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Методические подходы к анализу финансового состояния предприятия

Проблема периодизации русской литературы ХХ века. Краткая характеристика второй половины ХХ века

Ценовые и неценовые факторы

Характеристика шлифовальных кругов и ее маркировка

Служебные части речи. Предлог. Союз. Частицы

КАТЕГОРИИ:






Individual Psychology of Slang




Obviously an individual in one of the groups or subcultures mentioned above, or any of many others, resorts to slang as a means of attesting membership in the group and of dividing him- or herself off from the mainstream culture. He or she merges both verbally and psychologically into the subculture that preens itself on being different from, in conflict with, and superior to the mainstream culture, and in particular to its assured rectitude and its pomp. Slang is thus an act of bracketing a smaller social group that can be comfortably joined and understood and be a shelter for the self. It is simultaneously an act of featuring and obtruding the self within the subculture — by cleverness, by control, by up-to-dateness, by insolence, by virtuosities of audacious and usually satirical wit, by aggression (phallic, if you wish). All this happens at fairly shallow levels in the psyche and can be readily understood. It explains most of what we know and feel about slang.

But what explains “it”? If, as the authorities agree, slang is a universal human trait and as old as the race itself, and if it came into being in the same human society where language itself was born, can we not seek deeper and more generalized explanations? Authorities also agree, as it happens, that the roots of slang must be sought in the deepest parts of the mind, in the unconscious itself. Although that territory is perilous ground for a working lexicographer, a few conjectures and a few relationships can be proposed for consideration. It seems that the deeper psychodynamics of slang has to do with two things: 1) defense of the ego against the superego, and 2) our simultaneous eagerness and reluctance to be human.

Surely wounded egos are the most common human non-anatomic possession. Slang might be seen as a remedy for them, as a self-administered therapy old as the first family that spoke. The family, like society, entails a hierarchy of power and of right, against which the healthy growing self of the child needs measures to compensate for its weakness and sinfulness. Slang as a remedy denies the weakness and brags about the sinfulness.

In this view, it would not be too much to claim that therapeutic slang is necessary for the development of the self; that society would be impossible without slang. It is curious that a linguistic phenomenon that seems so fleeting and so frivolous, as slang undeniably does, should at the same time be so deep and so vital to human growth and order. This is only one of the paradoxes of slang.

This aspect of slang is “deeper” than the matters mentioned above, like group identification and so on, only because it existed before groups, and it persists as groups themselves chop and change in the flux of history. In this aspect slang is similar to, and perhaps the same as, profanity. Like profanity slang is a surrogate for destructive physical action. Freud once remarked that the founder of civilization was the first man who hurled a curse rather than a rock or spear at his enemy. Slang also has this usefulness, and I suspect that profanity is a subcategory of slang, the more elemental phenomenon.

Hence, slang is language that has little to do with the main aim of language, the connection of sounds with ideas in order to communicate ideas, but is rather an attitude, a feeling, and an act. To pose another paradox: Slang is the most nonlinguistic sort of language.

“Our simultaneous eagerness and reluctance to be human” — what can that have to do with slang? Our notion here is that when you try to consider it deeply slang seems to join itself with several other phenomena: with Freud’s “dream-work,” with comedy, with elements of myth.

It seems that slang (we mean the slang impulse of the psyche) shares with all these the salvational and therapeutic function of both divorcing us from and maintaining our connection with genetic animality. Dream-work relieves us of the need to be reasonable and discharges the tension of the great burden with which our angelic rationality charges us. Although we are uncomfortable with paradox in ordinary language, we easily tolerate it in slang, where it seems as much at home as it is in the study of logic.

Slang links itself with comedy in the respect that it exploits and even celebrates human weakness, animality, without working to extirpate it. It makes room for our vileness, but only so much room. The great comic figures of our culture usually come in pairs, each member having its legitimacy, and each limiting the other: Sancho Panza and Don Quixote; Falstaff and Prince Hal; Huck Finn and who? — Tom Sawyer, Aunt Polly, even Jim. To these we may add the Wife of Bath, whose counterfigure was a part of herself, making her more like most of us than Sancho or Falstaff or Huck are. We may add, without too much strain, the comic figure Dante Alighieri over against Beatrice and the lightweight devil Mephistopheles over against Faust. What we seem to have in the comic heroes and in our own slang impulse is a reaching for or clinging to the primal earth, a nostalgie de la boue, which helps make tolerable the hard aspiration to be civilized and decent.

