Translation problems of nationally colored words Teacher: Turdiyeva n done by: Saydazimov Y

Translation problems of nationally colored words

Teacher: Turdiyeva N

Done by:Saydazimov Y

There is a class equivalent lacking words and the words that have strong local coloring. The equivalence lacking words and the naturally colored words are the categories that partly overlap but are not identical.

The equivalent lacking words have no direct correspondence in the target language however, denote the notions that are universally known and familiar to both cultures.

e.g. окріп – boiling water; доба- 24 hours

The naturally colored words, or realias, form a subclass of the originally equivalent lacking words that reflect the differences and natural, cultural, historic, sociological or other peculiarities. Some of them penetrate into the lexicon of the target language as borrowing. (леді, міледі) and cannot be called equivalent lacking words any longer. But they still retain noticeable local coloring.

Culturally-loaded words tend to lose their local coloring over time and become more or less conventional as it happened to hot-dog, dollar etc. Sometimes they even acquired in the target language new meaning:

e.g. pioneer – a member of the organization. But the soviet meaning is largely unknown

Many of the British and American realia are less known and belong to equivalent lacking words.

Concrete objects tend to have more visual traces of national peculiarity than abstract ideas and philosophic, social phenomena. Such objects may perform in different cultures similar cultures but their looks and the surrounding details are so different and colorful that they are not identical in cross-cultural perspective: e.g. Santa Claus

The ways and methods of translating the nationally colored words are as follows:

Transcription – a sort of phonetic imitation of the original word by means of target language sounds and a number of phonemes do not coincide and are assimilated.

Transliteration – a letter-for-letter rendering of the words whichever the pronunciation e.g. canoe;

Loaned translation власне переклад;

Semi-translation: e.g. first lady, gentlemen argument, state duma, central rada;

Generalization: e.g. temple – церква, мечеть, костьол; spirit – горілка, водка;

Descriptive translation is based on denotative approach (the description of extra-lingual units): e.g. borshch – суп; sometive descriptive translation is much more informative than other means.

e.g. он вкалывал за 25 рублей в неделю – he worked very hard for a very low pay;

Contextual or functional substitution: e.g. food is awfull in drugstore – у закусочних годують жахливо

Combined renominatioin: this a combination of the transcribed version of the source language unit with its description or a generalizing words explaining to what category or class the given object refers: e.g. for desert you got brown betty, which nobody ate – на десерт подають пудинг який ніхто не їв.

The choice of the methods:

The 2 basic translation strategies in rendering culturally-loaded words are domestication and foreignisation.

According to Laurence Venutti, an Italian translation scholar, domestication is an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target language culture values. Figuratively speaking it brings the author to target language reader home while foreignisation sends the reader abroad.

Domestication has its strong points: it minimizes the strangeness of the target language texts for the readers, its style is more neutral and fluent. And these things make communication easier.

Nida is regarded as one of the most prominent supporters of domestication while venuti is considered the spokesman for foreignization.

Nida’s concept of dynamic equivalent is base on the principles of equivalent impact and the task to avoid possible misunderstanding. Venuti considers domestication a variety of cultural conquership. He wants to make translation a tool of protection of national cultures against the cultural violence.

The translator’s task is to strike a balance between two tendencies and make his text both recognizable as belonging to source language culture and native like for fluent perception of the target language reader.

The main factor that determines the choice of the methods is context. In some cases if it’s important to make prominent the exotic character of the described thing or notion than preference is given to description or transliteration.

The relevance of natural component greatly depends on the style, genre. Different genres are often intended for different categories of recipients. Respectively the unit of the text may be of different importance for their accurate rendering in translation.

The application of a particular method depends also on whether a word is used in its direct or transformed meaning.

It should be kept in mind that the impact which the natural coloring produces on the recipient of the source language text differs from the one it produces on the target language recipient. The translator should not overuse the means that emphasize the natural coloring. If the text is overloaded with naturally colored exotic components the reader could be fatigued by the vast amount of unfamiliar details. His attention might be diverted from the key means of the message.