Notion Of Verbal Image And Its Translation example essay topic

This paper deals with the problem of verbal image translation from SL ( English ) into TL ( Ukrainian ). The research is based on comparison of the original [ 1; 337p.] and Ukrainian translation [ 2; 190p.] of Ian Fleming's " James Bond : From Russia With Love" A few words should be mentioned about the author and his book. Ian Fleming ( 1908-1964 ) was a great journalist and detective stories writer. In 1931 he joined Reuters news agency, and during the World War 2 he was a personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence at the admiralty, rising to the rank of commander. At this time he acquired the first-hand knowledge of secret operations. He started his first James Bond novel " Casino Royale" at the age of 44 , by which time he became the foreign manager of Kemsley Newspapers.

He wrote it in the Golden Eye, the house he had built in Jamaica. James Bond has won Ian Fleming the world fame, being the greatest British fictional icon of the late 20-th c. The book is about a British secret agent James Bond, on whom every major foreign government has a file, and whom the Russia's deadly SMERSH organisation has targeted for elimination - they have the perfect bait in the irresistible Tatiana Romanova. Her mission is to lure Bond to Istanbul and seduce him, while her superiors handle the rest. Bond walks into the trap - but he is always the one to win. The language of this detective story is mostly unexpressive, unemotional, and the stylistic devices ( SD ) that the author uses are typical of the genre : the lyrical images are absent, most of the SDs are used as the means serving to create the picture of the cold, ruthless world of constantly alternating death and fight for survival.

Artistic images mostly are stylistically neutral, as no or little expressiveness or emotional colouring is present in them. The same concerns the idioms and phraseologisms ( of which the verbal image is the basic constituting element [ 3 ; 28 ] ) occuring infrequently. The translated work of art is percepted as the artistic one only provided that it corresponds to artistic and stylistic tradition of the TL [ 3; 28 ] . The translator has to preserve the stylistic status of ST by using the equivalents of the same style or, failing that, options for stylistically neutral words [ 4 ; 138 ] The translator manages to reproduce the original content keeping to ST style, but introduces syntactic and other transformations in order to keep to TL norms and requirements. The research examines and studies this linguistic and literary phenomenon from different viewpoints, it highlights different ways of verbal image translation, which derive from the specifics of its structure and initial formation process. It was concluded that the best way to understand the notion of verbal image and its translation properly is to regard this lingual phenomenon as a whole, a system or a living organism depending on the extralinguistic world and the processes circuiting in it, for any efforts aimed at studying the separate parts of the image ( lexical units bearing no expressive imagerial charge, except for the denotation ) will end in failure.

Verbal image as a translation problem attracted attention of many linguists throughout the 20-th c. Hence, many theories were created, but they had many common points, and the core information remained the same. According to Litterary Encyclopaedic Dictionary the artistic ( verbal ) image is the aesthetic category characterizing a specific method of cognizing and transforming the extralinguistic reality, which is an intrinsic feature only of art. Objective - cognitive and subjective - creative principles are amalgamated integrally within the verbal image, reflecting the reality and at the same time generalizing it, creating a new fanciful world by means of creative transformation of a real matter ( colours, sounds, words ) into an individual thing occupying a special place among the other real world objects. [ 5 ; 252 ] Images may be characterized as the uses of language in a literary work that evoke sense impressions by literal or figurative reference to perceptible or concrete objects, scenes, actions or states. They may be combined under the notion of imagery.

[ 6; 106 ] Verbal image is such word combination and usage in which they express more, than they normally mean, being enhanced and made more expressive by the additional sense and emotionally-expressive tinges. Verbal image is based upon the usage of the words and word combinations called tropes [ 19 ; 221 ] . Another verbal image definition is the following. Verbal image is the reproduction of the typical life phenomena in an exact individual form, and this function is characteristic of art as an ideology studying the world.

The word is the structural unit of any verbal image, one of its main properties being imagery or image velency - the ability to combine with other lexical units ( bearing denotation ) and create a new artistic and aesthetic dimension by displaying the covert stylistic properties called imagery. Thus, imagery can also be defined as the word's stylistic ability of combining with other lexical units and creating images [ 7 ; 15 ], or sense unities, in which the expressiveness, figurativeness and connotation constituting the literary value are born by the combination of lexical units charged only with denotative meaning fixed in dictionaries. In terms of Galperin image is the result of interplay of different meanings : concrete objects are intertwined with abstract notions. Concrete objects are easily perceived by senses, while the latter are perceived by the mind. When an abstract notion is by the force of the mind represented through a concrete object, an image is the result.