As to myth, Sancho, Alice of Bath, and Falstaff are modern myths themselves. For ancient myth we might think of Antaeus, whose strength was valid only while he had his feet on the earth, and of Silenus and the satyrs, and even of the Devil himself, who must, when he is not quoting scripture, speak a great deal of slang. We may also attend to the intriguing “trickster” figure who is so prevalent in world mythology. C. G. Jung reminds me of the slang impulse when he asserts, for example, “... [the trickster’s] fondness for sly jokes and malicious pranks, his powers as a shape-shifter, his dual nature, half animal, half divine, his exposure to all kinds of tortures, and — last but not least — his approximation to the figure of a saviour.” In the same essay, “On the Psychology of the Trickster-Figure,” Jung relates the trickster to the medieval Feast of Fools and other manifestations of the comic and slang spirit, especially those that deflate pomp, that prick presumption, that trip up our high horses. Jung believed that the civilizing process began within the framework of the trickster myth, which is a race memory of the human achievement of self-consciousness.

As the literary scholar Wylie Sypher said, “…man is not man without being somehow uneasy about the ‘nastiness’ of his body, [and] obscenity… is a threshold over which man enters into the human condition. ” For obscenity we might read slang, and observe that we are not so far beyond the threshold that we cannot always reach it with out foot, which is of clay.

Slang is also the idiom of the life force. That is, it has roots somewhere near those of sexuality, and it regularly defies death. What we have in mind is partly the “dirty” and taboo constituent of slang, but even more its tendency to kid about being hanged, electrocuted, murdered, or otherwise annihilated. Gallows humor is, from this point of view, more central to slang than may have been thought.

One changing pattern that has obvious connections with both socio- and psycholinguistics is the relation of slang to gender. In these times, and partly because of the feminist movement, women are more and more using the taboo and vulgar slang formerly accounted a male preserve. Sociologically this shows the determination of some women to enter the power structure by talking on this badge, among others, that denotes “maleness”, and simultaneously to shed the restrictions of the “ladylike” persona. Psychologically the implications are not that clear, but it may be that some women are determined to replicate at the core of their psyches the aggressive and ordering nature we have usually identified as a part of profound maleness, or else to show that these masculine traits do not lie as deep as we thought.

There isn’t any litmus test for slang and non-slang. Slang shares misty boundaries with a relaxed register usually called “informal” or “colloquial”, and we inevitable stray across the boundary, hence altogether this type of vocabulary combines slang and the so called unconventional English.

Slang also shares a boundary with a stylistic register we might call “figurative idiom”, in which inventive and poetic terms, especially metaphors, are used for novelty and spice, and incidentally for self-advertisement and cheekiness, in relief of a standard language that is accurate and clear but not personal and kinetic.

LECTURE 15:Extra-linguistic Factor
(Background Knowledge)

 

In order to translate from foreign language it is not enough to learn it. One must thoroughly learn ethnography of the community speaking this language. Without knowing culture of the language carriers, translator will put his understanding, accumulated in sphere of another language experience, into language forms, distorting in such a way a source language as well. Without knowing international, regional and national cultures the translator’s information taken only from the text translated, will appear distorted or even invented, fictitious.

Difficulties emerge in the text where national notions and historical facts which may be unknown to the reader, appear, but without those ones the plot of the work will not be rendered accurately. Let us consider the main types of these difficulties.

In the first turn the difficulties are related to the translation of terms and measurement units; even in translation they may not be comprehended by the reader:

Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high.

Тридцять ярдів дерев’яної огорожі заввишки дев’ять футів. (Ярд — англійська міра довжини, що дорівнює 0,91 м; у футі 0,3 м.)

In this case measurement units are translated word-for-word, therefore a reader who’s not aware of this measurement system, will hardly understand what the author was focusing his attention at. Therefore in order to specify the information the translator should resort to either giving translation with the units known to the reader (Двадцять сім метрів огорожі заввишки три метри), or giving the proportion of the units in kind of the commentary.

Come — out with your spring-line — what’re you about there!

Чого стоїш? Носовий швартов!

