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Articles CONTEXTS IN TEACHING TRANSLATION Vitali Ashkinazi, Saint-Petersburg Chemical Pharmaceutical Academy One of the most important skills needed by the language learner is the ability to infer the meaning of the unknown words and word combinations used in context in English. The skill is very important for translating and reading. Translating is very useful for learning. And all this web of links is contectualised in the classroom.If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. A translator needs to obtain a skill of determining of words meanings, revealing unknown word combinations using contexts. One of the ways of teaching the skill is usage of context. Let us start with defining terms. One can find the definition ‘context - the part of a text or statement that surrounds a particular word or passage and determines its meaning. [1]. Usage of specially selected context can help to teach translating. There are different ways of context search. Now there exist such means as computer program Microconcord (Oxford University Press), and CONTEXTS, a program provided by the English for Overseas Students Unit and by the Centre for Computer-based learning on the University of Birmingham campus network. The contexts can be obtained by writing a macros for MS Word. CONTEXTS is based on short contexts illustrating the use of important key items from a database words of text in English. The contexts have been extracted from the database by means of the computer program Microconcord (Oxford University Press). What is important all the contexts are taken from authentic, unsimplified texts. Contexts could not be classified unambiguisly as narrow or wide ones, as some contects are longer than one sentence, some are shorter. A sentence with key word could be complete or incomplete. Even words in the beginning and the end of a context could be ‘torn’. To illustrate the idea the contexts with body parts as key wordes were used. Let us consider use of contexts to fathom the meaning of unfamiliar words, unknown meanings of familiar words and ‘discovering’ word combinations. Fathom the meaning of unfamiliar words. Often the context helps to get the meaning of the word: - ...claimed the device would dissolve kidney stones (êàìíè â ïî÷êàõ) - Women were in ankle-length dresses and elaborate hats (ïî ùèêîëîòêó) - He turned on his heel and walked back to his clinic (ïîâåðíóëñÿ íà êàáëóêàõ). - She licked her dry lips and closed his eyes (ñóõèå ãóáû) - We can relax our tired muscles by massage (ðàññëàáèòü óñòàâøèå ìûøöû ñ ïîìîùüþ ìàññàæà) - By way of the nostrils God first breathed life into man (×åðåç íîçäðè Áîã âäîõíóë æèçíü â ÷åëîâåêà). - Bean soup with smoked ribs (Áîáîâûé ñóï ñ êîï÷åíûìè ðåáðàìè). The context helps to differ the meanings of the word ‘foot’ in the following sentences: - Incidentally, a 5 foot 9 inch bed is called "Scottish size" (5 ôóòîâ) - I had never even set foot inside a courtroom before. Set foot - ñòóïàë (ñòóïíÿ). Sometimes context helps to infer the meaning vaguly, but that may be quite enough for some cases, e.g. reading and translation for information, not in literary ranslation: - the open-toed sandals (with white socks) - ‘ñàíäàëè ñ îòêðûòûì ...’; - caked in mud from head to toe - ‘ñ ãîëîâû äî ...’; - she is dressed top to toe in leather - ‘ñ âåðõó äî ...’ Fathom meanings of familiar words Seeng familiar words translator builds a model of the sentence, but if he decipher the meaning of the word wrongly in may cause senseless results. That can urge to continue the work and to find right translation: - Milan played poorly in the first leg and were held to the 1-1 draw that has; leg doesn’t mean a limb, the first leg - ïåðâûé ýòàï. - a roof supported by huge curved ribs, all at slightly different angles; ribs doesn’t mean parts of rib cage, ribs here it means ‘còðîïèëà’. - six-inch knife plunged between his shoulder blades up to its hilt; blades isn’t a part of some cutting tool , here it means ‘ëîïàòêè’ - ... and are wrinkled when dry. The ears are eaten fresh or are canned. Sweet cor... In the last example the last word isn’t complete, but, if a translator has some doubts about ‘ears’ meaning ‘organ of hearing’ in the context she can easily find out another meanings ‘part of the plant (corn)’. Then it’s easy to infer that ‘sweet cor’ stands for ‘sweet corn’. ‘Discovering’ word combinations Translator’s errors can be caused by misconstruing of unfamiliar word combinations. A translator should know that ‘many happy returns’ - traditional form of congratulation (happy birthday), meaning repetition of birthdays. If she doesn’t know the meaning of the expression ‘man of war’ the context should help her to infer that it doesn’t mean ‘a soldier’, but ‘a navy ship’ [Ëåâèí, c.135]. Even if she knows the expression, meeting ‘Portuguese man-of-war’ she should understand from the context that it doesn’t mean Portuguese ‘man-of-war’, but something different. A dictionary can give the solution - ‘a complex colonial siphonophore of the genus Physalia, of warm seas, having a bluish, bladder-like float with a broad sail-like crest from which hang numerous long stinging tentacles."[1] It reminds L.Carrol’s ‘Mock turtle’ born from mock’ turtle soup’ by deliberate misinterpreting it as a ‘mock turtle’ soup.’ The context can often help in such cases as wrong translation produces ‘unbelievable results’ revealing the necessity of another interpretation. In other words one should take her translation with a grain of salt: - He said, tongue in cheek, "They were quite good, weren't they?" tongue in cheek - ñ èðîíèåé (not "the tongue in the cheek"- ÿçûê â ùåêå) - Polish with a lot of elbow grease... elbow grease - ‘òÿæåëàÿ ðàáîòà’, not ‘the grease of the elbow’, ‘æèð ëîêòÿ". - trained to keep calm, keep a poker face and proceed methodically a poker face - ‘áåññòðàñòíîå, êàìåííîå ëèöî’, not ‘the face of a poker’, "ëèöî êî÷åðãè". - Via the media and by word of mouth. by word of mouth -‘ óñòíî, èç óñò â óñòà’, not "ñëîâîì ðòà". - this modest proposal got the cold shoulder from finance ministers. to get the cold shoulder - ‘áûòü îòâåðãíóòûì’, not literally "ïîëó÷èòü õîëîäíîå ïëå÷î". In some cases the error can be discovered only after translating the whole sentence: - The compensation for a black eye suffered in the assault... a black eye - ‘ñèíÿê ïîä ãëàçîì’, not literally "÷åðíûé ãëàç". - the table to alleviate the bottle neck in academic jobs the bottle neck - óçêîå ìåñòî, ïðîáëåìà, not "áóòûëî÷íîå ãîðëûøêî". - These guys are head and shoulders above the rest. To be head and shoulders above - áûòü ÿâíî âûøå, not "íà ãîëîâó è ïëå÷è âûøå". Selection of the contexts allows to learn more about specific topic, simultaneously training the skill of deducing meaning. References:
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