Translatioin of Political Literature

Translatioin of Political Literature

Plan

Introduction

Chapter I

§ I. Translation and its aims.

§ II. Translation of Political literature and terms.

Chapter II

§ I. Grammatical difficulties of translation

§ II. Lexical difficulties of translation

§ III. Stylistic difficulties of translation

§ IV. The difficulty of translation of set phrases and idioms

§ V. List of set expressions used in Political Literature

Conclusion

Summary

Introduction

In this Qualification Paper we’ve set forth to study the translation

methods of Political literature and political terms at a deeper level,

their types and ways of their translation of Political literature, to

consider the function of political literature in everyday life of the

humanity.

The object of this Qualification paper can be considered as one that

gives the detailed review of the ways political literature and political

terms can be translated into Russian language. It also helps to improve

one’s understanding of the principal rules of translation which plays

leading role while processing translation.

The aim of this work is to introduce the translation approach to

Political literature so that to make it easy to perceive for those willing

to keep up their educational and scientific carrier in the science of

translation, it was purposed to broaden their view on translation studies

and peculiar features while translating Political literature.

In this work we set the following tasks:

- to review all the sources of Political literature

- to reveal the methods of translation of Political literature

- to investigate grammatical, lexical, stylistic and phraseological

difficulties of translation of political literature

We should mention that this research work represents a great

theoretical value for those willing to take up their future carrier in the

field of translations as invaluable reference to the methods and the ways

of translation of Political literature.

And the practical value of this work involves the idea that

translation represents a field aimed at training future

translators/interpreters to translate verbal and written materials on

Political subjects basing on the study of International politics, to

differentiate the language features of English, Russian and other languages

as well as political lexicology, phraseology, syntax and style.

The source information for this research work has been carefully

studied and investigated before it was applied to the given work.

The originality of this work is in its creative approach to the study

and methods of translation, besides, it contains a detailed review of ways

and methods of translation.

The given Qualification paper contains introduction, two chapters,

conclusion and bibliography list.

The first chapter gives a detailed review of the study of the theory

of translation and also reveals the role of political literature and terms

in everyday life of the humanity which are believed to be interesting to

future translator/interpreters. It also discussed the methods of

translation of political literature with purpose to make it easier for

translator to achieve adequate translation in the target language.

The second chapter deals with the detailed study of grammatical,

lexical, stylistic difficulties involved in translation of political

literature. It also gives some hints on translation of idioms and set

expressions and their behavior in literature.

We have also attached some samples of translation of political set

expressions so that to enable the future translator to benefit from the

given paper in their further researches in the fields of translation.

In conclusion we have summed up the results of our laborious

investigation translation of political literature.

At the end of the research paper we have attached the bibliography

list to enable the future translator to use information sources used in

this Paper.

Chapter I.

§ I. Translation and its aims.

Most translators prefer to think of their work as a profession and

would like to see others to treat them like professionals rather than as

skilled or semi-skilled workers. But to achieve this, translators need to

develop an ability to stand back and reflect on what they do and how they

do it. Like doctors and engineers, they have to prove to themselves as well

as others that they are in control of what they do; that they do not just

translate well because they have ‘flair’ for translation, but rather

because, like other professionals, they have made a conscious effort to

understand various aspects of their work.

Unlike medicine and engineering, translation is a very young

discipline in academic terms. It is only just starting to feature as a

subject of study in its own right, not yet in all but in an increasing

number of universities and colleges around the world. Like any young

discipline, it needs to draw on the findings and theories of other related

disciplines in order to develop and formalize its own methods; but which

disciplines it can naturally and fruitfully be related to is still a matter

of some controversy. Almost every aspect of life in general and of the

interaction between speech communities in particular can be considered

relevant to translation, a discipline which has to concern itself with how

meaning is generated within and between various groups of people in various

cultural settings. This is clearly too big an area to investigate in one

go. So, let us just start by saying that, if translation is ever to become

a profession in the full sense of the word, translators will need something

other than the current mixture of intuition and practice to enable them to

reflect on what they do and how they do it. They will need, above all, to

acquire a sound knowledge of the raw material with which they work: to

understand what language is and how it comes to function for its users.

