Lexical and semantic transformations applied in the ray bradbury’s short stories

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Lexical and semantic transformations applied in the ray bradbury's short stories

Romaniuk O.M.,

Lecturer at the Department of Foreign Languages and Culture of Professional Speech at the Lviv State University of Internal Affairs

Summary

The article deals with the issue of lexical and semantic transformations used by translators in the process of rendering the Ray Bradbury's collection of short stories "All summer in a day". It was suggested the definition of the term "translator's transformations" on the basis of analysis of different scholars' points of view on this matter. It is mentioned three conceptions under which the term transformation has consolidated. The article highlights the reasons for using lexical and semantic transformations, and why transformations are helpful for translators. The analysis was made on the basis of classification elaborated by J. Retsker. According to J. Retsker there are seven types of transformations: differentiation of meanings, concretization of meanings, generalization of meanings, sense development, antonymic translation, complete transformation and compensation of losses in the process of translation. Each of the methods is described and there are presented examples of the transformations in the process of translation. It was identified the implementation of the main types of transformations in the sentences. The article focuses on the problem of choosing the most suitable type of transformation during the translation. semantic transformations lexical

It is proved that the method of translation of lexical elements depends on the features of lexico-semantic systems of source language and target language, functional and stylistic characteristics of words, national and cultural factors. Translator should take into account the structural and lexical-semantic differences between English and Ukrainian languages, which require translation adjustment during the syntactic structure of sentences and lexical changes. Since language is closely related to grammar, often because of transformations simultaneously are occurring lexical and grammatical changes.

Key words: lexical transformations, translation, differentiation, concretization, sense development, antonymic translation, complete transformation, SL, TL.

Романюк О. Лексико-семантичні трансформації в оповіданнях Рея Бредбері та їх українських перекладах Анотація. У статті визначено й описано основні лексичні перекладацькі трансформації, які застосовуються під час перекладу збірки оповідань Рея Бредбері "Все літо наче день один". Запропоновано визначення терміна "перекладацькі трансформації" на основі аналізу досліджень різних учених. Встановлено три поняття, за якими термін "трансформація" закріпився. У статті також висвітлено причини використання лексичних і семантичних трансформацій. Аналіз був зроблений на основі класифікації, розробленої Я.І. Рецкером. За його класифікацією, є сім типів трансформацій: диференціація значень, конкретизація значень, генералізація значень, смисловий розвиток, антонімічний переклад, цілісне перетворення та компенсація втрат у процесі перекладу. Кожен метод описано, та наведено приклади перетворень у процесі перекладу. Було визначено використання основних типів трансформацій у реченнях. У статті зосереджено увагу на виборі найбільш підходящого типу трансформації в контексті під час перекладу.

Доведено, що метод перекладу лексичних елементів залежить від особливостей лексико-семантичних систем мови оригіналу та мови перекладу, функціональної та стилістичної характеристики слів, національних і культурних чинників. Перекладачеві слід враховувати структурні та лексико-семантичні відмінності між англійською та українською мовами, які потребують адаптації перекладу під час лексичних змін. Оскільки мова тісно пов'язана з граматикою, то часто через трансформації одночасно відбуваються лексичні та граматичні зміни. За результатами порівняльного аналізу тексту оригіналу та перекладу зроблено висновок, що для досягнення змістової близькості перекладу до тексту оригіналу потрібно знаходити відповідники безеквівалентним лексичним одиницям англійської мови за допомогою перекладацьких трансформацій. Саме тому перекладацькі трансформації - ефективний засіб досягнення адекватності перекладу.

Ключові слова: лексичні трансформації, переклад, диференціація, конкретизація, смисловий розвиток, антонімічний переклад, цілісне перетворення, мова оригіналу, мова перекладу.

Introduction

Translation is a cognitive process which involves the translator to choose between different models of translations and various types of transformations. Transformations are inevitable in translation process. They can be applied for different reasons. First of all, they are necessary in order to avoid grammatical mistakes and literal translation, then to make the translation sound target-oriented. The main reason for the application of transformations is the discrepancies between the English and Ukrainian languages. The article is topical because of the interest in the functioning of different translators' specific language choice in reproduction of short stories by Ray Bradbury. It is of importance to research and analyze in details the distinctive features of the translator's methods in the process of rendering the original language.

