The Russian Federation Ministry of Education

Lexical Problems of Literary Translation.
I. Translation of Word.
2.1. Lexical Correspondences. First of all a translation of a word starts from an attempt to discover in the Russian language the word that is coincident in the meaning with given one. There is a good deal of the Russian words which have a close meaning to English words. In the theory of translation that sort of words is named lexical or lexicographic correspondence.
Two basic types of semantic relations between words of the English and Russian languages are discovered:
1. A meaning of an English word corresponds completely to a meaning of a Russian one. That kind of correspondence implies that in all (or almost all) cases of using of an English word it will be conveyed in translation with this Russian word. Such permanent equivalent correspondences we will name equivalents.
For examples, English words London, cypress, twenty, Monday, March have equivalent correspondences in the Russian language: Лондон, кипарис, двадцать, понедельник, март.
Terms (not all), proper names, place-names, numerals, names of days of the week and months, etc. are also represented by equivalents in another language. There is not a lot of equivalent correspondences in languages as most of words are polysemantic. As a rule, polysemantic words don’t have one equivalent; an equivalent can have just single meaning of these words. For example, figure – фигура; цифра.
2. Meanings of several Russian words correspond partially to the meaning of an English word, i.e. this word has several lexical correspondences, similar by meaning. This type of correspondences is named variant correspondence.
A skill of a translator to a great extent consists in the ability to find a number of correspondences to English word and choose the variant that is more appropriate by the terms of the context. Let’s take, for example, the follow sentence from the novel:
# He said they could not afford to let sentiment stand in the way of business. (Chapter 7, page 61).
A dictionary gives 4 meanings of the word sentiment:
1) чувство, отношение, настроение, мнение;
2) сентиментальность, сантименты;
3) мысль;
4) тост.
First meaning of the four suits most of all. There are variant correspondences in the first meaning among that a translator has to choose most closely apt one. The translator of the novel chose the word чувство and translated this sentence in that way: Он сказал, что они не могут позволить чувствам мешать делу. (Стр. 52).
Very often a sequence of lexical variant correspondences given in a dictionary doesn’t satisfy a translator. He/she can’t make use of them, for instance, for stylistic reasons. In that case a translator prolongs a sequence of lexical correspondences. A word in particular context can take on special significance that is not constant but arises only in given context.
However, contextual meanings of words, though they are not constant, are not casual. They are not in dictionaries but there is always bond between a contextual meaning and a basic object-logical one. So a translator can “throw a bridge” from the meaning given in a dictionary to the originated contextual one. For example:
# We’ve had a couple of duds. The next play’s bound to be all right and then we shall get back all we’ve lost and a packet into the bargain. (Ch.9, p.77).
A dictionary gives the following meanings of the word dud:
1) лохмотья, рваная одежда;
2) никчемный человек или вещь;
3) фальшивая, поддельная вещь;
4) неразорвавшийся снаряд.
No one of the indicated in the dictionary meanings of this word suits for given context but it can be guessed by the next sentence. It means failure as between dud and failure the associative consecution can be built. So the word dud has the contextual meaning, the translator gives it with a mark “here” and translates: Ну, было у нас два провала. А следующая пьеса пойдет на ура, и мы с лихвой возместим все убытки. (С.64).