Intertextuality and quality of translation

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Intertextuality and quality of translation

Udovichenko H.,

Ph.D. in Pedagogy,

Associate Professor at the Department of Foreign Philology, Ukrainian Studies and Social and Low Disciplines

Mykhailo Tuhan-Baranovskyi Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade

Pokulevska A.,

Ph.D. in Philology,

Associate Professor at the Department of Foreign Philology, Ukrainian Studies and Social and Low Disciplines

Mykhailo Tuhan-Baranovskyi Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade

Evaluation of translation quality has always been a topical issue for both theorists and practitioners of translation. A quality translation is considered to be a translation (oral, written, machine, etc.) that has a high degree of adequacy and equivalence, expresses most accurately and at the same time the most capaciously, lexically commensurate with the meaning of the original. It should be noted that when assessing the quality of a translation, any translation is secondary in relation to the original: it can be subjectively perceived as better than the original, but it is still attached to it and cannot be far removed from it. Therefore, the translator, unlike the author of the original text, is limited in the choice of lexical means and forms of expression. The objective of the article is to analyze the problems of quality of a translation in the diachrony of intercultural communication, to study ways to achieve the adequacy of translation, to search and analyze the causes of translation transformations. We emphasize that the quality of translation is understood as a set of system-forming characteristics of translation that ensure the maximum possible achievement of its adequacy and equivalence, satisfying the needs of potential readers of the target language in given communication conditions (interlingual, intercultural, asynchronous, diachronic, carried out in writing). In our opinion, such system-forming characteristics include: maximum translation accuracy; the maximum possible use of language means of the target language corresponding to the source language; the use of the target language style, perceived by the reader as the style of his native language, but at the same time as much as possible corresponding to the style of the original text (especially the style of a literary text, poetics, etc.); the most accurate transmission of artistic images, temporal (historical), political, geographical, etc. coloring of target language by means of linguoculture of target language. when assessing the quality of a translation, we take into account the following aspects of the transmission of originals across language, cultural and temporal barriers: transmission of realities (various typology and functions) and transmission of intertext.

Key words: translation quality, intertext, intercultural communication, intertextuality. translation quality intertext intercultural

ІНТЕРТЕКСТУАЛЬНІСТЬ ТА ЯКІСТЬ ПЕРЕКЛАДУ

Оцінка якості перекладу завжди була актуальною як для теоретиків, так і для практиків перекладу. Якісним вважається переклад (усний, письмовий, машинний тощо), який має високий ступінь адекватності та еквівалентності, виражає найточніше і водночас найбільш ємко, лексично співмірний змісту оригіналу. Слід зазначити, що при оцінці якості перекладу будь-який переклад є вторинним по відношенню до оригіналу: він суб'єктивно може сприйматися як кращий за оригінал, але все одно прив'язаний до нього і не може бути від нього віддаленим. Тому перекладач, на відміну від автора оригінального тексту, обмежений у виборі лексичних засобів і форм вираження. Метою статті є аналіз проблем якості перекладу в діахронії міжкультурної комунікації, дослідження шляхів досягнення адекватності перекладу, пошук та аналіз причин перекладацьких трансформацій. Підкреслимо, що під якістю перекладу розуміється сукупність системоутворюючих характеристик перекладу, які забезпечують максимально можливе досягнення його адекватності та еквівалентності, задоволення потреб потенційних читачів цільової мови в заданих умовах спілкування (міжмовних, міжкультурних, асинхронні, діахронні, здійснюються письмово). До таких системоутворюючих характеристик, на нашу думку, належать: максимальна точність перекладу; максимально можливе використання мовних засобів мови перекладу, відповідних висхідній мові; використання стилю цільової мови, що сприймається читачем як стиль його рідної мови, але водночас максимально відповідає стилю оригінального тексту (особливо стилю художнього тексту, поетиці тощо). ); максимально точна передача художніх образів, часового (історичного), політичного, географічного тощо забарвлення висхідної мови засобами лінгвокультури мови перекладу. Оцінюючи якість перекладу, ми беремо до уваги такі аспекти передачі оригіналів через мовні, культурні та часові бар'єри: передача реалій (різні типології та функції) та передача інтертексту.

