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Translatology: Back to linguistics and semantics?

1997; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 5; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0907676x.1997.9961297

1747-6623

Leonid Alekseevič Kuz"min,

Cultural, Linguistic, Economic Studies

Abstract The present article reports on a comparative study of adjectives in random sampling from a science fiction novel. The Moon and Sixpence, by S. Maugham and the corresponding adjectival body in the Russian translation by N. Man. The article postulates that the semantic level challenges the translator with a number of objective regularities based on linguistic factors. Five translation modes of the Adjective are singled out: 1) an equivalent translation matching every source‐text adjective with a dictionary‐registered correlative in the target text; 2) an analytical transsemantic translation leading to re‐packaging of the source‐text adjectival sememes into other word‐classes in the target text; 3) a synthetical transsemantic translation in which an adjective in the target text springs from the sememes of other parts of speech in the source text; 4) an inter‐adjectival transsemantic translation connecting a source‐text adjective with a target‐text adjective on distant associative lines; and 5) a non‐translation, that is, an annihilative translation which implies that a source‐text adjective is not realized in the target text. Each mode has been estimated quantitatively. This has made it possible to identify certain semantic, morphemic, and syntactic peculiarities of adjectives entering a concrete mode. A generalization made on these quantitative estimates vectors the increase of semantic and formal complexity in terms of equivalent translation to the other modes.