Regularities of proper name from English into Russian

Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation

North Caucasus State Technical University

Linguistics, Intercultural Communication and Tourism Department

Course Project on Lexicology:

Regularities of proper name from English into Russian

Stavropol, 2011

Contents

Introduction

I. Theoretical part of the course project

1.1 The problem of defining a proper name

1.2 Transformations

II. Practical part of the course project

2.1 One-summit titles of the films

2.2 Two-summit titles of the movies

2.3 Multi-summit titles of the movies

Conclusion

References

Table of authorities

Appendix AAppendix B

Appendix C

Introduction

Nowadays there are thousands of proper names. In the world there are many companies and companies, products and substances, plants and animals, all of them have their own proper names and in modern linguistics the problem of translation of proper names from English into Russian plays the rather important role.

As television occupies the great part of our life and exists in cultures of all nations, we decided to carry out the research of the proper names in this sphere, because the name produces the first impression, but not the content. The television’s proper names play an important role in our life, that determines the topicality of our course project.

The object of our research is proper names.

The subject of our course project is the regularities of translation of proper names from English into Russian.

The purpose of our course project is to study find out the regularities of translation of proper names from English into Russian.

To achieve the given aim some tasks were put forward:

· to analyze the term «proper name» ;

· to study the approaches to the translation of this phenomenon;

· to give a classification of proper names;

· to study the English titles of films and their translation into Russian;

· to carry out the research and give a conclusion.

The material for the course project’s research will be selected from the website.

The methods used in the present research include contrastive analysis, componential analysis, observation, comparison, summarizing.

I. Theoretical part of the course project

1.1 The problem of defining a proper name

In this written work we’ve dealt with the peculiarities of translation of the proper names. In order to prepare the theoretical basis for the work we needed to analyze the very term «proper name» and all the approaches to the translation of this phenomenon.

The English online encyclopedias give the follows materials concerning the proper names: «Proper nouns (also called proper names) are the names of unique entities. For example, „Janet“, „Jupiter“ and „Germany“ are proper nouns» [1:34]. Well, here we’ve met three problems. They are:

· we deal with the films' titles and they are not only «nouns»,

· they cannot be always unique, because there are more than two films with the same title,

· and it is logical, that in order to be unique one must use more than one word in the title to overcome the problem, but it leads to the usage of other parts of speech.

The lack of objectiveness caused the referring to the other sources. For example Matthews said that the specific nature of names is often described in conditions of the differences between proper nouns and common nouns. As he said common noun, is a name whose «application is not restricted to arbitrarily distinguished members of a class» [4:234]. For example, a scent or a woman is a common noun that may be used in reference to any aroma or any female. But if they are linked together «Scent of a woman» it is the title of a film, a proper name, but in the referred literature there is no evidence to prove the obvious fact. Well, let us to return to the problem and now to look at the definition of proper name by this scholar. To his mind proper noun is understood as «the name of a specific individual or of a set of individuals distinguished only by their having that name» [4:235]. Again we’ve met almost the same problems, but still one of them is denied. The strong point of this definition is as follows: the author allows the possibility of repetition. Of course there are no more details of this approach but it answers our question and allows the films with the same title exist.

To prove this idea, we’ve referred to another scholar, who defined the concept more convincingly. Kiviniemi considered the criterion of the uniqueness of the proper names as doubtful due to the fact that several different persons or films in our case may «have not only the same first name but also the same family name» [3:43]. That’s why we can also say that there is a scientific approval of a fact that two compound, i.e. of more than one word film titles can exsist and be unique in the sense of regarding to two different pictures as well as in the case with two namesake. It means that such a coincidence of the combination of words in the title is not a hundred-percent unique element.

Another remark mostly orientated on personal names and cannot be used for the films' titles as successfully. He said that proper names are connected to language use and according to our general onomastic knowledge. Kiviniemi’s main message is as follows: «it's not difficult to distinguish conventional names from common nouns or other proper names even when they are not within a context» [3:51]. From the first sight it really is not difficult, especially if we deal with the famous titles as «The Lord of The Rings» or some kind extra fiction ones as «Star Trek». But if we meet something like «The Bitter Tears» we can recognize the proper name only being acquired with it. Furthermore the confirmation of this concept also goes doubtfully with our topic: «proper names differ from common nouns not only orthographically and referentially, but also morphosyntactically and semantically» [3:52]. We’ve proved that the idea is worthless for our work with the previous example.