Analysis of recent research and publications. The central role of the article is to analyze the role of lexical and semantic transformations in the short stories by Ray Bradbury. Translator's transformations have been researched by V. Karaban, A. Parshyn, I. Korunets', V. Vinogradov, etc., but still there is no general classification and distinct line between types of the transformations. According to V. Komissarov, the main part of the translation activity is the transformation of the text of the original into the translated text [4, p. 35-42]. Out of this idea comes transformational theory of translation.

The aim of the article is to analyze the translation and reasons of application of translator's transformations, particularly lexical and semantic ones, in the collection of short stories "All summer in a day" by Ray Bradbury .

Presentation of the main research material. The article is based on the material of the short stories by Ray Bradbury in the collection "All summer in a day" and its translation.

The basic and important task of translator is to transmit the main idea by means of another language preserving coherence and cohesion of the original text and the expressive and stylistic peculiarities in the translated text. That is practically impossible without some losses.

In the process of translation a source language text as a whole or its segments may undergo varied modifications that are known in the theory and practice of translation as translation transformations. The term "transformation" is polysemantic and there are at least 6 meanings that are associated with this word in translation studies including intralinguistic translation [6].

By translator's transformations are meant such major and minor alterations in the structural form of language units performed with the aim of achieving faithfulness in translation.

According to I. Korunets', "the kind of major and minor alterations in the structure form of language units performed with the aim of achieving faithfulness in translation are referred to as translator's transformations" [5, p. 361].

L. Barkhudarov says that translation transformations - is that numeral and qualitively diverse interlingual conversions which are made up in order to achieve the translation equivalence in opposition to the different formal and semantical systems of both languages. This notion can be used only while talking about two language or speech units when one is initial and the second is made up on the basis of the initial. The translation can be considered as certain variety of transformation, particularly interlingual transformation [1, p. 6].

In fact it may be said that the term transformation has consolidated under three conceptions:

- relation between two languages or speech units of the correlated languages;

- lingual, particularly interlingual operations;

- the process of translation itself.

On the basis of all the above mentioned, a term "translation transformation" may be defined as a number of operations done in the process of translation; or a process of substitution of the source language units for the target ones, and accommodating them grammatically and stylistically to the norms of the target language.

Lexical transformations are contextual in character and involve the faithful rendering of the source message by means of lexical units which have different dictionary meaning [5, p. 137].

There are no identical words in two different languages; their meanings may coincide in particular context. It often occurs that the contextual meaning of the word or word combination is not registered in the dictionary. In this case lexical transformations should be applied [8, p. 41].

J. Retsker defined translation transformations as logical tricks: the meaning of the foreign word should be uncovered in the context and a TL correspondence should be found, which do not correspond with the dictionary and that is called lexical transformations. He defines seven types of lexical transformations: differentiation of meanings, concretization of meanings, generalization of meanings, sense development, antonymic translation, complete transformation, the compensation of losses in the process of translation [8].

The differentiation of meanings is a very important aspect in translation because whenever we translate a piece of text, we encounter with the words, the meanings of which do not correspond to the dictionary conformity and our main task is to differentiate the meanings of the particular word and find the suitable one which will correspond to the context.

Generalization of meanings is lexico-semantic transformation, in which a unit of the source language (SL) with a narrower meaning is replaced by a unit of the target language (TL) with a broader meaning. Generalization is also used in those cases when a SL word with differentiated meaning corresponds to a word with non-differ- entiated meaning in TL [7].

The use of sense development is characterized by the substitution of the dictionary correspondence by contextual which is logically related with it in translation process. Here can be correlated some metonymical replacements [8, p. 45-47]. The use of the complete transformation J. Retsker define as synthesis of the meaning without it link with the analysis [8, p. 54-56]. The whole speech segment is being converted and the link between the internal forms of the SL units and TL units cannot be traced now. And finally we are approaching to our last notion - compensation of losses in the process of translation. The term has already been covered in theory of L. Barkhudarov and V Komissarov, but J. Retsker expand the notion and define semantical and stylistical character of compensation^, p. 58-59]. Semantical compensations are always used if there is no correspondences in the lexis of TL. That is first of all realia which are peculiar to one country and are absolutely unknown to another. Stylistic compensation is very important aspect in translation as the main task is to preserve this or that peculiar features of the manner for example how the hero speaks or either his/her attitude towards different facts.