Translation is a process of rendering a text, written piece or a

speech by means of other languages. The difference of translation from

retelling or other kinds of transfer of a given text is that that

translation is a process of creating an original unity in contexts and

forms of original.

The translation quality is defined by its completeness and value. “The

completeness and value of translation means definite rendering of the

contextual sense of the original piece and a high-grade functional-

stylistic conformity.”

The concept “high-grade functional-stylistic conformity” clearly points

on two existing ways of rendering the form in unity with the meaning: the

first one is a reproduction of specific features of the form of the

original piece and the second one is the creation of functional

conformities of those features. It means when translating the specific

features of an original literature we should rather consider the style

inherent for the given genre but than direct copying the form of an

original. While translating, we should also remember that different lexical

and grammatical elements of an original might be translated differently if

accepted by the norms of conformity to the whole original. The translation

adequacy of separate phrases, sentences and paragraphs should not be

considered separately but along with achievement of the adequacy and

completeness of the translating piece as a whole because the unity of a

piece is created through collecting the components.

No matter how a translator (interpreter) is talented he should remember

two most important conditions of the process of translation: the first is

that the aim of translation is to get the reader as closely as possible

acquainted with the context of a given text and then second – to translate

– means to precisely and completely express by means of one language the

things that had been expressed earlier by the means of another language.

A translation can be done:

1. from one language into another, kin-language, non-kin,

2. from literary language into its dialect or visa versa

3. from the language of an ancient period into its modern state

The process of translation, no matter how fast it is, is subdivided

into two moments. To translate one should first of all to understand, to

perceive the meaning and the sense of the material.

Furthermore, to translate one should find and select the sufficient

means of expression in the language the material is translated into (words,

phrases, grammatical forms).

There are three, most identified types of translation: literary,

special and sociopolitical.

The ways of achieving the adequacy and completeness in those three

types of translation will never completely coincide with each other because

of their diverse character and tasks set to translator (interpreter).

The object of literary translation is the literature itself. And its

distinctive feature is a figurative-emotional impact on the reader, which

is attained through a great usage of different linguistic means, beginning

from epithet and metaphor up to rhythmical-syntactic construction of

phrases.

Thus, in order to preserve figurative-emotional impact on the reader

while translating a work of art, the translator (interpreter) will try to

render all the specific features of the translating material. That’s why,

on the first place one should reconstruct the specific features of an

original and the creation of functional conformities to the features of the

original play the subordinate role.

The objects of special translations are materials that belong to

different fields of human activities, science and technology. The

distinctive feature of this type of translation is an exact expression of

the sense of translating material, which is attained through wide usage of

special terms.

Thus, in order to render an exact and clear meaning while translating

such materials alongside with the selection of term equivalents, on the

first place one has to create functional conformities to the features of an

original, and the creation of specific features of the original play the

subordinate role.

And finally, the objects of social-politic translations are the

materials of propaganda and agitation character, and therefore a bright

emotional sense abundant with special terms.

Concerning the achievement of adequacy this type of translation

possesses the features of literary and special types of translation as

well.

§ II. Translation of Political literature and terms.

Political literature like any other scientific kind of literature have

languages items characteristic to them, that requires the translator to be

precise and sharp. Most books on general politics are characterized by the

passion of expression, polemic style and the specific feature is in

blending the elements of scientific speech from one side with different

emotionally colored means of expression from another side.

The translation of political literature can be considered in two ways:

as a field of linguistic activity and as a separate field in science.

As a field of linguistic activity translation of political literature

represents one of the types of special translations possessing as objects

of its activity different materials of political character.

The political translation comes out into a special field of study due

to its specific features of written and verbal speech on political topics,

which is specified by its essential character and the knowledge of this

science. Sometimes these features are so diverse that in order to

understand them (Russian and English politics as well) one should have a

special knowledge without which it would be very hard to clearly perceive

the inner sense on politics or a translated piece.

Therefore, the study of specific features of written and verbal speech

acquires great importance to translators (interpreters). To the features

mention above belong the following:

1. maximal filling the political literature with special political

terms, and in verbal speech (among the politicians) – filling it

with words of political jargon – slang.

2. presence of special idiomatic expressions and phraseological

units in verbal and written speech that are rarely used in

colloquial speech and general literature.

