Basic Transformations in Translation of Sport Discourse

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Basic Transformations in Translation of Sport Discourse Content

Contents

Introduction

Chapter I

1.1 On the notion of Discourse in the Modern Linguistics

1.1.1 Approaches towards the Typology of Discourses

1.1.2 Characteristics of the Sport Discourse from the Viewpoint of Social Linguistics

1.2 Cognitive dissonance as the Identity Searching Index

1.3 Characteristics of Sport Discourse as Source of Difficulties in Translation

Chapter II

2. Ways of Reducing Cognitive Dissonance When Translating Sport Discourse Texts

2.1 Problems of Lexicon/Vocabulary

2.1.1 Problems on Rendering of Player's and Athletes' Names, Names of Teams

2.1.2 Problems on Rendering of Players' and Umpires' Positions

2.1.3 Problems on Rendering Competitions' and Sports Organizations' Names

2.1.4 Problems on Rendering of Time-spaces of the Game, and of the Team Division into Groups

2.1.5 Other Lexical Problems

2.2 Grammatical Problems

2.3 Peculiarities of Style

Conclusion

List of References

Appendices

Introduction

Sport is the essential part of the world history. The first Olympic Games were held in 776 BC in Olympia. With the flow of time the importance of the Games as well as “the sacres armistice” grew. During the Games all the wars were suspended and the truce was concluded; rich celebrations and feasts were held. Then going for sport has become not only pass time but also a profession. And the mass media are the active participants of sport culture now as they bring the information about all important sport events.

The subject of this paper is sport discourse. Is has not been completely described yet but as other types of the discourse it has its own peculiarities, the description of which could make the work of a translator easier. An attempt of such a description was done in this work.

The paper seeks to highlight the peculiarities of English texts about sport events, problems arising in the process of their translation and ways of solving these problems.

This goal is achieved by accomplishing the following tasks:

1. To provide the theoretical background information of such phenomena as the discourse, sport discourse, cognitive dissonance as the identity search index and transformations in translation;

2. To analyze and translate English texts of sport subject-matter and to describe those transformations that can be used in reducing of cognitive dissonance.

The following methods were used for completing the task: comparative analysis, transformational analysis, contrastive analysis, description and reasoning of selected transformations.

The structure of the diploma thesis is traditional: there is an introduction, the body part, which consists of two chapters, conclusion, the list of references, used in this work, and appendix, that consists of the articles translated for this work.

In the first chapter there is the information about the notion of discourse in general, its typology, the description of sport discourse from the viewpoint of social linguistics, the definitions of cognitive dissonance and translator's discourse.

The second chapter is devoted to the ways of overcoming of cognitive dissonance when translating the texts of sport discourse. The examples are analyzed there in terms of translation transformations.

As a theoretical basis the books of following authors were used: V.N. Komissarov, A.D. Shveitser, G.D. Voskoboinik, T.A. Kazakova and M.A.K. Haliday.

We employ as well dictionaries and encyclopedias: English-Russian and English-English explanatory dictionaries, Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary, the electronic encyclopedias “Wikipedia” and “Krugosvet”. The practical part was represented by 20 articles that are enclosed at the end of the paper. They are divided into 5 appendices according to a kind of sport an article is devoted to. In the first appendix the articles are devoted to football; in the second one there are articles about basketball; in the third - the articles on tennis; in the fourth - articles on hockey; the fifth is the workouts.

Chapter I

1.1 On the Notion of Discourse in the Modern Linguistics

The term “Discourse is applied with different sciences (not only with those which are adjacent linguistics) and, according to many authors, exactly therefore there is no accurate, clear and universally recognized definition of it that could cover all the cases of its usage. But as N. Belozerova notices in her article “Paradoxes of Discourse”, the seme of utterance is the common feature of discourse that is mentioned in all the definitions of it [Белозерова, http://www.utmn.ru]. We will list here only those that would be helpful for this work.

It was E. Benveniste who introduced the term “discourse” in its modern interpretation into linguistics [ЛЭС, 1990 : 137]. According to him the discourse is everything that lies between language and speech.

N.D. Arutyunova holds the option. Her definition of the discourse is widely known among linguists - “Discourse is speech “plunged in life”. [ЛЭС, 1990 : 137].

M.A.K. Halliday differentiated the notions of “the text” and “the context”, and considered they are different aspects of one and the same process. [Halliday, 1991 : 18]

The context or con-text, according to M. Halliday, is that certainly accompanies the text and, as a rule, precedes it. Or the situation, in which the text “happens”, precedes the discourse that relates to this situation. The discourse is determined by three parameters: field (topic and conditions of discussion, subject of conversation), mode (form of communication (oral, written etc.) and tenor (participants of situation, their roles, relations, and purposes) [cite on Куницына, 1998 : 31].

French culturologist M. Foucault tells about the discourse as the totality of all that was said and pronounced. He, like M.A.K. Halliday, understands the discourse as the cultural phenomenon and describes it as a social practice that consists of utterances. Successions of the utterances make the so-called discourse formations that could be correlated with different fields of human knowledge: economics, politics, medicine etc. The discourse formations or discourses do not coincide with branches of the science though, they are not their prototypes, on the contrary the science is manifested in discourse.

S. Stembrouck, the author of the article “Discourse analysis”, defines the discourse as “naturally occurring connected speech or written discourse”, as the use of language in the social context and in particular as cooperation or dialogue between interlocutors.

Yu. Stepanov determines the discourse as the use of language for expression of specific mentality that entails a particular selection of speech means, special means of grammar and vocabulary. He also emphasizes the position of the discourse on the boundary between the system of language as the source of making a discourse and the text as a result of that discourse.

In the “Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary” the discourse means the connected text combined with extralinguistic - pragmatic, social cultural, psychological and other factors; the text as the event [ ЛЭС, 1990 : 136, 137].

Of course there were attempts to combine a number of definitions into the common one. Let us cite two summarized interpretations of the discourse.

The first one belongs to M. Makarov who has analyzed different treatments and gives formal, functional and situational interpretations to the discourse. The formal one is the understanding of the discourse as a unit above the level of sentence, i.e. as a superphrasal unity, the complex syntactic whole. Functional interpretation says the discourse is the use of language i.e. speech in all its varieties. Situational interpretation takes into account socially, psychologically and culturally significant conditions and circumstances of communication.

On more definition which is considered to be complete enough was done by V. Dem'yankov: “Discourse is an arbitrary part of a text which consists of more that one sentence or an independent part of a sentence. Often but not always concentrated around some bearing concept, then creates common context, that in turn describes participants, objects, circumstances, time, actions etc. The discourse is determined not so much by the sequence of sentence as by that common for creating discourse and its interpreter world that has being “built” while the discourse is developing [cite on Кланщакова, 2003 : 62].

So we can sum up the discourse is an utterance or set of utterances united by common topic that need to be considered in the context of specific situation and the culture in general; there are participants who exchange these utterances (it is supposed the utterance could be written as well as oral and could be a text); the choice of means of expression is determined by “specific mentality” as well as a variety of the discourse.

We would like also to cite D. Arnason's article “Semiotics: the system of signs”: “There are no privileged discourses. There are no fixed rules about how language may be used. Some discourses are preferable to others under certain conditions, but all discourses are culturally determined” [Arnason, http://Arnason_DE/Saussure.html].

1.1.1 Approaches towards the Typology of Discourses

First of all the written and the oral types of the discourse are distinguished. This division is based on the channel of information transmission: when it is the oral discourse the channel is acoustic, when it is the written one the channel is visual. Sometimes the difference between the oral and the written forms of language use is given the same status as the difference between the discourse and the text, the confusion of two different oppositions is unjustified though. Originally the language existed in its oral form and only then its written realization appeared. The written discourse differs from the oral one that speech is created by blocks that are divided from each other by pauses, when it is oral discourse. At the same time there is direct contact between a speaker and a listener that determines the use of other grammatical, phonetic and lexical forms of language than in the written discourse (for example, use of pronouns of 1^st and 2^nd person, simple sentences which could be not finished, reduces forms in pronunciation, references to the mental processes and emotions of a speaker and a listener, use of gestures and other non-verbal means etc.). In the written discourse there is no contact between an addresser and an addressee (therefore people use writing), the complex sentences and passive voice are used more often here [www.krugosvet.ru]

Both the oral and the written discourse can be reproduced by oral and written forms of translation. The type of translation depends on the translator's actions nature, and this classification is called the psycholinguistic classification [Комиссаров, 1990 :95].

The oral translation is that type of translation where a text is perceived by ear, the original and its translation have the unfixed form in the process of translation. That predetermines the fact the translator perceives segments of the original only once and has no possibility to compare and correct the translation after it was done. The oral translation is presented by three forms: simultaneous translation (the translator perceives the information and translates it with 2-3 seconds' interval), consecutive translation (translation of a text after its perception) and sight translation. First two types refer to the translation of the oral discourse texts, and the latter one - to the translation of the written discourse [Комиссаров, 1990 : 98, 99], [Миньяр-Белоручев, 1994: 137, 141].

The written translation is the most widespread kind of the professional translation. The translator can appeal to the text more than once and correct it before it will be presented to the receptor. In the oral discourse this type of translation is realized first of all as a training type when students listen to the text and write it down simultaneously or after the listening [Комиссаров, 1990 : 97, 98], [Миньяр-Белоручев, 1994 : 136]. The written translation of the written discourse texts, when the information is perceived visually and the translation made in the written form, was used when translating the articles for this research.

Except the written and the oral forms of the discourse the mental one is distinguished. A human being can use language without leaving any acoustic or graphic signs of his/her language activity. Nevertheless it is communication with itself. This type of the discourse has been studied less that written and oral ones, because it is difficult to observe the manifestations of it. One of the most famous researches of the mental discourse or the inside speech was done by L. Vygotsky [www. Krugosvet.ru].

