Топик: Translatioin of Political Literature

§ II. Translation of Political literature and terms.

Political literature like any other scientific kind of literature have languages items characteristic to them, that requires the translator to be precise and sharp. Most books on general politics are characterized by the passion of expression, polemic style and the specific feature is in blending the elements of scientific speech from one side with different emotionally colored means of expression from another side.

The translation of political literature can be considered in two ways: as a field of linguistic activity and as a separate field in science.

As a field of linguistic activity translation of political literature represents one of the types of special translations possessing as objects of its activity different materials of political character.

The political translation comes out into a special field of study due to its specific features of written and verbal speech on political topics, which is specified by its essential character and the knowledge of this science. Sometimes these features are so diverse that in order to understand them (Russian and English politics as well) one should have a special knowledge without which it would be very hard to clearly perceive the inner sense on politics or a translated piece.

Therefore, the study of specific features of written and verbal speech acquires great importance to translators (interpreters). To the features mention above belong the following:

1. maximal filling the political literature with special political terms, and in verbal speech (among the politicians) – filling it with words of political jargon – slang.

2. presence of special idiomatic expressions and phraseological units in verbal and written speech that are rarely used in colloquial speech and general literature.

As an example, I should bring the following idioms: blitzkrieg – молниеносная война , Comprehensive Program of Disarmament - Всеобъемлющая программа разоружения , principal powers – крупные державы , status quo – статус кво and many others. We have to mark - if the quantity of political idioms is limited, then the amount of “politically” related phraseological idioms is vast in English and Russian languages.

3. the presence of some stylistic deflection from general literary norms is sometimes very great.

a) wide usage of elliptic constructions, especially in periodically publishing materials, propaganda and other kinds of politically important printing media.

b) preciseness and beauty of self-expression which is achieved by the usage of elliptic constructions along with wide usage of passive constructions and an often substitution of придаточных предложений by absolute constructions and деепричастными оборотами.

c) the presence of official writing style, mostly in documents of official provisions that cover administrative and political questions.

d) strictly regulated use of verbal forms and word phrases in special chapters of political literature and political documents.

As was told before, while translating a political character, like doing any other special translation a great importance is given to translation of special terms.

In our philological literature exist lots of definitions to the concept of term, but the essence of majority comes to the following:

Term – is a word or a combination of words, which define a notion (subject, a phenomenon, property, relation or a process) that is characteristic for the given field of science, technology, art or a sphere of social life.

Terms differ from the words of general usage by definite semantic limitations and specific meanings they define. Its very hard to overestimate the general and scientific meaning of terms since the concrete knowledge demands definite expression and a term does not only fix the concept by its notion (name) but specifies it diverging it from adjacent components.

For better functioning, terms must express systematization of notions, express their essence or at least be semantically neutral and at the same time be unambiguous and precise.

The phenomenon of a separate field of science and the terms that fix them should be systemized that offers gender availability around which group notions are formed. Thus an English term representative which presents a group notion and forms a group of notions that belong to this group: representative forum (представительный форум), business world representative (представитель делового мира), representative to the talks (представитель на переговорах), representative to the public (представитель общественности), representative of political circles (представитель политических кругов), representative to NATO (представитель НАТО), representative of various strata or the population (представитель различных слоёв населения).

The capability of a term to express a systematic state of notions and easily merge with new phrases that represent new group notions that consequently appear along with the development of a definite field of science or knowledge maybe called its systematic capability.

The systematic capability of notions helps us to clarify the relation of notions, raise their semantic definiteness and ease their understanding and remembering.

In terms, formed on the base of mother tongue we may differ direct meaning and terminological meaning.

The direct meaning of a term is formed through the elements of the language used for their formation; the terminological meaning defines the concept of notion expressed by the term.

The terms, direct and terminological meaning of which correspond to each other, correctly orientate and underline the so-called their interrelation. These terms are able to express the essence of notions.

The terms, whose direct and terminological meaning does not correspond to each other belong to semantically neutral group of terms.

And at last, the terms whose direct and terminological meaning contradict each other, should be admitted as completely unsatisfactory because they distort the genuine relations among the notions, disorientate the hearer and do not possess any semantic definiteness.

Unambiguousness of a term also influences its clear semantic features but since we do not have any researches in this field this concept cannot always be applied. Therefore, up to 10% of English and American political terms do not possess even a relative semantic definiteness, i.e. definiteness in some political concerns. This situation may be explained by the fact that the terms according to their nature are firstly simple words, and consequently, they develop according to general laws of linguistics. The result of this is the appearance terminological homonyms that hinder the normal functioning of political terms in a language.

The definiteness of a term requires preciseness of an expressed idea. It also raises the semantic definiteness of the term averting its misusage according to it form.

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