Art Criticism Genre (Lecture, Excursion, Report)

Art criticism genreincludes performances, dedicated to fine arts, sculpture, architecture, theatre and cinema, where the author’s personality, emotional coloring and aesthetics play a significant role.

Cognitive function: standard terminology, terms are frequently invented by the author himself (neologisms), as well as the terms, used by a small group of the authors, professing similar aesthetic views.

Other means: absolute present tense, passive constructions, impersonal semantics of Subject, complex syntactic structures, means of compression (basically abbreviations) – are frequent enough. The background of literary norm which, gravitating to elevated style, covers a wide range of sub-styles, depending on individual style, and may include “fashionable words”, vernacular speech, slang, is distinguished. Syntax widely varies as well: from complex syntactic periods up to parceling. Means of formal cohesion are often absent, semantic cohesion is almost always present, but purely associative transitions from one micro-topic to another, which contain emotional-evaluative lexicon, emotional inversion, etc., are also registered.

Aesthetic information is presented by a great range of art means: expanded comparison, syntactic parallelism. When it is impossible to reproduce a stylistic figure in the place, where it is positioned in the original, translator may apply the deviceof positional compensation.

Conclusions: Dominants in translating such performance are the means which arrange the complex of three kinds of information:

• standard art criticism terms are rendered by means of mono-semantic, unequivocal equivalents;

• terms-neologisms are rendered through modeling according to word-formation model;

• professionalisms;

• absolute present tense, passive constructions, compression and other traditional means of arranging cognitive information may be transformed;

• specific version of literary norm is observed (with variant correspondences of vernacular speech, slang, “fashionable words”, high lexicon being preserved);

• complex syntactic periods, sentences are sometimes connected in associative manner – i.e. rendering by means of grammatical and variant correspondence;

• characteristic features of syntax, typical of individual author’s style (contrast of simple and compound sentences, prevalence of coordination), are reproduced by means of grammatical correspondences or positional compensation;

• lexical figures of style are reproduced with preservation of their semantic specificity and figurative structure;

• emotional-evaluative means are rendered by means of variant correspondences and, if necessary, transformations;

• precision information, basically alphabetic, – names, names of works, genres – is completely preserved;

• it is desirable to preserve foreign expressions (Latin, French).

Questions for discussion:

1. How is judicial two-way interpretation performed?

2. What are the specifics of interpreting in religious genre?

3. What should be known about interpretation in art criticism genre?

4. What differences should be specified concerning translation of lectures, excursions and reports in this genre?

1. Make oral translation of the sentences, paying attention to the adverb never, stylistic invertion and some other lexical and grammatical nuances:

1. He has never come.

2. Never before have so many people been talking about the event, and writing books and articles on it.

3. This book may well be regarded by future historians as one of the most important books of the revival of literature of the 1990s.

4. The only reason why we have not heard more about him in America as yet is that he is not fluent in English.

5. Through this book may you receive the burden and the power to be faithful and victorious witness.

6. Success or fame does not motivate me.

7. When you finish reading this book, may you be able to feel the same as I do.

8. … not only did they not find fraud, but with astonishment they recorded the miraculous healings.

9. He promised to come back, but never did.

10. One morning I was given a letter from Juan, my youngest brother. Immediately I got hold of him by phone, and a few days later I went to the city to see him.

11. I was sent to work in the best place. Nobody could figure out what had I done to be there.

Give consecutive interpretation of the following text: