Топик: Translatioin of Political Literature

Nevertheless, similar word order in English and Russian sentences are also evident.

A meeting of firemen’s and employers’ representatives scheduled for today has been postponed .

Намеченная на сегодня встреча представителей пожарников и предпринимателей была отложена .

A Catholic priest in South Africa told of the malnutrition, disease and starvation there.

Один католический священник из Южной Африки рассказывал о существующем там недоедании, болезнях и голоде.

Transposition is required when the English sentence contains a large group of nouns with indefinite article and then it is natural that they, being the center of informative message are placed at the end of the sentence. Besides, a short, compared with the noun predicate can not bear the emphatic sense of a large group of nouns.

A big wave of actions by all sections of workers – skilled and unskilled, men and women, manual and non-manual – for higher wages and equal pay, for shorter hours and a greater say in shaping the environment at work is rising .

Сейчас нарастает огромная волна забастовок трудящихся всех категорий – квалифицированных и не квалифицированных, мужчин и женщин, работников физического и умственного труда – за повышение зарплаты, за равную оплату женского труда, за сокращение рабочего дня, за улучшение условий труда.

It is very frequent when grammatical and lexical transformations demand supplementation or omission of some words or elements. Therefore omission and supplementation are frequently combined with other types of grammatical transformations and more frequently with substitution of parts of speech. Supplementation of parts of speech are characterized by several factors: difference in structures of the sentences and that short English sentences demand spread translation in the Russian language. Absence of some corresponding word or lexical-semantic variant in both languages is also one of the reasons of applying additional words in translation.

The American troops were thought to be heading toward Saigon, but no one seemed to be aware of fierce resistance of the nation.

Полагали, что американские войска направляется на Сайгон, но казалось, что никто не знал о жестоком сопротивлении местного населения.

The construction Nominative + Infinitive with two omitted elements (which was ) was given in object clause plus introductory sentences… который, как полагали раньше, движется… Thus, the difference in the structure of sentences demanded supplementation in the given translation.

In the following example, supplementation was caused by absence of corresponding word in Russian to English conservationists.

The actions of Congress and of North Carolina and Tennessee statesmen, aided by gifts of wise conservationists, have set this land aside as Great Smoky National Park.

Эта местность на берегу реки Смоки-Хилл была превращена в Национальный парк благодаря усилиям Конгресса и государственных деятелей штатов Северная Каролина и Теннеси, а также благодаря пожертвованиям любителей природы, понимающих всю важность её сохранения .

While translating this sentence besides transposition we have made many other transformations and as a matter of the first importance we should mentions the supplementation we have accomplished. In regard to the absence on corresponding word in the Russian language to the English conservationists we have rendered it by two words любителей природы; and taking into consideration the combinability of the attribute wise we have translated it by adverbial modifier applying introductory words like понимающих всю важность её сохранения , the noun сохранения renders all the essence of the given sentence which is contained in conservationists . To make the perception of the sentence easier we have we added the words штатов, на берегу реки. The last supplementation was made on the basis of its spread context. The passive participle aided was rendered by preposition благодаря . We should also point to lexico-grammatical transformation: have set this land aside – эта местность … была превращена.

Ellipsis involves the omission of an item. In other words, in ellipsis an item is replaced by nothing. This is a case of leaving something unsaid which is nevertheless understood. It doesn’t include every instance when the hearer or reader has to supply missing information, but only those cases where grammatical structure itself points to an item or items that can fill the slot in question. Here are some examples of ellipsis:

The United States donated two millions dollars and Britain one and a half millions pounds. (omitted item: donated in second clause ).

Here are four strategies. Choose any of them. (omitted item strategy )

Use of synonymy pairs is characterized to all styles of written speech of English language. Preserving such synonymy pair is accepted as pleonasm and it is absolutely superfluous even when translating official documents that demand preciseness. For example:

The Treaty was declared null and void .

Договор был объявлен недействительным.

Condemned by almost all members of the United States, and regarded as an outcast and criminal system by the vast majority of mankind, it (apartheid) is able to exist and defy censure solely because of the aid and support given to it by the Western imperialist countries.

Апартеид осуждён почти всеми членами ООН, и подавляющее большинство человечества считает эту систему преступной . Апартеид существует благодаря помощи и поддержке империалистических государств Запада.

In this example are used two synonymy pairs: outcast and criminal , aid and support . In the first case преступный sufficiently renders the essence of both synonyms. The lexical meaning of the attribute outcast – изгнанный, отверженный doesn’t fit to this context neither owing to norms of combinability nor to the power of its meaning. The second pair of synonyms can be preserved without any difficulty – помощь и поддержка. The participle given is omitted for its meaning is supplied by case flexion.

The battle was fierce while it lasted.

Бой был жесток.

Time complex object in this in this case functions as a cliché and doesn’t have corresponding equivalent in Russian.

So we can see that in the majority cases of translation some piece of political literature we have make necessary changes. We should remind you that it is not always an English sentence completely corresponds to the Russian one. Very frequently the structure of a Russian sentence absolutely differs from the one English. It has different word order, parts of the sentences and pretty often differs even the order of sentences. In some instances, parts of speech expressed in English are translated into Russian by the help of different parts of speech. You should remember that the compressed way of expression in the English can not be followed in Russian and we therefore have to “decompress” them so that to make the easy to perceive and understand, e.i. we have to add some words or expressions or even sentences in whole. Nevertheless, some differences in usage of some specific features make us leave some elements unsaid while translating the whole. And all these cases are explained by grammatical transformations we have just investigated.