АМПЛИФИКАЦИЯ И КОМПРЕССИЯ ТЕКСТА И ЕГО НАЗВАНИЯ КАК СРЕДСТВО ПЕРЕДАЧИ ИНФОРМАЦИОННОЙ СТРУКТУРЫ

Generally speaking, information structure deals with the way the information conveyed by the discourse in question is packed into informational units within and between clauses by the enunciator (writer or speaker) in order to satisfy two communicative goals: making the information conveyed by the discourse easier for the reader/hearer to understand; indicating what the enunciator considers to be the most important or salient items of information.

Tradition is a very complex communication process that conveys an original text to a concrete recipient. The communicative function, that is, the desire to convince the recipient of certain ideas and conclusions, “to win him/her over” is characteristic of the written language, no less than of oral. And though the addressee of the text is not directly involved in the communication process, the range of readers is defined by the introduction, abstract or title of the publication.

When translating from one language into another the information structure in most cases remains unchanged. However the text in the target language may not always be completely clear to the new recipient for a number of reasons, such as social and national differences between speakers of the two languages, or lack of realia in the target language.

In this case the information structure of the new text changes. It needs extension in the form of descriptions, definitions, commentaries. This results either in amplification of the new text as compared with the original, or in compression, i.e. narrowing of the text in the target language. In his book, A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices, author Robert Harris explains in depth, “Amplification involves repeating a word or expression while adding more detail to it, in order to emphasize what might otherwise be passed over. In other words, amplification allows you to call attention to, emphasize, and expand a word or idea to make sure the reader realizes its importance or centrality in the discussion” [3, P. 3].

The present work is based on an analysis of articles and papers from American and British journals and periodicals (The Economist, The Newsweek, The Morning Star, etc.). The transformations in translation fall into two main groups – lexical and grammatical. We were interested in the former, i.e. those caused by the presence of phraseological units, proverbs and sayings, set clichés, and also lexical units concerned with extralinguistic factors.

For example, a newspaper text (The Morning Star) reads: “Building workers union yesterday gave a decisive thumbs down to any and all negotiations with any other union or unions”. To convey the meaning of the word combination thumbs down it is necessary to know that in Ancient Rome the fate of the defeated gladiator was decided by the motion of the Emperor’s hand: his thumb lowered meant death. And, if the translator is nor sure whether the recipient of the text knows this, he/she should make a note or a footnote.

The need for transformations such as an amplification of the text often arises when translating specialist terms. In this case the above reasons are supplemented by others, such as a great number of abbreviations, extralinguistic factors connected with the presence in a specific field of knowledge of certain phenomena, processes, methods, devices, etc. which are not known to the recipient of the translated text. For example, the English term insider when translated into Russian as инсайдер is not familiar to a great number of recipients of economic texts and is usually followed by a definition: лицо, имеющее в силу служебного положения конфиденциальную информацию о делах фирмы.

A translator should be ready to use inner reserves of the text, and according to L. S. Barkhudarov, move beyond the framework of an individual sentence into a broader context [1]. For example, judging only by the heading of the article in “The Journal of Operational Research”: “Forecaster – an exercise in user friendliness” it is rather difficult to translate the word forecaster in the context. However, further on in the text there is a definition: “Forecaster is a small unsophisticated device … designed as a vehicle to investigate the response of managers to using technical software”. Hence we can give a translation such as: устройство для прогнозирования спроса пользователей технического программного обеспечения.

Phraseological units, proverbs and sayings more often than not need amplification or compression, especially if they have no close analogues in the target language. For example, wishful thinking; take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.

Another example of amplification is the translation of professional jargon which has lately become frequent in business language [see e.g. 4]. A lot of English economic terms have penetrated into Russian practically without any change, e.g. франшиза, дефолт, байбэк, лидс энд лэнгз, etc. They may not be understood by the readers, so it is the duty of the translator to provide an explanation.

There is also an inverse phenomenon, namely, compression, or narrowing of the new text for several reasons, such as paired synonyms which mean practically the same in the target language (for example, by force and violence, terms and conditions, by fits and starts).

