LEXICAL THANSFORMATIONS

There are five types of lexical transformations:

1. Concretization

2. Generalization

3. Antonymic translation

4.Metonymic translation

5. Paraphrasing

Concretizationis a most frequent device in translation from English into Russian. There is a large group of English words of wide semantic volume (спова с широкой понятийной основой). These words belong to different parts of speech; nouns, adjectives, verbs, e.g. thing; point, stuff, stunt, affair; nice, fine, bad; to say, to go, to get, to come, to involve. As the meaning of such words is relatively vague they can be used in different contents, and their valency is therefore extremely broad. In fact they are sometimes used as mere prop-words. So a context, at least a microcontext (a minimal stretch of speech), is necessary to determine their meaning.

He came in sight of the lodge, a long, low, frowning thing of red brick (A. Wilson). - Он увидел домик привратника, длинное, низкое, хмурое здание из красного кирпича.

If the Prime Minister's speech made few new points, it was statesmanlike. And if it was stronger in terms of planned policy than of achieved results, this is often the case with political oratory (The Times, 1965). - Если речь премьер-министра и содержала мало нового, то это всё же была речь государственного деятеля. И хотя в ней куда более решительно говорилось о будущей политике, чем о достигнутых результатах, это часто бывает с государственными выступлениями.

"Many English verbs also belong to this group, particularly verbs of motion and verbs of speech." - «Конкретное лексическое значение, тот или другой лексико-семантический вариант глагола зависит от структуры и лексического наполнения распространяющих его слов». (А.А.Уфимцева. Слово в лексико-семантической системе языка, М., 1968, стр. 90.)

At the by-election victory went to the Labour candidate (M.S. 1973). - На дополнительных выборах победу одержал лейборист. The rain came in torrents (I.Murdoch). - Полил сильный дождь.

So far 65 people have died in floods in Dacca Province, East Pakistan (Morning Star, 1973) - По имеющимся сведениям, 65 человек утонуло во время наводнения в провинции Дакка, Восточный Пакистан.

Abstract nouns are often concretized in translation if there is no correlated abstract word in Russian: The Soviet Union's record in medial care - достижения Советского Союза в области здравоохранения.

Not infrequently concretization is resorted to as correlated generalizing words in English and in Russian have a different usage. Thus the word limbs has a wider usage than the Russian члены.

"Thank you", said Margaret, feeling large and awkward and clumsy in all her limbs. (H. Walpole). - «Благодарю Вас», - сказала Маргарет, чувствуя себя неловкой и неуклюжей и не зная, куда девать руки и ноги.

The English word "child" has a wider usage than its correlated Russian «ребёнок» and is often concretized as «мальчик, сын, дочь, деточка».

No one know with what passionate emotion she loved this child (H. Valpoie). - Никто не знал, как страстно ока любила своего сына.