Zoya Proshina The abc and Controversies of World Englishes ббк 81
|
|  Yüklə 2.18 Mb.
|
Direct vs. Intermediary TranslationКлючевые слова: прямой перевод, опосредованный перевод, переводческая транскрипция, транслитерация, заимствование Until recently learners of English in the Expanding Circle regarded their goal of studying English as “interaction with native speakers with a focus on understanding the customs, the cultural achievements (generally high culture only), as well as learning the language ‘perfectly’ – ‘mastering’ it” (Berns 2005: 86). Today there came awareness of another target – we are studying English to communicate not only with native speakers (probably, there will be a slight opportunity to do it) but mostly with other non-native speakers from neighboring countries (in the Russian Far East we mostly interact with East Asian communicators) in the domains of business, tourism, research, and culture. To be able to communicate with speakers of ‘other’ Englishes, we have to know two things: first, their typical deviations in order to anticipate them and be ready to comprehend the meaning and, second, to know their culture in order to interpret the meaning correctly. These are the things that are to be known by ordinary communicators and, first and foremost, by translators and interpreters. In the 20th century, most Russian translators and interpreters that worked with East Asian speakers dealt with direct translation from Chinese / Japanese /Korean into Russian. The traditions of the so called Russian Oriental school of translation have been deep-rooted and well-established. They were based mainly on the transcription of oral speech which, as it appears, is perceived differently by Russian and British or American ear. It is well-known that due to transference from our native language, we hear new sounds produced by a speaker of another language approximating them to the sounds of our own language and, when imitating them, we articulate them in a manner we pronounce sounds of our own language. This accounts for the difference in translation transcription of Asian words in Russian and English – in particular, while Russians hear the Japanese pronounce palatalized сь [s’], the English hear sh [S]; the Russians transcribe another Japanese sound as palatalized ть [t], while English-speaking people hear [C] and transcribe it as ch. Examples of direct translations from Japanese are Хиросима – Hiroshima, иваси - iwashi, тяною - chanoyu, сякухати – shakuhachi. Direct translation can be schematically shown as follows:
When English became a lingua franca, or an intermediary between an Asian language and Russian, those translators who were not familiar with Asian languages and did not know the rules of direct translation from Japanese/Chinese/Korean were apt to employ regular rules of transcription from English into Russian. In this case Asian words in a Romanized form were taken for English words and translated into Russian as if they were English. Thus the Japanese sushi was translated as суши instead of суси, the Japanese Hitachi was rendered as Хитачи rather than Хитати and Mitsubishi turned into Мицубиши instead of Мицубиси. As a matter of fact these words were transliterated rather than transcribed from English into Russian, as they were borrowed from an English written text. In this case we deal with the intermediary translation, i.e. translation from a lingua franca, which can be represented in the following diagram: 
Since the influence and role of English in Russia is increasing, more and more people use the second scheme of translation. In translation of books on martial arts, which are abundant in Russian bookstores today, we can find a lot of examples of this type: Chinese tai-chi (Wade-Giles) is translated as тайчи instead of тайцзи; Japanese waza-ari is transliterated as ваза-ари rather than вадза-ари; jiu-jitsu as джиу-джицу or even джиу-джитсу but not дзюдзицу and so on. Kids play with тамагочи as translated from tamagochi. Examples like these are so many in our everyday life. They sometimes are stigmatized as incorrect because many of these words were borrowed into Russian long ago directly from Asian languages and have been codified by dictionaries in a different form. Ignorance of translators from English is usually considered to be inexcusable and is generally frowned on. Since the tradition of direct translation is of longer standing than the trend of transliterating Asian words from English into Russian, it is recommended that even in case of intermediary translation the form of loan-words be adapted to the rules of direct translation. The major discrepancies between direct and indirect translations of East Asian words consist in the following10:
Every language is dynamic and changes in time. So do rules of intermediary translation. Though to-date the trend towards direct translation dominates over the tendency towards indirect translation, words translated by the rules of English-Russian transliteration gradually penetrate into the Russian language. Some of them have already been codified – e.g., гейша (cf. outdated гэйся < geisha; рикша < рикуся < (jin)rikisha, rickshaw). Given the fast and intensive spread of the English language, we can predict that the number of such words will grow. At least, today you can hardly see суси-бары anywhere; instead, суши-бары invitingly open their doors… Questions to discuss: 83. What is the difference between direct and intermediary translation? 84. Why do the rules of direct translation prevail over the rules of indirect translation? 85. Besides a longer historical tradition of direct translating from Asian languages into Russian, could there be any other reasons for adopting the words суши and Доширак? What are these reasons? 86. Which forms of translation, written or oral, prevailed in the early 20th century and which of them prevail now? What makes you come to this conclusion? 87. Find English equivalents to the Russian key words stated before the text of the chapter. Discuss the meaning of the terms. 88. Suggest the correct translation of the following Japanese loans: Toshiba, Kitakyushu, Kagoshima, Kushiro, Fukushima, Kuroshio, Shimonoseki, shinkansen, Chukyo, Kochi, Hoichi, Ogimachi, Raicho, Kanazawa, Miyazaki, Shizuoka, Kenzan, Fujisawa, Gosanjo, Hojo, Izanagi, Jakuchu, Jigokomushi, Jizo, Josetsu, Jurojin 89. Fill out the table translating the names of Chinese provinces and their capital cities:
90. Match the following Korean geographical terms in English and in Russian. Pay attention to the fact that Russian terms are closer to MacCune-Reischuer than to the Revised Romanization.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
