Lecture 5. PRAGMATICS OF TRANSLATION
The notion of a pragmatic potential of the text.
Rendering the pragmatic potential of the ST in translation.
Dependence of the translation on the pragmatic orientation of the text.
Pragmatic functions of socio-linguistic factors.
Rendering the communicative effect of the original in translation.
Pragmatic adaptation of the TT.
The notion of the translation pragmatic “super-task” .
Rendering the formal peculiarities of the ST.
Draft, working and official translation.
Stylization and modernization of the translation.
Extra-translational factors in translation pragmatics.
1. The notion of a pragmatic potential of the text.
254. Any text is communicative. It contains a message transmitted from the Source to the Receptor, some data (information), and that should be extracted from the message and understood by the Receptor. Perceiving the information received, the Receptor is involved in some personality relations with the text, called pragmatic relations. These relations may have a various character. Mostly they may have an intellectual character, when the text serves a Source of certain facts and events for the Receptor, which do not influence him, presenting little interest for him. At the same time the information received may also have a deeper influence on the R. It may touch upon his feelings, evoke a certain emotional reaction, cause some actions on his part. The ability of the text to produce such communicative effect, evoke the R’s pragmatic attitudes towards the message sent, in other words, to realize the pragmatic influence on the information R, is called “ the pragmatic aspect” or “the pragmatic potential (pragmatics) of the text.
255. The pragmatic potential of the text is the result of the S’s choice of the contents of the message and the way of its verbal expression. In accord with his communicative intention the S chooses for information transmission such language units that have the necessary denotative and connotative meaning, and he organizes them in an utterance, so that the necessary semantic ties are established. In the end he creates a text which acquires a certain pragmatic potential, and can produce a certain communicative effect upon its R. The pragmatic potential of the text becomes objective in the sense that it is conditioned by the contents and the form of the message andit already exists independently of the text creator. It may happen, that the pragmatics of the text does not fully coincide with the S’s communicative intention (“he said not what he meant or how he meant to say it”). Pragmatics of the text is an objective matter which is accessible for perception and analysis, in the degree in which it depends on the information to be rendered and the way of its rendering.
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The pragmatic relation of the R to the text depends not only on what the given R is, his personality, his background knowledge, the previous experience, his psychic state and other peculiarities. The analysis of the pragmatics of the text gives an opportunity only to suggest the potential communicative effect of the text in relation to a typical, “averaged” R.
2. Rendering the pragmatic potential of the ST in translation.
256. Realization of a pragmatic influence on the R of the information is a most important part of any communication including an inter-lingual one. The establishment of the necessary pragmatic relation of the TR to the message transmitted greatly depends on the Tr’s choice of language means in the process of creating a TT. The influence of the necessity to reproduce the pragmatic potential of the O on the course and the result of the T process and the wish to ensure the desired effect on the TR is called the pragmatic aspect, or the pragmatics of T.
The tr being a SR on the first stage of the T process tries to fully extract the information contained in the O. For this purpose he must have the same background knowledge as the SL speakers. The successful realization of a Tr’s function presupposes as all-sided knowledge of the history, culture, literature, customs, modern life and other realia of the people who speak the SL.
Like any other SR, the Tr forms his own personal attitude to the message. As an inter-lingual communication mediator the Tr must try not to reflect his personal attitude on the exactness of the reproduction of the O text in T. In this respect the Tr should be pragmatically neutral.
257. On the second stage of the T process the Tr tries to ensure the understanding of the S message by the Tr. He takes into consideration the fact that the TR belons to a language community different from that of the SR, has a different knowledge and exprerience, history and culture. In cases when such divergencies may hamper the full-value understanding og the S message, the Tr breaks these obstacles, introducing the necessary changes in the TT.
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If the R does not have the necessary background knowledge it is necessary to explicate the implied information in order to introduce the corresponding additions and explanations in the TT. Most often this happens when there proper and geographical names, nominations of various cultural realia in the O. In T into Russian geographical names like the American Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Virginia, or the Canadian Alberta, Manitoba, or the English Middlesex, Surrey, etc., as a rule, they add the words штат провинция графство, which show what these names denote, to make them understandable for a Russian R: штат Массачусетс, провинция Альберта, графство Миддлсекс, and so on.
