Two levels of grammatical problems of translation

Translation problems that arise in the sphere of grammatical phenomena differ in principle from lexis. R.O. Jakobson in his article “On linguistic aspects of translation” pointed out a number of important features of translation which relate both to lexis and grammar and at the same time stress the difference between them:

· translation from one language into another should not be regarded as a mere replacement of individual SL units by TL units since it involves whole messages and relations between them;

· the equivalence of SL and TL messages which is established despite differences between their units is the key problem of translation studies;

· a translator interprets a SL text so he should rely on parallel dictionaries and parallel grammars that indicate similarities and differences of SL and TL systems;

· when dealing with grammar a translator has to render such categories which unlike lexis are compulsory in a given language. To illustrate this he gives the English sentence ‘ He hired a worker’ which does not require the indication of the gender of a person, while in a similar situation such information is obligatory in Russian, cf. нанял рабочего / работницу. From this R. Jakobson draws an important difference between grammar and lexis of SL and TL, i.e. languages differ from one another not so much in what can be expressed in them as in what must be expressed in them.

· It’s very important to take into account in translation cognitive values which are associated with correlated grammatical phenomena in order to avoid misunderstanding, c.f. both Russian and German grammars have the category of gender, but it does not always coincide in related words, so it may seem strange to a Russian kid reading a German tale in translation why the symbol of death is represented as an old man (der Tod), while sin is represented as a woman (cf. die Sunde in German and грех in Russian) [Якобсон 1985].

Translation studies show that grammar plays a great role in creating a TL text so a translator, according to S. Campbell [Campbell 1998] has to solve two main grammatical tasks in the process of translation: firstly, he has to get the mechanics of the TL grammar more or less correctly at the sentence or pretextual level, secondly, to deploy the target language grammar for a particular text type, i.e. at the textual level. At the pretextual level a translator has to deal with matters related to morphology (tense-aspect forms, active-passive constructions, the article, etc) and syntax (word order, inversion, means of linking parts of a sentence, etc). At the textual level he has to take into account particular ways used in TL of putting sentences into larger complexes, composition and structure of different kinds of texts, the degree of emotional tension of a text, etc.