In the other typology the following three types of the discourse are distinguished:

1. Narrative (fairy-tales)

2. Propaganda (advertisements)

3. Argumentative

John Searle singled out two types:

· Functional

· Non-fictional (historical, specific)

In the fictional discourse the author expresses his/her point of view concerning the nature of this or that phenomenon. S/he uses peculiar means of language to convey the pragmatic function of a work, i.e. to make influence to the reader.

In the non-fictional discourse the author's goal is to describe an event, a phenomenon, a fact.

According to the character of the texts the translation can be either literary or informative (special). This classification is called the genre-stylistic. Traditionally the informative one - the non-literary discourse. The main feature of the literary translation is that the translated text belongs to TL (target language) works of art and posses certain literary virtues. The analysis of translations of literary works shows they are characterized by the divisions from the highest possible sense accuracy to provide the “belles-letterness” of translation [Комиссаров, 1990 : 95]. The informative translation is that of the text the main function of which is to impart definite information [Комиссаров, 1990 : 97].

Later on two main types of the discourse were distinguished from the viewpoint of social linguistics: personal or personal-oriented and institutional or status-oriented. The comprehensive description of these types was done by Vladimir I. Karasik in his articles “On types of discourse” and “Ethnocultural types of institutional discourse”. In the personal discourse the speaker acts as a personality with exposing of his/her inner world; in the institutional discourse - as a representative of a certain social institution or a social group.

The personal discourse is represented by two main varieties - everyday discourse and existential discourse.

Everyday communication is the dialogue between people who know each other well enough. This communication comes to maintenance of a contact and solving of everyday problems. Participants know the subject of conversation we;; therefore they do not speak about it in details. They use lower layer of lexis, jargonisms, words, that are obscure for “strangers” (words that are used by a particular group, from example, by members of a family). Gestures, mimicry and actions supplement the utterances; pronunciation is unclear; meanings of words can change easily that leads to a quick transition from one topic to another, to wide use of implication, breach of logics. This type of communication is learned by a person from the very childhood [В.И. Карасик, 2000 [16].

Fictional and philosophical comprehension of the world is the core of the existential discourse. The speaker/author tries to expose his/her inner world, communication is rich of meanings as fully as it is possible, all the forms of speech are used within the literary language, existential communication is mainly expressed in a form of monologue and represented by works of literature, philosophical and psychological introspective texts [В.И. Карасик, 2000 [16].

The existential discourse can be direct an indirect. The direct existential discourse is represented by two opposed types: sense translation and sense breach [В.И. Карасик, 2000 [15].

The status-oriented discourse is the institutional communication i.e. speech interaction of people with each other as representatives of social groups or institutions. V. Karasik distinguishes the following types of the institutional discourse in the modern society: political, diplomatic, administrative, legal, military, pedagogical, religious, mystic, medical, and scientific, discourse of business, publicity, sport, stage and of mass-media. He also emphasizes this list can be changed or enlarged since the social institutions can merge with each other and appear as varieties within this or that institution with the flow of time. Each institutional discourse is distinguished first of all on the basis of two main features that are goals and participants of communication (for example, the goal of the legal discourse is to establish supremacy of the law). The principal participants of the institutional discourse are the representative of an institution (agents) and people who apply to them (clients) (for example, a priest and a parishioner). The relations between the participants of different types of the institutional discourse are considerably different (doctor - patient, sportsperson - fan). There are different degrees of openness of discourse (clients within specific, business and diplomatic discourses are equal to agents while the clients of political and some other discourses fifer from their clients sharply).

People who participate in the institutional communication may not be acquainted with each other but they have to communicate within the society. Although the agent and the client are the representatives of certain social institution their communication is hardly deprived by a personal component. In different types of the institutional discourse the personal component is brought into correlation with status component in different proportions. Nevertheless there is some abstract boundary between these two components which should be realized by the participants of communication, and the transgressing of this boundary undermines the basis of existence of this or that social institution.

In every type of the institutional discourse there is a pattern according to which the relations of the participants are built but this order is often destroyed in the real life. Also certain speech clichйs are used there which expose all the system of relations in a proper institution [В.И. Карасик, 2000 [15], [В.И. Карасик, 2000 [16].

The example of the strict order of discourse could be a basketball match as it is held according to the certain rules (team greeting, 4 quarters, 10 minutes each, sometimes overtime).

1.1.2 The Characteristics of the Sport Discourse from the Viewpoint of Social Linguistics

As it was said in previous section all the discourses are divided into personal and institutional ones from the point of view of sociolinguistics, science the subject of which is the language in connection with social conditions of its existence (human society that uses this language, social structure of this society, differences between native speakers in their social status, cultural and educational level etc.) [www.krugosvet.ru].