Ключові слова: якість перекладу, інтертекст, міжкультурна комунікація, інтертекстуальність.

Statement of the problem in a general form and its connection with important scientific or practical tasks. Evaluation of translation quality has always been a topical issue for both theorists and practitioners of translation. A quality translation is considered to be a translation (oral, written, machine, etc.) that has a high degree of adequacy and equivalence, expresses most accurately and at the same time the most capaciously, lexically commensurate with the meaning of the original.

Evaluation of the quality of a translation is a definition, identification of the degree of accuracy (mainly of adequacy and equivalence) of a translation in the context of certain subjectively formulated and perceived tasks of a particular work performed by a translator. Often, the assessment of the quality of a translation depends on the personality of the customer of the translation, on the goals of a particular work of the translator, on the degree of complexity of the translation, on the time allotted for translation, and on many other factors and specific circumstances.

It should be noted that when assessing the quality of a translation, any translation is secondary in relation to the original: it can be subjectively perceived as better than the original, but it is still attached to it and cannot be far removed from it. Therefore, the translator, unlike the author of the original text, is limited in the choice of lexical means and forms of expression.

Analysis of the latest research and publications in which the solution to this problem was initiated problems and on which the author relies. Analysis of recent research and publications. The problem of translation has become the subject of scientific research in the world and in Ukraine. he work of such well-known authors is devoted to the issue of equivalence Ukrainian scientists, as N. Hordiienko, A. Bocharnikova, R. Zorivchak, V. Karaban, T. Kyiak, also such issues were studied abroad scientists like: V. Vynogradov, V. Komisarov, L. Latyshev, Yu. Naida, M. Baker, S. Gelverson, J. Casagrande,J.Ketward and others.

The objective of the article is to analyze the problems of quality of a translation in the diachrony of intercultural communication, to study ways to achieve the adequacy of translation, to search and analyze the causes of translation transformations.

Results

To reveal the multi-valued concept of "quality of translation", it is necessary to keep in mind the complex of meanings of the term "concept". This term has a different meaningful understanding of different researchers. The set of ideas expressed in the original literary work and subject to translation is a fragment of the national concept sphere (or picture of the world) and constitutes a reflection of the auto worldview. In a literary work, directly or indirectly, certain “quanta of knowledge” of the author about the outside world are expressed. The linguistic (“provided” by the system, norm and usage of the language) mediation of the author's concepts in the source language often conflicts with the target language and the translator's experience as a carrier of a different system of knowledge, values, etc. In this regard, we consider it necessary to include the term concept in its multifaceted linguistic interpretation in the conceptual field of the study of the literary works translation.

Some researchers, giving a brief overview of approaches to understanding the concept, express the point of view, according to which the concept is “a clot of culture in the mind of a person” and, unlike concepts, it is not only realized, but also experienced through emotions, likes and dislikes and introduces a person into culture. The concept is considered one way or another as a fragment of a person's life experience. “Cultural concept” is understood as one of the key components of linguoculturology and is defined as a multidimensional semantic formation in which value, figurative and conceptual aspects are distinguished; at the same time, the term “concept” is a clump of the rational part of the concept.

On an interlingual scale, “the content of a concept or linguistic consciousness is the result of processing information produced by an individual with a specific consciousness, with a specific system of concepts and with a specific structure of meaning within a separate concept”. The term of “concept” is interconnected with the term of “typical image”; if the latter answers the question “what is it?”, then the former answers “what do we know about it”. The term of “concept” is considered as a dynamic value, depending on the changing priorities and values of society over time, which is a "global mental unit, which is a quantum of structured knowledge" and a component of the collective linguistic consciousness. As the main features of the term “concept”, its focus on structuring knowledge, performing the function of units of the thought process and intentionality are considered.

These approaches are reflected in the choice of lexical correspondences when crossing the linguistic barrier from the source language to the target language and in the choice of means of conveying images and the author's style. Therefore, when comparing different translations of the same text, it should be borne in mind that in certain ratios, cases of using different lexical units are revealed, which, in turn, can lead to translation inaccuracies. At the same time, such discrepancies may not affect the content of the translated text, but only to adapt the system of means of transferring factual and conceptual information source language to the system, norm and usage of the target language, without distorting the author's vision of the world.