(Канат, яким корабель причалюють до стовпів пристані.)

To translate this passage the translator had to know navigable terms and a special sublanguage, used in marine.

…they had to take soundings before they could navigate it.

…їм довелось міряти глибину лотом, а потім вже плисти.

(Лот – прилад для вимірювання глибини; найпростіший вид лота – гиря на довгій мотузці.)

In this case the translator replaced an abstract word “soundings” (measuring depth) by a more concrete and close notion to a Ukrainian reader “ лот ”.

Interpretation of Biblical stories takes a special place in translating fiction in general and English literature in particular. Specific character of English nation is reflected in the fact, that in each even unimportant and minor episode the author strives to draw a parallel with one of the Biblical topics to strengthen emotive influence on his reader:

Then Tom girded up his loins…

Потім Том перепоясав свої чересла…

The matter is that in ancient times the warriors attached their swords to their belts on the hips; therefore the expression “перепоясати чересла” has remained in the Bible text. Now it is used in idiomatic sense: to “gird up one’s loins” means to get prepared to a trial.

Sometimes the Biblical symbols carry highly important semantic load:

“The names of the first two disciples were – “DAVID and GOLIAH!” [Goliath]

Перших двох учнів Христа звали: Давид і Голіаф.

Here inconsistency of Biblical personages is used for strengthening the funny side of the situation. Actually the first two disciples of Christ were Andrew and Peter, and David and Goliath are personages of absolutely different Biblical episode. Confusing the names the main hero demonstrates his absolute ignorance of the matter, representing himself in unfavourable, comic light.

I hain’t hearn ‘bout none un um, skasely, but old King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat’s in a pack er k’yards.

Я навіть і не чув ніколи про жодного з них, окрім про Царя Соломона, і ще, може, бачив королів в колоді карт, якщо вони щось важать.

Here the translator certainly had to know this Biblical hero (King Solomon), as the dialogue following this passage turns around discussing king’s wisdom and his just decisions.

It should be noted that the Holy Scripture, its main personages and events are met in fiction very often, therefore knowing the Bible belongs to that sphere of background knowledge of cultural nature of the source language, without which rigorous translation is just unfeasible, unrealizable.

Historical figures and events possess a special place in translation:

The mayor of the village… made a warm speech in which he said that it was by far the most “eloquent” thing he had ever listened to, and that Daniel Webster himself might well be proud of it.

Мер міста виголосив гарячу промову. З його слів, він „ніколи не чув нічого більш красномовного і промовистого“, і „сам Деніел Уебстер міг би пишатися подібним шедевром ораторського мистецтва“.

In this case the translator needed information about Daniel Webster’s activity to fully render the abstract. That man was an outstanding political figure and wonderful public speaker. The latter is used by the author to underline the virtues of the work, heard by the mayor.

…the Judge said that it was a noble, a generous, a magnanimous lie — a lie that was worthy to hold up its head and march down through history breast to breast with George Washington’s lauded Truth about the hatchet!

Суддя наголосив, що то була благородна, щиросерда й великодушна брехня, брехня, яка варта того, щоб високо підняти голову й крокувати пліч-о-пліч з уславленою правдою Джорджа Вашингтона – тією правдою, яку він сказав про сокиру.

It’s difficult to grasp the point of the passage, if one does not know the legend relating the hatchet and George Washington. George Washington (1732-1799), the first President of the USA, was famous for his honesty and integrity. The legend says that when a six year child he chipped a cherry-tree by the hatchet in his father’s garden and knowing that his father would get angry with his misconduct, honestly confessed to everything.

The Iron Mask always done that, and it’s a blame’ good way, too.

Залізна маска завжди так робив, і це теж дуже гарний спосіб.

Tragedy and hopelessness of the Bastille captive in XVII century, whose face was hidden behind the iron mask, is meant here. His miserable condition made him keep in secret his communication with outside world, which was used by the author to emphasize the hero’s sufferings.

That drop was falling when the Pyramids were new, when Troy fell; when the foundations of Rome were laid, when Christ was crucified; when the Conqueror created the British Empire; when Columbus sailed; when the massacre at Lexington was “news.”