Before we describe the difficulties that appear when translating texts of the sport discourse (further SD), let us characterize the type of discourse itself. It should be noted here this type has not been studied comprehensively yet. The researchers note it does not correspond to all the features of the institutional discourse [Бейлинсон, 2004]. And we did not manage to find its clear definitions.

Sport discourse is a type of institutional complicated multifunctional formation that includes other types of discourse which are educational (can be found in communication between sportsperson and coach), judicial (appears in the aspects concerning the rules of competitions or singing in the contest etc), political (penetrates in all international competitions) and medical (is a part of SD, preparation and rehabilitation of sportsperson).

As professor V. Karasik affirms the specific character of the institutional discourse becomes obvious within its type, i.e. in the type of a social institution, which has a specific name and the key concept (political discourse - power, pedagogical - education etc.); this institution is connected with certain functions of people, buildings, erected for implementation of these functions, social rituals and models of behavior, and also with the texts that are “produced” within it [В.И. Карасик, 2000 [15].

The key concepts of the institution of sport are defined by us as follows victory and health.

V. Karasik offers as well the scheme for description of specific types of the institutional discourse that consists of following components:

1) participants, 2) chronotop, 3) goals, 4) values (including key concept/s), 5) strategies, 6) subject, 7) varieties and genres, 8) precedential texts, 9) discourse formulas [В.И. Карасик, 2000 [15].

Participants of SD are sportspersons and fans (coaches, trainers, referees and umpires are or were sportsperson as well, nevertheless the relations between them and those who are trained and umpires by are different than that with supporters).

As the practical part of this paper is represented by the articles of the sport subject-matter it would be righteous to distinguish also the journalists as the clients because they interview sportspersons, make running commentaries from matches and competitions, inform of the sport life etc.

When examining the pair “sportsperson-supporter” it should be mentioned the agent could be either a sportsperson or a team but supporters represent often a group of people.

Chronotop is traditionally understood as prototypical place of communication. In SD they various sport buildings such as stadiums, swimming pools, gyms etc., they have auxiliary rooms and seats for spectators. Prototypes of modern sport buildings were ancient palestras and gymnasiums, stadiums, hippodromes, circuses in Athens, Olympia, Delphia and other [МСЭ, 1958 : 1008-1009].

The main goal of SD is to bring up a healthy generation (a new generation of sportspersons as well) and afterwards to achieve high results and victory. In the Olympic Charter we read “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity” [Olympic Charter, http://multimedia.olympic.org].

The values of SD are health, fair play, progress and success achieved, striving for victory, victory itself, that could be achieved by hard training.

Ex. 1 Sustained aerobic work, several sets for each muscular group. (from Development and Training for the Decathlon)

Длительная аэробная нагрузка, несколько подходов на каждую группу мышц.

We can also regard the Olympic motto as the expression of SD values “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (faster, higher, stronger) [Olympic Charter, http://multimedia.olympic.org].

The strategies of SD are to accustom to sport, bring up the healthy person by means of training that leads to achieving certain results, in the professional sport - to the victory at the competitions.

Communication between sportspersons, umpires, coaches and supporters has different degree of personification. Or as V. Karasik said: the institutionality bears gradual character [В.И. Карасик, 2000 [15]. The communication between a sportsperson and a coach is the closest to the personal discourse (since the professional sportspersons are trained by one coach from the very childhood often), the communication with fans is less personal, the most institutional is the communication between a sportsperson and a referee and a coach and a referee. Are the “cheerings” relevant to SD or are they the folklore? We consider they must be included within SD, because by use of these “verses” the fans support their favorite team (it is characteristic exactly for the team sports - football, hockey), i.e. the pragmatic function of the language is realized in this form of linguistic creative work as they bear negative or positive connotation.

Taking into account the examples used in this work we can talk about interdiscoursivity or the ability of a discourse to expand its boarders and to “penetrate” into another discourse [Вебер, 2004 : 183]. SD interacts with and penetrates into the mass-media discourse. Therefore we will single out the following genres of SD: review of sport events (often in the news programs), running commentary during a match, a game, a competition, article (discussion of a certain topic, analysis of game results, description of a workout technique etc.), interview with a sportsperson, representatives of sport committees, a coach etc.

Ex. 2 To optimize performance, do smooth transition through each phase and higher the hips toward the ground.

Чтобы оптимизировать выступление, выполняйте плавный переход на каждой фазе, пытаясь держаться как можно выше . (from Development and Training for the Decathlon)

The genre of a workout description presupposes to be made in a different way in Russian than that of in English. That leads to difficulties and cognitive dissonance. Therefore the structure of a sentence needs to be changes completely in the process of translation. The description of difficulties and strategies of translation will be done in the next chapter more precisely.

