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Types of correlation between words in source language and target language

There are different types of correspondences between the elements of the SL and TL lexical systems.

I. A word of SL and a word of TL may be identical in their meaning. Such words are called equivalents (the corresponding Russian term is эквиваленты). To this group usually belong proper names such as "London – Лондон", "Galsworthy – Голсуорси", etc.; terms such as "a morpheme – морфема", "logarithm – логарифм", etc.; names of the months, days of the week; numerals. Equivalents are usually monosemantic words and they are easily translated.

II. The meanings of a SL word and a TL word may coincide partially (частичные, или вариантные соответствия). There are three variants within this type.

1. A word in one of the languages may have more meanings than the corresponding word of the other language, so that the meaning of the latter is as it were included in the meaning of the former, e.g. the English noun "finish" and the Russian noun "финиш" both denote "the conclusion, end", which completely exhausts the meaning of the Russian word. The English word "finish", however, also denotes "that which finishes, completes or perfects", which corresponds to the Russian words "окончание", "отделка", "аппретура". Thus the meaning of the word "finish" includes the meaning of the word "финиш", but is not exhausted by it. This is the first variant of semantic relations characterized by partial coincidence of meanings.

2. The second variant of semantic relations between partially corresponding words may be described as intersection. It means that both the words have some meaning (or even meanings) in common, but at the same time each word has some other meanings which do not coincide. E.g.: the English word "cup" and the Russian "чашка" both mean "a drinking-vessel", besides which the word "cup" means "an ornamental vessel offered as a prize for an athletic contest" (in Russian – "кубок"), while the Russian "чашка" denotes also "круглая и плоская тарелка, подвешенная к коромыслу весов", which corresponds to the English word "pan". Thus the meanings of these two words ("cup" and "чашка") intersect in one point only – i.e. they both denote a drinking-vessel.

3. The third variant of relations within this type is somewhat more complicated. The fact is that different peoples reflect reality in different ways, and these differences find their manifestation in the languages which the peoples speak. It is well known that to the speakers of English it seems quite necessary to differentiate between a hand and an arm, while in Russian we usually do not feel it so very important and use the word "рука" to denote both the notions (cf. also "watch" and "clock" – "часы", "mirror" and "looking glass" – "зеркало", etc.). On the other hand we usually differentiate between "вишня" and "черешня", while for the speakers of English there exists one notion ("cherry"), as well as "клубника" and "земляника" are both called "strawberry"; we think that "почка" and "бутон" are quite different things, while in English they always call it "a bud", no matter whether it is going to form a leaf or a blossom.

It does not mean, of course, that we cannot express the difference between a hand and an arm in Russian or that English speaking people do not see any difference between a leaf bud and a blossom bud. They do, but traditionally some aspects of reality are reflected as differentiated notions in the mind of one people and as undifferentiated notion in the mind of another people. Theoretically speaking, every language can express everything, but it differs from other languages in what it should express.

This group of words demands special attention because it often causes trouble in the process of translation (for instance, try to translate the following sentence into Russian: "They both married their cousins").

In all the cases when the meanings of words coincide partially there arises a problem of choosing the right variant of translation. This choice should be based on two factors: on the knowledge of possible semantic relations between the words of SL and TL and on the information derived from the context.

III. Finally, in one of the languages there may exist words which have no correspondences in the other language at all (безэквивалентная лексика). They are usually proper names not used or even known in other countries (personal names such as Aubrey, Hope, Игорь, Галина, etc.; place-names such as Hindley, Catmose, Молитовка, Урень, etc.), and names of specifically national notions and phenomena (such as muffin, drugstore, startup, самовар, щи, агитбригада, стройотрядовец, etc.).

Context and its role in translation

The meaning of equivalents practically does not depend on the context, so to translate them one should merely look them up in a dictionary. The demand to consult dictionaries is essential. No guesswork is allowed in translation: a word should be either known or looked up; otherwise there is always a risk of translation the word "data" as "дата" or "billet" as "билет" or writing some other nonsense of the kind.

It is much more difficult to translate those words of SL that are characterized by partial correspondence to the words of TL. Such words are mostly polysemantic. That is why in order to translate them correctly it is necessary first of all to state which particular meaning of such a word is realized in the utterance. The most reliable indicator in this case is the context in which the word is used.

They usually differentiate between linguistic context and extralinguistic context (or context of situation). Linguistic context in its turn is subdivided into narrow (context of a phrase or a sentence) and wide (utterance-length context or sometimes context of the whole text). Very often the meaning of a word is revealed in the minimum context, i.e. in a phrase ("green" – зеленый, юный, незрелый, etc., but there is no problem in translating the phrase "green trees" – "зеленые деревья" or "green years" – "юные годы"). However, there are such cases when we need at least a sentence to see what the word means, e.g. "I’ll be sitting in the 3rd carriage from the front of the train" – "Я буду в третьем вагоне от начала поезда". The whole sentence is necessary here to understand the meaning of the word "carriage" and to choose the variant "вагон" but not "экипаж, повозка".

Sometimes linguistic context is closely connected with extralinguistic factors. It may be illustrated by the following sentence:

… he came to be convicted of perjury… in Wakawak, Cochin China…, the intent of which perjury being to rob a poor native widow and her helpless family of a meager plantain-patch, their only stay and support in their bereavement and desolation.

(Mark Twain)

The word "plantain" denotes either "банан" or "подорожник". In the sentence there is no direct indication of the type of plant. However, we know that the events took place in Cochin China, where the climate is quite suitable for bananas, not for "подорожник". Moreover, it is said in the sentence that the plantain-patch was the "stay and support", it gave the family either food or profit. All this settles the problem of choice: in this case "plantain" means "банан".

The context of the situation becomes especially important if the linguistic context is not sufficient for revealing the meaning of the word. When one of G. B.Shaw’s characters warns his interlocutor not to drive him too far, it is necessary to know that they are both sitting in the parlor and not in any vehicle, so the verb "to drive" is used in the meaning "привести в какое-то состояние, довести до…". It may so happen that linguistic context does not give any clue to the meaning of the word. Especially often it is the case with neologisms that do not correspond to any words in TL. To understand the word "Reagangate", which appeared in American newspapers in 1983, one must remember the notorious political scandal called "Watergate" in 1972–1974 and know some facts characterizing political methods or President Reagan. Only in this extralinguistic context can we understand the meaning of the word "Reagangate" – "a new political scandal revealing dishonest methods used by Reagan during the election campaign and resembling the methods once used by Nixon".

So translation of any word begins with contextual analysis of its meaning, after which it becomes possible to correctly choose the corresponding word of TL. All types of context can help to identify the meaning of words in SL characterized by partial correspondence to the words of TL, as well as the meaning of words that do not correspond to any words of TL. Translation of the latter group causes many difficulties and requires special means.

Translation of words having no correspondence in TL

There are several ways of translating such words. The simplest way is to transcribe them (lobby – лобби, lump – ламп, спутник – sputnik, комсомол – Komsomol, etc.). This method is widely used for rendering personal names, placenames, titles of periodicals, names of firms and companies.