Though the authors opinion concerning the function of proper names worth some attention to pay. Kiviniemi stated, «the only function of proper names is identification» [3: 39]. In other words he estimated the proper names only as some linguistic marks which only function is denotative function (which is the relationship between the word and the referent). He also added that, from this point of view, names' ability to be descriptive is totally improper.

Having searched the definition in related literature we faced with the three problems and only one was solved, so we’ve tried to find the answer among the material presented in foreign sites and succeed a bit.

The first source which caught our attention was Babich who presented the problem very briefly and poor. He says:

«Proper names (or nouns) are capitalized in English. Here are some examples:

days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

months: January, February, March

names of companies: Amazon, Coca Cola, Google

countries, towns: England, Canada, San Francisco

sights: The Grand Canyon, The Empire State Building, The Underground

books, films, prizes: the Bible, the Oscar, the Nobel Prize

names of people: Tim Smith, Jennie Baker, Theodore Roosevelt

famous people: Aristotle, Napoleon, Shakespeare" [11:56]

Due to the lack of details and the general poverty of the so-called definition it almost cannot be considered as wrong. It also solves the two previous questions: now we can state that a proper name can include not only nouns (The Empire State Building), and contain more than one word according the example. Furthermore the article declares some kind of classification which includes our topic, the film’s titles. But the article arises two new questions. They are: why should one divide «names of people» and «famous people» [11:56], and if «proper names (or nouns) are capitalized in English», why some of elements of them are not «the Nobel Prize».

The first question is so doubtful, that falls into two sub questions: are famous people’s names like «Aristotle» not names or these persons are not people? What made the author to divide «names of people» and «famous people»? And the second sub question from what point should one be considered as famous, because Aristotle, Napoleon, Shakespeare lived long ago and David Cameron is our contemporary but he is still famous all over the world.

Well we’ve answered our two questions but have get two more as well, that’s why we used another article from Arbekova’s book.

«Proper nouns are a special type of names. In fact, when someone asks us our name, it is such a type of name we use in reply, i.e. Paul or Mohandas or Teresa or any such name.

· Names of people — like those just mentioned;

· Brand names — like Penguin Books, Tata Indica, Lux or Dell;

· Geographical names — Asia, River Nile, Mount Everest, the British Isles;

· Names of institutions — St. Michael’s School, Bank of England, European Union;

· Names of books and films — Utopia, Wuthering Heights, My Fair Lady.

Names of this kind are called Proper Nouns" [9:132].

This part proved itself as useful, because here the author solves the problem of personal names and considers that no division for personal and famous names is needed: «when someone asks us our name, it is such a type of name we use in reply, i.e. Paul or Mohandas or Teresa or any such name»

Another part of the article was quite useful too, because it is devoted to capitalization:

«Capitalization

See that in the examples above the first letter of every proper name is a capital (upper case) letter.

This is the convention in English.

Sometimes, this can be a problem. What about those proper names which have more than one word in them?

See this…

South Africa, West Bengal, South Korea, North Korea, Western Australia and East Timor, but…

north Kerala, eastern Australia, southern Europe, and even eastern South Africa.

The 'South' in South Africa and South Korea is part of the official names of these places. The 'north' in Kerala and the 'eastern' in Australia just tell us which part of Kerala or Australia we are talking about.

Even if you remember all the 'rules' or conventions about capitalization, you will still find educated people and reputed newspapers using their own set of rules" [9:135].

Furthermore it describes two not aroused but still important questions:

«Do Proper Nouns Have Singular and Plural Forms?

No. They are supposed to be unique names.

We don’t ordinarily say that two Peters or two Anns have come to see you. We do say that two men or two women have come to see you" [9:134]. However in colloquial speech we still can say «Have you seen all the Godfathers» and not only «all the parts of the film the Godfather».