Since the 50s. of the last century in Slavic philology, the problem of assessing the quality of translation is interpreted in different ways, since the linguistic theory of translation was dominated by the opinion that it is possible to assess the quality of a translation only by comparing two texts: the original and the translated text. Therefore, the category of equivalence is considered the main parameter for evaluating a translation. It should be noted that the categories of equivalence and adequacy are not the same thing, as the definitions of these concepts eloquently testify. The typology of translation errors is always based on the theory of equivalence, but the equivalent translation is not always adequate. This implies the opinion supported by a well-established tradition that a translator is a translator who does not have the right to change the original text. Here it is important to recall the opinion of the Austrian linguist E. Prune, who believes that a modern translator is a full-fledged actant who has the same rights as other participants in communication [2, p. 19]. French researchers D. Seleskovitch and M. Lederer quite rightly note that one of the main qualities of a translator is the possession of education and worldview, on which translation competencies are based [3, p. 159].

Obviously, the approach of one or another researcher to the problem of assessing the quality of translation basically depends on the views of this researcher on what constitutes the translation process as a whole and what is the object of comparison in translation. The vast majority of translation theorists offer this or that kind of equivalence, this or that complex of its substantive aspects as the main evaluation criterion. This may be the equivalence of textual material, the equivalence of content or message, the reaction of the recipient, the function of the text, or the communicative effect produced by two texts. At the present stage, in connection with the development of a communicative-functional approach to translation, the most common and influential point of view is probably the point of view according to which general equivalence should be a kind of synthesis of equivalence at the level of the goal of communication and the equivalence of various units and structures of two texts, with priority position of the first.

A number of researchers are trying to combine the equivalence of the text function and the communicative effect produced by it with the equivalence of its individual units by introducing the concept of translation adequacy. In the concept of some of them adequacy involves reproducing to the maximum extent possible the dominant function of the text, which is formed on the basis of the communicative intention of the sender and is aimed at providing a certain communicative effect.

Other researchers, opposing adequate and inadequate translations, consider inadequate, on the one hand, a literal translation that distorts the content of the outgoing text and / or violations of the norm of the translating language, and, on the other hand, a free translation that does not violate norms of the target language, but distorts the content of source language, including due to unjustified reductions and additions.

Some linguists, taking as a basis the theory of five levels, suggest to combine the concepts of adequacy and equivalence to assess the quality of translation. They note that depending on the type of translation, different ratios of adequacy and equivalence are possible. Understanding the adequacy in the same way the authors consider it to be the basic criterion for assessing the quality of a translation: “there is no need to talk about the degree of adequacy: a translation is either adequate or inadequate”.

Equivalence can be shown in different ways, in which the closeness of two texts depends on the situation. Accordingly, four main cases are distinguished:

1) the translation is adequate in general and equivalent at the level of all individual segments of the text;

2) the translation is adequate, but not equivalent at the level of individual text segments;

3) the translation is equivalent, but not adequate (due to the translator's desire to accurately convey individual segments, the communicative intention of the author is not understood);

4) the translation is not equivalent and not adequate.

According to them, the first two cases should be considered as examples of high-quality translations, the last two - as poor-quality ones. The first type is recognized as the highest quality.

The most important and key criterion for assessing the quality of a translation is the success of the objectification of the entire set of concepts potentially formed by the source text, in connection with the objectively existing opportunity to do this in a given context. The degree of success in the objectification of the entire conceptual structure may vary, while most concepts can be quite successfully objectified in various ways. Concept objectification is understood as expression (verbalization) in the system of linguistic signs, primarily words, combinations of phrases, syntactic structures leading to the formation of meanings of linguistic units.

The quality of translation inevitably depends primarily on the personality of the translator and his skill, which is of particular relevance in our time, when there is a constant development of automated translation systems. We agree with the opinion that natural language is, in principle, a poorly formalized system, which is why when intelligent linguistic systems are involved, both the input conditions and, accordingly, the answers-results can only be approximate, and with the opinion of that no electronic means can replace a translator, especially when working with literary texts. Also, one cannot but agree with the opinion of the Polish researcher E. Kosciatkowska-Okonska that the professionalism of a translator is based primarily on the possession of both linguistic and extralinguistic competencies, on the effective use of cognitive abilities in accordance with the performance of certain specific translation tasks [1, p. 23-24].

