Научная статья на тему 'THE CROSS-CULTURAL COMPONENT OF TRANSLATION'

THE CROSS-CULTURAL COMPONENT OF TRANSLATION Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

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Ключевые слова
APPROPRIATE TRANSLATION / CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION / INTERFERENCE OF LANGUAGES AND CULTURES

Аннотация научной статьи по языкознанию и литературоведению, автор научной работы — Utigenova Aizhan Erlanovna, Zhumagulova Natalya Stanislavovna

The article considers translation within the framework of linguoculturological theory and the opinion that translation is not only an act of cross-language communication, but also a phenomenon of cross-cultural communication. Translation is a synthesis of languages and cultures, which complicates the process of adequate interpretation of reality.

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Текст научной работы на тему «THE CROSS-CULTURAL COMPONENT OF TRANSLATION»

УДК 811.318

МЕЖКУЛЬТУРНАЯ СОСТАВЛЯЮЩАЯ ПЕРЕВОДА

Утигенова А.Е., Жумагулова Н.С. Кокшетауский университет им. Абая Мырзахметова (г. Кокшетау, Республика Казахстан)

Аннотация. В статье рассматривается перевод в рамках лингвокультурологической теории и высказывается мнение о том, что перевод - это не только акт межъязыковой коммуникации, но и феномен межкультурной коммуникации. Перевод - это синтез языков и культур, усложняющий процесс адекватной интерпретации действительности.

Ключевые слова: адекватный перевод, межкультурная коммуникация, интерференция языков и культур.

THE CROSS-CULTURAL COMPONENT OF TRANSLATION

Utigenova A.E., Zhumagulova N.S. Abay Myrzakhmetov Kokshetau University (Kokshetau, the Republic of Kazakhstan)

Annotation. The article considers translation within the framework of linguoculturological theory and the opinion that translation is not only an act of cross-language communication, but also a phenomenon of cross-cultural communication. Translation is a synthesis of languages and cultures, which complicates the process of adequate interpretation of reality.

Keywords: appropriate translation, cross-cultural communication, interference of languages and cultures.

Today, in the conditions of intensive interaction of all countries and people in various fields and spheres of human activity, the question of high-quality communication is particularly acute, assuming full mutual understanding and, as a result, one hundred percent achievement of communication goals. In this regard, there is a kind of "language boom": first, the desire of an increasing number of people to learn foreign

languages, and secondly, an unprecedented demand for professional translators, which explains the significant increase in Russian universities of specialties aimed at training linguists, translators, specialists in intercultural communication.

The main purpose of this article is to consider translation as a means and variety of cross-language and cross-cultural communication.

It is known that the activity of the translator is associated with the perception of the text of written or oral speech in one language, transcoding (translating) this text from one language system to another one and reproducing the resulting text in written or oral form in another language. At the same time, it is important that transcoding should be as close as possible to the original language, taking into account the entire range of criteria for adequate translation, including:

1) equivalence - a high degree of semantic proximity of the translation to the original;

2) genre and stylistic correspondence of the original and translated texts;

3) the pragmatic value of translation - the ability of the text to produce a communicative effect, which is achieved by taking into account the conditions of generation of the source text, the conditions of perception of the translated text, the social status of communicants, the speech situation and various related phenomena.

These parameters are relevant, first of all, for the linguistic and communicative concepts of translation, which treat translation as an act of interlanguage communication.

However, from the point of view of the theory of intercultural communication, when translating, not only two languages are compared, but also two cultures in the broad sense of the word, and the situational context of communication is perceived as part of the cultural world.

The speaker/writer, creating a text (message) in their own language, unconsciously focuses on their own system of cultural values, listening/reading, perceiving information, relies on their own culture. Thus, in cross-cultural communication, interlocutors belonging to different linguistic cultures decode utterances in different ways, which means that the communicative function of language, which consists in the transmission of meaning, does not always or not fully achieve its goal.

Therefore, adequate translation involves not only the use of knowledge of the native and foreign languages, but also taking into account the system of cultural values of the communication participants. This means that translation is not only a linguistic act, but also a cultural one, in other words, an act of communication at the border of cultures.

In connection with the above, we would like to give an example of the model of the

communicative process [1, p. 35], developed by the authors of the scientific work "Human Communication: Principles, Contexts, and Skills". Despite the fact that the paper describes the process of communication regardless of cross-cultural interaction (communication of representatives of different linguistic cultures), the authors focus on the importance of the psychological, social and cultural contexts of communication. At the same time, the cultural context is the most extensive and includes all other characteristics that affect communication.

