Articles

This article completes the thematic cycle “On the ‘hermeneutic turn’ in the modern theory and methodology of translation” and “Hermeneutic-translational methodological standard in the mirror of transdisciplinarity,” performed within the framework of the new research field at the Higher School of Translation aimed at theoretical understanding and practical introduction of hermeneutic strategies and tactics in the modern translation process. It was found that translational reflection reduces the assimilation of a translate to the original by successively explicit or implicit implementation of four basic cognitive constants: pre-understanding, understanding, interpretation and translation decision. The last one is the essence of the conceptually optimal variant of the method and form of a discursively equivalent / adequate assimilation of the translate to the original, rationally acceptable for a given text type and its functional and stylistic genre. The plurality of translation decisions concerning the same source text objectively depends on the given interlingual situation of goal-setting and the way the translation text is linked to a certain category of recipients or the translator’s subjective intentions.

This article is about decision-making in translation. The author makes an attempt to apply the dual processes theory, developed by D. Kahneman, to describing decision-making in translation. The experiment conducted within the framework of our research made it possible to draw conclusions about different types of thinking peculiar to different types of translation decisions, as well as about the levels at which these decisions are made.

The article studies the diachronic aspect of French equestrian terminology, which is characterized by the historical side of the emergence of terms related to the sport.  e author explains the concept of terminology (equestrian in particular) while focusing on the chronology of equestrian terms in French.

A prose poem in the literary form combines the characteristics of both poem and prose. However, it is still different from either of these. Therefore, compared to translation of poem and prose, the method of translation from Russian into Chinese is special. This article discusses the literariness of translation of prose poems from Russian into Chinese, including the strategy of combining the replacement of the foot with the dou with the replacement of the foot with a logical pause in the line, as well as the method of working with the syntax structure to preserve the original literariness. The article is based on a comparative analysis of three translation versions of “Song of The Stormy Petrel” by Maxim Gorky.

The article is a comparison of three Russian translations of the Chinese book “San Zi Jing.” These are different translations of the same text made in different periods of the 18^th century: the reign of Peter the Great, the 1740’s and the late 1770’s. There are many differences among them, and these differences reflect the evolution of translation practice in Russia in the 18^th century.

A fundamentally new type of person living in the 1860s, society’s disillusions and social transformations were described psychologically truly and in detail by a great Russian writer Ivan S. Turgenev. Vivid and rich in detail, character descriptions in the novels reflected the features and depth of the Russian literary language, becoming for many subsequent years a model for writing texts of this format not only in Russian literature, but also abroad, including China. A large number of translations of texts by Ivan S. Turgenev into Chinese abound in linguistic material, revealing the peculiarities of translators’ work. At the same time, the complexity and a certain number of different kinds of transformations used by the translators of Turgenev’s texts from Russian into Chinese are due to the lexical and grammatical features of these two languages, as well as the personal position of the translator and pragmatic aspects. Thus, translation transformations are to a certain extent present in almost all translations. The study of examples of transformations in translations of Ivan S. Turgenev’s works is of interest not only to linguists and translators, but also to scholars involved in cultural studies. The present article discusses some translation transformations used in Chinese translations of Ivan S. Turgenev’s novels “Rudin” and “Fathers and Children”, taking into account various peculiarities of the Chinese language.

The 47-year activities of the American missionary of the liberal party, Lin Lezhi, is associated with the period of changesin the era of the Qing dynasty. He took an active part in those changes whileplaying an important role in translating Western scientific works. With a clear goal and special strategies, he spread the advanced cultures and thoughts ofthe West and thus affectedChina in many ways. Many translated works still have an indelible significance. Lin Lezhi is a distinguished American missionary translator who preached in China. Any studies of the history of translation in the era of the Qing Dynasty would be incomplete without mentioning Lin Lezhi.

The realities of the translation process as components of the systemic relations include the situation of communication within which the translator mediates the author’s communication with a foreign reader, the original text as an object of transformation into the translated text and interaction of the translated text with the actual reality which is described in the original text and is reproduced in the translated one. The realities of the translation process manifest their qualities most visibly by bearing the peculiarity of the mediated communication, i.e. communication with the translator’s participation. The peculiarity of the communication situation for the translator is that he must find ways of expressing what does not have analogues in the target language. The most vivid elements of the surrounding reality, characteristic of the original text, manifest themselves in foreign-language realities which may not have equivalents in the target language. By achieving the accuracy of the translation, the translator focusses his efforts on making the foreign-language realities understandable to the translation recipient.

This article pays attention to the use of the Internet in the process of translation, viz. the use of different online sources: search engines, machine translations, Wikipedia, reference sites, online correсtion, etc. The Internet is a great supporting tool that can help translators in their work. The ability to use the Internet can be considered as any translator’s key skill.

The article studies the influence of target language literature on translation (a case study of “Paradise lost” translation by archbishop Amvrosy (Serebrennikov) made in the late 18th century via the French translation by Nicolas-François Dupré de Saint-Maur that transformed the original in the spirit of belles infidèles). Amvrosy praised the beauty of the poem, transforming the translation in accordance with the French text, and altering the heterodox passages of the poem. The translation, approved by the clergy and being one of the most poetic prose translations, paved the way for further translations based on the original text.

The article develops the idea that How do different countries develop their own corpus and the development of interlingua big data. Nowadays computer technology leads the development of big data and in this process various problems that may exist in creating a big data corpus, For example, the phenomenon of non-correspondence between different languages due to cultural differences. This article focuses on the relationship between translation theory and big data corpus, and the possible impact of the development of big data corpus on translation theory.

The article develops the idea that How do different countries develop their own corpus and the development of interlingua big data. Nowadays computer technology leads the development of big data and in this process various problems that may exist in creating a big data corpus, For example, the phenomenon of non-correspondence between different languages due to cultural differences. This article focuses on the relationship between translation theory and big data corpus, and the possible impact of the development of big data corpus on translation theory.

The article develops the idea that How do different countries develop their own corpus and the development of interlingua big data. Nowadays computer technology leads the development of big data and in this process various problems that may exist in creating a big data corpus, For example, the phenomenon of non-correspondence between different languages due to cultural differences. This article focuses on the relationship between translation theory and big data corpus, and the possible impact of the development of big data corpus on translation theory.

The abstracts of the all papers published in Vestnik of Moscow State University. Series 22. Translation Theory in 2013–2017 are presented.

The paper deals with the problem of the so-called undefined realia in ancient texts, i.e. cultural words, the precise meaning of which cannot be exactly established today. The monetary unit kesita mentioned in the Old Testament is chosen as an example, and its representations in different Bible translations are analyzed. Although the raised question may seem too narrow an issue, it may, nevertheless, relate to important historic and cultural features of the world described in the original text.