Translation features of lyrics from English to Russian



Key words: translation of songs, specificity of translation, transformation.

Ключевые слова: перевод песен, специфика перевода, трансформация

Among the most pressing problems of modern translation studies is the problem of translating English-language songs. Music plays an important role in human life. The songs are different: funny, sad, and some of them make you think or dream. Very often, when I heard a beautiful foreign song, I want to understand what it is about.

Thus, the relevance of this study is due to the fact that the problems of translating foreign songs, despite actively conducted research in the field of literary translation, are not widely disclosed as, in general, and in particular, in relation to the texts of English-language songs.

Having studied the works of renowned translation scholars, L. S. Barkhudarov, Ya. I. Retsker, V. N. Komissarov, it was found that there are no works related to the translation of song lyrics.

I. Formulation of the problem

The purpose of this article is to identify and analyze the features when translating English-language songs into Russian. Research methods used in this work: a comparative analysis of the texts of the original and translation; descriptive method, continuous sampling method (on the Internet), information analysis method; generalization of the results.

II. results

In the course of the work done, it was revealed that the translation from English into Russian can be machine translation; artistic prose, conveying general meaning; rhymed literary translation. The last option is the most difficult. It is needed to create remakes for popular songs. Transformations have been identified that can be used to translate lyrics from English.

It is possible to distinguish 4 main types of transformations used in the process of translation: [Barkhudarov, 1975: 115].

1. permutations;
2. replacements;
3. additions;
4. omissions.

1) Permutation as a type of translational transformation is a change in the location (order of sequence) of language elements in the translation text in comparison with the text of the original. Elements that can be rearranged are usually words, phrases, parts of a complex sentence, and independent sentences in the text:

While we live according to race, colour or creed

While we rule by blind madness and pure greed

Пока раса, цвет и вероисповедание управляет нашими жизнями

Пока лишь скупость и слепое безумие руководят нами (Queen, Innuendo, 1991)

2) Replacements — the most common and diverse form of translation transformation. In the process of translation, both grammatical units — forms of words, parts of speech, sentence members, types of syntactic connection, etc. — can be subjected to substitution as well as lexical ones, in connection with which we can speak of grammatical and lexical substitutions. In addition, not only individual units, but also entire constructions (the so-called complex lexical-grammatical substitutions) can be replaced.

a) Replace word forms:

I want you to know

That you don´t need me anymore

Я хочу, чтобы ты знала

Что я тебе не нужен больше

(U2, Kite, 2001)

b) Replace parts of speech:

Love the movies, babe

Love to walk through movie sets

Любишь фильмы, малыш

Любишь прогулки среди рядов кресел в кинотеатре (U2, Miami, 1997)

c) Replacement of sentence members (restructuring of the syntactic structure of the sentence):

This flame that burns inside of me,

I´m hearing secret harmonies

Во мне горит огонь

Слышны мне тайные гармонии

(Queen, «A Kind Of Magic», 1986)

d) Lexical replacements

With lexical substitutions, individual lexical units (words and stable phrases) of the source language are replaced with lexical units of the translating language that are not their dictionary equivalents, that is, taken in isolation, have a different referential meaning than the units of the original language that they translate. Most often, there are three cases — concretization, generalization and replacement based on cause-effect relationships (replacement of the effect by cause and cause by effect).

— Specification.

So what, I’m still a rock star?

Ну так что, я все еще рок звезда?

(Pink, “So what?”, 2008)

— Generalization.

Fellas?- Year!

Друзья?- Да!

(The Time, “The bird”? 1984)

e) Antonymic translation.

I´ll soon be turning, round the corner now

Меняясь, что-то оставлю позади

(Queen, The Show Must Go On, 1991)

g) Compensation.

So you think you can love me and leave me to die.

Ты думаешь, что можешь любить меня, а потом бросить меня помирать? (Queen, «Bohemian Rhapsody», 1975)

3) Additions

The reasons causing the need for lexical additions in the translation text may be different. One of them — perhaps the most common — is what can be called the “formal non-expression” of the semantic components of a phrase in the source language. This phenomenon is quite typical for phrases of the English language; from the point of view of the generating grammar, it can be interpreted as an “ellipse” or “omission” of those or other semantic elements present in the deep structure of the sentence, when it is transformed into a surface structure. Since the surface structure of sentences in different languages ​​may be different with the same deep structure, the “relevant words” omitted in the source language are often “restored” in translation. This is the basis of the transformation of the addition, which is often observed when translating from English into Russian:

Empty spaces — what are we living for

Вокруг опустошение — ради чего мы живём

(Queen, The Show Must Go On? 1991)

In addition, during the work, the difficulties that arise when translating songs were identified. They can be divided into lexical and grammatical [Komisarov 1990: 173]

Lexical:

1. the polysemy of English words;
2. differences in American-English and English languages;
3. expressions that are not translated literally (idioms, expressive means);
4. phrasal verbs;
5. slang

Grammar:

1. the presence of unknown truncated forms of words;
2. Difficulties in translating species-tense forms of the verb.

IV. Findings

The problematics of this work is relevant and can serve as material for further, more detailed research, in particular, and the thesis.

The scientific novelty of this work lies in the fact that the difficulties and peculiarities of the translation of English songs were analyzed.

Translation of songs provides invaluable assistance in learning a foreign language. Songs as one of the types of speech communication is a means of a more solid assimilation, expansion of the vocabulary and help improve the skills of foreign language pronunciation. It should be noted that songs in a foreign language reflect the peculiarities of life, culture and life of the people of the country where the language being studied.

References:

1. Barkhudarov, L. S. Retzker Ya. I. A Course of Lectures on Translation Theory / Mosk. — M., 1968. — 263p.
2. Komissarov, V. N. Translation Theory: (Linguistic Aspects). /AT. N. Komissarov — M.: Higher. School, 1990 -253p.
3. Multitran dictionary — [Electronic resource] / www.multitran.ru
4. ABBYY Lingvo — [Electronic resource] /www.lingvo-online.ru
5. Slovoed- [Electronic resource] / online.slovoed.ru