The last remark is quite clear and not doubtful at all, but still it should be mentioned:

«Do These Nouns Have a Possessive Case Form?

Yes, they do.

We can say: Peter’s money or Ann’s house" [9:136].

Despite the value of these two articles the presented classifications are not full and consider revising. Well to dot all this and cross all this we must present the own complete own classification of proper names with the plausible definition.

Proper name is a capitalized, according the peculiar language, word or word combination, which names and denotes some unique person or object, and fulfills its main distinguishing function within definite context even in terms of multiply repetition.

We can distinguish the follows types of proper names:

· Days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday;

· Months: January, February, March;

· Names of companies and brand names: Amazon, Coca Cola, Google, Penguin Books, Tata Indica, Lux or Dell;

· Sights: The Empire State Building, The Underground;

· Books, films, prizes: the Bible, the Oscar, the Nobel Prize;

· Names of people: Tim Smith, Jennie Baker, Theodore Roosevelt, Napoleon;

· Geographical names: Asia, England, Canada, San Francisco River Nile, Mount Everest, the British Isles;

· Names of institutions: St. Michael’s School, Bank of England, European Union.

1.2 Transformations

In our written work we deal not only with original proper name, the films' titles but with their Russian equivalents, variants of translation as well. Earlier we’ve discussed our translation units and their peculiarities, the films' titles. We should say that the definition is proper for the Russian equivalents. It means that there is no need this point of the translation process.

But the «process» in the translation linked with translation transformations. There are different grouping and different names of these phenomena, according to different scholars. We enumerated and described only the transformations we’ve met in our research. There are eight of them:

· transliteration,

· transcription,

· tracing,

· explication,

· omission,

· addition,

· transposition,

· word-by-word.

The first two transformations are usually linked together and can be named as transcription with the elements of transliteration or vice versa. These transformations or procedures are the simplest and can be defined as follows:

· Transliteration is the practice of converting a text from one script into another, often in a systematic way. It can form an essential part of transcription which converts text from one writing system into another. Transliteration is not concerned with representing the phonemics of the original: it only strives to accurately represent the characters [5:79].

· Transcription means representing the meaning of a source language text in a target language [5:78].

But still it is necessary to emphasize some peculiarities, which we’ve found in related literature. For instance one opinion is that: «proper names, geographical denominations are rendered as a rule by means of transliteration, but we should take into account concerning historical proper names, geographical denominations, etc» [ 6: 39]. It should be also mentioned while translating proper names within proper names. Id est Pirates of the Caribbean is a proper name, film type which includes proper name of another type, the geographical name. We can transliterate pirates but the Caribbean we must translate according the historical norms of the Russian language in this case. Another remark of this author is as follows «formulas of politeness are rendered by means of transliterations. But in official documents and informations „Господин“ and „Госпожа“ are usually used» [6:40]. And personal names in the film titles can be translated in both ways: «Mr. Nobody» — «Господин никто», «Mr. and Mrs. Smith» — «Мистер и Миссис Смит».

Another name for the transliteration is phonological replacement. And it is defined by Fernandes as «attempt to reproduce phonological features of a source language» [2: 49].

Tracing or calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation [13:56].

Thus a compound English such as Superman can be translated not only with the transliteration and transcription: «Супермэн» but with the help of the procedure if the loan translation as well: «Сверхчеловек»

· Explication is a translation process when implied, initially missing or intentionally hidden (by an author) source language units are brought to the surface of the target-language message. Basically, it looks like an iceberg where the explicit parts are on its top and the implicit parts (the iceberg’s bottom) depend on the translator’s skills to be de-camouflaged and rendered [16:124].

We should say that it is really wide-spread procedure in the translation of the films' titles. It is critically important, in this field, to catch the sense the idea. That’s why «Shark Stories» were translated into Russian as «Подводная братва». So the picture is a comedy parody for the film «The Godfather», but as the picture is for children the translator gad no right to use any hint of the Mafia, furthermore it’s a comedy in the end. That’s why «double-edged» decision was used: from the one hand there is no mafia and the sense of the picture is preserved, but from the other Russian «братва» is associated with the early 1990's. For modern children it may be not acquired but the adults can disapprove it.

