Филологические науки/. Теоретичекие
и методологические проблемы исследования языка
Алимкулова
С.Ж., Махметова А.Т
Карагандинский государственный
университет, Казахстан
Lexical and grammatical peculiarities
of scientific-technical technical texts
At present time there is a great necessity to
emphasize scientific-technical translation not only as a special kind of
translation activity and special theory that investigates this kind of activity
but as to assign scientific-technical translation a status of independent
applied science. From the linguistic viewpoint peculiarities of
scientific-technical are spread on its stylistics, grammar and lexics. The main
task of scientific-technical translation is a possibly clear and precise
bringing of the information to the reader. This can be achived by logical
interpretation of actual material without explicit emotionality. The style of
scientific-technical materials can be identified as formally logical.
The aim of this article is devoted to peculiarities of
scientific-technical translation.
So, there are always two texts during translation,.
The first text is called “the text of original"; the second text is called
“the text of translation". The language of the text of original is called
“ the source language” (SL). The language of the text of translation is called
“ the target language” (TL).
The greatest difficulties during translation arise
when the situation described in the text
on SL is absent in the experience of language collective - the carrier
of TL, otherwise, when in the initial text the so-called “realities” are
described, that is different subjects and phenomena specific to the given
people or the given country.
It is necessary to mark, that the English
language differs by figurativeness, which cannot be transferred to Russian
translation.
E. g. “The mother
company bore a daughter in the Far East, granted her a dowry of 2.000.000
pounds and christened her…”
If to translate
literally, it will sound so:
"Компания мать родила на Дальнем Востоке
дочь, дала ей приданное в 2 млн. фунтов стерлингов и окрестила ее…"
After processing is obtained:
"Эта компания организовала на Дальнем
Востоке дочернюю компанию и выделила ей капитал в 2 млн. фунтов стерлингов; новая
компания стала именоваться…"
E. g. If we
translate the term "liquid-propellant power plant" - first of all it
should be translated "power plant" - силовая установка, and then
“propellant" - топливо, and the last word is “liquid" - жидкий. And
we can easily translate the whole word combination:
"Силовая
установка
на
жидком
топливе"
It is necessary
to take into account that many terms are polysemantic.
E. g. stage - in
radiotechnics has several meanings:
Каскад;
2. Фаза, стадия
And in the rocket
engineering - ступень ракеты.
Thus
summing up, it is necessary to underscore, that the mastering of a strictly
select and rather restricted amount of words enables the specialist to read the
scientific and technical literature, not reverting to common English-Russian
language and using only by special dictionaries
Translation of
scientific and technical materials has a most important role to play in our age
of the revolutionary technical progress. There is hardly a translator or an
interpreter today who has not to deal with technical matters. Even the
"purely" literary translator often comes across highly technical
stuff in works of fiction or even in poetry. An in-depth theoretical study of
the specific features of technical translation is an urgent task of translation
linguistics while training of technical translators is a major practical
problem.
In technical translation the main goal is to identify
the situation described in the original. The predominance of the referential
function is a great challenge to the translator who must have a good command of
the technical terms and a sufficient understanding of the subject matter to be
able to give an adequate description of the situation even if this is not fully
achieved in the original. The technical translator is also expected to observe
the stylistic requirements of scientific and technical materials to make text
acceptable to the specialist.
There are two main kinds of oral translation -
consecutive and simultaneous. In consecutive translation the translating starts
after the original speech or some part of it has been completed.
In simultaneous interpretation the interpreter is
supposed to be able to give his translation while the speaker is uttering the
original message. This can be achieved with a special radio or telephone-type
equipment. The interpreter receives the original speech through his earphones
and simultaneously talks into the microphone which transmits his translation to
the listeners. This type of translation involves a number of psycholinguistic
problems, both of theoretical and practical nature.
The characteristic of the scientific and technical
language. Having studied the material of scientific-technical texts some of the
characteriscts can be determined:
1. The absence of emotional colouring.
This feature basically also causes absolute
convertibility of the scientific and technical texts, as the reader should not
have stranger associations, he should not read between lines, be admired by the
game of words and calamburs. The writer's purpose of the text is to describe
either or other phenomenon or operation, this or that subject or process.
It is necessary to mark, that the English language
differs by figurativeness, which cannot be transferred to Russian translation.
E. g. “The mother company bore a daughter in the Far
East, granted her a dowry of 2.000.000 pounds and christened her…”
If to translate literally, it will sound so:
"Компания
мать родила на Дальнем Востоке дочь, дала ей приданное в 2 млн. фунтов
стерлингов и окрестила ее…"
After processing is
obtained:
"Эта
компания организовала на Дальнем Востоке дочернюю компанию и выделила ей
капитал в 2 млн. фунтов стерлингов; новая компания стала именоваться…"
2.rushing to clearness and shortness.
The rushing to clearness discovers expression in
application of legible grammar constructions and lexical units, and also in the
wide use of a nomenclature. As a rule, the placed terms will be utilized
conventional,, though meet and terminoids (terms, having circulation in a
narrow orb), which considerably hamper translation. The rushing to a
multiplicity expresses in wide application of infinitive, gerundial and
subordinate clauses, abbreviations (cuttings) and conventional signs.
3. The special semantic load of some words of ordinary
colloquial speech.
The rethinking of words of ordinary speech is one of
productive methods of the new terms' construction.