It is especially important to achieve the quality of translation when transmitting language expressions, which in some cases have a match in both languages (original and translation). The task of the translator becomes more complicated if the corresponding units of the source language and target language have connotational differences, not coinciding with respect to the significative or expressive component of the meaning. A significant difficulty is also presented by realities that, representing a fragment of the national or historical picture of the world of one lin- guoculture, do not have any correspondences in the language fund of the linguoculture of the target language, therefore they refer to non-equivalent vocabulary. Therefore, linguistic expressions turn out to be extremely “sensitive” to the methods of translation used, since the wrong choice can distort both the linguistic and conceptual pictures of the world.

This is especially evident in the examples of the transmission of intertexts, which will be discussed below. The concept of “intertext” has found and continues to find theoretical understanding by various literary critics and linguists, being in relationship with such terms as “intertextuality”, “content analysis”, etc., as well as with the problems of the adequacy and equivalence of translation.

Intertextuality is the presence of two or more texts in one text and, according to the classification of the French literary critic Gerard Genette, is one of the types of interaction of texts along with such as paratextuality (based on the relation of the text to its title, epigraph, etc.), metatextuality (based on a commentary reference to the previous text), hypertextual- ity (based on the understanding of the text through the previous text), architextuality (based on the genre connection of several texts).

In the broadest sense, intertext is understood as a verbally or non-verbally expressed basic unit of national culture, which is associated not only with the actual vocabulary units, but also with the images and emotions associated with them. Intertextuality is considered as a formative and meaning-forming mechanism for the interaction of verbal and non-verbal signs in the linguistic picture of the world.

Researchers distinguish many types of intertext using various criteria. As a criterion for classifying intertexts, we use a set of characteristic features of the content and construction of the text of the analyzed literary work, in which, for one reason or another, a fragment of another (chronologically earlier) text is architectonically embedded. In this case, the most common types of intertext include quotations, allusions, titles, epigraphs, retellings, variations, stylistic figures, phrases-speech stereotypes (including speech stamps, catchphrases, sayings, etc.). Quotations, which include poems, including counting rhymes, represent the most obvious inter- textual form in literature.

We share the point of view of linguists that often “intertextual inclusions are perceived only after familiarization with the entire work, and sometimes with its continuation”. The problems of interlingual and intercultural transmission of intertext forms are similar in their methodological basis and technique for solving the translation problem to the translation of realities as fragments of the linguistic culture of a source language.

Intertext can be considered as a special kind of reality, which in the process of translating a literary work is transmitted primarily by means of the receiving linguistic culture, in other words, by searching for a functionally adequate equivalent, as well as verbatim with or without a commentary.

Conclusions

Summarizing the above, we emphasize that the quality of translation is understood as a set of system-forming characteristics of translation that ensure the maximum possible achievement of its adequacy and equivalence, satisfying the needs of potential readers of the target language in given communication conditions (interlingual, intercultural, asynchronous, diachronic, carried out in writing). In our opinion, such system-forming characteristics include:

1) maximum translation accuracy;

2) the maximum possible use of language means of the target language corresponding to the source language;

3) the use of the target language style, perceived by the reader as the style of his native language, but at the same time as much as possible corresponding to the style of the original text (especially the style of a literary text, poetics, etc.);

4) the most accurate transmission of artistic images, temporal (historical), political, geographical, etc. coloring of target language by means of linguo- culture of target language.

To summarize the above, when assessing the quality of a translation, we take into account the following aspects of the transmission of originals across language, cultural and temporal barriers: transmission of realities (various typology and functions) and transmission of intertext.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Kosciatkowska-Okonska E. The concept of norm in professional (legal) translation and interpreting: the trainee (user) view.. Comparative linguistics, 2011,5. Poznan: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu. pp. 23-33.

2. Prune E. EinfQhrung in die Translationswissenschaft. 2., erweiterte und verbesserte Auflage. Graz: Selbstverlag, Institut fQr Theoretische und Angewandte Translationswissenschaft, mit UnterstQtzung der Universitat Graz, 2002. 374 S.

3. Seleskoivtch D., Lederer M. Interpreter pour Traduire. Paris: Didier Erudition, 1984. 264 p.

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