Additions of explanatory elements may be necessary in rendering the names of offices, firms, media agencies, etc.:
| The strike movement in Spain is on the increase, “Newsweek” reports. | Как сообщает журнал «Ньюсуик», в Испании растет забастовочное движение. |
Analogous additions ensure the understanding of various realia names, connected with ways and life of the TL community:
| …for dessert you got Brown Betty, which nobody ate… | …на сладкое – «рыжую Бетти», пудинг с патокой, только его никто не ел. |
The addition spares the Russian R the necessity to look for the meaning of “Brown Betty”, which is served for dessert.
In some cases the necessary additional information may be given in a special commentary to the TT:
| Against шу will I felt pleased that he should have considered my remarks interesting, though I knew that it was Dale Carnegie stuff, a small apparently casual compliment. | Я был невольно польщен тем, что он находит мои замечания инте-ресными, хотя и понимал, что это был дешевый трюк – как бы случайно брошенный комплимент по рецепту Дейла Карнеги. |
This sentence in the TT may be accompanied by the comment that “Дейл Карнеги – автор популярной книги «Как приобретать друзей и влиять на окружающих».
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258. In other cases the reproduction of the pragmatic potential of the O may be accompanied by the deletion of some details in the T that the TR is unaware of:
| There were pills and medicine all over the place, and everything smelled like Vicks’ Nose Drops. | Везде стояли какие-то пузырьки, пилюли, все пахло каплями от насморка. |
The T has no “Vick’s” , the name of nose drops that tells nothing to the Russian R. Though it may lead to the loss of some information, the information itself is irrelevant and may be deleted with the aim of not introducing obscure elements into the Russian TT.
259. The necessity to ensure adequate understanding of the message by the TR can force the Tr to substitute the obscure element of the O by additional information, which was only implied in it, but was quite obvious for the SR. Thus the implicit information of the O becomes explicit in the T:
| Tie Prime-Minister spoke a few words from a window in Number 10. | Премьер-министр произнес несколько слов из окна своей резиденции. |
Any Englishman knows that in No10, Downing Street in London the Prime-Minister’s residence is located. The Russian R may be unaware of the fact, that’s why the Russian T will have a substitute explaining the meaning of the name.
Very oftensuch substitution has a generalizing character, i.e. a word with a special meaning is changed for a word with a general meaning, which is more understandable for the TR:
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| … a swept yard that was never swept where johnson grass and rabbit-tobacco grew in abundance. | … «чистый» двор, который никогда не подметался и весь зарос сорной травой. |
| “The temperature was an easy ninety,” he said. | «Жара невыносимая», - сказал он. |
In the first example the O gives names of weeds, which are familiar to those who live in American southern states. A Russian R hardly knows such plants as «джонсонова трава», «кроличий табак», that’s why the T contains a general name «сорная трава». In the given context it is not significant what kinds of grass grew in the yard. Essential is the fact that nobody took care of the yard and it was covered with weeds.
In the second example “ninety” means «девяносто градусов по Фаренгейту». The Fahrenheit system is not familiar for a Russian R. I could be changed for the Centigrade system, as it is usually done in official and scientific texts. But in this case one can hardly do it, because the words belong to a US citizen, where this system is not used. The T contains generalization, because it is communicatively significant that it was very hot, but not the exact indication of the temperature.
Generalization is often expressed in the change of a proper name (of some firm) for a common name, that gives a generic name to the denoted object:
| Parked by a solicitor’s office opposite the cafe was a green Aston-Martin tourer. | У конторы адвоката напротив кафе стоял элегантный спортивныйавтомобиль зеленого цвета. | |
| I could see my mother going into Spaulding’s … | Я представил себе, как мама пошла в спортивный магазин … | |
| I lit a cigarette and get all dressed and then I packed the two Gladstones I have. | Я закурил, оделся, потом сложил оба свои чемодана. | |
The names of shops, firms that produce cars, suit-cases do not bear in the Russian text the information which is connected with them in the English original, and need substituting explanation.