E. g. to put out - in ordinary speech "гасить
огонь", but for sailors - "выходить в море"
Stroke - in ordinary speech "удар", but for
mechanic - "ход поршня"
Hoe - "мотыга", but for builders -
"обратная лопата"
This property of words is an especially dangerous
source of difficulties and errors for an initial translator.
Analysis of terminology in scientific-technical style.
The language of science is governed by the aim of the functional style of
scientific prose, which is to prove a hypothesis, to create new concepts, to
disclose the internal laws of existence, development, relations between
different phenomena, etc. The language means used, therefore, tend to be
objective, precise, unemotional, and devoid of any individuality; there is a
striving for the most generalized form of expression.
The first 100 most frequent words of this style
comprises the following units:
a) prepositions: of, to, in, for, with, on, at, by,
from, out, about, down;
b) prepositional phrases: in terms of; in view of, in
spite of, in common with, on behalf of, as a result of; by means of, on the
ground of, in case of;
c) conjunctional phrases: in order that, in case that,
in spite of the fact that, on the ground that, for fear that;
d) pronouns: one, it, we, they;
e) notional words: people, time, two, like, man, made,
years.
Several lexical categories can be identified within
the language of scientific instruction and narrative:
Verbs of exposition: ascertain, assume, compare,
construct, describe, determine, estimate, examine, explain, label, plot,
record, test, verify.
Verbs of warning and advising: avoid, check, ensure,
notice, prevent, remember, take care; also several negative items: not drop,
not spill.
Verbs of manipulation: adjust, align, assemble, begin,
boil, clamp, connect, cover, decrease, dilute, extract, fill, immerse, mix,
prepare, release, rotate, switch on, take, weigh.
Adjectival modifiers and their related adverbs:
careful (y), clockwise, continuous (ly), final (ly), gradual (ly), moderate
(ly), periodic (ally), secure (ly), subsequent (ly), vertical (ly) (see
Appendix 1).
Conclusion. The translation is the multifaceted
phenomenon and some aspects of it can be the subjects of the research of
different sciences. In the frames of the science of translation psychological,
literature critical, ethnographical and other points of translation as well as
the history of translation in one or other country are being studied. According
to the subject of research we use the knowledge of the psychology of
translation, the theory of art and literary translation, ethnographical science
of translation, historical science of translation and so on. The main place in
the modern translation belongs to linguistic translation, which studies the
translation as linguistic phenomenon. The different kinds of translation
complement each other and strive to detailed description of the activity of the
translation.
The theory of translation puts forward the following
tasks:
1. To open and describe the common linguistic basis of
translation, that is to show which peculiarities of linguistic systems and
regularities of the language operation are the basis of the translating
process, make this process possible and determine its character and borders;
2. To determine the translation as the subject of the
linguistic research, to show its difference from the other kinds of linguistic
mediation;
3. To work out the basis of classification of kinds of
the translating activity;
4. To open the essence of the translating equivalence
as the basis of the communicative identity of the original texts and the
translation;
5. To work out the common principles and the
peculiarities of construction of the peculiar and special translation theories
for the different combinations of languages;
6. To work out the common principles of the scientific
description of the translation process as actions of a translator of
transforming the original text to the translating text;
7. To open the influence on the translating process of
pragmatic and social linguistic factors;
8. To determine the idea “the translating norm” and to
work out the principles.
In the result of this research it can be concluded
that the main stylistic feature of scientific-technical texts is exact and
clear interpertation of the material without any expressive elements that make
the speech more emotionally saturated. There are almost no metaphors, metonomy
transpositions and other stylistic features in sciectific-technical literature
while they are widely used in literary works.
Although scientific texts is far from live coloquim
language, it contains a number of neuteral phraseological units of technical
specific. Main requirements for scientific-technical translation to comply with
are precision (all items in ST shall be reflected in translation), conciseness
(all items of ST shall be translated laconically), clearness (conciseness and
laconism of TL shall not mess the lexics, its understanding), literarity (the
text of the translation shall comply with common norms of literary language
without use of sintactical structures of source language).
During the research it also can be revealed that
common features of scientific-technical texts are:
1) saturation with specific terms and terminology
units;
2) presence of grammatical and lexical structures;
3) difference in use of analogue stylistic features in
SL and TL;
4) different use frequency of certain speech parts.
All terms are united into terminology systems that
express notions of technics and science. The difficulties that appear during
the translation of the terms are connected to imperfection of existing
terminology systems. The most important among them are the phenomena of
terminology sinonyms, omonyms and polisemantic units. All of this leads to the
approach of context translation that is:
identifying of the word meaning due to its context;
selection of the proper context equivalent term;
creation of adequate text by means of selected context
equivalent term.
The translation of scientific-technical texts shall
give an exact meaning of the source text. Some deviations can be made due to
the peculiarities of target language or stylistic issue. It is very important
to prevent the loss of meaningful information contained in the source text.
Literature
1. Appolova M. A. Grammatical difficulties of translation. - М.: 1977.
2. Barkhudarov L. S. Language and translation. - М.: 1975.
3. Zrazhevskaya Т.А., Belyaeva L. M. Difficulties of translation. - М.:
1972.
4. Kazakova Т.А. Practical translation. - Spb: Soyuz, 2001.
5. Komissarov V. N. Linguistics of translation. - М.: 1980.
6. Komissarov V. N. Translation manual. - М.: 1965. P.1,2.
7. Komissarov V. N., Korallova А.А. Translation practicum. - М.: 1990.