THE CONTRIBUTION OF SOVIET AND RUSSIAN LINGUISTS TO TRANSLATION THEORY RESEARCH

ВКЛАД СОВЕТСКОЙ И РОССИЙСКОЙ ШКОЛЫ В РАЗВИТИЕ ТЕОРИИ ПЕРЕВОДОВЕДЕНИЯ

Арбузов Артем Андреевич

курсант, кафедра перевода и переводоведения, Новосибирский военный ордена Жукова институт имени генерала армии И.К. Яковлева ВНГ РФ,

РФ, г. Новосибирск

Далецкая Татьяна Анатольевна

научный руководитель, доц. кафедры перевода и переводоведения, Новосибирский военный ордена Жукова институт имени генерала армии И.К. Яковлева ВНГ РФ,

РФ, г. Новосибирск

АННОТАЦИЯ

В статье представлен обзор истории переводоведения в России. Рассматривается вклад советских и российских лингвистов в развитие теории перевода. В частности, анализируются теории Я.И. Рецкера, В.Н. Комиссарова, а также исследования А.В. Фёдорова, Л.С. Бархударова, А.Д. Швейцера.

ABSTRACT

The paper presents an overview of translation studies history in Russia. The contribution of soviet and Russian linguists to developing the theory of translation is examined. In particular, the research theories of Ya. I. Retzker, V.N. Komissarov, as well as the research theories conducted by A.V. Fedorov, L.S. Barkhudarov, A.D. Schweitzer are analyzed.

Ключевые слова: перевод; переводоведение; теория перевода; трансформации; эквивалентность; соответствия.

Keywords: translation; translation studies; theory of translation; transformations; translation equivalence; correspondences.

Translation theory as an independent scientific discipline largely emerged thanks to the work of Soviet and Russian linguists in the mid-20th century. Until the 1950s translation was often viewed primarily as an art based on the translator’s skill, intuition, and individual talent. However, the development of international contacts, the expansion of scientific and technical exchange, and the need for mass training of specialists required a more rigorous and systematic approach.

It was soviet researchers who were the first to propose translation process as a special type of speech activity subject to certain patterns. The concepts of “equivalence,” “translation transformations,” and “regular correspondences,” were developed and systematized by soviet linguists.

A new stage in the development of translation studies began in the 1950s. One of the pioneers of the linguistic approach in translation was Ya.I. Retsker. Translation by Retsker was considered to be a system of regular relationships between the units of two languages [1].

In 1953 A.V. Fedorov substantiated the need for a linguistic approach to translation in his book “Introduction to the Theory of Translation”. For A.V. Fedorov the language was the foundation for various types of translation while linguistics and the language units functioning was groundwork for translation theory [2]. Thus, by the mid-1950s a new scientific school was formed in the USSR.

In 1974 Ya.I. Retsker proposed three main categories of correspondences: equivalents, analogues, and adequate substitutes, classified lexical transformations and

distinguished between correspondences and transformations. Retsker’s theory was of great importance because it linked translation studies with contrastive linguistics and made it possible to describe translation as a sequential decision-making process. His classification of transformations became the foundation for many subsequent studies of translation transformations. Another outstanding researcher V.N. Komissarov created a comprehensive system of translation studies and developed the concept of “translation equivalence” in detail. He pointed out that there were five levels of equivalence: the purpose of communication, description of the situation, structure of the message, the specific content of the message, the linguistic signs [3]. Thus, V.N. Komissarov demonstrated that the required level of equivalence depended on the type of text, its purpose, and the conditions of communication. His research was of great value not only for theory but also for the methodology of training translators. In fact, V.N. Komissarov laid the foundations for describing professional translation competencies and methods for analyzing translation quality. A.D. Schweitzer drew attention to the semiotic and pragmatic nature of translation, emphasizing that translation was always associated with interpretation. Schweitzer distinguished between formal, semantic, and pragmatic equivalence. This made it possible to explain situations in which the translator deliberately sacrifices formal proximity for the sake of a more accurate conveyance of meaning or communicative effect. L.S. Barkhudarov developed a transformational model of translation. He identified four main types of transformations which were convenient for analyzing specific translation decisions and became widely used in teaching practice [4]. Finally, it is necessary to stress that it was A.V. Fedorov who laid the foundations of the general theory of translation as an academic discipline, developed a typology of texts, and showed that the choice of translation strategy depended on the genre, content, and communicative purpose of the text.

Thus, the theoretical and practical studies of Retsker, Komissarov, Fedorov, Barkhudarov, and Schweitzer contributed to developing not only individual scientific concepts but also to developing conceptual framework of translation studies. Thanks to their works, such categories as equivalence, correspondence, transformation, and pragmatic adequacy received a systematic description. Today, modern fields such as cognitive translation studies, corpus-based translation linguistics, and localization theory are coming into existence to develop the problems first raised by representatives of the soviet school of translation. Therefore, their works remain not only a part of the history of science but also an important tool for understanding modern translation activities.

References:

1. Рецкер Я.И. Теория перевода и переводческая практика: очерки лингвистической теории перевода / Я.И. Рецкер; испр. изд. с обновленными и расш. доп. Д.И. Ермоловича. – 5-е изд., испр. и доп. – Москва: Auditoria, cop. 2016. – 244 с.
2. Федоров А.В. Введение в теорию перевода: (лингвистич. проблемы). – 2-е изд., перераб. – Москва: Изд. лит. на иностр. яз., 1958. – 374 с.
3. Комиссаров В.Н. Теория перевода (лингвистические аспекты) = English. Теория перевода: учебник для студентов институтов и факультетов иностранных языков / В.Н. Комиссаров. – Репр. изд. 250c. – Москва: Альянс, 2013.
4. Бархударов Л.С. Язык и перевод: вопросы общей и частной теории перевода: [на материале переводов художественной и общественно-политической литературы с английского языка на русский и с русского на английский] / Л.С. Бархударов. – Изд. 5-е. – Москва: URSS, 2017 (cop. 2016). – 235, [3] с.