Three types of relationship between word senses in translation

It will have been realized by now that a fundamental problem for the translator is that the boundaries and compositions of concepts and the words that express them do not usually coincide in the source and target languages. Lack of fit between the lexical items of two languages is a challenge the translator continually has to face. For a clearer understanding of the problem, it might be useful to represent the differences and similarities between word senses in the SL and TL in terms of a simplified set theory (теория множеств) and the basic notions (ключевые понятия) of inclusion (включенность, включение) and exclusion (невключенность, невключение).

Three key types of relationship between word senses in the SL and TL can be isolated. At one end of the scale, there is inclusion (hyponymy) (гипонимия) and at the other - exclusion (antonymy) (антонимия). Partial semantic overlap - partial inclusion and exclusion - is repre­sented by interlinguistic (cross-language) synonyms (межъязыковые синонимы).

The first of the above, hyponymy, involves total inclusion; a word sense in the SL is totally included in a word sense in the TL or vice versa. For example,рука in Russian (A) totally includes the English arm (B) and hand (C). In this case, the English hand 'and arm are hyponyms (subordinates) (гипонимы, включенные понятия) of the Russian рука. Translating hyponyms (subordinates) and hypernyms (superordinates) (гиперонимы, родовые понятия, включающие понятия, более широкие по семантике понятия) usually involves the methods of gen­eralization and concretization. To use traditional terminology, the subordinate (hyponym) is distinguished from the superordinate (hypernym) in the same way as an example (пример, частное) is distinguished from its class (класс, общее).

(a) Hyponymy: A - рука В arm С": - hand

lnterlinguistic synonyms are word senses in the SL and TL whose denotative and connotative components partially coincide. Absolute, 100 percent synonymy does not exist because it would require each of a pair or set of interlinguistic synonyms to be totally interchangeable, i.e. always combine with the same lexical items in the same contexts in the two respective languages, which is a statistical and mathematical impossibility. By way of illustration, let's try to translate into English the following Russian sentence from the text below: Богатство дает зависть, неприязнь, но не уважение и положение в обществе. The sentence is fairly straightforward and could be translated as Wealth provokes jealousy / envy and hostility; it doesn’t bring/earn respect or social status / a place in society. One of the questions that arises, though, is whether to translate зависть as jealousy or envy. The Russian word зависть and the two English words jealousy and envy are interlinguistic synonyms. It should be noted in passing that one Russian word - зависть, for example, - may have several cross-language synonyms in different English contexts: envy, being envious or covetous, begrudging, pique at, jaundice, rivalry, etc. An analysis of the semantic structures of the intralinguistic synonyms jealousy and envy (as nouns) shows considerable divergencies:

jealousy - a jealous feeling (The Longman Dictionary of English Lan­guage and Culture); - a jealous attitude or disposition (AHD).

jealous - 1 unhappy and angry because (you think) a) someone who should like you, likes someone else better: When she kisses the baby, it makes the older child jealous, b) someone who you feel belongs to you is being admired too much by someone else: If other men spoke to his wife, begot terribly jealous. 2 wanting to have what someone else has; ENVI­OUS: He is jealous of their success. 3 wanting to keep what one has; POSSESSIVE: He's jealous of his possessions / of his rights. (3 different word senses - LDELC)

envy - the feeling you have towards someone when you wish that you had their qualities or possessions: They were full of envy / green with envy when they saw my new car. \ Their beautiful new garden is the envy of all the neighbours. (1 word sense - LDELC)

In Russian, one finds the following interlinguistic synonyms: ревность, зависть, ревностное отношение.

So which do we choose: jealousy or envy¹? The Longman dictionary seems to resolve the difficulty in the USAGE note after the definition of jealous:

Jealousy is usually considered to be a more unpleasant feeling than envy. Compare Ann has got a very nice job - I'm envious I full of envy / I envy her (=1 wish I had a job like that) and Tom is jealous of Ann (=feels strong dislike for Ann) because he thinks that he should have got the job.

As can be seen, the difference is in the connotative meaning of these synonyms. It will be remembered that connotative meaning includes five main components: emotion, its degree of intensity, evaluation, style, or register, and dialect. While the stylistic and dialectal components of jealousy and envy coincide, jealousy may express a clearly felt, i. e. intense enough, emotion of malicious anger, disappointment and frus­tration. Furthermore, saying that somebody is jealous would, most likely, imply the speaker's negative attitude towards whoever is jeal­ous, i. e. jealousy contains an element of negative evaluation. It fol­lows that jealousy would, most likely, fit the context of the Russian sentence better than envy.

In the situation under discussion, one should also bear in mind which variety of English is being used as the translation language. In this case it is American English we are translating into, and the distinction discussed above applies. But as was pointed out previously in this course, it may well happen that whatever connotations are true in American English may well turn out to be nonexistent in the British or other varieties of English. As for the possible word combinations jealousy and envy can enter into in English, it is obvious that their kinds and range are different from Russian. To give but one example, зависть would hardly ever be used in Russian as it is used in the sentence Their beautiful new garden is the envy of all the neighbors. The translator must always be aware that bilingual, Russian-English and English-Russian dictionaries, are just collections of interlinguistic synonyms. They are the product of the work of translators who faced the constant challenge of interlinguistic semantic incompatibility of lexical items. These dictionaries are not perfect. Use of monolingual dictionaries is a must.