· Omission or dropping. In the process of lexical transformation of omission generally words with a surplus meaning are omitted / e.g. Components of typically English pair — synonyms, possessive pronouns and exact measures/ in order to give a more concrete expressions. [6:49].

Also we should say that functional words are usually missed, such as articles and auxiliary verbs. «The Mask» — «Маска». There are also cases where not only functional but notional elements are missing as well. The phenomenon of omission is close to addition another translation procedure.

· Addition a type of grammatical transformation can be met with in cases of formal inexpressiveness of grammatical or semantic components in the language of the original text. [6:73].

Sometimes addition is connected with historical reasons and stamps which are stable in the language: «Pirates of the Caribbean» — «Пираты Карибского моря». Here we observed omission of the preposition and definite article and addition of the word «sea» according to Russian linguistic norm.

· Transposition a type of transformation used in translations in which the position/order of linguistic elements in the Target language in comparison with a Source language is changed [6:71].

The transposition usually takes place in cases where principles of building of the word-order are different.

· Word-by-word translation is a translation procedure in which the elements are translated in same order and without changing of direction of relations between them.

In our research word-by-word translation is very often case: «The Green Mile» «Зелёная миля». One should be attentive in order not to confuse word-by-word and literal translation. Literal translation includes all the elements without exception which bothers adequate reproducing of the sense «Та самая зеленая миля» and so on.

Well we’ve prepared the theoretical base for our research. We determined and solved the problems with the definition «proper name» by search in related literature and creating own definition, which can meet our demands. Furthermore we developed two classifications and created the complete one on their base. We’ve also touched upon the transformations and mentioned that transcription and transliteration go hand into hand and shown the strict border between word-by-word and literal translation.

proper name film translation

II. Practical part of the course project

We have carried out the research. For this research we took 60 examples: 20 one-summit, 20 two-summit and 20 multi-summit titles of the films. And now we have some conclusions.

2.1 One-summit titles of the films

In our research in this group all the titles were translated by the word-by-word translation. In 25% cases of translation of the film’s titles also was used transliteration, the numbers of the examples are: 1, 3, 4, 9, 20. In 10% cases of translation of the film’s titles was used tracing, the numbers of the examples are: 5, 6. And only in 5% cases of translation of the film’s titles was used transcription, the number of the example is: 14.

The above information we presented in the table 1.

Table 1

The number of words in the English and Russian titles was the same in the 85% cases of translation, the examples 7, 16 and 18 are the exceptions. In this examples in Russian titles there are 2 words, but we should mention, that in this examples in English titles were used compounds.

In the 85% cases of translation the parts of speech in Russian and English titles are the same, examples 7, 16 and 18 are the exceptions. In English titles in this examples were used compounds, but in Russian titles were used the other parts of speech.

The above information we presented in the table 2.

Table 2

The parts of the sentence are different in the 25% cases of translation of the film’s titles, the numbers of the examples are: 5, 7, 16, 17, 18.

2.2 Two-summit titles of the movies

In our research in this group in 80% cases of translation was used word-by-word translation. The numbers of the examples are: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. In 30% cases of translation was used transposition, the numbers of the examples are: 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18. In 25% cases of translation was used explication, the numbers of the examples are: 1, 2, 3, 16, 17. In 20% cases of translation of the film’s titles was used omission, the numbers of the examples are: 1, 13, 15, 19. And only in 5% cases of translation of the film’s titles was used addition, the number of the example is: 11.

The above information we presented in the table 3.

Table 3

The number of words in the English and Russian titles was the same in the 75% cases of translation. In the 20% cases in English titles there are 2 words and in Russian only 1 word, the numbers of the examples are: 3, 13, 15, 19. And in 5% cases of translation in English titles there are 2 words and in Russian 3 words, the number of the example is: 11.

In this group of examples in the 40% cases of translation the parts of speech in Russian and English titles are different, the numbers of the examples are: 1, 2, 3, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19. And in 60% cases the parts of speech are the same.

The above information we presented in the table 4.