Reproduction of the pragmatic potential in the T may involve the necessity of a specification technique, the substitution of a word with a general meaning for a word or words with a more narrow, special meaning, that reveal the essence of the described phenomenon for the TR:
| The British people are still profoundly divided on the issue of joining Europe. | В английском народе до сих пор существуют глубокие разногласия о том, стоило ли Англии вступать в «Общий рынок». |
260. The described ways of changing the TT with the aim to ensure the TR’s adequate understanding of the translated message are used irrespective of the peculiarities of an individual R or a group of Rs. The R towads which the T is oriented is a hypothetical “averaged” representative of his language community. In the cited examples this was a Russian person, a Russian reader, and his perception of the transmitted text was determined not by his personality characteristics, but by cultural-historical peculiarities of the given people, the background knowledge about English realia, that the majority of English people may have, and the majority of Russian people may have not.
However, reproducing the pragmatic potential of the O, the Tr may orient towards a definite group of Rs, who have a certain totality of special knowledge in the field, that the O deals with, and able to gain the necessary understanding of the message with greater ease. Orientation towards this kind of group enables the Tr to diminish the number of pragmatic explanations in the T. On the other hand, if the T is assigned for a group of Rs, whose level of background knowledge is lower than with the majority of readers (non-specialists in the field, children, etc.), a relatively big part of information in the O may not be understood or may be misunderstood, and the number of explanations and specifications arises.
3. Dependence of the translation on the pragmatic orientation of the text.
261. Pragmatic problems of T are immediately connected with genre peculiarities of the O and the type of the Rs, for whom it is created. Belles-lettres Trs encounter considerable difficulties in rendering the pragmatic potential of the O. Belles-lettres works in any language are directed, first of all, to to people, for whom this language is native, but they also are common to all mankind and are often translated into other languages. However, there are often descriptions of facts and events, that are connected with the history of this people, various literary associations, way of life, customs, names of national dishes, items of clothes, etc. All this needs introduction of corrections conditioned by the pragmatic differences between the SL and the TL in order to ensure adequate understanding of the text by the TR.
262. The necessity of pragmatic restructuring occurs rather seldom in T of science-technological materials, meant for specialists who are experts in the given field of science and possessing approximately similar volume of background knowledge. Such messages are similarly –understood by scientists, who speak different languages, and the explanations are needed onl;y in reference to firms, national measure units, specific nomenclature names and so on.
263. Specific problems are connected with the pragmatic aspect of the texts, meant for a foreign language R. They are various informative and propaganda materials, addressed to a foreign audience, and the advertisement of goods for export.Ideally, the authors of such texts must create them taking proper account of the character and the knowledge of a foreign reader or listener. In such cases the Tr’s task is simplified: he needn’t take care of securing a full understanding of the message by the TR, as it has been taken care of by the author of the O. However this task often turns to be unfulfilled, and the Tr, who has better knowledge about the foreign audience, has to introduce additional corrections into the text taking account of its pragmatic aspect. In suh cases the restructuring of the TT, oriented towards the understandability of the T to the R, plays a decisive role in the inter-lingual communication process.
4. Pragmatic functions of socio-linguistic factors.
264. A very important role in securing the pragmatic adequacy of T is played also by socio-linguistic factors, that condition differences in speech of certain groups of native speakers. Particularly, additional difficulties for ensuring the understanding by the R of the transmitted message may arise because of deviations from the common norm of the SL, the use of such substandard forms as territorial dialects, social dialects annd contaminated forms that imitate a foreigner’s speech.
The elements of territorial dialects of the SL of the O are not rendered in the T. The use of of such dialectal forms in the O may have a dual character. On the one hand, the whole text of the O may be written in a SL dialect. In thios case the dialect is a means of communication, used by the S, and the T from it will be created as if it were any common national language. The Tr is supposed to be able to use the given dialect. On the other hand, dialectal forms may be used in the text (mainly in belles-lettres literature) with the aim of language characterization of certain personages, their identification as inhabitants of definite regions, where people speak this dialect iof the SL. In this case reproduction of dialectal peculiarities of the SL in T will give nothing, because for the TR they do not perform an identifying function and will be senseless. If an English O personage speaks London Cockney dialect, adding the sound [h] to the words where it is absent in the standard language, and deleting this sound where in should be, accoring to the norms of the English language (‘Е ‘аs a good hеаr instead of Не has a good ear) the attmpt to reproduce this peculiarity in the Russian T, using non-existent forms (*Хон хобладает 'орошим слухом), is obviously devoid of sense. It is impossible either to use in the T the froms of some territorial dialect of the Russian language, because they will identify a completely different group of (Russian) people. The attempt to establish equivalence between , say, Mussuori Negro dialect, that Mark Twain’s Negro Jims speaks, and some dialect of the Russian (or any other) language is theoretically unjustified and pracrically unobserved, because it is ridiculous to make an American Negro speak the language of Perm or Odessa native.
