Lecture 2. Сommunicative aspect of translation

This Lecture

• introduces the concepts of:

• (a) communication;

• (b) components communication consists of (message, message sender, message recipient);

• (c) ways of communicating;

• shows the difference between bilingual communication and translation;

• shows which tools are helpful in coping with ambiguity of messages and gives their definitions.

Thus, a language may be regarded as a specific code intended for in­formation exchange between its users (language speakers). Indeed, any language resembles a code being a system of interrelated material signs (sounds or letters), various combinations of which stand for various mes­sages. Language grammars and dictionaries may be considered as a kind of Code Books, indicating both the meaningful combinations of signs for a particular language and their meanings.

For example, if one looks up the words (sign combinations) elect and college in a dictionary he will find that they are meaningful for Eng­lish (as opposed, say, to combinations ele or oil), moreover, in an English grammar he will find that, at least, one combination of these words: elect college is also meaningful and forms a message.

• The process of language communication involves sending a mes­sage by a message sender to a message recipient - the sender en­codes his mental message into the code of a particular language and the recipient decodes it using the same code (language).

The communication variety with one common language is called the monolingual communication.

If, however, the communication process involves two languages (codes) this variety is called the bilingual communication.

Bilingual communication is a rather typical occurrence in countries with two languages in use (e. g. in Ukraine or Canada). In Ukraine one may rather often observe a conversation where one speaker speaks Ukrainian and another one speaks Russian. The peculiarity of this com­munication type lies in the fact that decoding and encoding of mental messages is performed simultaneously in two different codes. For exam­ple, in a Ukrainian-Russian pair one speaker encodes his message in Ukrainian and decodes the message he received in Russian.

•► Translation is a specific type of bilingual communication since (as opposed to bilingual communication proper) it obligatory in­volves a third actor (translator) and for the message sender and re­cipient the communication is, in fact, monolingual.

Translation as a specific communication process is treated by the communicational theory of translation discussed in more detail else­where in this Manual'.

Thus, a language is a code used by language speakers for communi­cation. However, a language is a specific code unlike any other and its peculiarity as a code lies in its ambiguity - as opposed to a code proper a language produces originally ambiguous messages which are specified against context, situation and background information.

Let us take an example. Let the original message in English be an in­struction or order Book!. It is evidently ambiguous having at least two grammatical meanings (a noun and a verb) and many lexical ones (e. g. the Bible, a code,a book, etc. as a noun) but one will easily and without any doubt understand this message:

1. as Book tickets! in a situation involving reservation of tickets or

2. as Give that hook! in a situation involving sudden and urgent necessity to be given the book in question

So, one of the means clarifying the meaning of ambiguous messages is the fragment of the real world that surrounds the speaker which is usually called extralinguistic situation.

Another possibility to clarify the meaning of the word book is pro­vided by the context which may be as short as one more word a (a book) or several words (e.g., the book I gave you).

In simple words a context may be defined as a length of speech (text) necessary to clarify the meaning of a given word.

The ambiguity of a language makes it necessary to use situation and context to properly generate and understand a message (i. e. en­code and decode it) Since translation according to communicational approach is decoding and encoding in two languages the significance of situation and context for translation cannot be overestimated.

There is another factor also to be taken into account in communica­tion and, naturally, in translation. This factor is background information, i. e. general awareness of the subject of communication.

To take an example the word combination electoral college will mean nothing unless one is aware of the presidential election system in the USA.

Apart from being a code strongly dependent on the context, situa­tion and background information a language is also a code of codes. There are codes within codes in specific areas of communication (scien­tific, technical, military, etc.) and so called sub-languages (of profes­sional, age groups, etc.). This applies mostly to specific vocabulary used by these groups though there are differences in grammar rules as well.

As an example of the elements of such in-house languages⁸ one may take words and word combinations from financial sphere (chart of ac­counts, value added, listing), diplomatic practice [credentials, charge d'affaires, framework agreement) or legal language (bail, disbar, plaintiff).

All said above is undoubtedly important for translation and will be discussed in more detail elsewhere during this lecture course, however, it is high time to answer the seemingly simple question «What is transla­tion?». And this is the subject of the next lecture.

Література:

1. Комиссаров В.Н. Современное переводоведение. Учебное пособие. – М.: ЭТС. – 2002. – 424 с.

2. Комиссаров В.Н. Лингвистика перевода. - М, 1981.

3. Корунець І.В. Теорія і практика перекладу. - Вінниця, 2003. - 448 с.

4. Мірам Г.Є. Дейнеко В.В. Основи перекладу. - К., 2003.

5. Мирам Г.Е. Переводныe картинки. Профессия: переводчик. - К., 2001.

6. Мирам Г.Е. Профессия: переводчик. - К., 1999.

7. Нелюбин Л.Л. Переводческий словарь. - М., 1999.

8. Федоров А.В. Основы общей теории перевода. - М., 1975.

Questions

1. What is language communication? What actors it involve?

2. What is monolingual communication? What is bilingual communication? Give examples.

3. Describe translation as a special kind of bilingual communication. Why is it called special?

4. What is peculiar about a language as a code? Which factors specify the meaning of a message?

5. What is context, situation and background information? Give definition of context. Give examples of extralinguistic situations and items of background information that would clarify a message.