Diachronically, semasiology
studies the change in meaning which words undergo in the process of their
historical development [see: 1, 107-111]. Synchronically, semasiology approaches semantic
structures typical of the given language instead of studying the meanings of
individual words.
(2). reflexive, (1) to
move one's self, take one's way, go, proceed, wend (lit. or fig.):--
hé hine under wolcnum, wígsteall séceþ, 207; Sal.
103; Se cyning hine west wende, Chr. 894; Erl. 92, 5;. Hé wende hine
ðanon, Cd. Th. 3; (3). intrans. Him eal worold wendeþ
on willan all the world goes well with him, Beo. Th. 3482; B. 1739; Se
here eft hámweard wende, Chr. 895; Erl. 93, 25.
Thus the French borrowing transtate
ousted the Old English native wendan in the 14-th c. and goes on into the
XXI-st c. alongside with the lexeme interpret
(v) which also came into Late Middle English in the 14-th c.
from Old French interpreter (13c.) borrowed directly from Latin interpretari
"explain, expound, understand," from interpres "agent,
translator," from inter- (see inter-) + second element of
uncertain origin, perhaps related to Sanskrit prath- "to spread
abroad," from Proto-Indo-European *per- (5) "to traffic in,
sell".
There are two lexemes selected for the study of translator and interpreter
which seem to be describing similar subjects, but differ in specification that
causes some confusion.
The objective of the present paper is a semasiological investigation of the referred lexemes to
differentiate their componential structures and to outline their development.
It is a case of interest for lexicography and historical semasiology.
DATA ANALYSIS. The first problem is the definition of meaning which
is a complex of images and emotive elements, associated with a word first used
in discourse and registered in dictionary [1, 107-111]. Meanings are accessible to
scientific investigation only through the words which serve to express them,
and they are linked up with these words in a manner that brings them into the province of linguistics, and
makes their study an indispensable complement to the study of speech sounds and
forms (Gustaf Stern, 1931).
Definitions of the selected words for analysis in this study were obtained from Free Dictionary, Webster’s New World. College Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary, Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus, Macmillan Dictionary, and Webster’s Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Dictionary entry definition can be an instrument and an object of analysis. It is the way of revealing semantic components in the lexical meaning of the dictionary entry.
The definitional analysis of the lexeme translator differentiated the following components:
1. (a) One that translates,
especially: (b) One
employed to render
written works into
another language, (c) A computer program or application
that renders one
language or data
format into another
(Free Dictionary).
4. A person
whose job is changing
words, especially written words,
into a different language (Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary &
Thesaurus).
5. Someone who changes spoken or written words into another language, especially as their job, see also: interpreter (Macmillan Dictionary).
6. A person
who translates writing or speech into a different language, especially as a
job, cf.: interpreter (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary).
7. (a) A person who
translates from one language into another, esp. as a profession; (b) a program
that translates from one programming language into another (Webster’s
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary).
The component “a
person who employed to render
written or oral speech unit into the addressee’ language”. Here we can reveal
the following components person (human being, computer programme), communication, (a foreign
language) expert, competent in translation/interpretation,
employee among which the component competent in translation/interpretation
becomes the nucleus in the lexical meaning of the lexeme translator with the differentiative feature written activity.
The definitional analysis of the lexeme interpreter singled out the following components:
1. (a) One who translates
orally from one
language into another;
(b) One who gives or expounds an interpretation;
(c) Computer Science. A program that translates an instruction
into a machine
language and executes
it before proceeding
to the next
instruction (Free Dictionary).
2. (a) An interpreter is
a person; (b) A computer program that translates from one language to another
so that people who speak different languages can communicate (Webster’s New
World. College Dictionary).
3. (a) A person who translates
orally from one language into another; b) A
person who interprets the work of others; (c) Computing.
A program that translates a second program to machine code one
statement at a time and causes the execution of the resulting code as soon as
the translation is completed; (d). A machine that
interprets the holes in a punched card and prints the corresponding characters
on that card (Collins English Dictionary).
4. (a) Someone whose job is to change what someone else is
saying into another language(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary &
Thesaurus).
