The Russian Federation Ministry of Education

3.2.4. Method of Compensation. This method is applied in that case when some linguistic phenomenon can’t be conveyed in TL. Compensating for loss which arises in translation because of some linguistic unit of ST can’t be translated a translator conveys the same information by the other means. Compensation is often used where it’s necessary to convey merely linguistic characteristics of ST (dialecticisms, individual features of speech, incorrect linguistic forms, pun, etc.) that have not always correspondences in TL. In translation of contaminative speech a translator can substitute for one linguistic means by others (grammatical – lexical, phonetic – grammatical and so on, in compliance with the Russian language norms).
# “For the little I eat I’ve got all the teeth I want. It’d only fidget me to ’ave a lot of elephant’s tusks in me mouth.”(Ch.10, p.84) – the words of Julia’s maid who was a cockney.
«Сколько я ем, для того и моих зубов много. Только мешать будет, коли напихаешь себе полон рот слоновьих клыков.» (С.69).
Method of compensation illustrates clearly one of the basic positions of theory of translation – not single elements should be translated adequately but all text as a whole. In other words, there are untranslatable particulars but there are not untranslatable texts.
3.2.5. Method semantic development. Using in translation of a word or a word-combination, whose meaning is logical development of the meaning of a translating unit, is named semantic development. It means deviation from direct lexical correspondence of given word or word-combination. Thus, fundamentally semantic development doesn’t differ from more simple methods of lexical transformation, concretization and generalization. Distinction is only in nature and degree of complexity of the method.
It’s necessary to have in view that semantic development always applies to not a single word but to a word-combination or a semantic group. Most often the meanings of such words and word-combinations in ST and TT are connected by cause-effect relations. At that substitution of cause by its effect (or vice versa) doesn’t break exactness of translation and, quite the contrary, is the best (at times the only) way of adequate conveying of ST content.
# Mrs. De Vries was a widow. She was a short stout woman with a fine Jewish nose and fine Jewish eyes, a great deal of energy, a manner at once effusive and timid, and a somewhat virile air. She had a passion for the stage. (Ch.8, p.68).
Долли де Фриз была вдова. Эта низенькая, тучная, несколько мужеподобная женщина, с красивым орлиным носом, красивыми темными глазами, неуемной энергией, экспансивная и вместе с тем неуверенная в себе, обожала театр. (С.57).
# On the other hand if he was shattered and tongue-tied, she’d be all tremulous herself,… (Ch.11, p.93). – С другой стороны, если он будет скован, не сможет выдавить из себя путного слова от смущения и расстройства чувств, она и сама будет робка и трепетна… (С.76).