As an example, I should bring the following idioms: blitzkrieg –

молниеносная война, Comprehensive Program of Disarmament - Всеобъемлющая

программа разоружения, principal powers – крупные державы, status quo –

статус кво and many others. We have to mark - if the quantity of political

idioms is limited, then the amount of “politically” related phraseological

idioms is vast in English and Russian languages.

3. the presence of some stylistic deflection from general literary

norms is sometimes very great.

a) wide usage of elliptic constructions, especially in

periodically publishing materials, propaganda and other kinds

of politically important printing media.

b) preciseness and beauty of self-expression which is achieved by

the usage of elliptic constructions along with wide usage of

passive constructions and an often substitution of придаточных

предложений by absolute constructions and деепричастными

оборотами.

c) the presence of official writing style, mostly in documents of

official provisions that cover administrative and political

questions.

d) strictly regulated use of verbal forms and word phrases in

special chapters of political literature and political

documents.

As was told before, while translating a political character, like doing

any other special translation a great importance is given to translation of

special terms.

In our philological literature exist lots of definitions to the concept

of term, but the essence of majority comes to the following:

Term – is a word or a combination of words, which define a notion

(subject, a phenomenon, property, relation or a process) that is

characteristic for the given field of science, technology, art or a sphere

of social life.

Terms differ from the words of general usage by definite semantic

limitations and specific meanings they define. Its very hard to

overestimate the general and scientific meaning of terms since the concrete

knowledge demands definite expression and a term does not only fix the

concept by its notion (name) but specifies it diverging it from adjacent

components.

For better functioning, terms must express systematization of notions,

express their essence or at least be semantically neutral and at the same

time be unambiguous and precise.

The phenomenon of a separate field of science and the terms that fix

them should be systemized that offers gender availability around which

group notions are formed. Thus an English term representative which

presents a group notion and forms a group of notions that belong to this

group: representative forum (представительный форум), business world

representative (представитель делового мира), representative to the talks

(представитель на переговорах), representative to the public (представитель

общественности), representative of political circles (представитель

политических кругов), representative to NATO (представитель НАТО),

representative of various strata or the population (представитель различных

слоёв населения).

The capability of a term to express a systematic state of notions and

easily merge with new phrases that represent new group notions that

consequently appear along with the development of a definite field of

science or knowledge maybe called its systematic capability.

The systematic capability of notions helps us to clarify the relation

of notions, raise their semantic definiteness and ease their understanding

and remembering.

In terms, formed on the base of mother tongue we may differ direct

meaning and terminological meaning.

The direct meaning of a term is formed through the elements of the

language used for their formation; the terminological meaning defines the

concept of notion expressed by the term.

The terms, direct and terminological meaning of which correspond to

each other, correctly orientate and underline the so-called their

interrelation. These terms are able to express the essence of notions.

The terms, whose direct and terminological meaning does not correspond

to each other belong to semantically neutral group of terms.

And at last, the terms whose direct and terminological meaning

contradict each other, should be admitted as completely unsatisfactory

because they distort the genuine relations among the notions, disorientate

the hearer and do not possess any semantic definiteness.

Unambiguousness of a term also influences its clear semantic features

but since we do not have any researches in this field this concept cannot

always be applied. Therefore, up to 10% of English and American political

terms do not possess even a relative semantic definiteness, i.e.

definiteness in some political concerns. This situation may be explained by

the fact that the terms according to their nature are firstly simple words,

and consequently, they develop according to general laws of linguistics.

The result of this is the appearance terminological homonyms that hinder

the normal functioning of political terms in a language.

The definiteness of a term requires preciseness of an expressed idea.

It also raises the semantic definiteness of the term averting its misusage

according to it form.

Not all the terms, of course, possess the above-mentioned qualities,

but the translator/interpreter of political material should take them into

consideration while forming new terms and solving the question of

preference to one of the available term-synonyms.

The correct translation of political literature is a laborious work

despite the terms’ considerable possession of definite semantic clearness

and independence in usage.

While speaking of difficulties of translation, we imply as a matter of

the first importance, the translation general political literature, which

either do not yet have any equivalents in the translating language or have

several similar notion for the term in question or at least have one

equivalent but of doubtful adequacy. There are lots of word phrases and

idiom and terms of this kind and their number is growing with development

of technology and interrelation of people and especially with the

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