The role of intonation in translation

The article is devoted to the importance of intonation in learning foreign languages. And also different types of intonation in pronouncing the sentences.

Keywords: intonation, foreign language, translation, accept, abridged, vocabulary, influence, change, tendency, generation

The national peculiarity of a culture is a very wide — ranging phenomenon that manifests itself in various ways, both obvious and subtle. In its linguistic and stylistic expression it can never be translated, but merely conveyed. It actualizes itself in certain realia that is linked with the specific history of a nation in traditions and links with certain folklore. It is very important to take into consideration the national peculiarity of culture while translating from one language into another.

Intonation also plays main role in the sentence. That's why in translating we'd pay attention to the intonation while giving the exact idea of the sentence. Intonation is more or less important to various languages and more or less vividly expressed in different genres and by different writers. Intonation is always present, because it is endemic to the language itself and partly, graphically expressed in it. To convey the intonation is one of the hardest translation problems — just as it is hardest to acquire for the language study. In addition, it is not one problem but several. There is the national intonation of a language, and a social intonation, and the individual intonation of a particular poet or author in drama, and in modern dialogue. Prose characters also have individual intonations. In this case we can take the novel by Hemingway «The sun also rises». In this novel the main character says: “You are Flamand.” In Russian it can be as: «Ты надеюсь не фламандец?", and in Uzbek: “Siz Flamendiyalik emasdirsiz deb и mid qilaman?”

The meaning of some words also depends on the intonation, how we pronounce them. There are a lot of words in English which can have different meaning when we pronounce them. Among those words we can give as an example such words in English, Russian and Uzbek: “presently”, “thus”, “as it were”, “though”, “according” and so on.

In Russian we may say: “же”, “ли”, and “таксказать”.

InUzbek:“hozirda”,“binobarin”, “qaramasdan”, “shunday qilib” “o'shanda”, “ammo”.

When we utter words with a dropping intonation the meaning of the word can be contradicting. We have the same kind of implication in phrases like “You are not going, are you?”

In Uzbek it would read: “Siz bormoqchi emassiz., shundaymi?”

This example shows that the tag question also plays main part in translation. In this case we can take this statement: “You would not like to help me, would you?”

“You'd like to help me, would not you?”

We intone again. It may mean: I know you would, but I am not sure if I share your hope or not.

In another context it may mean: “I would be glad to accept your help but I am not sure I can”.

“That was not very nice of you, was it?”

If the intonation goes down; it expresses my confidence that you share my view.

The disjunctive question often expresses the English tendency of understatement. In translations into Uzbek it may serve as a very expressive means of implying, the right shade of meaning, for example:

“Bu yer juda go'zal, shunday emasmi? — “It is lovely here, is not it?”

“I do think he is wrong, don't you?” — “U nohaq deb o'ylayman, shunday emasmi?”

Abridged forms like: “I will”, “we're”, “they'd” and so on while using certain voice, with certain intonation can be seen even “old fashioned.”

As an example we can take John Galsworthy's Forsytes trilogies, where some generation uses this form less frequently then the young Forsytes do. It is one of the ways in which Galsworthy presents the difference between two generations. It is note worthy that American accept abridged forms much more widely than does in English. The meaning which is important in translation maybe:

2) It may show tension in the speaker as we perceive in Salinger's stories;

3) It may voice abruptness, in which case abridged form will be contrasted to unabridged speech.

Among American abridged forms there are a lot of special kinds of vocabulary that not every English person can at ones understand, in the manner of Salinger's speech. For example: “gimme» (give me) — menga ber, «forchissake» (for Christ's sake) — Hudo haqi

Deliberate avoidance of habitually abridged forms is meaningful, indicative of the historical period as we may see in the contrast between the speech of the old and young generations. Changes from one form to the other are important to note, even if they are not reproducible in the same way. They will be decisive for choice of vocabulary, seance they throw curtain light on the character of the speaker. Choice of vocabulary is one of the main ways of compensating for the international shade implied by an abridgement.

Thus the role of changes in translation and the kinds of vocabulary influences to the translation from one language into another.

References:

1. Влахов С. Непереводимое в переводе. М., 1980
2. Любимов Н. Перевод — искусство. М., 1996