Transformations and their use in the translation of medical publicism from English into Russian

Ермаганбетова Жаннур

Студентка

Карагандинский университет им. академика Е.А. Букетова, Казахстан, Караганда

In order to translate and teach translation well, knowledge of two languages ​​is not enough. In addition, it is necessary to know the translation, to discover its search and contradictory nature, a clear study of the requirements imposed by society on translation and the translator. Today, when the science of translation has made a noticeable step forward, it is no longer possible to teach in the old fashioned way, appealing only to the linguistic intuition of students when substantiating translations of solutions.

When analyzing and evaluating, more important, scientifically sound arguments are needed. The ability to find such arguments presupposes the acuity of «theoretical vision». A great contribution to the development of problems in the field of transformations was made by such scientists as: Retsker Ya.I., Semyonov A.L., Krupnov V.V., Pivueva Yu.V., Dvoynina E.V. Translation transformations cause the action of character transformation on the original text, which is used to transform the source text into a translation unit. Due to the fact that translation transformations are made by languages ​​with units of measurement that have mandatory and formulations, that is, they are recorded that they are transformed and transformed and formed, and the value of the original units. Translation transformations are almost always considered as a translation activity of translation agencies when working on errors in texts in cases where there is no dictionary guide or it exists but cannot be used in the experiment.

Translation transformations turn into lexical, grammatical and complex (lexico-grammatical) — everything depends on the nature of the units of the source language. In this thesis, possible types of lexical and grammatical transformations: concretization, generalization, substitutions, permutations, descriptive translation, etc.

There are many classifications that study this type of transformation.

The theme of this thesis “Transformations and their use in the translation of medical publicism from English into Russian” is due to the fact that in the current rapidly developing journalism, the study of transformations, as well as their application in practice, occupies one of the most important steps.

The relevance of the topic lies in the fact that this topic is little studied. For many years and in this period of time, the problem of using translation transformations in the translation of medical journalism has attracted and still attracts the interest of many translators. The author, who conveys his thought through an interpreter, is trying to understand and convey information for everyone. The very process of thought transmission through an intermediary is an actual phenomenon.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the transformations in the translation of medical publications, indicate their main types and show how they are transmitted during translation. To equip the translator with the latest knowledge in the field of translation theory, to tell about the place of transformations in social practice, about the problems of their use when translating books of medical journalism such as “Transcend. Nine steps to living well forever» by T. Grossman «Transcend. Nine Steps to Eternal Life” and “Why we sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams” by M. Walker “Why do we sleep. A new science of sleep and dreams «and thus create the necessary theoretical basis for the effective translation of transformation data and practical mastery of them.

In connection with this goal, the following tasks arise:

1) reveal the essence of the concept of lexical, grammatical and lexico-grammatical transformations;

2) to analyze the proposals, based on the analysis of the translation of books of medical journalism such as ““Transcend. Nine steps to living well forever» by T. Grossman «Transcend. Nine Steps to Eternal Life” and “Why we sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams” by M. Walker “Why do we sleep. The New Science of Sleep and Dreams».

3) show the connection between transformations in practice;

4) give an interpretation and process the results.

The object of the research is translation transformations.

The subject of the research is the transformations in the books we have chosen.

The sources of the study were books of medical journalism on the topic of the study.

The material of the study was the book “Transcend. Nine steps to living well forever» by T. Grossman «Transcend. Nine Steps to Eternal Life” and “Why we sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams” by M. Walker “Why do we sleep. The New Science of Sleep and Dreams».

The volume of analyzed transformations is 61 examples.

The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that the transformations are subjected to thorough research. And also an attempt is made to present a complete description of the coincidences and differences of these transformations.

In our work, a hypothesis is put forward that the most important basis for the application of transformations is the various methods of speech processing in Russian and English, respectively, and the choice of one or another transformation.

The theoretical significance of the thesis is:

a) determining the connection of transformations;

b) determining the specifics of the application of a particular transformation in the target languages;

c) providing theoretical background to:

further study of the types of transformations that have not been analyzed in this thesis, in particular, the differences between lexical, complex and grammatical transformations, which can serve as a starting point for deeper research;

research and study of the features of the application of a particular transformation in the transmission of the original text in the translated texts;

The practical significance lies in the possibility of using the results obtained in the classroom on the theory of language, theory of translation, grammar; in the continuation of the study of the features of the use of transformations in translation.

Volume and structure of the diploma work.

The construction of the thesis is determined by its purpose and objectives. The work is presented on 69 pages and consists of the following structural elements: title page, content, introduction, main part, conclusion, list of references, application.

