Unit V. Units of Translation. Word As a Basic Language Unit. Lexical and Grammatical Meanings. Conversion.

To find out the minimum stretch of the text subjected to translation we must define levels of language hierarchy. Practically any level may be the unit of translation.

I. Phoneme or grapheme (morpheme) ( поморфемные соответствия)

e.g. Mary, Bill Clinton, Newton, Mister, lady, Daily Telegraph, etc (transcription)

NATO, William, Hull (transliteration)

skier, skyscraper, womanizer, superpower, first strike weapon, etc (loans)

II. Word

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet… (Shakespeare)

Word is the basic unit of language. It directly corresponds to the object of thought (a certain “slice or piece” of objective reality) and names the thing meant.

WORD ó CONCEPT ó THING

Lexical meaning (a word sense) is the material meaning of a word that reflects the concept the given word expresses and the basic properties of the things (phenomenon, quality, state, etc).

A word sense is one of the things or ideas that a word represents. Words usually have more than one sense.

e.g. GET: Where did you get this hat?

How did he get here?

He got into his coat and left.

I can’t get on this horse.

I got through half of the book only.

How many stations can you get on your radio

set?

I’m afraid the child will get the measles.

I don’t get you.

The money is locked up and I can’t get at it.

Get away from it!

“A seme is a minimal distinctive unit of meaning. A word sense is a combination of several semes. One can often identify a dominant duster of semes, or a sense core (основа значения), in a word sense. For example, the dominant cluster of semes in to snigger, to snicker, to chuckle, to giggle is to laugh.

Sense periphery (уточняющие элементы словосочетания) is the specifying or secondary cluster of semes in a word sense: e.g. the specifying clusters of semes in to snigger and to snicker are quietly, often unkindly, etc.

To achieve a high level of equivalence in translation, it is important to translate not only the sense core but also its sense periphery.” (A.Burak “A practical introduction to written translation from Russian to English”).

Grammatical meaning is the formal meaning of a word expressed by its paradigms (grammatical forms, the word’s dependent elements supplementary to its material part).

e.g. substantive paradigms: S, ’S, S’, ER, NESS, TY, etc.

verbal paradigms: S, ED, ING.

Lexicology, a branch of linguistics, is the study of words. The totality of words in a language is called lexicon. There are diachronic (historical) and synchronic (at one conventional historical stage in the development of language) approaches to the study of vocabulary.

Extension of meaning: e.g. OE: SAD (full to the brim) ® SATED, SATIATED, SATURATED, SATISFIED, even SOLID, are etymologically related to SAD.

OE: JUNK (old rope) ® rubbish, useless stuff, heroin, a Chinese boat, etc.

Narrowing of meaning: e.g. OE: ceap = cattle, price, bargain ®  CHEAP

OE: sæliz = happy, blessed, holy ® SILLY

OE: dælan = share, distribute ® DEAL

Words can be context-free and context-bound. We distinguish:

morphologically: ROOT words (monomorphemic) and DERIVATIVES (polymorphemic);

semantically: MONOSEMANTIC and POLYSEMANTIC words;

syntactically: NOTIONAL and AUXILIARY words;

stylistically: FORMAL/INFORMAL, NEUTRAL, ELEVATED (BOOKISH), COLLOQUIAL;

etymologically: NATIVE, BORROWED, HYBRID, INTERNATIONAL, COGNATES/FALSE COGNATES (FALSE FRIENDS).

Conversion consists in making a new word from some existing word by changing parts of speech, the morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged: face ® to face, to go ® a go, to make ® a make, a wolf ® to wolf. There is an essential change of meaning in the converted units. In analytical languages the dependence of a word on the context is higher.

e.g. She is full of go.

Charles went on wolfing the chocolate.

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