Strategies of translation

The manner in which ideas take shape and find verbal expression differs from culture to culture. Derrida has gone so far as to posit that only numbers can be translated without considering the cultural and historical baggage involved. Translators must create the means to relay the peculiarities of the source language and culture without alienating readers of the target language and culture; they must avoid the Scylla of slavishly reproducing an argumentation process that may be incomprehensible to the intended reader and the Charybdis of refashioning it into a process with which the reader is familiar and comfortable. There is no set answer to the question of where they should position themselves between the two extremes: each text is sui generis. It is a question that bears discussion between translator and editor. As a rule of thumb, however, the translator should stretch the stylistic confines of the target language as far as they will go to reflect the peculiarities of the source language, and stop just before the result sounds outlandish in the target language. In other words, the translation needs to be comprehensible, but need not read as if it were written by a social scientist in the target culture. The goal is to make the text as plausible as possible in its own terms.

When a national cuisine makes its entry into a new culture, it must retain its original flavor yet be palatable to its new consumers. A pertinent corollary this metaphor suggests is that the more sophisticated the receiving culture, the more open it is to accepting the original cuisine in the most authentic, piquant form possible.

Just as the spirit of a language influences the ways in which its users write, so the intellectual tradition of a culture influences the ways in which its users think and formulate their arguments. While translators must try to preserve the quality of the source language's concepts and argumentation when it differs considerably from those of the target culture, they must also avoid going so far as to make the author sound foolish. Examples of such a difference on the ideological level (analogous to the issue of complex sentences on the stylistic level) are 1) argumentation from the particular to the general (the inductive method) vs. arguments from general to the particular (the deductive method), and 2) the empirical approach (deriving knowledge primarily from sense-data or experience) vs. the speculative approach (deriving knowledge primarily from contemplation and ratiocination rather than observation).

Translators need to be on the lookout for words that take the same form in two languages but have different meanings in each: Eng sympathetic vs. Fr sympathique (which means “likeable, nice” in English), Eng gift vs. Ger Gift (which means “poison”).

They are often loanwords (also called calques), such as Rus killer (which means “hit man, hired assassin”), Fr pick-up (which means “record player”).

A related but more insidious danger is the conscious or unconscious tendentious translation of technical terms, especially when they are conceptual false friends. Globalization may be leading to an increasing consensus on the meaning of technical terms, but false conceptual cognates still exist. A literal translation of "the state," for example, may give rise to misconceptions due to discrepancies between

Western-based concepts of the state, which refer either implicitly or explicitly to Weber's definition, and conceptualizations of the state by authors engaged in a critical reading of Western social science as applied to the social institutions of non-Western countries.

What looks like “international” terminology may therefore be deceptive or, in extreme cases, an attempt to impose meanings from one culture on another. A word like “democracy,” which would seem to offer automatic equivalents, may turn out to require an explanatory footnote or - if it affects the way the reader is to view a concept throughout a work or article - a translator's introduction.

Conceptual false friends may also develop over time, because the semantic content might change while the form - the word itself - remains the same. Such is currently the case in former (and not so former) Communist countries. Thus the Chinese nongmin, commonly translated as “peasant(s)” in Communist texts, may now be translated as “farmer(s)” to reflect the new economic situation. Sometimes the issue is more complicated. What does the concept of Chinese fengjian, commonly translated as “feudalism” in Communist texts, mean in texts written today? Does it retain its Marxist connotation? When is a Russian social scientist using the word ob'ektivno “objectively” in the Marxian sense and when in the common-language sense? The danger here is that the translator may have a bias and provide more of a commentary than a definition.

Changes in the semantic content of words also come about without cataclysmic changes in the world situation. An influential thinker may will them into existence. Hegel, for instance, imposed a specific philosophical meaning on the word Aufhebung, which comes from the verb aufheben meaning literally “to lift” and figuratively “to cancel.” To convey the Hegelian meaning, some translators have used the word “sublation,” others “supersession” or “overcoming”; yet others have retained the German. In any case, such a word calls for a translator's footnote or - if a number of them are involved - a comprehensive introduction. Translators should pay special attention to technical terms like Aufhebung because they may become key words in the discipline.

Generally speaking, a key term that occurs more than once should be translated by the same word each time, but the translator must first determine whether the meaning is in fact the same. If it is not, the translator may choose another word, but the decision must be a conscious one. To foster consistency, the editor can suggest that translators create a personal glossary of key terms as they work through a text.