(b) Synonymy: A -jealousy В - envy С-зависть

The third type of relationship, antonymy, involves exclusion and cam be broken down into six subtypes or oppositions: 1) taxonomic: a) binary, b) multiple, and 3) hierarchical; 2) polar; 3) relative; and 4) inverse.

c) Antonymy:

A – truth;

В - неправда

Unit 12

Defining word-senses (Определение значений слова)

A word-sense is defined by a more general term / concept, or its hypernym or superordinate (родовое понятие), and one or more specific features that distinguish the thing or idea represented by the word-sense from the other things or ideas belonging to the same class. Put differently, a word-sense first refers to the genus / class (родовое понятие) of things or ideas it represents and then to the species / examples (видовое понятие) of things or ideas it represents.

For example:

A table - a piece of furniture (superordinate, hypernym - родовое понятие) with a flat top supported by legs (distinguishing features -отличительные родовые признаки) (LDCE).

In the above definition (определение, дефиниция значения слова), а piece of furniture is родовое понятие, and a flat top supported by legs -видовые отличительные притоки.

Стол - предмет мебели в виде широкой горизонтальной пластины на опорах, ножках (ТСРЯ).

In the Russian definition, предмет мебели is родовое понятие and широкая горизонтальная пластина на опорах, ножках - отличительные видовые признаки.

(Род - в систематике: группа, объединяющая близкие виды. Роды и виды растений, животных. Вид- подразделение в систематике, входящее в состав высшего раздела, - рода. Виды растений, животных. - ТСРЯ)

A clear perception of a particular word-sense in a particular source language context is a prerequisite for a good translation choice. Rus­sian-English and English-Russian dictionaries provide interlinguistic synonyms which may be misleading.

To illustrate the point, here is an extreme example from a letter that was written in English by somebody with a still shaky grasp of English: When she *knew of this, she was *in hydrophobia. The writer wanted to express the idea Когда она узнала об этом, она была в бешенстве and simply tried to make a word-for-word translation of the Russian sentence into English. It is obvious that the writer looked up the word бешенство in a Russian-English dictionary but was misled by its specialist medical word-sense.

It is generally sound practice to look up the unknown word in a monolingual dictionary, then use bilingual dictionaries to see what cross-language synonyms it has and, finally, check these synonyms out in a monolingual dictionary in the target language.

The writer of the letter should have proceeded as follows:

Stage 1 (Look up the word бешенство in a Russian-Russian dictionary): Бешенство - 1. Вирусное заболевание, поражающее нервную систему. Вакцина против бшенства. 2. Перен. Крайняя степень раздражения. Прийти в бешенство. (ТСРЯ)

The writer would have been immediately alerted to the fact that the semantic structure of the word бешенство consists of two word-senses - a medical term and its figurative use -and that she would need the second word-sense.

Stage 2 (Look up the word бешенство in a Russian-English dictio­nary): бешенство 1) мед. hydrophobia; rabies (у животных); 2) (неистовство) fury, rage (LINGUO 12).

At this stage it would have been confirmed that the writer needs the second word-sense of бешенство. However, the dictionary supplies two interlinguistic (translation) synonyms: fury and rage. Which one to use?

Stage 3 (Look up the words fury and rage in an English-Russian dictionary for extra leads): fury сущ. 1) неистовство; бешенство, ярость to vent one's fury on, upon — срывать на ком-л. свою злость / ярость pent-up fury — сдерживаемая ярость savage, unbridled fury—дикая / безудержная ярость Syn: anger, rage, frenzy (LINGUO 12)

rage 1. сущ. 1) а) ярость, гнев, бешенство; приступ сильного гнева (against) in a rage — в гневе to express, feel rage — сердиться, гневаться to provoke, stir up smb.'s rage — вызывать гнев blind, towering, ungovernable, violent rage — слепой, дикий гнев fit, out­burst of rage — вспышка гнева jealous rage — дикая ревность sud­den rage — внезапный приступ гнева - fly into a rage Syn: anger, fury (LINGUO 12)

Stage 4 (Look up the words fury and rage in an English-English dictionary): fury - 1 extreme, often uncontrolled anger. / was shaking with fury. 2 a feeling of extreme anger: in a fury "Go on then!" shouted Jamie in a fury. "See if I care!" | fly into a fury (=quickly become very angry) Paul flew into one of his furies. (LDCE)

rage - 1 a strong feeling of uncontrollable anger: His letter had filled her with rage and disappointment. | in a rage She stormed out of the room in a rage. \ to fly into a rage (=suddenly become very angry) Major Sanderson instantly flew into a terriible rage. (LDCE)

The English-English dictionary supplies the possible translations to fly into a fury or to fly into a rage. The sentence in question should have been translated as When she learned about it, she flew into a rage /fury.

Defining word-senses is difficult. Sometimes definitions in monolin­gual dictionaries are too general. In such cases bilingual dictionaries are indispensable.

Unit 13