265. Many territorial dialects are closely connected with social characterization of their speakers. In such cases their use in the O points to the fact that the given personage belongs to a certain social group. In other words, they fulfil the function of a social dialect, that characterizes the speech of members of some social or professional group of people. The linguistic peculiarities of a social dialect have a more general, non-local chracter, because analogous social groups and professions are often found with many peoples. That’s why rendering of additional information, that elements of the social dialect contain in the O, is often possible in T. As a rule the Tr has an opportunity to use specific words and phrases, spread among Russian sailors in rendering the speech of an English sailor, or to use a Russian thieve’s jargon for reproducing some peculiarities of the English criminal world speech.
The solution of this task is made easy by the circumstance, that a social dialect differs from the common national language only by separate language peculiarities, by some kind of “markers”. Presence in the text of only few such markers will ensure the reproduction of such kind information in the T:
| Не do look quiet, don’t ‘e? D’e know ‘oo ‘e is, Sir? | Вид-то у него спокойный, -правда? Часом не знаете, сэр, кто он такой? |
The role of the totality of grammatical (don’t instead of doesn’t) and phonetic (‘e instead of he, ’e instead of you, ‘oo instead of who) features, indicating to the reference of the speaker to the common people, is played in the T by one low colloquial phrase: Часом не знаете…
266. There are specific problems with rendering in T of the imitation of a foreigner’s speech, contained in the O. Appearance of contaminated forms in the O may be involuntary and voluntary. In the first case the S having an insufficient command of the SL uses perverted forms unintentionally. Such mistakes hamper the perception of speech and reveal reference of the S to another language community. When perceiving such speech the listener compares it with correct norms of the language, guessing what form the speaker meant and perfoming in such form the “translation” from the contaminated speech into the correct speech. Similarly, in the process of T into a different language the Tr correlates contaminated forms with correct ones and translates the latter. In the second case contaminated speech are used as a means of indicating to the peculiarities of a foreigner’s speech and are one of the means of creating the pragmatic potential of the text. It follows from this that reproduction of the pragmatic function of these forms is one of the Tr’s tasks. The Tr can either use existent in the TL means of reflecting a foreigner’s speech, or has to invent new ways of rendering contaminated speech. In many languages there exist standard commonly used ways of reflecting incorrect speech of a man, who belongs to a definite nationality and who speaks not very correctly in the language that is not his native tongue. These ways are different for different kinds of contaminated speech, so that reflection of of English or Russian speech of a German is not similar to rendering the speech of a Chinese. Techniques of rendering the contaminated speech are mostly relative (conventional) though they may reflect also actually existent differences between languages. For example, mistakes in the choice of the verbal aspect are characteristic of all foreigners, who speak Russian, and the substitution of a synthetical form of the future tense for an analytical one (Я буду уходить instead of Я уйду) are peculiar to a German, but not to a French. When there is a commonly accepted way of rendering a certain type of contaminated speech in the TL the Tr uses such way irrespective of the character of contaminated forms in the O (e.g. contaminated speech of a Chinese):
| We blingee beer. Now you play. | Моя принесла пиво, твоя типель платить. |
When the O depicts contaminated speech of a foreigner of the nationality for which there is no established form of rendering, contaminated forms inthe T are introduced by the Tr. Though he takes into account accepted ways of rendering a foreigner’s speech, he doesn’t necessarily follow the commonly accepted standard. Rendering of contamination in T may be complete or selective. With complete contamination the whole or a greater part of the foreigner’s speech is disfigured (e.g. contaminated speech of a French):
| Eet ees the story of a leetle Franch girl, who comes to a beeg ceety, just like New York, and falls een love wees a leetle boy from Brookleen. | Этот песенка про мааленьки франсуски дэвюшка, котори приехаль в ошен большой город, как Нуу-Йорк, и влюблял в ма-аленьки малшику из Бруклин. |
With selective contaminationpresence of incorrect speech is reflected through few in number intentional distortions (rendering of a contaminated speech of a kanaka – a Hawaii inhabitant):
| When you see him ‘quid them you quick see kirn ‘perm whale. | Когда твоя видел спрут, тогда твоя скоро-скоро видел кашалот. |
The use of contaminated forms is infrequently accompanied by the resort to elements of colloquial style, refusal of more complicated grammatical forms (subordinate clauses, participial phrases, деепричастный оборот, etc.). Besides, it is necessary to take into consideration the fact, that some of standard ways of reflecting incorrect speech may be perceived not as a foreigner's speech, but a speech of an uneducated man, for example, the Russian моя твоя понимай нету, мало-мало. The selection and the use of contaminated elements in T must correspond to the pragmatic characteristic of rendered elements of the O.
