalent. Among these factors the following are most important:
1. The semantic factor resulting from the different subsequent development of the words borrowed by the two languages from the same source. (Idiom in English has some additional meanings – dialect, and individual style – диалект, наречие, стиль, in Russian - идиома).
2. The stylistic factor resulting from the difference in the emotive or stylistic connotation of the correlated words. For example, the English "career" is neutral while the Russian "карьера" is largely negative. The translator has to reject the pseudointernational substitute and to look for another way out, e.g. scientific career – путь в науку.
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3. The co – occurrence factor reflecting the difference in the lexical combinability rules in the two languages. The choice of an equivalent is often influenced by the usage refering a standard combination of words to the formally similar substitute. So, a "defect" has a formal counterpart in the Russian "дефект" but "theoretical and organizational defects" will be rather "теоретические и организационные просчеты".
4. The pragmatic factor reflecting the difference in the background knowledge of the members of the two language communities which makes the translator reject the formal equivalent in favour of the more explicit or familiar variant. The American revolution – война за независимость, Emancipation Proclamation – декларация об отмене рабства.
With the knowledge of, and due regard to, these factors, the translator stands a good chance of making the pseudointernational words his good friends and allies.
Translation techniques.
In the course of translation, it is always necessary to perform various grammatical and lexical changes or transformations to achieve translational equivalence. These transformations can be divided into four types: transpositions, replacements, additions, omissions.
Transposition is a change in the order of linguistic elements, such as words, phrases, clauses and sentences. The division of the sentence into two main parts from the point of view of communication: "the known" or "theme" and "the new" or "rheme", in Russian this division of the sentence is usually expressed by means of word order: what is already known to the receptor, the "theme" is placed at the beginning of the sentence whereas what is new, the “rheme" is placed at the end. In English the word order is arranged, on the whole, along the same lines; however, in certain cases the "theme" is placed at the end and the "rheme", at the beginning due to the fact that the "rheme" is marked differently, namely, by the use of the indefinite article with the noun which is the subject of the sentence. Therefore, in Russian the word order in such cases must be reversed, that is, the sentence subject which is the "rheme" of the sentence must be placed at the end. Cf.: A boy came in - Вошел мальчик. But: The boy came in - Мальчик вошел.
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Replacement can affect practically all types of linguistic units: word forms, part of speech, sentence elements, sentence types, types of syntactic relations, etc.
a) Replacement of word forms are quite common in translation. E. G.:
- The struggles of the Indian people in all parts of the US – борьба (sign. by plural.)
- A novel about the lives of common people - роман о жизни простых людей. (Plural by Singular)
- He said he knew the man - Он сказал, что знает этого человека. (Past by Present)
- The door was opened by a middle-aged woman - Дверь отворила пожилая женщина. (Passive by Active).
B) Parts of Speech replacement. It is a common type of replacement for English nouns derived from verbs and denoting actions. In this case the English noun is replaced by a Russian verb.
- It is our hope that... Мы надеемся, что...
- The abandonment by Irene of all the glittering things he had given her....- Когда Ирэн оставила все безделушки, которые он ей подарил.
The same is also true of the so-called "Nomina Agentis", which in English are usually represented by nouns with the suffix - er. Russian either has no such nouns at all. In English the word writer may denote simply " a person who writes or has written something", as in "the writer of this note" - тот, кто написал эту записку.
Additions are caused by various factors. Very often they are necessitated by what may be called "lexical incompleteness" of certain word groups in the source language. Thus, in English in many cases words are omitted that can be easily restored from the context, while in Russian their actual presence in the word is necessary, which calls for additions in translation; compare: pay claim -требование о повышении заработной платы; gun license - удостоверение на право ношения оружия; oil talks - переговоры по вопросу о нефти.
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Omissions are the reverse of additions and are used to ensure a greater degree of what is called "compression", that is, reducing the redundancy of the text by omitting words which can be easily restored from the context. Thus, the following sentence from J. Salinger's novel: "So I paid my check and all. Then I left the bar and went out where the telephones were" is translated by R. Rait-Kovaleva as: «Я расплатился и пошёл к автоматам». The words "left the bar" are omitted because of their redundancy.
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