Culture-bound and equivalent-lacking words

§6. TRANSLATING PUBLISHED EDITIONS

Periodicals are normally transcribed: Financial News – Файнэншл Ньюз, Economist – Икономист. The definite article testifying to the name of a newspaper is not transferred: The Times – «Таймс». Also, the names of periodicals are usually extended: газета «Таймс», журнал «Икономист». Note the difference in the position of the generic name: Asian Business magazine – журнал «Эйжн Бизнес». Transplanting foreign names is one of the latest trends: журнал “Asian Business”.

Titles of literary works are translated: The Man of Property – Собственник. When used in the English text, all notional words in titles are capitalized and either italicized or underlined. More rarely are they written with quotation marks. In Russian, titles are usually quoted in a text.
For pragmatic reasons, a translator can substitute the title. For instance, «Двенадцать стульев» by Ilf and Petrov was translated into English under the title Diamonds to Sit On, so as to make the book commercially more enticing.
It is also necessary to observe literary traditions of a country. The world famous tales «Тысяча и одна ночь» are known in English-speaking countries as The Arabian Nights.
Scientific works in references are not translated. When a work of science is translated from English, the source language title of reference to remains in its original form. When a scientific work is translated from Russian, references to Russian scientists are usually transliterated.
Translated document titles must render the general meaning of the official document, so various translation transformations are admissible: e.g., the British No Hanging Bill is translated by generalizing «Закон об отмене смертной казни», since it spoke of abolishing the death penalty in general.

§7. TRANSLATING ERGONYMS

When the name of an institution is identified, it is usually transferred with a word about its function and status: DalZavod (Far Eastern Dock), детский спортклуб “Юность”- Yunost, Children’s and Youth’s Sports Club, магазин “Океан” - the Ocean seafood store, Востоктрансфлот - VostokTransFlot shipping company.

Ergonyms comprising highly informative names are calque-translated: Дальневосточный центр поддержки бизнеса - The Far Eastern Business Support Center. Official administrative bodies are normally translated: Гоcударственный комитет РФ по рыболовству - The Russian Federal Committee on Fisheries, Краевой комитет по архитектуре и строительству - The Krai Committee for Architecture and Construction.

*^* See Part 1 Chapter 5 §3

146¹⁴⁶ И в а н о в А. О. Английская безэквивалентная лексика и ее перевод на русский язык. – Л.: Изд-во Ленингр. Ун-та, 1985.

147¹⁴⁷ В л а х о в С., Ф л о р и н С. Непереводимое в переводе. – Междунар. отношения, 1980.

148¹⁴⁸ N e w m a r k P. A Textbook of Translation. – New York a.o.: Prentice Hall, 1988. – P.176

149¹⁴⁹ Т о м а х и н Г. Д. Реалии-американизмы. – М.: высшая школа, 1982.

150¹⁵⁰ The A s s o c i a t e d P r e s s S t y l e b o o k a n d L i b e l M a n u a l / Ed. By N.Goldstein. – New York: The Associated Press, 1993. – P.187

151¹⁵¹ Ibid.

152¹⁵² Е р м о л о в и ч Д. И. Англо-русский словарь персоналий. – М.: Русский язык, 1993.

153¹⁵³ N e w m a r k P. A Textbook of Translation. – New York a.o.: Prentice Hall, 1988. – P.215.

154¹⁵⁴ B a s s n e t t S. Translation Studies. – London and New York: Routeledge, 1996. – P.118-119.

155¹⁵⁵ Г о р с к а я М. В. Англо-русский и русско-английский словарь географических названий. – М.: Русский язык, 1993.