Image can be built on the interrelation of two abstract notions or two concrete objects, or an abstract and a conrete one. [ 12; p. 256 ] Ponomariv gives the following definition of the artistic image : it is the usage of such word collocations that enable the reinforcement of lexical meaning by means of additional emotionally-expressive and evaluative tinges or connotations. He considers the elements of its creation to be transferred lexical meanings, alliteration, rhythmical and melodical specifics [ 18 ; 41 ]. In his terms imagery is created by means of tropes, or lexical units used in transferred meaning. Tropes are mainly used in belle-lettres. They perform artistic and aesthetic function.

Ponomariv and I. Arnold provide a distinction between the comparison and such SD as simile, which may seem to be similar at first sight. Mere comparison bears no artistic, aesthetic or expressive value, their aim is to establish the degree of difference or sameness of the objects of the same sphere, whilst simile ( or unexpected comparison of different ( at first sight uncomparable) objects ) performs a much more profound function : it evokes the impressions and feelings of the author in reader's mind by comparing the objects of different spheres, and the recepient sees almost the same picture, but in the context of his or her own experience. At any rate the impact upon the reader is far more effective if the author uses imagery to frame his ideas, although imagery cannot be reduced to tropeic (figurative) usage of words, as it also implies such SDs as hyperbole, metonymy, synecdoche etc. ( Pustovoit ; Zorivchak; I. Arnold ) , and, generally speaking", any element of the artistic work is potentially charged with imagery, i.e. it's able of accepting additional functional load" . [ 10; 26 ] Verbal image is a semantic construction, that emerged as a result of using the trope expressions, reinterpreting and converting the standardized meanings of the words used, helping to show certain things and phenomena from an unexpected side.

Verbal images constitute the basis of the artistic canvas of any belle-lettres composition. Their aim is to explicate this or that feature of the object in view more profoundly. Their originality is unrepeatable. Images excite the artistic word masters, often urging them to create a masterpiece. Transferred word usage enriches the language of belle-lettres, makes it picturesque. Verbal image creation is a reverse process to reality cognition, beginning with observing the object and ending in abstract thinking [ 3 ; 29 ] - this is what the artistic transformation of words is all about, as image is the result of this creative process, during which the words initially existing as the material, subject form are transformed in the author's consciousness [ 7 ; 214 ] and which can be put in the following way : the cognized ( and prescinded ) reality is reflected in our consciousness in the form of a certain concept.

And then it is realised in notions and images by means of language in order to produce an artistic effect upon the reader ( receiver ) [ 3 ; 29 ] . I. Arnold regards verbal image from the extralinguistic and psychological perspective. In her terms this artistic unity " is the fact of extralinguistic reality, which recreates the past perceptions and feelings in one's consciousness, concreticizes information of the artistic work attracting reminiscences of the sensual, visual, audial and other sensations of psychological character, which one gets from his or her experience. From the point of view of psychology the image is defined as a psychic recreation of impressions. She finally combines the two different but correlated approaches into one theoretical statement : " this is the main method of literary generalization of extralinguistic reality, the sign of objective correlate of human's feelings and the special form of social consciousness" [ 8 ; 114 ] . Verbal image denotes objective reality but it also reflects a certain attitude of the author towards it. I. Arnold considers the functions of verbal image to be the following : 1) cognitive ; 2) communicative ( axiological ) ; 3) aesthetic ; 4) educative. According to Olexiy Kundzitch " Reality as the object of figurative cognition is the powerful factor in art.

It's not merely subjected to being depicted - it actively intrudes in the creative process, leads the artist, directs him and gives him the criteria, keeps him artistically fit, like the labour maintains the man's health and wholeness" [ 9 ; 30 ] . Hence, we may state that imagery itself isn't separated from the reality, but on the contrary, it's brought to life by the author's impressions from the surrounding world, the impressions which gave him a strong impulse to verbalize the image ( of what was seen in real life ) existing in his mind. Otherwordly, reality is one of the sources of imagery formation, an initial element, taken from real life, transformed in the author's consciousness and reproduced in a literary way. Artistic word has a specific property of figurative generalisation, as it simultaneously names the object, phenomenon or action, reflects and evaluates them [ 7 ; 9 ], in which the aesthetic task of the language is realised. A word in artistic piece is subordinated to ideal and artistic intention of the author, which is why it is inseparable from the system of images, from characters and, generally, from the whole composition of the work of art [ 7 ; 12 ] . Imagery is realised in language and it cannot exist beyond the word, which is its lingual embodiment [ 7 ; 19 ] .