There is little doubt as to the role of the title in the process of perception of the text regardless of the type of writing it belongs to: “the title represents both the gist of the message and the author’s attitude towards it in a book, a film and a newspaper article” [2, P. 42]. Taking into consideration its prominent role in the act of author-recipient communication, it may be assumed that the process of compression of the vast piece of writing into its concise heading is a complex and varying phenomenon requiring an intent scientific study. Although a number of researchers have already touched upon this topic (E. A. Lazaryeva, A. V. Lamzina, N. A. Kozhyna, B. P. Dundik, M. B. Bergelson, O. I. Panchenko) it has not been fully explored. However, the peculiarities of a title as a compressed text and the use of a metaphor to provide this compression have not given due attention. In this article an effort is also made to analyze the patterns of information reduction with the help of metaphor.

The form of a metaphorical heading depends on its functional load which differs considerably in the titles of literary works, newspaper articles and films. The choice of the metaphor lies on the predominant function performed by the title. For instance, the leading role of advertising function, aimed at making the reader or viewer feel interested, may be felt in headings like “You Only Live Twice”, “A Streetcar Named Desire”.

Alongside with other functions, the title performs a text compressing role. It is worth mentioning that the amount of reduced information differs greatly depending on whether the metaphor in the title is trite or author’s. The scholars mention that the choice of the former or the latter type of metaphor for the most part is determined by the functional style which the artwork belongs to (Galperin). Trite metaphors or cliché expressions are fairly common in newspaper headings where they can easily bring the idea to the reader without complicating the title with additional connotations or vague images. Such metaphors appear in 26 % of article headings with the examples of “Film Star Sentenced for Drunk Driving”, “New York Seeks Limits on Skyscraper Building”, “Homicide in London Subway is the Last Straw”, “Ray of Hope for Homeless in Beijing’, “University Campus Needs Hard Cash, the Government Offers Soft Options”.

The extent of information reduction in trite metaphors in comparison with its non-idiomatic meaning may be shown in such expressions (with proportion of words used in both cases): “ray of hope” – “a slight indication of something anticipated” (1:2), “film star” – “a popular film actor or actress” (1:3), “skyscraper” – “a very tall multistorey building” (1:5), “hard cash” – “money in the form of coins or notes rather than checks or credit” (1:6) [2, P. 43].

The examples given above prove the fact that trite metaphors, especially the nominative ones, are essential for text compression in the newspaper title. Moreover, they still create a brighter image than that conveyed by means of simple description, even though their original vividness has been lost. The fact that a trite metaphor does not possess such expressive power as the author’s one is only beneficial for the newspaper article – the less ambiguous the title is, the more information the reader gets, which is a crucial benefit for any article.

Newspaper heading mainly expresses the factual gist of the article, whether the film or book name deals with the conceptual side of a piece of art. As the journalistic piece of writing strives to report the actions or changes, the verbs are absolutely indispensible here: “The Man Who Stole the Olympics’ Innocence”, “Embracing a Life of Solitude”. Taking into consideration stylistic features of the metaphor it is worth mentioning that there has been traced a number of so-called “secondary author’s metaphors” which were not actually created by the author of the piece of writing but taken from some other source. However, they cannot be considered trite metaphors since these expressions were given creative reconsideration and used in the new meaning. This is the case of intertextual connections between different layers of culture which can be shown in the examples of “No Sound or Fury to This Blankety Blank Debate”, “To Eat or not to Eat”, “Farewell to the Rights”.

In all these cases metaphors are used in newspaper headings not only to describe the information given in the article, but also to refer the reader to another famous work of literature where this phrase was used in a different context. When these two contexts overlap we get a fresh impression and a bright image. Thus, such intertextual metaphor efficiently compresses two texts – the initial and the final one.

It should be pointed out that intertextual ties have specific features in the newspaper heading. The common trait of them all is that the metaphor is rarely kept in the same form as in the original. More often it is slightly transformed so that it is possible to understand what source it was taken from but still in adaptation to a new context. It is usually the syntactic form that is preserved while changing some lexical constituents as in “To Eat or not to Eat” and “Farewell to the Rights”. As a result, it is obvious that the expressions were taken from Shakespeare’s and Hemingway’s masterpieces but still a new meaning is clearly understandable.

As we have seen, the metaphor is widely used in all types of written communication and it possesses a number of features that make it an efficient means of text compression. It can state the idea in a concise but very expressive form and also give a broad field for intertextual ties. However, the problem of its functioning in the title in connection with the whole body of the text is far from final resolution. It is necessary to trace the syntactical structure and stylistic potential of the metaphor in the title which should definitely be done in future. This problem is crucial for  clarifying the process of text compression and thus requires further scientific study.