5. Rendering the communicative effect of the original in translation.
267. In a number of cases the pragmatic aim of the T includes achievement of a desired eefect (communicative effect) on the TR. The communicative effect to be achieved may be detemined by the predominant function of the O. For fiction works the influence on the R depends on the literary merits of the text, that get a more or less wide acknowledgement with the readers. The main pragmatic task of T such text is in creating a TL text, that can similarly influence the TR. Having read Shakespeare, Dickens or Burns in Russian, the Russian reader must feel the power of the literary talent of the O author, understand, why he is considered a great dramatist, writer or poet in his country. If the Tr managed to achieve this, one can speak of an adequate reproduction of the communicative effect of the O. A more exact measurement of the correlation of the influence of the O on an English reader and that of the T on the Russian reader is hardly possible. One can speak of an approximate equality of the reaction of the R, and the actual reaction of the TR may be weaker thatn the reaction of the SR (the writer is more popular in his native country), or , vice versa, may even be stronger than the former (Burn’s poems are more popular in this country in S.Marshak’s T, than in England).
268. The predominant function of scientific and technical materials is description, explanation or direction to manipulating objects of the surrounding world. The pragmatic influence on the R is in giving him the necessary information for realization of a certain activity of scientific and technical character. If the R of the message can apply it to some experiment or carry out the prescribed operations with a device or machine, the communicative effect of the text may be considered achieved.
Similarly, the pragmatic task of T of a scientific and technical text is in ensuring a similar possibility of carrying out the necessary actions by the TR. If the TR can successfully use the TT as a direction to some actions, one can speak of the rendering of the pragmatic influence of the O. Here the equality of the influence of the O and the T is not necessarily absolute. It may happen, that in T the necessary scientific and technical information is presented in a more clear and simple way, that ensures the correct use of this information by specialists, and thus, the T carries out the main pragmatic task even better than the O.
6. Pragmatic adaptation of the TT.
269. The most complicated task is to ensure the desired reaction to the TT on the part of a concrete R. Here the Tr has to orientate himself not even towards the influence of the O on its R, but on the individual peculiarities of the TR. Only if one knows the character and the psychic state of a man, he can fairly confidently presuppose, what his emotional or behavioural reaction on the given message will be. As a rule, the Tr can not set himself a task to gain the programmed communicative effect. If such task is set, its implementation often requires the pragmatic adaptationof the text, that goes beyond the framework of the T as the process of creating a text, that is communicatively equivalent to the O. Such adaptation when rendering into another language, for example, an advertisement text, that must ensure the sale of some goods, often leads to the creationof a new parallel text in the TL (co-writing), considering the tastes and bents of the prospective customers. In a number of cases the actual influence of the TT on the given group of Rs may be checked by the observation of the reaction of a group of informers, to whom the text of T is read, with the subsequent introduction of the necessary changes. In oral T the Tr can observe the reaction of the TR and sometimes give him additional explanations about what actions the S is expecting from him as an answer to the received information. In conditions of immediate contact communication the S may directly address the Tr asking him to elicit the desired effect on the part of the R. Such and similar actions of the Tr often go beyond not only the T process, but also the adaptive transcoding.
7. The notion of the translation pragmatic “super-task”.
270. In the process of carrying out inter-lingual communication there apise pragmatic problems of another type. They are connected with the possibility of appearance of additional pragmatic tasks in relation to the TR. So, the Tr may pursue additional aims, more or less independent from the main pragmatic task of the T, try to use the result of the T process with some special purpose. Naturally, such pragmatic “supertask” of the T can’t help influencing the course of the T process and the evaluation of its results.
