In this research work we have completed the following tasks:
- we have reviewed all the sources of Political literature
- we revealed the methods and ways of translation of Political literature
- and we have also investigated grammatical, lexical, phraseological and stylistic difficulties of translation of Political literature.
In this Qualification paper we have reviewed almost all the grammatical, lexical, stylistic difficulties of translation of Political Literature.
While reviewing the grammatical changes we considered the following transformations: substitution, omission, transposition and supplementation.
Substitution is one of the grammatical relations among the parts of the sentences. In substitution, an item (or items) is replaced by another item (or items), ex:
I like Politics. And I do. or
Will the United Stated start the war against Iraq? – No one knows.
The words like do, one, the same are usually used in substitution.
Omission, as you know is when an item is replaced by nothing. This is a case of leaving something unsaid which is nevertheless understood. The example is:
In the World War II the Soviet Union lost over 70 millions of life. And the United States less than 10.
A hearer will easily infer what happened to the United States during the war.
Transposition is required when the English sentence contains a large group of nouns with indefinite article and then it is natural that they, being the center of informative message are placed at the end of the sentence. Besides, a short, compared with the noun predicate can not bear the emphatic sense of a large group of nouns.
A big wave of actions by all sections of workers – skilled and unskilled, men and women, manual and non-manual – for higher wages and equal pay, for shorter hours and a greater say in shaping the environment at work is rising.
Сейчас нарастает огромная волна забастовок трудящихся всех категорий – квалифицированных и не квалифицированных, мужчин и женщин, работников физического и умственного труда – за повышение зарплаты, за равную оплату женского труда, за сокращение рабочего дня, за улучшение условий труда.
Supplementation happens to be very frequent when translating texts on International politics because we do not always have corresponding words for some English or American notions like:
During the World War II one of the basic changes in the US military bases was the construction of emergency hangars in case of sudden attack.
Одним из немаловажных перемен в военных базах США во время Второй Мировой Войны была разработка конструкции ангаров для срочного вылета в случае внезапной атаки.
There is no corresponding word in Russian military system for emergency hangar therefore we had to make use of supplementation.
Thus, we have come to conclusion that the above mentioned changes are necessary while processing a translation of Political literature from English into Russian.
While discussing the lexical problems of translation we considered lexical-semantic features of both languages and investigated such cases as difference in word volume, word combinability, generally accepted tradition of word usage, we have also considered contextual meaning of words in the process of translation. In addition we investigated the emotional coloring that plays an important role while processing a translation of Political Literature. We have studied the translation of international words and unexpected usage of word combinability that makes the translation task harder.
A very interesting contextual meaning of exploitation was in the following example:
Britain’s worldwide exploitation was shaken to the roots by Colonial Liberation Movements.
The contextual meaning of the word originated metonymically – any colonial system lives on exploitation, which is the basis of colonial power. The corresponding Russian эксплуатация can not be used in this contextual meaning, the contextual surroundings of exploitation (worldwide, shaken to the roots) also prevents it. The only possible variant of translation is by means of metonymic transposition – substitution:
Колониальное могущество Англии было подорвано (потрясено до основания) национально-освободительным движением во всех колониях.
The use of words of abstract meaning strongly differs in various languages. Therefore arises the necessity of concrete definition in translating.
The Saigon regime used every form of pressure and violence to compel a reluctant electorate to go to the polls.
Сайгонский режим прибегал ко всем видам давления и насилия, чтобы заставить упрямых избирателей принять участие в выборах.
In the study of stylistic transformation during translation we found, that the repetition is widely used with stylistic purposes in newspaper publicity. In these cases the translator is compelled to apply stylistic changes, make substitution or omission.
A policy of see no stagnation, hear no stagnation, speak no stagnation has had too long a run for our money.
Слишком долго мы расплачиваемся за политику полного игнорирования и замалчивания застоя в нашей экономике.
The triple repetition of no stagnation has been omitted in translation, though is partially compensated by the use of synonymic pair at a word (stagnation), but neutralization is evident in translation. The neutralization happened when translating the phraseological unit to have (too long) a run for our money.
Still, studying the difficulties of translation of Political literature we have come to conclusion that the most difficulty to a translator represent set expressions and phraseological units that are widely used in American and English politics. In most cases we do not have corresponding notions in Russian or have some words that do not sufficiently cover the whole meaning of the word in question: for example:
The Cold War last for more than forty years.
Холодная война длилась более сорока лет.
In this case we used word for word (verbatim) translation for we do not have any words that would convey the sense the Americans put in this expression.
Therefore a translator, majoring in the translation of Politics should have a good command not only of English itself, but should know the principles of International politics and other Political sciences.
To wind up this discourse, we would like to remind you, that while our country is rapidly integrating into the International community, the need of highly experienced translators of Political literature will be evident to make the International Events easily accessible to general public.
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