Thus, we can conclude that translation is a complex and multifaceted activity, in the process of which there is not only the replacement of one language with another, but also the interaction of language personalities with their social and psychological characteristics, the interaction of national mentalities, the interaction of cultures.

Consequently, the task of translation is, on the one hand, the selection of equivalent affinities for the transmission of communication installation, on the other hand, necessary to understand foreign language text explanations conducive to proper perception of national - cultural implications of the message.

Let us focus on the main parameters that define translation as a kind of intercultural communication:

First, the translation process (both professional and mediated in the process of communication by representatives of different cultures) always has two aspects-language and culture, since they are interrelated and inseparable (the issues of the relationship between language and culture are covered in the works of V.V. Vereshchagin, V.G. Kostomarov, V.V. Vorobyov, Yu.S. Stepanov, V.A. Maslova, V.I. Kasik, S.G. Ter - Minasova, V.V. Oschepkova, V.V. Krasnykh, S.G. Vorkachev, O.A. Leontovich and many others).

The meaning of the language element -words, text, etc. - it is clear only when it is consistent with the cultural context in which it is used. At the same time, both semantic and communicative - pragmatic characteristics of language units are important. The first ones involve taking into account all the components of the meaning of a language unit, including the national-cultural component of the meaning. The latter are focused on a double interpretation, when the translator has to link the cultural context of the

source text and the cultural and communicative features of the translation text.

It is the differences in the cultures of communication partners that affect the differences in the interpretation of words, texts, and communication behavior. As for the text, there is a noticeable tendency in modern science to abandon the search for the only correct meaning of the text. A text often has a wide range of possibilities for its interpretation, which has many meanings. After all, full lexical correspondence in different languages can have proper names, geographical names, terms, days of the week, months, and numbers. Everything else is subject to ambiguous interpretation, so often when translating, the subtleties and semantic shades, features and nuances of a foreign language are lost, the text is simplified, and sometimes distorted, acquiring ambiguity. Therefore, communication with the help of translation is never absolute.

Content and semantic barriers that arise in cross-cultural communication are the rule rather than the exception, since each participant in communication brings to it his own system of meanings that belong to him as an individual and as a representative of the corresponding culture. The more similarities between the systems and cultures of the two languages than more competent translator, the real - it will transfer the correct meaning of a text and, consequently, the more productive will be the translation in intercultural communication.

Secondly, the efficiency of translation is affected by the correct segmentation of the text. It is known that any language unit can serve as a translation unit: from a phoneme to a dicteme (the term of M. Ya. Bloch; dicteme - "an elementary unit of text thematization formed by sentences" = "contextual-thematic association of sentences" [2, p. 72, 178]). If the word depends mainly on the nearest context, then the basis for constructing a translation unit is a phrase or a simple sentence that includes this word. If a word depends on several text con-texts, including those that go beyond the sentence, then the construction of translation units is based on the diction. If a word depends on many text components, then the translation unit should be based on the entire source text. If the word depends on conditions that go beyond the text, then the translator must provide for the possibility of cultural commentary or the

creation of a new language unit by transliteration or calculation [3, p.20].

This once again underlines the importance of inter-cultural interaction in the translation process. In other words, in cases where cultural differences may hinder the full understanding of the original message, the translator removes these obstacles by explicating the implied information, making the necessary changes, additions, and clarifications to the translation text. For example:

A woman searches for Mr. Right because she believes the stories she reads in books or watches at the movies; she finds someone she believes she can "change" into her ideal man, and she disappointingly sees her efforts fail [4, p. 40]. Despite the fairly transparent context of the above sentence, it may be necessary to clarify the language unit "Mr. Right" in order to interpret it unambiguously: Mr. Right is a man who would be a perfect partner in a relationship [5, p.27].

Thus, an important condition for the adequacy of the translation, the accuracy of determining the source of translation units, that is, identify text features of a language unit, namely, situational depending on the terms of the text, including dependence on a broad national-cultural context. Therefore, at present, many researchers tend to define a speech work (a connected text) as a unit of translation, rather than a single word.

Third, since the translator alternately uses at least two languages in the course of his work, they are in contact, the consequence of which is interference - the phenomenon of the influence of the original language on the target language and vice versa. Interference can be either negative (or destructive) - negative interference, or constructive - positive interference.

In the first case, it leads to various errors (phonetic, lexical, grammatical, and stylistic), inaccuracies and distortions that reduce the quality of the translation. The "false friends of translators" can serve as a vivid example of negative interference.

In the case of constructive interference, we are dealing with "the positive effect of the phenomena, functions and means of one language on the phenomena, functions and means of another language in their contact" [6, p.161]. Means should be understood primarily as vocabulary and grammar.