In other words, the artistic lexical unit is simultaneously a building material and an indespensible component of the image. [ 10 ; p. 25 ] Besides being the constituent of verbal image by revealing the ability of generalisation, the word has another essential property - it is polysemanticism, in the result of which each receiver associates this or that thing or object differently, individually. And different image can be formed in his or her mind. Polysenmanticity promotes the existense of synonyms ( words similar in meaning ( one thought may be expressed by different lexemes, which enables the varying stylistic usage of words) and homonyms ( words denoting various notions and conceptual tinges, which lead to language economy ) Thus, polysemanticism is another source of imagery, enabling cooccurrence of the words of far-off spheres ( or domains). [ 7; p.20 ] Each lexical unit within the artistic piece does not merely bear a certain logical sense, but it is also charged with emotional and stylistic sense [ 16 ; 30 ]. So the extralinguistic information is processed in our minds in order to fill our language with expressiveness, the language itself being not only the means of merely objective information exchange, but a certain way of expressing ourselves, our inner world as well ( our feelings, emotions, attitudes and thoughts ) .

In belle-lettres verbal image is the result of this process. In modern translatology it is usually defined as an ancient cognitive type based on the principles of unexpected semantic analogy, which means that it consists of the unexpected combination of lexemes ( uncombinable or uncomparable under normal conditions ) from distant spheres. If regarded from functional-communicative perspective the artistic image performs 1) axiological ( serves the means of the author's emotional impact on the reader in communicative act ) and 2) cognitive ( reflects reality ) function [ 11 ; 218 ] . So image is bilateral in nature.

It is the framing of our fantasy [ 3 ; 29 ], imagination generated by inner impressions ( fragment of reality transformed in artistic way [ 12 ; 10 ] ). Its saturation with expressiveness and fantasy makes the reader's imagination work actively - as he "decodes the author's message, he actively guesses, adds, evaluates, rejects or accepts the received information". [ 10 ; p. 24 ] . "The implication, drawing the reader to active cooperation is the main specific feature of verbal images" [ 11; p. 218 ], So the final definition, generalizing all of the approaches mentioned above will be as follows. Verbal image is the creative way of expressing one's ideas in order to produce greater artistic effect on the reader ( method of realization of the author's intention, framing of his ideas, bearing enormous expressive, emotional and stylistic charge and, thus, increasing the impact ) which involves not only extralinguistic information, but also the speaker's subjectiveness towards the described object of reality, which is revealed through unusual word combinations ( unexpected semantic analogy ) caused by associations ( stimulated by impressions ) which the object calls forth in the speaker's mind.

As it was stated above, understanding the image's structure is an important precondition of realizing its essence and, thus, of finding a stylistically proper equivalent of it in the language translation. Proffessor R.P. Zorivchak and I. Arnold provided a good scheme of its formation and structure. Verbal image is a very complicated artistic unity, since its structure results in its originality and literary value. R.P. Zorivchak provided a conceptual theory, while I. Arnold approached it formally. Being the polylexemic construction, it consists of the combination of lexemes of a certain grammatical and derivational structure ( the first sense layer ) . Verbal image can have a varying structure. It may consist of a word, word combinations, paragraph, chapter of literary piece, and even of an integral and whole literary creation.

[ 14; Vinogradov p.119 ]. Its formation undergoes a certain regularity and it is not occasional. Unexpected cooccurrence of lexical units within the structure of image violates the significant conceptual basis and normal combinability of both components, which makes the reader's imagination work intensively and transform the usual understanding of the notion. The meaningful lexemes somehow change their semantics, forming the new conceptual imagery, the new concept as the semantic field of each one is violated and some semantic components are extracted, so that the denotational meanings of each element are weakened and almost erased, while the connotation and accordingly expressiveness are foregrounded and stressed. This is how the new entity is formed - the second sense layer.