To the precedent text of SD we refer the rules of a game or a competition which are given to a person both by written and oral channel. There are certain rules in each kind of sport, they do exist though they can be of different volumes. If a person goes in for sport professionally s/he possesses the information about the anatomy of human body, inner processes, and correct nutrition. Of course, there is additional knowledge in every kind of sport, which should be known by a sportsperson (ratings of routes in climbing, different positions of players in basketball or football).

The example of the discourse formulas can be the following:

Ex. 3 Carles Puyol is suspended but Lionel Messi is back from a hamstring injury ahead of schedule. (from Victory an 'absolute must' for Barзa)

Карлес Пуйоль пропустит следующий матч из-за дисквалификации, а Лионель Месси восстановился после травмы подколенного сухожилия быстрее намеченного срока.

Ex. 4 Home games - игра на домашнем стадионе

These are the set phrases that are characteristic for that type of discourse.

1.2 Cognitive dissonance as the Identity Searching Index

As Vilen N. Komissarov said in his book “Theory of translation” one of the main tasks of the translator is to reproduce the content of the original as completely as it possible [Комиссаров, 1990 : 51]. The translator seeks the identity (or the sameness < same) of texts of SL (source language) and TL (target language) but at the same time s/he realizes it is impossible to reach it. This knowledge leads to appearing of cognitive dissonance (further CD). CD exists consistently during the process of translation and the translator tries to make it lower by making his/her translation as equivalent and adequate as possible (according to Grigoriy D. Voskoboynik the concepts of adequacy and equivalence are connected with the concept of identity immediately) [Воскобойник, 2004 : 39]. Equivalence is defined as the unity of a content of the original and that of translation [Комиссаров, 1990 : 251].

There are 5 levels of the equivalence, and the translation can provide interlinguistic communication on each of these levels. But the translator tries to reach the higher level where it is feasible in order to bring the ST (source text) and the TT (target text) nearer at most and lower his/her CD correspondingly. On the first level (or type) only the purpose of communication can be transferred from one language to the other.

Ex. 5 Best before - годен до

Ex. 6 Work per unit time - выполняйте по одному упражнению

The translator transfers the purpose and keeps unchangeable the reference to the identical extralinguistic situation (objects and their relations) but the way of its description is different on the second level.

Ex. 7 Beware of the dog! - Осторожно, злая собака!

Ex. 8 To optimize performance, do smooth transition through each phase and higher the hips toward the ground.

Чтобы оптимизировать выступление, выполняйте плавный переход на каждой фазе, пытаясь держаться как можно выше . (from Development and Training for the Decathlon)

The third level of the equivalence is characterized by preservation the way of situational description while the features of first two levels are also kept.

Ex. 9 Large blocks of marble are brought here from quarries and cut and polished, before being ferried to the customers across India.

Из каменоломен сюда привозят крупные куски мрамора, их режут и полируют, а затем отправляют покупателям по всей Индии.

Ex. 10 The midfielder's delivery was impeccable but, with only Torres waiting in the danger area, the chance came and went.

Пас полузащитника был безупречен, но Торрес, находящийся в штрафной зоне совсем один, не воспользовался этим шансом. (from Reds Crash out in Extra-Time)

To reach the forth and the fifth levels of the equivalence it is necessary not only to keep the features of the first, the second and the third levels but also to find out the equivalent correspondences to the meanings of SL language units. The forth level differs from the fifth one by the incomplete parallelism of syntactic structures and vocabulary.

Ex. 11 In the third quarter, Washington center Brendan Haywood was ejected for a flagrant foul on James.

В третьей четверти, центровой Вашингтона Бренден Хайвуд был удален за грубый фол на Джеймсе. (from James-Led Cavaliers Throttle Wizards)

Ex. 12 Wally Szczerbiak scored 15 points for the Cavs.

Уолли Чербяк набрал 15 очков за Cavaliers. (from James-Led Cavaliers Throttle Wizards)

(the fifth level is marked by the full parallelism of vocabulary and structural organization in a text) [Комиссаров, 1990 : 51-87].

But the fifth level of the equivalence is reached seldom. The differences in the norm and the use of SL and TL prevent it. Any word has connotation as well which includes emotional, stylistic and figurative components. The realization of all these components is also necessary in translation for achieving the equivalence, otherwise the translation could become completely unequivalent [Комиссаров, 1990 : 82, 83].

The second component of the identity is the adequacy of translation. The asequate translation is the reconstruction of “the content - the form” unity by means of the other language. The term “translation of full value” is often used instead of the term “the adequate translation” [Миньяр-Белоручев, 1994 : 130]. V.N. Komissarov says the adequate translation provides the pragmatic tasks of the act of translation on the highest possible for achieving this purpose level of the equivalence. At the same time the norms and the use of Tl are not broken, the demands of genre and style keep unchangeable towards texts of this type. In the non-academic interpretation the adequate translation means “correct” translation [Комиссаров, 1990 : 246].

We can sum up the translation would be identical if the following features are kept in it 1) the purpose of communication, 2) extralinguistic situation and a way of its description, 3) vocabulary, 4) syntactical structures, 5) style, emotioness, figurativeness, 6) influence to the receptor.