         The theoretical significance of the study is based on a detailed consideration of the use of translation transformations in medical journalism.

The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of using its results in further theoretical and practical developments and research.

The introduction reveals the relevance of the chosen topic, determines the degree of study of the problem under study, the purpose, objectives, research methods, object, subject, as well as the theoretical and practical significance of the work.

The first chapter «Theoretical foundations of medical journalism as an object of translation» presents the theoretical foundations of medical journalism and their ways. We applied the considered theoretical knowledge in the practical part of the thesis.

The second chapter “Practical analysis of the use of transformations in the translation of medical journalism from English into Russian” is devoted to the analysis of the use of translation transformations. In the books of medical journalism “Transcend. Nine steps to living well forever» by T. Grossman «Transcend. Nine Steps to Eternal Life” and “Why we sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams” by M. Walker “Why do we sleep. The new science of sleep and dreams” from the point of view of the translation transformations used.

In conclusion, the results of the study are summarized and final conclusions on the topic under consideration are formed.

The aim. The aim of this research is to determine the transformations in the translation of English books of medical publications into Russian.

The material for the scientific. The material for the scientific study was the transformations and their translation into Russian, selected by the method of continuous sampling from the following books of medical publicism «Transcend. Nine steps to living well forever» and «Why we sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams».  

Results and discussion.

Examples of the use of different translation transformation for the practical analysis of the book “Why do we sleep. A new science about sleep and dreams” by Matthew Walker were selected from the first chapter of the book.

In total, we selected 30 examples. However, we explored a much larger number of transformations, since sometimes in one sentence or paragraph we could meet several translation transformations at once.

The issue of using translation transformations continues to be one of the most relevant in the field of both written and oral translation. It is for this reason that translators continue to turn to this topic and try to find out which transformations will be the most optimal and appropriate for a given situation. The practical analysis we conducted allowed us to acquire practical skills in using translation transformations and understand which transformations professional translators prefer.

To determine this and to draw conclusions, we concluded that some classifications were used more often than others. In general, the statistics of the transformations used are as follows: lexical transformations (23 cases), grammatical transformations (12 cases), and lexico-grammatical transformations (19 cases) [Appendix 1].

Now let’s look at them in more detail.

The most commonly used lexical transformations were: concretization (39%), generalization (4%), calque (9%), and modulation (48%) [Appendix 2].

Grammar and lexico-grammatical translation transformations took the second and third places in terms of frequency of use.

Lexico-grammatical transformations were used with the following frequency: descriptive translation (33%), antonymic translation (8%), compensation (8%), omission (33%), addition (18%) [Appendix 3].

The grammatical transformations that we have found are: grammatical substitutions (59%), division of sentences (8%), connection of sentences (25%), syntactic assimilation (8%) [Appendix 4].

Thus, we can make a logical conclusion that the choice of an appropriate translation strategy and a certain translation transformation in particular is determined by the context and the case itself, which must be translated from English into Russian. Correctly and efficiently using and combining various translation transformations, the translator will be able to solve the main task of any translation, which is to create an interesting, correct, adequate text that will correspond to the original at all levels of equivalence.

Examples of the use of different translation transformation for the practical analysis we analyzed 31 examples from the book «Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever» written by two famous writers: Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman. During the research, we determined the type of translation transformations that were used by the translator during the transfer and adaptation of the work into Russian.

For analysis, examples were selected exclusively from the first chapter of the book.

The presented analysis allows us to make the following conclusion: when translating this work, the translator turned to the use of various translation transformations, the main goal of which was to achieve the most complete translation equivalence and semantic adequacy. An accurate and complete translation is especially important when translating medical journalism, as it should be understandable to anyone outside the world of medicine, but at the same time retain the meaning and correctly convey all the terms, examples and any other information given by the author.

Thus, in the course of our study, we concluded that the following types of transformations were most often used: lexico-grammatical transformations (23 cases), lexical transformations (17 cases), and grammatical transformations (17 cases) [Appendix 5].

Now let’s look at them in more detail.

Among lexical transformations, the translator most often referred to the use of concretization (64%). Calque (18%) and generalization (18%) were used less frequently comparing to concretization [Appendix 6].

The most frequently used grammatical transformations were grammatical substitutions (47%). In second place are the division of the sentences (29%). This is followed by literal translation (18%) and sentence concatenation (6%) [Appendix 7].

Lexico-grammatical (or complex) translation transformations turned out to be the most popular choice for the translator of the work we have chosen. Among them, modulation (47%) was most often used. Omission (26%), compensation (9%), descriptive translation (9%) and antonymic translation (9%) were also applied [Appendix 8].