Table 4

The parts of the sentence are different in the 40% cases of translation of the film’s titles, the numbers of the examples are: 1, 2, 3, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19.

2.3 Multi-summit titles of the movies

In our research in this group in 90% cases of translation was used word-by-word translation. The numbers of the examples are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20. In 80% cases of translation was also used omission, the numbers of the examples are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20. In 15% cases of translation was used explication, the numbers of the examples are: 6, 9, 19. In 10% cases of translation was used addition, the numbers of the examples are: 4, 5. And only in 5% cases of translation of the film’s titles was used transposition, the number of the example is: 18.

The above information we presented in the table 5.

Table 5

The number of words in the English and Russian titles was the same in the 25% cases of translation. The numbers of the examples are: 5, 8, 14, 17, 18. In the 30% cases in English titles there are 3 words and in Russian 2 words, the numbers of the examples are: 2, 3, 6, 7, 16, 19. In the 15% cases in English titles there are 4 words and in Russian 3 words, the numbers of the examples are: 9, 12, 13. In the 10% cases in English titles there are 5 words and in Russian 2 words, the numbers of the examples are: 11, 20. In the 5% cases in English titles there are 8 words and in Russian 4 words, the number of the example is: 1. In the 5% cases in English titles there are 10 words and in Russian 6 words, the number of the example is: 4. In the 5% cases in English titles there are 5 words and in Russian 4 words, the number of the example is: 10. And in the last 5% cases in English titles there are 6 words and in Russian 5 words, the number of the example is: 15.

In this group of examples in the 85% cases of translation the parts of speech in Russian and English titles are different, the numbers of the examples are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20. And in 15% cases the parts of speech are the same, the numbers of the examples are: 14, 17, 18.

The above information we presented in the table 6.

Table 6

The parts of the sentence are the same in the 20% cases of translation of the film’s titles, the numbers of the examples are: 11, 14, 17, 18.

Conclusion

We’ve finished the course project and have successfully fulfilled all the tasks. First of all we’ve analyzed the term proper name in related literature. Though the given definitions were considered by us as unsatisfactory, we’ve combined their strong points and created own definition of the term proper name which is considered as appropriate: proper name is a capitalized, according the peculiar language, word or word combination, which names and denotes some unique person or object, and fulfills its main distinguishing function within definite context even in terms of multiply repetition. Furthermore we’ve carried out our own classification of proper names, which includes also the studied phenomenon.

Then among the acquired approaches to the translation of proper names we’ve outlined the most significant translation transformations or procedures and given them brief characteristics which emphasize the main features in the field they are: 1) transcription and transliteration go hand into hand; 2) the strict border between word-by-word and literal translation.

In the practical part of our research we divided the titles into three groups: one-summit, two-summit, multi-summit titles. Then we’ve discovered types of transformations and changes of parts of speech, which occurred because of translation. The more units of translation are there in a title the more changes occur and the reason is the bigger percentage of omissions. So as for transformations in general the word-by-word one is the dominant anyway.

Thus we can see some changes in compare with the film titles of the past. We mean that earlier a translator interpreted mostly but not translated. The most famous example is translation of the film’s title «Some Like It Hot» as «В джазе только девушки». Well we have several ways of explanation for this phenomenon: 1) globalization leads to understanding, 2) film-makers degenerate, 3) translators become lazier. Anyway the title still is the face of any object and it should be considered as the most significant and important and be translated in the last turn, in order not to fail its main distinguishing function.

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Table of authorities

1. Апресян, Ю. Д. Новый Большой англо-русский словарь. / Ю. Д. Апресян, Э. М. Медникова, А. В. Петрова и др. — 3-е изд. — М.: «Дрофа», «Русский язык», 2003. — 2496 с.

2. Мюллер, В. К. Англо-русский словарь. / В. К. Мюллер. — 24-е изд. — М.: «Русский язык», 1995. — 2106 с.

3. http://www.kinonews.ru/movies/, дата входа: 20.05.2011.

4. http://cdonline.com.ua/video/all/, дата входа: 20.05.2011.

Appendix A

proper name film translation

Appendix B

Appendix C