СПЕЦИФИКА АНГЛО-РУССКОГО ПЕРЕВОДА ТЕРМИНОВ В СФЕРЕ КИНОПРОИЗВОДСТВА
СПЕЦИФИКА АНГЛО-РУССКОГО ПЕРЕВОДА ТЕРМИНОВ В СФЕРЕ КИНОПРОИЗВОДСТВА
Аннотация
Данное лингвистическое исследование направлено на анализ терминов, используемых в рамках профессиональной коммуникации, относящейся к сфере кинопроизводства. В связи с развитием отечественной киноиндустрии и глобализацией самого процесса производства фильмов, успех взаимодействия между сотрудничающими сторонами в данной области напрямую зависит от правильной передачи специальной лексики, в которую и входит терминология. Настоящая работа содержит в себе сравнительный анализ 200 наиболее часто употребляемых единиц терминологии кинопроизводства в английском и русском языках, а также их классификацию в соответствии со способами перевода с английского на русский язык на базе метода количественных подсчетов.
1. Introduction
Currently, the field of film production is dynamically developing on the basis of technological progress, enriching the aesthetic vocabulary, expanding genre boundaries and accumulating the results of the achievements of related fields. Along with this, the film industry is a promising international business area that brings significant income.
Accordingly, the content of curricula and the formation of professional competencies among students studying in the specialties of filmmaking also includes the study of a foreign language, mainly English. Department of Russian and Foreign Languages of the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography published a textbook covering the minimum of requirements for students to master their professional skills. Professor of the department G.I. Bakulev compiled a dictionary of film terminology
. Accordingly, it can be concluded that the study of the terms of film vocabulary and the peculiarities of their translation is necessary among professional competencies for successful activities in the field of film production and distribution.The aim of this study is to identify the specific features of the translation of film production terms from English into Russian, as well as to conduct a comparative analysis of the terminological units of the thermosphere "Film production" in Russian and English.
To achieve this goal, such tasks were set as compiling a classification of terminology in the sphere of film production and characterizing each individual type, identifying the features of translating these terms from English to Russian, as well as conducting a comparative analysis of the terminology of this sphere in Russian and English.
The object of the study was the Russian and English terminology of the of film production sphere, and the subject of the study was a comparative study of these terms in the aspect of multilanguage translation.
The material for the study is 200 units of English terminology in the field of "Film production", selected from various sources, including terminological dictionaries and English-language books on professional cinematography
, , , .The theoretical significance of this work lies in the need for a systematic description and classification of terminological units in accordance with the logical-conceptual, morphological and syntactic features in terms of the functioning of these terms and methods of their translation. Also, the results of this study can be applied in various areas of applied linguistics, lexicology, theory and practice of translation, terminology and terminological lexicography.
2. Research methods and principles
2.1 Theoretical background
Terminology is a multifaceted science, where the main areas are theoretical and applied terminology. At the same time, terminology, as a language field, has long been within the scope of scientific interests of terminological linguists. The famous terminologist V.M. Leichik believes that “the study of terminology is necessary, since the term is inevitably associated with any field of knowledge or activity. All technical, natural and social sciences, scientific disciplines and fields of knowledge operate with specific scientific and general scientific concepts and categories, which, in turn, are also denoted by terms – special or general scientific"
.Each sphere has its own vocabulary, but at the same time there are terms known to everyone. A term is a lexical unit (a word or a combination of words) denoting a concept in a particular field of activity
. S.V. Grinev believes that a term is a symbol, a sign, which is considered in syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects . In accordance with the work of V.M. Leichik, "the term is interconnected with other terms and is the elements of the terminological system" . Also, two types of sets of terms are distinguished, one of which is called terminology, and the other is termosphere .In accordance with the opinion of many linguists, terms are not formed artificially, their creation occurs naturally or consciously
, , , . The concept of "terminology" refers specifically to the natural formation of terms, and "terminal system" refers to their conscious appearance. However, not all linguists agree with this division. In accordance with the work of B.N. Golovin, it can be concluded that the term system itself is the total number of terms that can exist both in large and in smaller quantities .The concept of "unification of terminology" includes the phenomenon of systematization of terms that appear spontaneously. This concept has come into use relatively recently. The unification process includes three main types: terminography, ordered terminology, and standardization of production and technical terminology. The ordered terminology contributed to the emergence of collections of recommended terminology, and the standardization of industrial and technical terminology led to the creation of generally accepted standards.
Doctor of Philology K.Ya. Averbukh wrote that “if we analyse a special text by lexical composition, then it obviously falls into two parts: general language vocabulary and special terminology. In turn, the special terminology is divided into general terminology (for scientific and technical texts, these will be general scientific and general technical terms) and the terms of this particular subject area”
. Also, in his opinion: “when the boundaries of each specific science and field of activity become mobile, it is nevertheless possible to almost always single out the core of those basic concepts that, presumably, form this subject area” . In this connection, the termosphere is “an organized set of terms specific to a given area” .It should be noted that the general feature of the term is invariance, which is a “property that remains unchanged under transformations of a certain type”
, when its distinctive feature is determined by variance. “The specificity of terminological variation also lies in the fact that, unlike the words of the general language sphere, in which any change in their linguistic form potentially entails the emergence of new meanings, this is not a necessity for terms” .The reason for the formation of the term is an attempt to create a certain name or concept for everything. The expansion of special vocabulary is not an artificial process, as noted earlier, but a conscious and natural process. The term is a means of communication for representatives of one field of activity. The very process of formation of special vocabulary is manifested in the perception and mastery of special lexical units by a person in the course of accumulating experience
. The formation of terms occurs both on the basis of the native language and by borrowing from a foreign language. In the first case, the terms are called national, and in the second – international. The process of formation of international terms is similar to the appearance of borrowed words. Most of the languages of the world are to some extent related to each other and represent a single terminological system. In the course of analysing the history of word formation, it can be assumed that this process is a chain of transition from one language to another.It is important to remember that special vocabulary should not have synonymous words. “Synonymy in science is usually understood as the phenomenon of doubleness (suffix, postfix). There are no relationships between doublets that organize a synonymous series, there are no emotionally expressive, stylistic or tint oppositions. They are identical with each other, each of them refers directly to the signified”
. To perform its main functions, the term must have such properties as systematicity, independence from context, accuracy, internationality and stylistic neutrality. At the same time, the main functions of the term include nominative, significative, communicative, pragmatic and heuristic functions.The last decades in science, technology, politics, economics, culture have been marked by an ever faster renewal of human knowledge and the activation of all kinds of developments. The emergence of new areas of activity, the growth of diversification and specialization of production, along with the globalization of all spheres of life across borders and language barriers, led to the creation of a single information society and an ever-increasing exchange of information through new channels of communication. The quality, speed and ease of this exchange are inconceivable without the development of well-defined special terms in various subject areas and their reduction into monolingual and multilingual dictionaries.
At the same time, professional translation contributes to the development of all spheres of life. The need for translation arises when people striving for communication are separated by linguistic and cultural barriers. In this regard, the translator must always remember that the original language is associated with many cultural and historical features. Speaking of translation, one should dwell on such a concept as a “translation unit”. The most successful definition of this term is given in the works of L.S. Barkhudarov, who under the translation unit means "such a unit in the source text, which can be matched in the translation text, but whose components individually do not have matches in the translation text"
. When translating, experts distinguish the following units: phonemes, morphemes, words, etc. Each of these units has its own characteristics, and it is important for a translator to understand how to work with them. In accordance with the theory of translation, a word, a phrase, a syntagma, a sentence, a paragraph and the text itself can be considered as a unit of translation . When choosing from a number of words, the translator must always correlate the lexical possibilities of each of them to fully convey the meaning of the original version.In the case of translation of non-equivalent vocabulary, such translation techniques as transliteration, transcription, tracing, concretization, generalization, descriptive translation, approximate translation, semantic/logical development, antonymic translation and holistic transformation are used. According to A. D. Schweitzer, “the main thing in translation is communicative equivalence, based on the invariant communicative effect of the source and translated texts”
. However, in accordance with his own statements, “full equivalence is rather an idealized constructor and is really achievable only in the case of simple texts with a narrow range of functional characteristics” . Also, in the interpretation of V.S. Vinogradov, equivalence is “the preservation of the relative equality of content, semantic, stylistic and functional-communicative information contained in the original and translation” .An analysis of the features of the translation of the English-language terminological array in the field of film production cannot be performed outside the cultural and historical context. The film industry that originated and formed in America still dominates the world, spreading terms that are becoming an integral part of the national professional language. Film production is one of the main areas of cinematography. Filmmaking includes not only the artistic and creative process of creating a film, but also their technology, organization of production, distribution and screening. Each of the stages of work is characterized by its own terminology, which is the object of this study.
2.2 Methods and principles of research
To achieve the goals of the study, the 200 of the most common units of film production terminology was selected, while an integrated approach, which includes a comparative analysis, is used along with a continuous sampling method, a typological classification method, as well as a quantitative calculation method and a structural modelling method.
The first stage of this research is the selection of the main film terms related to each stage of film production: project development, preparatory period, filming period, editing and shading period and distribution. 15 terms were selected for the development stage of the project (development), 27 terms for the pre-production stage, 70 terms for the filming period (production), 30 terms for the post-production period, and film rental and screening stage (distribution/release) – 58 terms. For each term, its corresponding version of the translation into Russian was selected. The next steps were to classify according to the methods of translation used and to calculate the statistical data for each translation method using the method of quantitative calculations.
3. Main results
In the course of the study, in accordance with the said above, the most used 200 English terms related to professional activities in the field of film production were analysed. The main results of the study are presented in Table 1 “Methods of Translation”.
Table 1 - Methods of translation
No | Method of translation | Percentage |
1 | Tracing | 49 |
2 | Specification | 15 |
3 | Semantic/logical development | 9 |
4 | Transcription | 8 |
5 | Transliteration | 7 |
6 | Descriptive method | 6 |
7 | Generalization | 2 |
8 | Holistic transformation | 2 |
9 | Meaning transferring | 1 |
10 | Antonymic translation | 1 |
According to Table 1, we can conclude that the most common way of transferring film production terms is tracing (49%), when (while?) for the least such translation techniques as generalization (2%), holistic transformation (2%), meaning transfer (1%) and antonymic translation (1%) are used.
Each individual translation method requires a detailed consideration on specific examples among the selected 200 units of terms.
The most striking terms for which such a method as tracing is applied are such as “costume designer”, “camera script”, “above-the-line costs”, “associate producer”, “big-budget film”:
1) Costume designer – художник по костюмам.
2) Camera script – съемочный лист (a list that includes the total number of takes taken, including successful (unsuccessful), defective, etc.)
3) Above-the-line costs – затраты над чертой, where production costs are meant, including the cost of rights and payments to creative personnel: producer, director, actors, screenwriters.
4) Associate producer – ассоциированный продюсер (crew member who solves a lot of problems, giving the director the opportunity to do more creative things).
5) Big-budget film –высокобюджетный фильм.
The method of specification is well displayed in the translation of such terms as “outline story”, “development”, “cast”, “act out”, “Rolling!”:
1) Outline story – развернутая сценарная заявка.
2) Development – 1. Разработка сценария; 2. Развитие сюжета.
3) Cast – подбор актеров.
4) Act out – разыгрывать какое-либо действие.
5) Rolling – Мотор идет! (the answer of cameraman to the command “Action!”).
Semantic / logical development is applied in cases with the terms “pitch session”, “backer”, “hunt for location”, “aerial shot”, “butterfly”:
1) Pitch session – встреча продюсера и сценариста для обсуждения сюжета будущего фильма.
2) Backer – спонсор.
3) Hunt for location – искать натуру, выбирать место проведения съемок в естественной среде.
4) Aerial shot – съемка сверху; кадр, снятый сверху.
5) Butterfly – операторский затенитель
Regarding examples of translating transcription, one can consider such filmmaking terms as “pitch”, “camera”, “gaffer”, “grip”, “steadicam”:
1) Pitch – питч, where “pushing” the idea of a new film is meant (putting it up for sale, trying to interest the studio, the producer). This term came to the film industry from baseball (from the English pitch - throw). The purpose of the pitch is to interest the studio, the investor, the cultural authorities and authorities.
2) Camera – камера.
3) Gaffer – гаффер (Chief Lighting Technician).
4) Grip – грип (a technician on a motion-picture or television set who handles and maintains equipment).
5) Steadicam – стэдикам (camera mounting system on the operator's body, ensuring the stability of the image).
The transliteration method is used for such terms as “fund”, “option”, “film”, “microphone”, “mise-en-scene”:
1) Fund – финансировать.
2) Option – опцион.
3) Film – фильм.
4) Microphone – микрофон.
5) Mise-en-scene – мизансцена.
Descriptive translation is used for the following terms: “continuity”, “ham”, “mug shot”, “wrap party”, “booking”:
1) Continuity – пообъектный сценарий.
2) Ham – актер, бьющий на эффект, переигрывающий актер.
3) Mug shot – портрет, крупный план актера.
4) Wrap party – окончание съемочного периода, которое отмечают вечеринкой.
5) Booking – роспись фильма (making a contract between the distributor and the theatre).
The translation technique of generalization is well displayed on the examples of the terms “extreme long shot”, “estimate”, “script breakdown”:
1) Extreme long shot (ELS) – самый общий план ( on location it is a panorama, in the interior it is a plan of the entire scenery/ELS is a type of shot that covers a large area of a frame).
2) Estimate – составлять приблизительные подсчеты.
3) Script breakdown – разбивка сценария по действующим лицам или местам съемки.
Holistic transformation is used in case of such terms as “act along smb”, “Action!”, “best boy”, “Cut!”:
1) Act alongside smb – играть в партнерстве с кем-либо.
2) Action! – Мотор! Камера!
3) Best boy – помощник бригадира осветителей.
4) Cut! – Снято!
In the case of the terms “boom operator”, “dolly”, meaning transfer is used:
1) Boom operator – звукооператор, работающий с микрофонным «журавлем».
2) Dolly – операторская тележка.
Antonymic translation is used only with the term “non-fiction” out of 200 selected:
1) Non-fiction – документальный фильм.
According to the explanation above, for the translation of terms in the field of film production, a variety of translation techniques are used, the choice of which is determined by various factors and is subject to further discussion.
4. Discussion
When translating film production terms and texts, not only general linguistic literacy is necessary, but also deep knowledge of the subject itself, in particular, the functioning of cinema not only as an industry, but also as an art form at all stages of its production, distribution and demonstration to the audience.
In accordance with the properties of the term that were identified by S.V. Grinev, namely the specificity of use, content accuracy, definition, independence from context, unambiguity, stylistic neutrality, conventionality and nominative character
, we can conclude that they influence the choice of translation technique when transferring film industry terms from English to Russian. Thus, tracing and transliteration are used mainly in cases where it is possible to carry out a literal translation or a word-by-letter transmission of a word without losing the properties inherent in the term. At the same time, in order to more accurately convey the meaning in terms that do not have a single-component analogue in the Russian language, or that have an ambiguous meaning in Russian translation, methods such as specification, descriptive translation and semantic / logical development are used. Transcription is also often used to avoid ambiguity, but at the same time preserve such properties of the term as definition, conventionality and context independence. In the case of methods of antonymous translation and holistic transformation, there is a connection of synonymous units of the source language and the target language.5. Conclusion
Basing on the analysis and discussion above, we can conclude that film production is not like any other field of activity. The terms of all five stages of film production, including project development, preparatory, filming, editing and toning periods, and distribution / screening, were analysed, as well as an analysis of the 200 most frequently used terms was carried out depending on the methods of their translation into Russian. The analysis showed that most often in the translation of film industry terms, transfer by the method of tracing is used (49%), while the least used are such translation techniques as generalization (2%), integral transformation (2%), transfer of meaning (1%) and antonymous translation (1%). It should also be noted again that the choice of translation methods directly depends on the need to preserve the basic properties of the terminological unit.