We also came to the conclusion that often translators have to resort to complex translation transformations in order to achieve an adequate translation. This means that several different translation transformations can occur in one sentence at once. For this reason, in our thesis work, there were more transformations than the examples themselves.

CONSLUSION

Summing up the work done, we can say that the translation of medical journalism mainly occurs with the help of translation transformations, for this reason, the use of transformations in solving translation difficulties is one of the most promising and their study remains relevant to this day. Translation transformations are necessary in order to increase the level of equivalence in translation and make the final text as close as possible to the original.

As this work was being written, we examined the history of the creation of medical journalism, the methods and techniques of its translation, identified the types of translation transformations, and investigated the causes of translation transformations. The studied theoretical base of information gave us the opportunity to make assumptions regarding the use of transformations, to make a practical analysis of the translation transformations that were used in the translation of the works of medical journalism “Transcend. Nine steps to living well forever» by T. Grossman, as well as «Why we sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams» by M. Walker., and then confirm or refute our assumptions made at the beginning of the work.

Transformations are an integral part and the main tool for achieving an adequate and equivalent translation. Literary translation is a very complex and serious process that uses all kinds of translation transformations, namely: stylistic, morphological, syntactic, semantic, lexical and grammatical. Of these, the most important are lexical and grammatical transformations, which were given the most attention in this work.

It should be noted that in the process of translation activity, transformations are most often of a mixed type. As a rule, various kinds of transformations are carried out simultaneously, that is, they are combined with each other — a permutation is accompanied by a replacement, a grammatical transformation is accompanied by a lexical one, etc., that is, translation transformations are complex.

Thus, the goal of this work was achieved by solving the tasks set: the concept of a literary text was considered, the basic principles of its translation were determined, various classifications of translation transformations were compared, and the most frequent examples of their use in the translation of individual texts were considered. So, we can conclude that translation transformations are not used in their pure form. Most often they are used in a complex of several transformations, which provides an equivalent translation of a work of art.

In the practical part, we concluded that translators prefer to refer to different types of transformations and do not give their preference to any one type. This is due to the fact that translation transformations are very diverse, and for each case it is necessary to consider the situation separately in order to select the most appropriate type of transformation that can fully convey the original text in such a way as to preserve its adequacy, expressiveness and convey the author’s original thought.The presented analysis allows us to make the following conclusion: when translating this works, the translator turned to the use of various translation transformations, the main goal of which was to achieve the most complete translation equivalence and semantic adequacy. An accurate and complete translation is especially important when translating medical journalism, as it should be understandable to anyone outside the world of medicine, but at the same time retain the meaning and correctly convey all the terms, examples and any other information given by the author.

Thus, in the course of our study, we concluded that the following types of transformations were most often used: lexico-grammatical transformations (42 cases), grammatical transformations (40 cases) and lexical transformations (29 cases).

In this work, an analysis was made of works that had not previously been analyzed. There are few translators of specialists who undertake translations of medical journalism. Since in this topic it is very important to bring the idea without changing the meaning.

So, summing up the work done, we note the following: translation of medical journalism is considered to be the most complex and multifaceted type of written and oral translation; medical translation can be called a type of translation activity, the main task of which is the correct formulated transmission of the text. Comparing such texts, one can reveal the internal mechanism of translation, identify equivalent units, and also identify what transformations need to be made in order to achieve not only lexical and grammatical, but also stylistic equivalence of translation, which is especially valuable when translating medical texts.

Transformations are an integral part and the main tool for achieving an adequate and equivalent translation. The translation of medical journalism is a very complex and serious process that uses all kinds of translation transformations, namely: lexical, lexico-grammatical and grammatical. Of these, the most important are lexical and grammatical transformations, which were given the most attention in this work.

It should be noted that in the process of translation activity, transformations are most often of a mixed type. As a rule, various kinds of transformations are carried out simultaneously, that is, they are combined with each other — a permutation is accompanied by a replacement, a grammatical transformation is accompanied by a lexical one, etc., that is, translation transformations are complex.

Thus, the purpose of this work was achieved by solving the tasks set: the history of the creation of medical journalism, the methods and techniques of its translation are considered, the types of translation transformations are identified, and the causes of translation transformations are investigated. So, we can conclude that translation transformations are not used in their pure form. Most often they are used in a complex of several transformations. At the same time, it should be noted that translation from a closely related language is usually less difficult for the translator, since it requires less complex transformations.