Фразеология в работе устного переводчика

Перевод фразеологизмов представляет собой немалую трудность при переводе, когда фактор времени «играет» против переводящего.

Квалифицированный переводчик имеет свой «золотой» запас самых распространенных эквивалентов, аналогов, фразеологических выражений на разных языках.

Ряд фразеологизмов, пришедших из мифологии, римской истории, Библии, из латыни и греческого, имеют ставшие каноническими и не подлежащие изменениям устойчивые соответствия в различных языках.

Другие, чисто английские пословицы можно перевести приблизительно, поменяв образность, а иногда — только описательно. Если вы не знаете аналог фразеологизма, но понимаете его смысл, следует передать его значение, пусть даже с потерей об­разности. Хуже, если смысл вам не ясен, но тут должен помочь контекст.

Особую сложность представляют деформация и контаминация фразеологии.

Самый простой вариант деформации — неполнота состава. «С кем поведешься...» («... от того и наберешься»). В таком случае, после того как эквивалент найден, переводчик может воспроизвести эту неполноту, т. е. оборвать пословицу в тексте перевода, но так, чтобы сохранилась семантика подлинника. Однако это не всегда возможно, и тогда следует прибегнуть к описательному переводу.

Контаминация, т. е. переплетение двух фразеологизмов, вроде: «Не плюй в колодец, вылетит — не поймаешь», — требует попытки воспроизведения приема: когда эквиваленты найдены, их придется переплести. Задача — вовремя заметить изменение и постараться отразить его в переводе, хотя это крайне сложно и не всегда оправдано.

Упражнение 3

Прочитайте текст и кратко передайте его содержание на русском языке.

INTERPRETING: PERILS OF PALAVER

By Barry James

Paris — When a Japanese sucks in his breath and tells a Westerner that «your proposal is very interesting and we will consider it carefully» — meaning, in a word, «no!» — what is the honest interpreter to say?

The answer is that the professional interpreter is duty bound to report words of the Japanese as faithfully as possible. But according to Gisela Siebourg, who regularly interpreted for Chancellor Kohl of Germany, it would also be legitimate for the interpreter to draw his or her client aside after the conversation and explain the complexities of Japanese double-speak.

It would depend on the degree of trust between client and interpreter, she said.

This illustrates the need for the interpreter to be taken into the client's confidence, Siebourg said. It also indicates the qualities required of an interpreter — the discretion of a priest in the confessional and the mental subtlety of a professional diplomat. Rule number one for the interpreter, she said, is never to repeat outside a meeting what was learned in it.

Siebourg is president of the International Association of Conference Interpreters — set up in Paris in 1953 with 60 members, and now including 2,200 members — which is holding its triannual assembly here this week.

The association, which has worked since its inception to raise the standing of the interpreters' calling, thinks a lot about such ethical issues, as well as seeking better working conditions for its members.

The profession is at least as old as the Book of Genesis in which Joseph outwitted his brothers by, as the book says, speaking «into them by an interpreter». But the modern practice of simultaneous interpretation through headphones dates only from the post-war Nuremberg trials and the formation of the United Nations.

Before that, even in the League of Nations, speakers had to pause at intervals to allow the interpretation — a process known as consecutive interpretation. This is still the method most often used in tête-à-tête conversations.

The method is not suitable for large modern conferences at which seeveral languages are used simultaneously.

Interpreting often is, but ought not to be, confused with translating. The translator has time and a battery of dictionaries at his or her command in order to find the precise word. The interpreter, by contrast, has to get across the right meaning rather than the exact wording without a second's hesitation. This often requires a deep knowledge of culture as well as language, an ability to understand expression as well as content.

Diplomats such as Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq, who speaks excellent English, often work through interpreters either to conceal precise meaning or to give themselves time to think. In such cases, the interpreter must be careful not to go beyond the speakers' words, even if they make apparently little sense. As Confucius put it, «If language is not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success».

Being used as part of a negotiating ploy again points to the need for the interpreter to be taken into the diplomat's confidence. The interpreters association always tells clients that «if you are not prepared to trust an interpreter with confidential information, don't use one». The failure to provide in advance background information and specialized terminology involved in complex negotiations makes the interpreters' job all the more difficult, Siebourg said.

Several years ago the association — speaking either in English or French, its two working languages — started discussing improved contacts with colleagues in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe when the East was opening up. One difficulty is that the East European languages often contain no terminology to describe many of the private market terms used in the West.

Russian interpreters also have practice of working from their language into a foreign language, while most Western interpreters, Siebourg said, prefer to work from a foreign language into their mother tongue.

This avoids the kind of gaffes that can occur with less than intimate knowledge of a language. When Jimmy Carter visited Warsaw in December 1977, for example, he made the mistake of using a Polish-speaking American as interpreter rather than an English-speaking Pole, Siebourg said.

The result is that the interpreter, a State Department contract employee, spoke about sexual lust rather than desire and rephrased Carter's «when I abandoned the United States». The embarrassment was long remembered.

А. Чужакин. Мир перевода-2

palaver — переговоры; праздная болтовня; лесть; лживые слова

doublespeak — уклончивые речи (особ, когда человек думает одно, а говорит другое, противоположное)

consecutive interpretation — последовательный перевод

ploy — уловка, хитрость, тактический ход

gaffe — ошибка, ложный шаг, промах, оплошность

Упражнение 4

Проверьте себя: насколько легко вы можете перевести без подготовки все фразеологические единицы в этом тексте?

НЕ TAKES THE CAKE (1)

That guy, Fred, is a real top banana (2). The guy is out to lunch. He better be careful because real soon he's going to find himself eating humble pie (4). His ideas are OK on the surface but when you start to look at them you realize that they are really Swiss cheese (5). He always expects us to fill in the holes (6) and make him look good. We get everything he gives us done to a T (7), but he takes all the credit. It would be nice if, for once, he would give us time to develop something challenging that we can really sink our teeth into (8). At least it would be nice to get credit for all that we do to make him and our organization look good, but I doubt that will happen; he always wants the whole enchilada (9) for himself.

He is always dangling the carrot (10) of private compliments in our faces, but we know they are insincere. He must think we are bunch of cream puffs (11). But someday, he is going to get his pie in the face (12). He'll be in a real stew (13) and we won't be there to clean it up. Soon... he'll get his just desserts (14). Because he can't have the cake and eat it too (15).

А. Чужакин, К. Петренко. Мир перевода-5