Курсова робота “Особливості перекладу українською мовою ідіом у мас-медійному дискурсі”

CONTENT

 

INTRODUCTION 

CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BASIS OF IDIOM RESEARCH AND TRANSLATION CHALLENGE 

1.1 Idiom as a language phenomenon 

1.2 Translation transformations of idiom translation 

1.3 Specifics of media discourse text analysis 

CHAPTER 2. FEATURES OF THE TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH IDIOMS IN THE MASS MEDIA DISCOURSE 

2.1 Lexical transformations in the translation of idioms in mass media discourse 

2.2 Grammatical transformations in the translation of idioms in mass media discourse 

2.3 Lexical and grammatical transformations in the translation of idioms in mass media discourse 

CONCLUSIONS 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

LIST OF REFERENCE SOURCES 

LIST OF DATA SOURCES 

ANNEX 

РЕЗЮМЕ 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The term paper focuses on the peculiarities of translating English idioms in the mass media discourse. Domestic and foreign scholars have made an essential contribution to studying idioms. Among the Ukrainian scholars, it is worth highlighting the works of such researchers as A. M. Prykhodko, N. M. Amosov, O. O. Potebnya, L. A. Bulakhovskyi, M. F. Alefirenko, and R. P. Zorivchak. Among the foreign scholars studying this topic are S. Balli, I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay, O. Jespersen, J. Katz, Y. Naida, and W. Fleischer. However, all these scholars did not come to a single conclusion regarding the definition of the term “idiom” and their features, so this needs to be studied today. A separate mention should be made of A. Denysova, L. Komar, and M. Kovalchuk, who in their works analyze the classification of phraseological units and the difficulties of their translation. The work of R. Zorivchak “Phraseological Unit as a Translation Category” is also worthy of attention.

The rationale for the study. Given the rapid pace of development of society, the amount of news in various sources is considerable. The number of articles in journalism is increasing rapidly, making it important to study them as units of informing and imposing thoughts and ideas. To accomplish the above, texts of the journalistic style contain various lexical units that add imagery and interest to the text. The use of idioms in media texts adds metaphorical and meaningfulness to the texts.

Idioms are a big part of the linguistics of any language and function in all spheres of communication in society. Through the presence of different idioms in different languages, it is possible to study the history of the language and culture of a particular people in a certain period. It is the study of idioms as part of the lexical wealth of a nation that helps to explore its historical experience. The study of idioms is an important aspect of the development of linguistics in English and Ukrainian. Since English is considered to be an international language, the connection between English and Ukrainian is unconditional. That is why the study of these units in journalistic texts is important.

The aim of the study is to describe the translation of idioms in journalistic texts from English into Ukrainian.

Given the purpose of the study, the following research objectives have been set:

1) to define the concept of “idioms” and its features;

2) to outline the peculiarities of the translation of idioms;

3) to review the analysis of a journalistic text;

4) to analyze the translation of idioms in journalistic texts from English into Ukrainian.

The object of the study is the study of idioms in journalistic texts.

The investigation subject of the study is the translation of idioms from English into Ukrainian, selected from mass media texts.

Data sources are the mass media text.

The following methods were used in the course of the study:

1. the method of analysis, which helped gain knowledge about idioms in different periods of existence and studying these units;
2. the method of synthesis for combining the collected information about idioms into a single whole and establishing a connection between different types;
3. 3. the descriptive method to explain the peculiarities of the structure of idioms and their functioning in the language;
4. the method of sampling for the selection of the studied units;
5. the method of comparison to highlight the differences between idioms in journalistic texts in English and Ukrainian;
6. the method of analogies to establish the relationship between English and Ukrainian idioms selected from journalistic articles.

The practical value of the study is to improve knowledge of translating idioms from English into Ukrainian. The results of the study will help in further research on the translation of idioms.

The theoretical value of the study lies in the use of the obtained results in teaching linguistic units, in the study of lexicology and phraseology, or in the study of translation studies.