In the book “A theory of cognitive dissonance”, 1957, which was devoted to his own theory, Leon Festinger regards the dissonance as a discrepancy in cognitions (knowledge, opinions, beliefs), that leads to appearing of psychological discomfort. For the translator these cognitions are the knowledge about the differences of cultures. L. Festinger also considers the dissonance as a motivating factor that urges a man to search ways of its reducing. The translator uses different strategies and ways of translation to bring the original and its translation nearer, i.e. CD is represented as the identity searching index. The more important are the elements that are in the relations of dissonance the higher would be the value of the dissonance between them [Фестингер, 1984]. I.e. the more important is a language unit/unit of translation for keeping of equivalence and adequacy of a text of TL the higher would be the dissonance.

According to G.D. Voskoboinik the CD of the translator is his/her knowledge, which is reflected in arbitrary (i.e. it does not have regulated ways and methods of expression) form, that there are differences in content between texts of SL and TL and the reaction to this knowledge [Воскобойник, 1990 : 112]. And then on relation between the degree of CD and the professional skills of a translator: “… the professional growth of the translator is hardly possible without constant cognitive dissonance” [Воскобойник, 2004 : 148], “… the higher is the level of cognitive dissonance the higher is the level of the professional skills of a translator” [Воскобойник, 2001 : 148].

Translator lowers his/her CD by searching and applying the strategies of identical translation. The second chapter will be devoted to the ways of reducing CD when translating the texts of SD, and in the next section ley us describe the difficulties and methods of translation.

1.3 Characteristics of Sport Discourse as Source of Difficulties in Translation

One of the theory of translation tasks is to expose and describe the common linguistic principles of translation and to indicate those peculiarities of language systems and properties of language functioning that underlie the translation's process [Комиссаров, 1990 : 35].

SD possesses certain peculiarities which in process of translation lead to difficulties, CD and consequently provoke the urge to find acceptable translating solution, in order to reduce CD.

In the previous section two basic concepts of the cognitive theory were described: CD and the identity which is expressed in notions of adequacy and equivalence.

The adequacy and the equivalence correlate with institutional and personal types of discourse in this theory. When translating texts of the institutional discourse the equivalence of translation is the most important factor (the common content of ST and TT), the adequacy is paramount when translating texts of the personal discourse (it does not mean they do not pay attention to the equivalence).

To reduce his/her CD, a translator first should be acquainted with that field of knowledge a text belongs to, second use all the methods of translation skillfully in order to make TT as more adequate and equivalent to the original as possible. As V. Komissarov writes “Translation in any case is the creative mental activity, the implementation of which requires the volume of knowledge and skills, the capacity to make the right choice taking into account the total volume of linguistic and extralinguistic factors. It occurs often by intuition, as a result of a creative act, and different translators possess the ability of successful translation at different levels. The highest level of that kind of skill is called the art of translation” [Комиссаров, 1990 : 36, 37].

After more or less successful process of translation (of during the process if it is the oral translation) the translator produces translation to the receptor who in addition states the value of it. It is righteous to talk here about the translator's discourse. In the book of G.D. Voskoboinik it is defined in the following way “The translator's discourse is one of the types of argumentative discourse. Its permanent participants are a translator or a commentator/critic, who appear as protagonists of a define viewpoint on the translator's solutions, and the audience where the antagonist if this viewpoint is formed. As in other kinds of the argumentative discourse the goal of the protagonist is to persuade the antagonist of acceptability/unacceptability of the viewpoint by using the rational methods and means” [Воскобойник, 2004 : 71].

The researcher of this work is protagonist who proposes the ways of translation of the difficulties in SD texts, commenting upon it at the same time. SD has not been studied comprehensively yet, and it is possible not to agree with the viewpoint of the translator. In the second chapter we try to argue the choice of the translation methods as minutely as possible in order to persuade the audience of the right choice.

All the difficulties of translation are described in the general theory of translation. The researchers distinguish the difficulties on the lexical, grammatical and stylistic levels.

Lexical units bear a certain sense so it is possible to substitute the word combination “lexical meaning” for “semantic meaning”.

According to A.D. Shveitser three types of semantic meaning are distinguished, they are referential, emotive and stylistic. When rendering the referential (denotative) meaning, a translator has to resort to the methods of translation because of the different vision of object of reality and different usage of words denoting them, different semantic structure of a word in SL and TL, different valency or collocability.

It is important to render the referential meaning when translating monosemantic words (anthroponyms, geographic names, names of institutions, organizations, periodicals and terms), polysemantic words, non-equivalents and pseudointernational words.

The emotive meaning of a word or its connotation can be positive, negative or neutral; almost every word is stylistically marked and belongs to a certain layer of texts, all the words can be divided into literary and non-literary.

The translation of phraseological units is one of the most difficult problems when rendering the semantic meaning.