Ця крапля падала, коли піраміди були ще новими спорудами; коли нищили Трою; коли було закладено підвалини Риму; коли розпинали Христа; коли Вільгельм завойовник створював Британську імперію; коли Колумб вирушив у море; коли була ще свіжою новиною Лексингтонська битва.

Here the author places his emphasis on the remoteness of events. It is known that Troy fell in XII B.C.; Rome was founded in VIII B.C.; Columbus discovered America in 1492; and Lexington massacre which became the first confrontation and clash between Americans and Englishmen in the war for Independence, took place in 1775.

The analysis surely won’t be full if the problems emerging in translation of folklore, customs and traditions of another culture are not taken into account:

…and it was whispered through the shuddering crowd that the wound bled a little!

…серед збудженого натовпу прокотився шепіт, що з рани просочилася кров!

It’s necessary to explain that there is a popular belief or superstition that if a murderer comes close to his victim, the wounds on the victim’s body start bleeding. In this episode the hero is accused of murder and superstitious people are waiting when the dead body starts bleeding at the murderer’s appearance.

No! by the great Sachem, no!

Ні! Клянусь великим Сахемом, ні!

The chiefs of some Indian tribes were called Sachems. This remark is pronounced by an Indian. The use of this name is called to draw attention to pride and age-old traditions of Indians.

Speaking about general culture of a translator we usually imply that he should have universal knowledge, particularly, when translating fiction. Moreover, this knowledge should be certainly of two kinds: knowledge of both languages which he works with. If background knowledge is absent then translation becomes incorrect: the translator understands details of original incorrectly and thereby misleads a reader.

Problems arise when the original text contains cultural and historical facts, having no analogues in national culture and social culture which the translator belongs to. These difficulties springing up in translation should be resolved by all means.

It is important for the translator to know values common to all mankind, first of all religious ones. This includes not only knowledge of the Bible, but at least possession of general notions, inherent in other world religions. This assumes knowledge of principal doctrines of both Christianity in its various manifestations, and Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. In English literature we often find references to the Holy Scripture as well as the parallels drawn with its text:

… he looked that grand and good and pious that you’d say he had walked right out of the ark, and maybe was old Leviticus himself.

… на вигляд він був такий поважний, благочестивий добродій — ну, начебто сам старий Ной, який щойно вийшов зі свого ковчега.

This episode places emphasis on the resemblance of hero’s qualities with those of Noah — one of the most famous Biblical personages. In order to fully understand the meaning of this comparison the translator should know about all Noah’s virtues and righteousness. Otherwise this comparison makes no sense.

I lay you’ll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I ask you — or the likes of you”.

Та хоч би ви дожили до Мафусаїлових років, не бути цьому ніколи! Дуже потрібні мені такі бовдури.

This is one more example to confirm the statement mentioned above. The Bible says that Methusalem reached a great age. In this episode he appears as an example of longevity. The author makes use of this fact to strengthen the effect of comparison.

He’s plumb crazy, s’I; it’s what I says in the fust place, it’s what I says in the middle, ‘n’ it’s what I says last ‘n’ all the time — the nigger’s crazy — crazy’s Nebokoodneezer, s’I.”

Зовсім з глузду з’їхав, кáжу; так із самого початку і казала, й потому говорила й зара кáжу, і завше буду говорити: цьой негр зовсім здурів, геть тобі Навуходоносор, кáжу…(the hero makes mistakes in English reflected in translation).

Nebokoodneezer was a Babilonian king and according to the Bible he was stricken with madness. Without knowing this fact it is hard to translate this episode adequately.

Quite often the fiction (not to mention scientific-technical literature) contains various specific terms from different spheres of human vital activity. Usually the use of those terms is dictated by the author’s desire to stress the colour of a specific profession or just to point out the hero’s profession:

… and by-and-by I found him roosting on the bitts, forward, with his head down between his knees.

… врешті-решт я знайшов його на бітенгу; він спав, звісивши голову на коліна.

Translation of the word “bitt” seems difficult as it is borrowed from the vocabulary characteristic of sea work, and gives the episode a necessary colour. Its equivalent is “ бітенг ” – “ подвійна металічна тумба або дерев’яна стійка, за яку чіпляють причальні канати ”.

People would call me a low down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum — but that don’t make no difference.

Нехай всі мене кличуть підлим аболіціоністом, нехай з презирством ставляться до мене, я такий як є, і мені начхати!