Structure of the paper. The paper consists of an introduction, two chapters – theoretical and practical, conclusions, a list of references and annexes. The first section provides an overview of the main studies of the chosen topic; the concept of “idiom” in linguistics, the difference in its meaning in linguistic science, its main features and characteristics are considered. The second section examines the translation of idioms from English into Ukrainian in mass media discourse. The conclusion summarizes the work and describes the results achieved in the course of the study. The list of references contains a list of works and literature used for the study. The annexes contain a list of sentences used for the study.

 

CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BASIS OF IDIOM RESEARCH AND TRANSLATION CHALLENGE

1.1 Idiom as a language phenomenon

 

Phraseology makes up a large part of the entire lexicon and in human communication and is the layer that adds imagery and metaphor to speech. However, the problem with idioms is that their meaning is not always clear from the context or components of the idioms. Phraseology is a branch of linguistics that studies the stable word combinations of a particular language. The smallest unit of phraseology is a phraseology, or idiom.

The concept of “idiom” causes different interpretations among scholars, which makes it important to study these units in modern linguistics. P. Simpson believes that such units originate from metaphors, which are stable phrases. The researcher also believes that these are clusters of words whose meaning is difficult to understand from their components [simp: 93]. A similar opinion is expressed by F. Palmer: “a sequence of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from the meanings of the words themselves” [14: 41].

Longman’s dictionary describes idioms in a rather complicated way as expressions whose meaning is primarily metaphorical rather than literal and have a stable form [25: 3]. Having analyzed the above definitions of the concept of “idiom”, we can note that an idiom is a stable set of words whose translation does not correspond to its meaning. These units can include both full-sense words and partial-sense words.

It is worth noting that linguistics distinguishes between different types of idioms. Among them are:

1. Traditional idiomatic expressions (give up the ghost – to die). The peculiarity of such idioms is that “everyone understands the essence of phraseological expressions under the structure of such expressions” [11: 102].
2. Pairs of words are those idioms that are combined with the conjunctions “by”, “and”, “or” (hammer and tongs – to do something with all your might);
3. Idioms with the pronoun it (live it up – to have a good time/”hang out” at parties);
4. Idioms-allusions – expressions that are not defined in the dictionary and are used only in English;
5. Archaic idioms that are still in use today (kith and kin – close people);
6. Idiom-phrasal verbs, which include a verb and adverbial particles or prepositions (put up with – to put up with something) [23].

The types of idioms described above are most commonly used in colloquial speech and everyday communication. In modern linguistics, there are two approaches to idioms: “broad” and “narrow”. According to the “narrow” approach, idioms are “stable phrases whose semantics is not derived from the meanings of its components but is formally integrated by them; they arise as a result of the loss of motivational relations” [8: 173].

In English linguistics, researchers pay attention to a “broad” approach to the problem of idiom. Western scholars include not only phraseological units of all types, but also paremics (sayings, proverbs, quotations, etc.) as idioms. It is worth noting that Richard Speirs in his work “A Dictionary of American Idioms” explains the choice of units presented in the dictionary as follows: “Every language has phrases or sentences that cannot be translated literally. Many cliches, proverbs, slang phrases, phrasal verbs, and common sayings offer this kind of problem. A phrase or sentence of this type is usually said to be idiomatic. This Dictionary is a collection of the idiomatic phrases and sentences that occur frequently in American English” [24: 7].

That is, Spiers draws attention to the fact that the concept of idiom should include both phrases and sentences (slang expressions, proverbs, sayings) that are idiomatic. William Collins, also a dictionary compiler, gave the following opinion: “When studying idioms, you always face two major problems. The first is the problem of origin. As Pearsall Smith notes, even experts are unable to explain the meaning of many idiomatic expressions clearly and confidently. Second, there is the problem of the connection between the origin and current usage. Often it becomes necessary, when studying an idiom whose existing meaning is understood and generally used correctly, to recognize that the connection between origin and meaning is not known.” [22: 11].

The main features of idioms that distinguish them from other units are:

1. they may contain necroticisms and archaisms;
2. syntactic indecomposability;
3. components have a fixed place in the idiom and cannot change it;
4. no new words are added to the idiom.
5. Seidl and W. McMurdy believe that idioms are those structures that cannot be changed, i.e. they are stable (to give someone the cold shoulder). However, scholars also distinguish between those in which certain parts are fixed (to make a clean breast of it) and those that allow certain changes in the non-fixed parts (to have/to take/to enjoy forty winks) [16].

