Page 8 - Міністерство освіти і науки України

III Methods of Translating

Depending on the type of the matter for translation, on the purpose, on the skill of
the translator etc., the following methods of translating are traditionally recognized:
1. Literal translating.
It is the way of translating separate words whose surface form and structure, as
well as their lexical meaning in the source language and in the target language, fully
coincide. These are predominantly international by original morphemes, words having
in English and Ukrainian a literally identical or very similar presentation.
e.g. director – директор;
Tom – Том
president – президент
In many a case, however, the form of the source language words is only partly
conveyed.
e.g. zoology – зоологія
chemical – хімічний
Close to the literal method of translating is the so-called way of translator`s
transcription by means of which partly the orthographic and partly the sounding form of
the source language unit is conveyed.
e.g. European – європейський
therapeutic – терапевтичний
Literal translating, however, has some restrictions in its employment and does not
always help to render the lexical meaning of words, because it can pervert the sense of
the source language words having quite different meanings:
e.g. artist – митець, художник but not артист
matrass – колба but not матрас
2. Verbal translating.
It is employed when the lexical meaning of separate words is to be identified.
Verbal translation is presented in dictionaries which list the lexical meanings of separate
words. The method in question is often employed at the lessons when asking:
“What is the English for людина?”
Verbal translating is employed at word level, but unlike literal translating it never
conveys the orthographic or the sounding form of the source language units, but their
denotative meaning only:
e.g. hedge – живопліт; огорожа
deaf – глухий
Verbal translating of polysemantic words permits a choice among some variants
which is practically impossible in literal translating.
For example, the English word “object” may have the following equivalent
variants in Ukrainian: 1) предмет; річ; 2)об`єкт ; 3)мета; 4)грам. додаток; 5)розм.
недоладна людина. The literal variant of the noun “object” can be, naturally, “об`єкт”
only.

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