Very often transformations involve both lexical and grammatical alterations. For this reason, it might be sensible to analyze lexi- co-grammatical transformations which include:

- antonymic translation;

- explication or descriptive translation;

- compensation [6].

Antonymic translation is an obligatory substitution of an affirmative in sense and structure SL unit for a semantically corresponding negative in structure sense unit of the TL or vice versa [5, p. 368].

Descriptive translation involves rendering of the SL unit which is considered unknown for the target audience with a word combination which explains or paraphrases its meaning.

Compensation is the method of translation with the help of which lost in the translation semantic units are rendered by other means. In other words, it is the substitution of non-rendered elements of the source text for their equivalents or other elements which compensate the information loss and have similar effect on the reader.

There is no general classification of the translation transformations. Generalization and specification as well as antonymic translation are often considered to be contextual substitution, the constituent of lexico-grammatical transformations [2, p. 49], whereas considerable number of scholars regard contextual substitution as lexical. It is difficult to draw the distinct line between them, since one particular type of transformation may or may not involve changing of grammatical structure of the sentence.

The main reason for application of transformations is differences between English and Ukrainian languages which cause various translation problems. In the present article the classification of lexical transformations, which was elaborated by J. Retsker is used.

Prevalence of the usage of differentiation and concretization in the translation from English into Ukrainian language is due to a large number of English words with general semantics, which have no direct equivalent in the Ukrainian language. The point is that one word in Ukrainian language that expresses the broader meaning, can meet two or more words in English language, each of which expresses narrower concept compared to the Ukrainian language that applies to a limited class of denotations [4, p. 16]. For instance, they had come millions of miles [9] was rendered as вони пролетіли мільйони миль [3, p. 174], this is a vivid example of differentiation of meaning, since the word come has a very broad meaning in English, it should be translated with the help of transformation, differentiation is the best way to preserve the translation adequacy.

J.I. Retsker proposes in his classification of lexical transformations to use concretization when you need to give much specific meaning, in most cases, when the other analogy cannot be found. Though, due to differences that are appropriate for both languages, the Ukrainian language is characterized by concreteness, than those equivalents that are corresponding in the English language. For example: "Sit easily," said William under his breath. "Look as if you've worn this clothing style all your life" [9]. - "Сиди невимушено, - упівголоса сказав Вільям. - Поводься так, начебто ти все життя ходила у цьому платті" [3, p. 185]. Translator rendered clothing style with the help of concretization method as плаття. There was nothing said about dress in the original.

In the following example the translator, Marta Tomahiv, used the word "котигорошко", to emphasize the age, that the guy felt small: "I held my breath and Ifelt small, only twelve years old, very infinitesimal and afraid" [9] - "Я затамував подих і відчув себе маленьким, всього лише дванадцятирічним котигорошком, мізерним і наляканим" [3, p. 65]. According to the Ukrainian explanatory dictionary Котигорошко is "один із провідних героїв казкового фольклору, якого дослідники називали "українським Геркулесом"; яскравий приклад захисника-богатиря від легендарного чудовиська-змія". In the translation this word is not very suitable in this case, as it refers more to the power, fearless, and not to the lexeme afraid, as it is in the original. Nevertheless, the translator was trying to make it sound more natural for Ukrainian reader.

In the next example a translator concretized, that two things that had happened were unpleasant, but in the original it wasn't mentioned: "Longyears ago two things had happened" [9] - "Колись давно з нею трапилися дві неприємні речі" [3, р. 293]. A translator used addition as the following sentences describe two unpleasant events, and translator wanted to catch reader's attention before these two events would be described.