Grammatical forms of different languages only very seldom coincide fully as to the scope of their meaning and function. As a rule, there is only partial equivalence, that is, the grammatical meanings expressed by grammatical forms, though seemingly identical, of two different language coincide only in part of their meaning and differ in other part [Shveitser, 2004].

On the whole, the choice of the grammatical equivalent in the target language is determined by the following factors: the meaning inherent in the grammatical form itself, the lexical character of the word or word-group used in this or that form, factors of style, frequency of use [Shveitser, 2004].

At the same time there are the methods of translation that correlate with the difficulties, such as lexical, grammatical and stylistic. The lexical methods of translation are employed when there is a “non-standard” language unit on the level or word in the original, for example, an anthroponym that belongs to SL culture; a term of a certain professional field; words that denote objects, phenomena and notions, which are typical for the source culture or for the third culture, but do not exist or have different structure and function in the target culture [Казакова, 2002 : 51].

The lexical methods of translation are transcription/transliteration, loan translation, description, commentary, parallel translation, semantic modification (concretization, generalization, neutralization, and intensification of emphasis).

The grammatical methods are employed when the subject of translation is a certain grammatical structure of ST from morpheme to superphrasal unity which has “non-standard” relations [Казакова, 2002 : 53].

The grammatical methods are full translation, omission, addition, partial translation, replacement, word for word translation, conversion, antonymic translation.

The stylistic methods of translation are employed when stylistically marked units of ST are the object of translation [Казакова, 2002 : 54].

The stylistic methods are replacement of words, replacement of image, replacement of trope, omission of figurative meaning, word for word translation (with or without commentary).

In the second chapter the problems of SD texts are described and the ways of their solving are offered.

sport discourse translation

Chapter II

2. Ways of Reducing Cognitive Dissonance When Translating Sport Discourse Texts

One of the tools of the translator is the dictionary. But it is not so easy task to find the dictionaries on this topic. The main source of dictionaries for us was the Internet where the specialized dictionaries are widely represented. Nevertheless it was not always possible to find a certain term there. As I.S. Alekseeva notes “dictionaries are conservative. All fields of knowledge have been developing, so changed their terminology, but the dictionaries drop behind” [Алексеева, 2003 : 162]. Therefore we often had to use the explanatory English-English dictionaries of sport terminology or to consult with the specialists who helped us to translate the articles and took part in editing of the translated texts (Yu.N. Volkov, S.V. Porokhin). Guided by an explanation they supposed how a term could be translated into the Russian language and chose the most appropriate variant of several proposed ones by the translator.

Besides the active cooperation with the experts a translator should understand the subject of translation well, apply to the resembling material in his/her native language in order to make CD lower. When working with a material which describes a situation familiar by Russian texts a translator can suppose who will be participants of that situation, which topic will be the principal one, and what kind of details it will supplement with, and what linguistic means will be used.

The traditional way of a translator's CD reducing is the search of the most acceptable in this context ways and methods of translation. Let us consider the peculiarities inherent in SD that make the difficulties in process of translation. Let us also give the comments to all the examples with the variants pf application this or that transformation. But it is necessary first to make some notes of general character.

First, much dependent on to what extent a certain sport “penetrates” into the national culture. The following conclusion was made at the preliminary stage of acquaintance with the Russian materials of the sport subject-matter: a kind of sport that is popular in Russia for a long period of time has become russified, i.e. the terms that denote participants, place, conditions, in which the competitions and games are held, have their Russian translation but they are not rendered by transcription or transliteration from English.

When describing SD according to the scheme of V.I. Karasik we discussed the notion of “interdiscoursivity”. Going in for sport predetermines improving of different qualities of the human body such as endurance, strength, power etc. The professional sport at the same time tightly connected with traumatism. Therefore it is righteous to affirm SD crosses with the medical discourse.

Ex. 13 hamstring scare - подозрение на растяжение подколенного сухожилия

Ex. 14 Hardee's year off in 2007 included surgery on his right wrist; recovery which he describes as “A lot of stuff that kind of culminated in one big trauma to my hip and groin,” and a long period of rehabilitation.

Харди простил сезон 2007 года по причине операции на правом запястье; восстановление после которой он описал как “Подобные мелкие повреждение привели к серьезной травме мышц бедра и паха”, и к длительному периоду восстановления. (from Hardee returns with 8371 point tally in Austin - Texas Relays days 1 and 2)

Several names of muscles are in the example above. In the translation all the names were decided to be replaced by the Russian equivalents. That kind of replacement has been dictated by the fact the names of body organs, groups of muscles, bones etc. are rendered in the Russian medical texts either in both languages (Russian and Latin) or in one of them. A type of receptor of TT was taken into consideration as well. The translation of the text was made not for the medical workers but for “ordinary” people.