Since the prevalence of technical terms is one of the prime distinguishing features of social science discourse, translators must take special care not only to rendering them but also to making their audience aware of them. Although no blanket solution will cover all instances, the two time-honored approaches to devising equivalents for technical terms are 1) accepting the term as a loanword. that is, borrowing it outright (for example, using Russian words for such Soviet terminology as Eng politburo (for Rus politbiuro <politicheskoe biuro `political bureau') and Eng gulag (for Rus gulag < gosudarstvennoe upravlenie lagerei `state camp administration') and 2) providing the term with a loan translation as in Eng political instructor for Rus politruk. Both approaches produce words or expressions that initially sound strange, the former because they are in a foreign language, the latter because they force the target language into the mold of the source language. But languages have accepted and naturalized borrowed words and loan translations from time immemorial. English was enhanced by untold borrowings from the

French after the Norman Conquest, and it has continued to absorb foreign words to this day. As for loan translations, how many English speakers realize that the expression to kill time is a loan translation from the French tuer le temps?

In either case, translators will want to use a footnote when they are introducing a term they have invented or when they wish to replace an accepted term with one of their own.

They do not need to footnote terms that appear in a medium-sized monolingual dictionary of the target language (say, The Concise Oxford Dictionary or Webster's College Dictionary). Thus, neither politburo nor gulag would require a footnote, but political instructor would. It might read as follows: “We are using the term political instructor to translate politruk, a portmanteau word derived from politicheskii rukovoditel' `political instructor.' It refers specifically to a Party official assigned to provide soldiers in the

Soviet armed forces with ideological guidance. A footnote for a term like the Fr grandes ecoles (which translators would most likely leave in French in the translation, that is, they would “translate” it as a loanword rather than as `the great schools,' given that the word ecole figures in the names of all the schools at issue) might read: “The grandes ecoles are the premier institutions of higher learning in France and include the Ecole Normale Superieure, the Ecole Polytechnique, the Ecole Navale, etc.” Footnotes should be spare and to the point. Comments of a discursive or interpretive nature belong properly in the translator's preface.

Footnotes can also serve to identify and elucidate puns and wordplay, proverbs, literary or general cultural references, etc. They should, however, explain only what is clear to source language readers but not to target language readers. Furthermore, they are not the only way to clarify a term. For example, the translator may insert an unobtrusive word or two by way of explanation. If readers of a text translated from the French can be expected to glean from the context that the grandes ecoles are French institutions of higher learning but not necessarily that they stand above the rest in prestige, the translator might inconspicuously insert a word of explanation: the prestigious grandes ecoles.

Occasionally the need for footnotes may be attenuated or entirely obviated by the inclusion of the source-language term after the translation in parentheses. Let us return to the use of political instructor as the English equivalent of Rus politruk. If, again, the context surrounding the term makes its connection with the armed forces sufficiently clear, the translator may put it in parentheses in the original after the translation - political instructor (politruk), thereby both indicating its status as a technical term and signaling its provenance to members of the reading audience who happen to be conversant with the term in its original form. But it is not advisable to fall back on such a device frequently because it might turn into a crutch. It might also undermine confidence in the translator's ability.

Conclusions

Every translation activity has one or more specific purposes and whichever they may be, the main aim of translation is to serve as a cross-cultural bilingual communication vehicle among peoples. In the past few decades, this activity has developed because of rising international trade, increased migration, globalization, the recognition of linguistic minorities, and the expansion of the mass media and technology. For this reason, the translator plays an important role as a bilingual or multi-lingual cross-cultural transmitter of culture and truths by attempting to interpret concepts and speech in a variety of texts as faithfully and accurately as possible.

Most translation theorists agree that translation is understood as a transfer process from a foreign language--or a second language--to the mother tongue. However, market requirements are increasingly demanding that translators transfer texts to a target language that is not their mother tongue, but a foreign language. This is what Newmark calls "service translation."

In the given Qualification Paper we have investigated various translation methods of technical literature from English into Russian. We tried to give a detailed study of the features of translation of technical literature for it is one of the types of translation that has not been studied in details in our country up to this time.

Moreover, we've studied the translation methods of technical literature and technical terms at a deeper level, the types and ways of translation of technical literature; we've also considered the function of technical literature in everyday life of the humanity.

The aim of this work was to introduce the translation approach to technical literature so that to make it easy to perceive for those willing to keep up their educational and scientific carrier in the science of translation, it was purposed to broaden their view on translation studies and peculiar features while translating technical literature.

In this work we've completed the following tasks:

- we've reviewed all the sources of technical literature

- methods of translation of technical literature have been carefully studied

- the grammatical, lexical, stylistic and phraseological difficulties of translation of technical literature were discussed.

The starting part of the strategic approach is the realisation that for high literature and many other areas such as comedy or even marketing, the traditional academic approach fails because the semantic demands on the translator means that other aspects such as form, humour and wordplay are lost. It is at this point that a translation decision should be made concerning translating strategy. Present-day theory divides between source-oriented and target-language-oriented translation. The nomenclature varies from domesticating, communicative and Skopos-oriented to describe target-oriented texts to foreignising or semantic translations to describe source-oriented translations. These two strategies have been adopted with the suggested versions which by no means and by definition (i.e. in that two separate versions are offered) claim to be ideal translations of Thomas Mann. It is, however, claimed that it is better to produce either a fluent readable and enjoyable text in the target language or a very close text for the literary specialist rather than a compromise between these extremes which usually ends in dull versions following the academic approach.

