Causes of lexical and grammatical transformations

Complex transformations concerns both the lexical (semantic) and grammatical level, i.e. it touches upon structure and meaning. The following techniques can be associated with lexical and grammatical transformations:

1.Explicatory translation, that is, rewording the meaning into another structure so that the receptor will have a better understanding of the phrase. Sometimes this transformation is named as explicitation, defined as the technique of making explicit in the target text information that is imlicit in the source text.

This transformation is often accompanied by the extension of the structure, the addition of new elements:

I have a nine-to-five job. –Я работаю с 9 утра до 5вечера.

Leslie Mill’s play, which was also included in the FORUM, was taken up with children from grades 1-5. – Пьеса Лесли Милла, которая также была опубликована в журнале «Форум», была поставлена детьми 1-5 классов.

The reason for which this transformation is made is that the target text receptor has different background knowledge. Sometimes this transformation is required because of the dissimilarity between the language structures, with the source language structure being incomplete for the target language, like gun licence is удостоверение на право ношения оружия

2. Reduction (omission, implicitation) is giving up redundant and communicatively irrelevant words:

Elvis Presley denied being lewd and obscene. – Элвис Пресли отрицал свою непристойность.

The reduction is a must if asource language expresses the notion by a phrase and the target language compresses the idea in one word: сторонники охраны окружающей среды – conservationists.

There is a general tendency of the English language to laconicand compressed expressions as compared with Russian:

Внебюджетные источники финансирования – nonbudget sources; контроль за ходом проекта – the Project control.

3. Integral transformation is the replacement of a set phrase with another clichéd structure that has the same speech function:

How do you do! – Здравствуйте!; Wet paint. – Осторожно, окрашено. Help yourself. – Угощайтесь.

4. Antonymic translation is describing the situation by the target language from the contrary angle. It can be done through antonyms:

the inferiority of friendly troops – превосходство сил противника.

The reason for this transformation is the lack of a one-word translation equivalent to the word inferiority.

This transformation can also take place when we change the negation modality of the sentence:

She is not unworthy of your attention. – Она вполнедостойна вашего внимания.

In the English sentence we deal with doublenegation, called understatement, which, according to logic rules, means the positive expressed in the Russian sentence. Through understatement, English-speaking people avoid expressing their ideas in too a categoric tone.

Shifting the negation is another manifestation of the antonymous translation: I don’t think I can do it. – Думаю, я не смогу сделать это., which is a result of linguistic tradition peculiar to this or that language.

5.Metonymical translation is the transferance of meaning and structure based on the contiguity of forms and meanings of the source and target languages: The last twenty years has seen many advances in our linguistic knowledge. – В последние 20 лет наблюдается значительный прогресс в лингвистике. In the English sentence, time is expressed by the subject of the sentence, whereas in Russian it is more typical to express it by the adverbial modifier. This causes grammar restructuring of the sentence.

6.Complex compensation is a deliberate change of the word or structure by another one because the exact equivalent of the target language word or phrase is unable to produce the same impact upon the receptor as does the source language word or phrase. For example, we often have to compensate on the lexical level the meaning of the Past Perfect in the Russian text translation, since there is no similar tense category in Russian: Their food, clothing and wages were less bad than they had been. – Теперь их еда, одежда и зарплата были не такими уж плохими, как когда-то. Puns, riddles, tongue-twisters are often compensated; for example, Don’t trouble trouble until trouble troubles you. – Во дворе трава на траве дрова. Compensation exercises the translator’s ingenuity; however, the effort it requires should not be wasted on textually unimportant features.

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