In the section 1.3 there was description of common problems of translation that are distinguished on lexical, grammatical and stylistic levels. Let us determine the problems characteristic to SD. On the level of lexis they are in particular the names if players, coaches, names of teams; positions of players and umpires at a game; names of competitions and sport organization; time-spaces of a game and division of teams into groups during competitions. The problems of rendering of word combinations are described separately. On the level of grammar there are the examples of sentences that were the most difficult within the process of translation. When discussing the stylistic difficulties it is necessary to enumerate the genres of the material presented in this work one again. They are running commentary from a match or a competition, description of training, newspaper article and interview. The commentary presupposes quick informing of that has been happening on the playground in exact moment of time. It can be compared with simultaneous translation. A commentator is in the room usually where all the happening is perfectly seen and heard from. S/he hears orders of referees, observes the reaction of supporters, conduct of players and a coach (coaches), describing it to the audience at the same time.

The description of training is the account of sequence of actions, moves, the reader is provided by information what kinds of muscles are recruited, how to make a move in a right way.

The newspaper article is a discussion of a certain topic where the argument and proofs are adduced, for example, excursus into the history, statistics, quotations of famous and experienced in the definite field knowledge people etc. The article has the strict structure including introductory part, body and conclusion.

The genre of interview is the lively dialogue normally. There the colloquial words are used by both interviewer and interviewee. Usually an interview begins with a short piece of information that tells the reader who and why will be interviewed, what topics are going to be discussed.

We have worked on 22 texts of the genres described above. It is 80 pages of the SD articles. The main source was Internet (official sites of the sport organizations, football and hockey clubs, etc.)

Let us switch to the problems of translation, and we begin with the lexical level.

2.1 Problems of Lexicon/Vocabulary

In the broad sense the lexis is the sum of total words, language vocabulary. In narrow sense it can regarded as the totality of words that are typical for that variant of speech (everyday, military, children's lexis etc), for a certain stylistic layer (colloquial, neutral etc.).

2.1.1 Problems of translating of player's and athletes' names, names of teams

The names of participants of sport events are rendered traditionally by transcription/transliteration.

Ex. 15 Novak Djokovic - Новак Джокович

Ex. 16 Roger Federer - Роджер Федерер

Ex. 17 Radek Spepanek - Радек Степанек (from Roddick Ousted in Montreal)

Ex. 18 John Arne Riise - Йон Арне Риисе

Ex. 19 Rafa Benitez - Рафа Бенитес (from Torres can fire us to Moscow)

The names of teams can be not translated, can be transferred with the help of transcription/transliteration and in some cases can be translated if a word is rather simple and has only one meaning. In our option it is connected with the necessity of commentators to repeat constantly the team-names and at the same time to avoid the tautology that is inadmissible in the Russian language unless it is the stylistic device. Therefore it is possible to propose several variants of translation.

Ex. 20 Utah Jazz beat the Houston Rockets 90-84 on Monday night. (from Jazz Burn Rockets to Take 2-0 Series Lead)

В Понедельник вечером Utah Jazz обыграли Houston Rockets со счетом 90-84.

В Понедельник вечером Юта Джаз обыграли Хьюстон Рокетс со счетом 90-84.

“Rockets” can be rendered as well - Ракеты.

Name of the team has sometimes the collective meaning, it needs however to be concretized in Russian:

Ex. 21 All of my attention is focused on the Dallas Mavericks right now. (from It's Playoff time. Let's go)

Все мое внимание сейчас полностью сконцентрировано на Dallas Mavericks.

In the example above the translation of the team-name isn't appropriate for the newspapers article in Russian as it has several meanings such as - неклейменый теленок, скиталец, диссидент.

The word “team” or its name is not used in translation in some cases, but the country is names which is the native land for a team.

A choice of a translation variant in this case depends on the translator who defines by him-herself if the concretization is necessary of not.

Ex. 22 Switzerland defender Patrick Mьller has revived his seemingly doomed hopes of appearing at UEFA EURO 2008™. (from Muller eyes Euro return)

Защитник сборной команды Швейцарии Патрик Мюллер возродил казалось бы угасшую надежду на то, чтобы сыграть на Чемпионате Европы 2008.

Швейцарский защитник Патрик Мюллер возродил казалось бы угасшую надежду на то, чтобы сыграть на Чемпионате Европы 2008.

2.1.2 Problems on rendering of players' and umpires positions

Names of players' positions of the field of the ground are in the team sports only. The material for the work includes the articles about basketball, football and hockey. The translators managed to eliminate cognitive dissonance by finding the adequate equivalent.

Ex. 23 Goalkeeper - голкипер - вратарь

Ex. 24 Defender/back - защитник

Ex. 25 Forward/striker - форвард - нападающий

Ex. 26 Midfielder/halfback - мидфилдер/хавбэк - полузащитник

In the case that new and unknown sports when brought into the language system transcribed names of players' positions. In the examples above the proposed translation seems to be optimum variant to overcome CD. A commentator or an author of an article can also make interpretation or give a short reference to the receptor about the notions.