In XIX century in the USA supporters of the movement for liberating Negros from slavery were called abolitionists. This term is an absolutely “foreign” for our ear, as there wasn’t any problem of slavery in our country, and there isn’t any equivalent of this word in our language.

…while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement.

…збивати кеглі й сходити на Монблан – одне задоволення.

In this episode the hero’s pleasure is associated with a pleasure of climbing Mont Blanc (mountain in Switzerland). Not all the readers have had the possibility to appreciate fascination of this climbing, therefore it would be more expedient to pick up the equivalent typical for our reality.

Allusions (mentioning) and references to local customs, superstitions, popular beliefs, etc., contained in foreign texts, present special difficulty in translation. This type of notions is transformed with difficulty into corresponding notions of culture of a different language community. E.g.:

“I saved it from the picnic for us to dream on, Tom, the way grown-up people do with wedding cake.

Я сховала шматочок весільного пирога на пікніку, хотіла покласти під подушку, щоб ми побачили один одного вві сні. Так завжди роблять дорослі.

In England superstitious girls put a piece of wedding pie under the pillow to have a dream about their promised husband. The translator should know about such customs to inform the reader about the sense of this tradition. It is not desirable to replace this kind of ceremonies by analogous ones, as the whole meaning and national colouring of the work only lose from it. In this case it’s necessary to give corresponding explanations.

…but when he straightened himself up like a liberty-pole, and the lightning begun to flicker out from under his eyebrows you wanted to climb a tree first, and find out what the matter was afterwards.

…але коли випростається, а це він уміє, як травневий кілок, і почне шпурляти блискавки з-під густих брів, то спочатку хочеться швидко залізти на дерево, а потім уже дізнаватися, у чому справа.

Liberty-pole is a necessary thing of people’s festivals in America. But the details like this may muddle and bewilder the translator entirely. The translator should pay attention to such pieces of subtlety and in difficulty to refer to corresponding literary sources.

Mentioning the historical events and figures, having certain importance for country – original language carrier may become another source of difficulties in translation of foreign literature:

“Well, Capet, we’ll want to make this a first-class show, you know, so I guess we’ll add a little more to it.

„Ну ж бо, Капет, вистава, щоб ти знав, у нас має вийти супер, тому, мені здається, треба щось до неї додати“.

Capet is a nickname of Lyudovick XVI. Without knowing this fact one might make an inexcusable mistake:

“Yes, my friend, it is too true – your eyes is lookin’ at this very moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the Sixteen and Marry Antonette.”

Так, мій друже, це істинна правда – ви бачите перед собою нещасного, без вісти зниклого Дофіна Людовика XVII, сина Людовика XVI і Марії Антуанетти.

Maria Antoinette is a French queen, who during the bourgeois revolution of the XVIII century was executed by revolted people.

They had pictures hung on the walls – mainly Washingtons and Lafayettes, and Battles, and Highland Marys, and one called “Signing the Declaration”.

На стінах у них висіли картини – переважно Вашингтони, та Лафайєти, та всілякі битви, та шотландська королева Марія Стюарт, одна картина називалася „Підписання Декларації“.

Lafayette is a French officer who took part in the American Revolution (the war for independence) as a volunteer of the American Army. The Declaration of Independence was signed in July 4, 1776, which initiated separation of 13 American colonies from England and foundation of the USA.

To avoid mistakes in translating the texts, containing the records of historical events, the translator should at least generally know the history of the country which the text says about, and also the most significant historical and political figures, people’s heroes, etc.

Translator must be a mediator between a foreign author and readers trying hard to impart the sense of the work without distortions by all means accessible. Where it is possible and appropriate - to adapt the notions unclear to the reader, selecting the corresponding equivalents from native literature, and in the rest of cases to find possibility of explaining the notion difficult for understanding.

As it is seen from examples, translator should not only possess deep knowledge of languages, theory and practice of translation, but also sufficiently broad knowledge of history, sociology, culture and mankind in general, not to mention technical translation, where substantial knowledge of a subject or technical discipline is just necessary. Hence, not only bilingual dictionaries, which is self-understood, but also various encyclopedias and specialized sources should be the main tool of any translator.

LECTURE 16: Translation on the Level of Phonemes

 






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