In the end, knowing two languages, no matter how intimately, does not automatically make one a translator. Knowing two languages is of course a prerequisite, but translation is a craft and, like any craft, it calls for training. The quality of the end product varies in relationship to the training the translator has received. True, talent and natural aptitudes play a role, but professional guidance is important, be it for the development of talent or instruction in technical procedures.

References

1. Translation difficulties, T.R. Levitskaya & A.M. Fitterman, "International Relations" Publishing house, Moscow, 2000.

2. Difficulties of translation from English into Russian, Zrajevskaya L.M. & Belyaeva, Moscow Publishing House, 2003.

3. Nida, E. A. (1964). Toward a Science of Translating, with Special Reference to Principles and Procedures Involved in Technical Translating. Leiden: Brill.

4. Osgood, Ch. E., Suci, G. J., Tannenbaum, P. H. (1957). The measurement of meaning. Urbana.

5. Kelly, L. 2002. The True Interpreter. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

6. Holmes, J. 2003. Describing Literary Translation: Models and Methods. In Literature and Translation, eds. J. Holmes et al., 69-83. Leuven: Acco.

7. Toury, G. 2005. A Rationale for Descriptive Translation Studies. In The Manipulation of Literature, ed. T. Hermans, 16-42. London and Sydney: Croom Helm.

8. Lambert, J. and Van Gorp, H. 1985. On Describing Translations. In The Manipulation of Literature, ed. T. Hermans, 42-53. London and Sydney: Croom Helm.

9. www.worldtranslationservice.com

10. www.translateweb.org

11. www.monabaker.trans.com

Appendix 1

Glossary

bilingual. Having two native languages.

calque. A literal translation of a word or expression used to convey the same meaning.

Such loan translations often sound awkward at first, but come to be accepted with use.

The Eng false friend is a loan translation from Fr faux ami, the Eng to kill time a loan translation from Fr tuer le temps; the Fr gratte-ciel is a loan translation from Eng skyscraper. The term calque is a loanword from Fr calque. Also called loan translation.

domesticate. Make a translation read so smoothly in the target language as to obscure its origins in the source culture.

dominant language. The language that speakers of more than one language know best and therefore the language into which they will normally translate. For most it is the native language, but for speakers who grow up and receive their education in a country where the language is other than their native language it is the language of their adopted country.

false friend. A word that occurs in the same or virtually the same form in two languages, but has different meanings in each: Eng sympathetic vs. Fr sympathique (= Eng likeable, nice), Eng gift vs. Ger Gift (= Eng poison). They are often loanwords, such as Rus killer (= Eng hit man, hired assassin), Fr pick-up (= Eng record-player). One may also speak of “conceptual” false friends. The standard English, French, and Russian translation of Ch xuanchuan is propaganda/propagande, but in Chinese the term does not have so uniformly negative a connotation as in other languages. And although the word democracy takes a similar form in all European languages, its meaning varies not only from culture to culture but even from speaker to speaker.

foreignize. Make a translation read in such a way as to indicate or even emphasize its origins in the source culture.

heritage speaker. A person who speaks a language at home that differs from the one spoken in the society at large and who has had no formal education or no more than a primary-school education in that language. Heritage speakers' level of linguistic competency varies considerably.

interpreting, interpretation. The oral expression of a text originally uttered in another language (as distinct from translation, the written expression of a text originally formulated in another language). Interpretation can be either consecutive, if the interpreter delivers the text in segments after the speaker, or simultaneous, if the interpreter delivers the text at the same time as the speaker. Although many of the skills required of interpreters and translators overlap, others are specific to one or the other group.

lexicon. The vocabulary or word stock of a language.

loan translation. Synonymous with calque. The very term loan translation is a loan translation from Ger Lehnubersetzung.

loanword. A word borrowed more or less whole from another language. Sputnik, politburo, glasnost, and perestroika are Russian loanwords in English; calque, savoirfaire, and sang froid French loanwords in English; fengshui and kungfu Chinese loanwords in English; and Weltanschauung and Realpolitik German loanwords in English.

native language. The first language one learns, typically from one's parents. For most people it is also the dominant language.

native speaker. A person who speaks a language as a native language or has been acculturated, that is, educated and socialized in a language. One typically becomes a native speaker of a language not only if one is born in a country in which it is the prime means of communication but also if one arrives there before puberty.

source language. The language from which a translation is made, as opposed to target language, the language into which a translation is made.

syntax. The arrangement of words conveying their grammatical functions and relationships.

target language. The language into which a translation is made, as opposed to source language, the language from which a translation is made.

technical term. A word or expression that conveys a specialized concept and requires a standard equivalent in the target language. When a suitable term does not exist, it must be created. Jargon results when the burden of communication falls too heavily on technical terms, especially when the terms are known primarily to an in-group.