The pragmatic “supertask” is determined by the factors, that have no direct relation to the O text, such as: the Tr’s attempt to produce the desired effect on the TR, the attitude of the Tr or the TR to the ideas or the manner of the author, their special interest in some part of the O contents and so on.
Trying to carry out the pragmatic “supertask” of a concrete act of T, the Tr may sometimes reject the achivement of maximum equivalence, be content with an abridged T or selective T, strive for the ifnluence on the TR, that doesn’t coincide with the intention of the S and the pragmatic potential of the O.
271. The possibility of Tr’s having a pragmatic purpose, that is not connected with the content of the O, but achieved in the process of its T, is conditioned by the dual role, that the Tr plays in the process of inter-lingual communication. On the one hand, he is a lingual mediator, on the other, he is practically the S of information, who creates a TL text for its further use for certain purposes. The results of any activity are largely determined by its purpose. The aim of a concrete act of T may not coincide the the aim of inter-lingual communication and be not cofined to creating a TL text, that is communicatively equivalent to the O.
The existence of a pragmatic supertask seriously determines also the evaluation of the results of the T process. In this case the T is estimated not only by the degree of similarity of T to the O, but by the fact how the text of T corresponds to the tasks, for the solution of which the T process was carried out. This degree of correspondence is called the pragmatic value of T. If there is sufficient pragmatic value, the T may be declared correct (adequate), even if there are certain deviations from the communicative equivalence to the O.
8. Rendering the formal peculiarities of the ST.
272. The pragmatic supertask of the Tr may be determined by the wish to reflect in the T communicatively irrelevant features of the O, that remain unexpressed in an equivalent rendering of the S message. These may be formal-structural peculiarities of the SL, cultural and ethnographical elements, that do not play a functional role in the message, but are reflected in its structure, conceptual and semantic peculiarities of structuring the messages in thelanguage of the O. Such pragmatic directive usually leads to the break of the norm and usage of the TL, as the result of literal reproduction of peculiarities of the SL, that are alien to it. An attempt to reflect the presence of two elements in an analytical form of the English continuous aspect Не is running down the street will lead to an unacceptable phrase in the Russian language: *Он есть бегущий по улице, and the literal rendering of the English images will give senseless Russian phrases:
| Не is as cool as a cucumber. A miss is as good as mile. | *Он хладнокровен как огурец. *Промах так же хорош, как миля. |
The literal retaining of the specific semantic structure of the English utterance demonstrates the impossibility of its use in constructing a Russian phrase:
| They locked the door to keep thieves out. | *Они заперли дверь, чтобы держать воров извне. |
It is clear that such variants are excluded in T proper and are used only to demonstrate the peculiarities of a foreign language form in the so-called “philological” or “ethnographic” T.
9. Draft, working and official translation.
273. Different results are gained when the Tr tries to give a simplified T in accord with the pragmatic task of a concrete act of T, rendering only the mere sense, i.e. denotational content of the text, not trying to reproduce the emotional-stylistic and associative-imagery aspects of the O. Such task often arises when it is necessary in the shortest possible time to introduce the TR with the main contents of the message. Such simplified T may be regarded as a preliminary stage in the process of the Tr’s work over the preparation of the full-value text of T. So, one can differentiate between three categories, each one corresponding to definite requirements , namely, draft translation, Working (not for publication) translation and official (for publication) translation. Translations of the second category fully render the denotational content of the O (on the level of the method of describing the situation), observe the TL norms, but may be inadequate in rendering the connotative aspects of the O and resort to explanations for restoring the losses of information. Translations of the third group create a communicatively equivalent substitute of the O in the TL, reproducing all functionally relevant elements of the content of the O, including its pragmatic potential.
10. Stylization and modernization of the translation.
274. A special kind of the pragmatic supertask, leading to essential changes of the text of the T, is the Tr’s wish to modernize the O. The time and the place of the T can considerably differ from form the time and the place of the creation of the O. The tr often has to deal with the O, that was created at a different historical period, as well as in his native language, that has changed during this period so greatly, that its former state is a different language. The T of the text, that is distanced in the time, poses a number of additional problems for the Tr. The fact that the T is made not from the modern language, must be somehow reflected in the text of T. There arises the necessity to reflect in the T the chronological distance of the O by way of use of the TL words and phrases, that are clear for a modern TR, though rarely used and perceived as archaic. Such TL archaisms must not have a clearly pronounced “national colouring”, i.e. they shouldn’t be so characteristic of the TL, so that there shouldn’t be a possibility of their use in rendering of the SL message.