Thus, the "interference is an intervention of elements of one language system in another during

language contact, and the result of this intervention can be negative and expressed in a deviation from the norms of this language and positive, contributing to adequate translation and the acquisition of skills in one language under the influence of another" [6, p.173]. In addition, considering translation as a kind of cross-cultural communication and implying that the translation process is in touch with culture, or pragmatics, in a particular field of knowledge, one can raise the question of pragma-linguistic interference or interference of cultures.

Interlanguage contacts are considered optimal, in which "languages interact as "communicating vessels", balancing each other, filling in language gaps and enriching the conceptual spheres of their speakers" [7, p.91].

Here are some examples of translation errors caused by the interference of Russian and American linguistic cultures. We are talking about the American smiling optimism and pessimism of the age-old Russian. Unlike English, which was indelibly stamped in the United States with "positive thinking", permeated with a cheerful and optimistic mood, the Russian language for centuries was imbued with the spirit of a social system where a huge mass of oppressed people, including thousands of enslaved peasants, experienced a sense of doom and uncertainty in the future. For many centuries, this pessimism has become one of the distinctive features of the Russian national character [8, p. 52]. The reflection of these cultural and historical realities is found in the specifics of the construction of Russian and English negative sentences. First of all, it should be noted that the grammatical rules of the English language do not allow using more than one negation in a sentence, whereas in a Russian sentence there are often several negatives, indicating their special categoricity.

The following statements can serve as conclusions to this article:

1) translation can be viewed from the point of view of a real way of communication between representatives of different cultures and languages;

2) translation - the process of cross-cultural interaction of language personalities, the process of explaining one cultural code to another;

3) translation is:

a) the ability to organically select language equivalents in terms of their functional, structural and content correspondences;

b) the ability to transform the implicit information of the original into the explicit information in the translation;

4) translation is the interaction of languages and cultures; interference in translation can be not only negative, but also constructive, able to qualitatively help the translator or enrich the language;

5) the mission of the translator as a mediator of language contact is to overcome the distance between the cultures of communicants.

References

1. Book C.L., Albrecht T.L., Atkin Ch., Bettinghaus E.P., Donhue W.A., Farace R.V., Green- berg B.S., Hepler H.W., Milkovich M., Miller G.R., Ralph D.C., Smith T.J. Human Communication: Principles, Contexts, and Skills. - N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1980. - 311 p.

2. Bloch M. Ya. Theoretical foundations of grammar: Textbook - 4th edition corrected. -Moscow: Vysshaya shkola, 2005. - 239 p.

3. 3. Utrobina A. A. Theory of translation. -M.: Prior.ed., 2010. - 144 p.

4. Rapaille C. The Culture Code. An ingenious way to understand why people around the world buy and live as they do. - N.Y.: Broadway Books, 2007. - 214 p.

5. Belik E. V. Anglo-English linguoculturological dictionary "Man and woman". -Odintsovo: Odintsovo Humanitarian University, 2008. - 142 p.

6. Alimov V. V. Interference in translation (based on the material of professionally oriented intercultural communication and translation in the field of professional communication): textbook. Ed. 2nd. -M.: KomKniga, 2011. - 232 p.

7. Leontovich O. A. Introduction to intercultural communication: a textbook. - M.: Gnosis, 2007. - 368 p.

8. Visson L. Russian problems in English speech. Words and phrases in the context of two cultures. - Trans. from English; ed. 5th. - M.: R. Valent, 2011. - 192 p.

9. Belik E. V. Language-verbal cultural code of the nation. Series 2. Humanities: scientific and analytical journal, 2012. - pp. 174-180.

Utigenova Aizhan Erlanovna, Teacher of Foreign Languages and Translation Studies Department in Abay Myrzakhmetov Kokshetau University (the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kokshetau).

Zhumagulova Natalya Stanislavovna, Candidate of Pedagogical Science, Associate Professor, Head of the Foreign Languages and Translation Studies Department in Abay Myrzakhmetov Kokshetau University (the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kokshetau).

Утигенова Айжан Ерлановна, преподаватель кафедры иностранных языков и переводческого дела, Кокшетауский университет им. Абая Мырзахметьва (Республика Казахстан, г. Кокшетау).

е-mail: aizhan.utigenova@bk.ru

Жумагулова Наталья Станиславовна, кандидат педагогических наук, доцент, заведующая кафедрой иностранных языков и переводческого дела, Кокшетауский университет им. Абая Мырзахметьва (Республика Казахстан, г. Кокшетау).

е-mail: n_schum@inbox.ru

Дата поступления статьи: 02.03.2021

© Утигенова А.Е., Жумагулова Н.С., 2021

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