5. (a) Someone whose job is to translate what a speaker is saying in one language into another language so that someone else can understand it; (b) Someone who performs a piece of music, a part in a play etc in a way that shows how they understand or feel about it; (c) Computing. A computer program that changes instructions in one computer language into another so that a computer can understand and perform them (Macmillan
Dictionary).
6. (a) A person who interprets, especially one who translates speech orally or
into sign language; (b) A person who performs a piece of
music or a role in a play in a way that clearly shows their ideas about its
meaning; (c) In computing it is a computer
program that changes the instructions of another program into a form that the
computer can understand and use (Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary).
7.
(a) One that interprets; (b) One who translates
orally for parties conversing in different languages; (c) One who explains or
expounds; (d) A machine that prints on punch cards the symbols recorded in them
by perforations; (e) A computer program that executes each of a set of high-level
instructions before going to the next instruction (Webster’s
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary).
Here we can summarize the following components of
the lexemes translator/interpreter: ‘a
person (human being), communication, (a foreign language) an expert, competent
in interpretation, an employee, a computer programme’, among which the
component ‘competent’ in interpretation becomes the nucleus in the meaning of
the lexeme interpreter with the differentiative feature ‘oral activity’ [2, 7-11].
The conceptual meaning of translator / interpreter is ‘an
instrument to change a native language unit into a foreign language unit which
is represented by lexemes’: (1) expert in written activity; (2) expert in oral
activity; and (3) computer programme.
The conceptual
meaning means logical, cognitive, or denotative content. It is based on
two structural principles, which are contrastiveness and constituent structures. It
is usually represented in the definitions we find in dictionaries.
The connotative meaning of the lexeme translator is ‘a person who in translating
closely follows the written Source Text.’ The connotative meaning of the lexeme interpreter is ‘a person
who in translating the oral source text may introduce some structural
transformations preserving the meaning of the discourse’ (cf.: interpreting,
just like translation, is fundamentally the art of paraphrasing)—the
interpreter listens to a speaker in one language, grasps the content of what is
being said, and then paraphrases his or her understanding of the meaning using
the tools of the target language. Though the given demarcation
line is not watertight, compare the translator’s products: a novel, a court
claim, a medical diagnosis and the recorded interpreter’s products: a football
commentary, a science-research report, a speech at the opening ceremony of the
abstract art exhibition, and trial proceedings [3, 193-206]. The differences in
skills are arguably greater than their similarities. The key skills of the translator are the ability to understand
the source language and the culture of the country where the text originated,
then using a good library of dictionaries and reference materials, to render
that material clearly and accurately into the target language [Language
Scientific). In other words, while linguistic and cultural skills are still
critical, the most important mark of a good translator is the ability to write
well in the target language. The
connotative meaning is the meaning above the conceptual meaning and it may vary
according to culture, background or society. Thus, connotative meaning
can be subjective or unstable. It depends very much on how an individual or
society perceives a word [see: 6]. It is the association that we make in our
mind of what these lexical items represent.
CONCLUSIONS and PERSPECTIVES.We focused our research on
the lexemes with the common component ‘one who job is
to change what someone else is
saying into another language’ leaving aside the
lexemes actualizing ‘professional
components like radio broadcasting, musical performance (a musical performer as
an interpreter, mathematics, computering (a computer .program determines
which user program is to be executed next. Certain operating-system programs,
however, may operate as independent units to facilitate the programming
process. These include translators
(either assemblers or compilers), which transform an entire program from one
language to another; interpreters, which execute a program sequentially,
translating at each step) (Encyclopedia Britannica), machine
translation (one of the very first employments of self-modification was
for computer language translation, “language” here referring to the
instructions that make the machine work. Although the earliest machines worked
by flipping switches, the stored-program machines were driven by stored coded
instructions, (and the conventions for encoding these instructions were
referred to as the machine’s) and many others (Encyclopedia
Britannica). The actualization of a definite component and its shifting onto
the nucleus position in the semantic structure of the lexeme depend upon the
professional type (register) of the discourse.
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