Besides the use of old elements of the word-stock, the “archaic character” of the text of T is ensured by the Tr’s not trying to use words and phrases, that bear the mark of the modern period of language development and are incompatible with the period of the period when the O was created. Though the T is made into the modern Russian language, the author of the O, who lived, say, in the 14th century England, as well as his heroes did, can not in the T ездить в командировку, занимаоться чем-либо без отрыва от производства, работать сверхурочно, решать проблемные вопросы, быть узким специалистом, проводить незапланированные встречи, подбирать кадры, игнорировать специфические особенности, осуществлять режим экономии, etc.
275. The Tr may try to modernize the transmitted message, putting it in in such manner as a modern author would. This is a violation of requirements, that the T must meet, to be communicatively equivalent to a time-distanced O. Carrying out this supertask may lead to considerable changes in the TT, the non-use of rare and archaic language units, and a wide use of everyday, modern lexical units. The changes may touch upon the way of describing the situation, and sometimes the situation itself. In an English T of the Bible the God-believers greeted one another with a holy kiss, in a modernized variant they already gave one another a hearty handshake all around. In some cases modernization includes elements of stylization, substitution of old names for modern ones, change of some episodes, names, household items, customs, etc. As well as in previous cases, such pragmatic adaptation is not, in a strict sense, a T, though it is performed by a Tr in the T process.
11. Extra-translational factors in translation pragmatics.
276. The specific goal, which makes the translator modify the resulting text, often means that, for all practical purposes, he assumes an additional role and is no longer just a translator. He may set himself some propaganda or educational task, he may be particularly interested in some part of the original and wants to make a special emphasis on it, he may try to impart to the Receptor his own feelings about the Source or the event described in the original. In pursuance of his plans the translator may try to simplify, abridge or modify the original message, deliberately reducing the degree of equivalence in his translation.
It is clear that such cases go far beyond the inherent aspects of translation and it is not the task of the translation theory to analyse or pass a judgement on them. But the translator should be aware of this possibility for it will have an impact on his strategy.
In many types of translation any attempt by the translator to modify his text for some extra-translational purpose will be considered unprofessional conduct and severely condemned. But there are also some other types of translation where particular aspects of equivalence are of little interest and often disregarded.
When a book is translated with a view to subsequent publication in another country, it may be adapted or abridged to meet the country's standards for printed matter. The translator may omit parts of the book or some descriptions considered too obscene or naturalistic for publication in his country, though permissible in the original. P.Merime, when translating N.Gogol’s “Revisor” substituted in the speech of the gorodnichiy words чем больше сносят for чем больше строят, being afraid that retaining of the original variant may be treated as a hint on the imperoress’s activity, who initiated numerous breakdowns of houses in order to set up Paris’s Big Boulevards. V.Kurochkin and other Trs of J.Berange songs changed the contents of the French Os in order to politically criticize the zarist Russia’s order, on the one hand, and on the other, because of the conditions of censure they had to omit details, when translating about the God, the crown, the constitution, etc. There many examples of such extralinguistic conditions influencing the process of T, but they can not be theoretically generalized, and their treatment goes beynd the boundaries of the general T theory.
In technical or other informative translations the translator or his employers may be interested in getting the gist of the contents or the most important or novel part of it, which may involve leaving out certain details or a combination of translation with brief accounts of less important parts of the original. A most common feature of such translations is neglect of the stylistic and structural peculiarities of the original. In this case translation often borders on retelling or precis writing.
A specific instance is consecutive interpretation where the interpreter is often set a time limit within which he is expected to report his translation no matter how long the original speech may have been. This implies selection, generalizations, and cutting through repetitions, incidental digressions, occasional slips or excessive embellishments.
It is obvious that in all similar cases the differences which can be revealed between the original text and its translation should not be ascribed to the translator's inefficiency or detract from the quality of his work. The pragmatic value of such translations clearly compensates for their lack of equivalence. Evidently there are different types of translation serving different purposes.
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