There were examples when translator used substitution of the dictionary correspondence by contextual which is logically related, sense development. For example: "Here is the chance my husband and I have talked and prayed over for so many years. We want to run away from his work at the bomb factory. I from my position with disease-culture units " [9] - "Ось шанс, про який ми з чоловіком мріяли і за яким молилися стільки років. Ми би хотіли втекти світ за очі звідси, щоб тільки йому більше не треба було іти на завод з виготовлення бомб, а мені - в лабораторію вирощувати смертоносні бактерії" [3, p. 184]. In the first sentence the translator, M. Shchavurs'ka, may translate the phrase word-for-word, but she wanted to emphasize that the chance was very important for them, that is why she used the verb мріяли. In the next sentence the phrasal verb run away was translated with the help of phraseologism втекти світ за очі, in this way translator made it sound more natural for the Ukrainian reader. In the last sentence in translation was used sense development, and concretization, disease-culture units was rendered as смертоносні бактерії, such a translation gives the reader a better idea of what is meant.

Antonymic translation is used not frequently by the translators. They tried to give the most proper translation, utilizing antonymic expressions or total opposition in notion. An example: "Part of me is here!" declared Aunt Tildy [9] - "Вони не всю мене вкрали!" - заявила тітка Тідлі" [3, p. 106]. This example demonstrates the replacement of affirmative sentence by negative sentence. Translator may render it like Частина мене все ще тут, but she decided to translate it with the help of ant- onymic translation and addition of the word вкрали. In the following two examples antonymic translation is combined with semantic development: "And she was always keen to snatch a few moments wherever she was with her old friends" [9] - "І вона не пропускала жодної нагоди зустрітись зі своїми старими друзями" [3, p. 529]; "He even had the nerve to use his real name to us" [9] - "Він у своєму нахабстві дійшов до того, що не приховував свого справжнього імені" [3, p. 186]. The original sentence with affirmative construction is replaced in the translation by negative construction, the adequacy of translation in both cases was preserved. The phrase дійшов до того has a negative connotation in the context and conveys English phrase had the nerve, in Ukrainian this phrase is used in spoken language.

Complete transformation was not used at all by the translators, except there were some examples of the usual usage, which can be met in everyday life. Here are provided the examples of spoken language that were used in original text and its translation. The translation of them is not problematic, because it is stable in both English and Ukrainian languages: How do you do? [9] - Здрастуйте! [3, p. 48]; Never mind - He звертайте уваги [3, p. 77]; Help yourself! -Пригощайтесь! [3, p. 106]; Forget it! - He варто про це говорити [3, p. 209]; Here you are! - Ось, будь ласка [3, p. 184]. As we can see, these examples show that they do not have common semantic components and have different inner form, though they represent the same content by- means of different languages. As to Y. Retsker's point of view, those spoken expressions often need entire transformation. Judging from all this points, it should be said that method of complete transformation is universal mean of translating phraseological units. One more example of complete transformation which was found: "You've got the wrong person" [9] - "Ви мене з кимось сплутали" [3, p. 186], the meaning is fully preserved in translation.

Conclusions. Translation is a cognitive process and involves the translator to make decisions and choose between different models of translation and various types of transformations. The translator often makes transformations subconsciously, meeting grammatical or stylistic requirements. Translator is the one to decide whether to generalize for good order or specify for better understanding. When information appears to be incomprehensible and needs explanation, many linguists suggest that it is the aim of the translator to make the target text even better than the source text, because it is the translation which serves as an original for target readers.

The article highlights the main types of lexical and semantic transformations employed in the translation from English into Ukrainian. The analysis is based on Ray Bradbury's collection of short stories "All summer in a day".

In the translation of the collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury translators used not all types of lexical transformations, suggested by Y. Retsker, those are generalization and compensation of losses. There were found more than eight examples of concretization, eight examples of complete transformation, six examples of antonymic translation and four examples of sense development. Though, it can be suggested, that the most often used methods of lexical transformations are concretization, ant- onymic translation, sense development and complete transformation. In most cases, translators have maintained the adequacy of translation and content through translation transformations

Since there are a lot of discrepancies between the English and Ukrainian languages, transformations are essential in the process of translation and particularly in the prevention of the language interference. Lexical and semantic transformations can be applied for different reasons. First of all, they are necessary to employ in order to avoid grammatical mistakes and literal translation, then to make the translation sound target-oriented. It can be concluded, that transformations are inevitable in the translation process, regardless the fact that there is no general classification as well as a distinct line between their types. Their aim is to make the most precise and equivalent translation, accommodated to the norms of the target language. In order to make the original text language understandable to the readers, translator should adapt the text according to realities that are known to the reader. This understanding could be achieved just by using transformations.

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