Abstract
The aim of the article is to analyze translational strategies used to render a contextual meaning of a lexical unit. The article deals with the general problem of studying word translation in artistic English texts. The object of the article is the novels by K. Vonnegut. The subject of the article is translational transformations, their frequency and reliability. This problem is a topical one as any type of meaning on the one hand is a certain translational problem, on the other hand, it creates a text specificity. The material of investigation includes abstracts from various artistic texts of classical English literature. The methods of investigation are descriptive and comparative one. Thus the results of the article are the description of stylistic and translational peculiarities of contextual meaning. The mechanism of its translation was studied by a few researchers and the peculiarities of their functioning were analyzed. Translation of contextual meaning is important enough. Every language combines a form and value arbitrary enough and has specific character. All types of meaning have such inherent feature that they contrast to each other, and there are a few expressions that have different values but identical or similar form. The conclusions state that analyzing the classical English literature we can specify such translational transformations as main ones: 1) analogous translation; 2) compensation; 3) replacement. The main ways of translating this kind of words are analogue, compensation, replacement and sometimes omission which is not desirable. Their choice to a certain extent depends on the register of the context: neutral narrative, scientific or colloquial. Ther transformations in scientific context are less pronounced, there we can find analogues, antonymic translations and logical development. All types of replacements are traced in narrative register. The colloquial register may need all types of transformations, compensation among them. The prospects of our investigation are connected with studying possibilities of translating pragmaic meaning.
Highlights
Some ways of translating contextual meaning in these registers coincide, the others differ
We can make the conclusion that the contextual meaning is one of the greatest problems in translating any text
The main ways of translating this kind of words are analogue, compensation, replacement and sometimes omission which is not desirable. Their choice to a certain extent depends on the register of the context: neutral narrative, scientific or colloquial
Summary
Translators of the Russian text in this case preferred to keep the structure of the original sentence, and used mere descriptive approach – безветренной экваториальной зоне, which is a good solution in terms of space economy, and is often considered as a near equivalent of a word ‘doldrums’, and included to bilingual dictionaries as an analogue of this noun. When Kurt Vonnegut tells his readers about Darwin’s most famous and influential scientific volume “The Origin of Species”, he mentions the fact that: “It did more to stabilize people’s volatile opinions of how to identify success or failure than any other tome.” This phrase presents no considerable challenge for translators, yet we cannot help noticing, that the literal or word-for-word translation thereof (стабилизировать) and even the slightly different in terms of connotative meaning ‘систематизировать’ would not make much sense in Russian or Ukrainian. К примеру, что ребенок может родиться без музыкального слуха, подобно Мэри Хепберн”
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