The next classification worthy of attention is the etymological classification of idioms. This classification is distinguished by J. Seidl and W. McMurdy.

According to it, the following are distinguished:

– Biblical and literary (to kill the fatted calf, the green-eyed monster);

– everyday (to make a clean sweep of something, to hit the nail on the head);

– agricultural idioms (to go to seed, to lead someone up the garden path);

– culinary idioms (to eat humble pie, to be in the soup);

– military idioms (to cross swords with someone, to fight a pitched battle);

– nautical idioms (to be in deep waters, to be in the same boat as someone);

– of animalistic origin (to play cat and mouse with, to be top dog);

– with a color component (to be in the pink, to have green fingers);

– with a component denoting body parts (to lose heart, to pull leg) [16: 6].

Sam Glugzberg classified idioms according to their transparency and identified the following types:

1) opaque compositional phraseology (kick the bucket);

2) transparent compositional phraseology (break the ice).

So, to summarize, we can say that idioms are an important part of linguistics and are characterized by such features as indecomposability, presence of figurative meaning, and reproducibility.

 

1.2 Translation transformations of idiom translation

 

The use of idioms in texts and people’s speech adds expressiveness to them and serves as an aid to expressing emotions, so to convey this feature, it is important to translate the text accurately and adequately from the source language (SL) into the target language (TL). To adequately translate idioms, you should choose the most accurate translation technique and strategy. The mediator between the idioms of the SL and the TL is the translator, who must have a thorough knowledge of the lexicology and phraseology of both languages and the ability to recognize the idiom and choose an accurate and correct translation. When translating, it is also important to understand the context in which the idiom is used, as they are characterized by polysemy and stylistic characteristics that complicate the translator’s work.

In order to achieve adequate translation of idiomatic units, translators use translation transformations, which help to make the transition of an idiom from the source language to the target language. The use of translation transformations in the translation of idioms is the main method of transferring idioms from the source language to the target language. The feature of these transformations is that they serve as a means of changing the characteristics of the idiom’s linguistic personality.

Methods of translating idioms are divided into non-equivalent and equivalent translations. The equivalent types of translation include full and partial translation, while the non-equivalent types include calquing and descriptive translation [17: 100]. Idiomatical equivalents are those phraseological units in the target language that are characterized by the preservation of the meaning of the source idiom. Equivalents make it easier for the translator to choose the target language.

Equivalents are divided into:

1) Full equivalents, i.e. those idioms that are fully equivalent in both the source and target languages. The use of this translation transformation leads to a single translation, which fully preserves the meaning of the phraseology from the original text, its lexical, stylistic and grammatical composition [13: 45].

2) Partial equivalents, i.e. those idioms that are not the same in all meanings. These idioms have the same meaning but different forms [3: 211].

However, the most accurate translation is considered to be the one using the method of equivalents, but their number is small. This category mostly includes international idioms, for example, an old fox, skin and bones. The next type of translation is the translation of an idiomatical analog. An analog is a translation transformation that has the same figurative meaning but a different image [13: 207]. The technique of descriptive translation is worthy of attention, which consists in reproducing the idiom with a free phrase, but the main features of the idiom – metaphorical and figurative – are lost. Such translational transformation is rarely used in the translation process, only when there is no equivalent or analog [7: 65].

A method often used by translators is calquing, i.e. copying an idiom based on a model of another language. This type is used only when other types of translation fail to convey the semantic and stylistic meaning, imagery, and emotional and expressive coloring [13: 54]. The next method of translation is combined (mixed) translation. This method is characterized by a combination of different translation methods (literal and descriptive translation, etc.) [4: 280].

It is also worth highlighting antonymic translation, i.e., the selection of the opposite meaning [9: 56]. This method is not often used. Literalism is the exact and verbatim copying of the words of the original idiom while preserving the grammar of this idioms. Unlike such a translation transformation as calquing, literalism distorts the idiom of the target language. In this regard, translators’ resort to translation using this translation transformation.

 

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