Now the functional - stylistic and emotional - expressive connotations are amalgamated with the new semantical unity. As the denotation becomes vague, and only some semantic components are foregrounded ( leaving out, ousting the others ), the actual sense of the image is not constituted by the sum of the first layer components ( divergent ). Still the image is tightly related to the first semantic layer ( the outer verbal image manifestation ), as its elements ( their certain combination ) are of primary importance in its formation ( being its initial building material, they are transformed into a new semantic unity ). When encountering artistic image the recepient sees it as a bilateral transparent unity ( through percepting the first layer he senses the inner form, the implication of which can not be revealed through literally summing the dictionary meanings of the constituting elements up ). Assymetry ( difference in meaning ) between the two sense layers ( outer shell ( denotative ) >and fresh and bright inner semantic content ( connotative ) which are actualized simultaneously in the discourse ) is the image's essential property, the source of its expressiveness. [ 11; p. 219 ] I. Arnold adds the following properties of image : 1) it emerges in the process of reflection and recreation of the world, which is the source of other properties, esp.

2) concreteness and 3) emotionality [ 8; p. 114 ] . So the five main image's properties have been outlined. In terms of I. Arnold the verbal image consists if such sructural elements : 1) The tenor ( denotatum ) - what is being discussed. 2) The vehicle ( signifier ) - the object with which the tenor is compared 3) The ground ( the basis for comparison ) - common feature of the compared notions 4) The relation between the first and second 5) Comparison technique as a type of trope 6) Grammatical and lexical specifics of the comparison. The image's expressiveness and brightness depends upon the semantic distance of its constituants in direct proportion - the brighter the gap - the brighter the image is [ 8; 115 ]. From the statements made above concerning tropes it may be concluded that tropes are some of the lingual implementations of verbal image ( as image is their basis and source ).

They are otherwordly called stylistic devices ( SD ) . They are used mostly in belle-lettres style. The term comprizes such notions as simile, epithet, metaphor, metonimy, synecdoche etc., the SDs based on transferrence of meaning - intended substitution of the existing names of the objects or notions approved by long usage and fixed in dictionaries by new occasional ones prompted by the speaker's individual world view and evaluation of things ( the name of one object is transferred onto another one and this transferrence is based on their semantic similarity ( shape, colour, function ) or closeness ( of material existense ( container / content ) cause / effect, part / whole, instrument / result, part / whole relations ). [ 15; 42 ] One should explicate the notions of SDs within the research, because their occurrence in the Ian Fleming's work is rather frequent. This was done perfectly by V.A. Kukharenko, I. Arnold and I. Galperin. First and foremost the concept of metaphor should be mentioned - transferrence of names based on the associated likeness between the two objects.

On the initial stage metaphor, just like all other SDs, is original and bright, but the more frequently it is used the more trite and usual it becomes, - until the whole expressiveness and freshness of it is lost and the artistic unit becomes another dictionary entry. So the SD's brightness of image 'dies out' with the growth of its usage frequency. One subtype of metaphor is the sustained (prolonged) metaphor - the intended development of the transferred meaning by extention of the quantity of its constituants, each of which adds another feature to the described notion. Personification - is another kind of metaphor, implying the likeness between inanimate and animate objects. Metonymy - it is also based on transferrence of meanings, but similarity of the objects is not considered. Only their closeness is taken into account ( adjacence or contiguity ) - the common ground of existance in reality.

Many cases of its usage are no more accepted as fresh. Synecdoche is its subtype, it is based on the part / whole relations. Its syntactic function is the function of noun ( subject, object, predicative ) [ 15, p. 46 ]. Epithet - is a stylistic device based on the interplay of emotive and logical meaning in an attributive word, phrase or sentence.

It may be classified from different views: semantic and structural. Sematically it is divided into 1) associated and 2) unassociated with the noun following. Structurally the epithet is divided proceeding from the compositional and distributional aspects. From compositional aspect it's devided into : 1) simple, 2) compound, 3) and phrase epithets. From distributional one - into 1) string of epithets ( giving many-sided depiction of the object, their expressiveness from first to last epithet rises, so that the last one is the most expressive ), 2) transferred epithet ( logical attributes, describing the state of human being, but referring to inanimate objects ) [ 16 , 157 ] .

Frequent epithet usage with certain nouns results in their becoming the stable word combinations, so such epthets are divided into the language epithets and speech epithets [ p.154 ] . Simile - is the stylistic device intensifying some certain feature of the object or concept in question by comparing it to an object or concept from different sphere of material existance ( one common feature of the objects compared is foregrounded, while all the others are excluded ) . Similes have formal elements in their structure : connecting words as, like, such as, as if, seem. Sometimes the simile forming like is placed after a phrase, turning into a half-suffix. Periphrasis - the re-naming of an object by a phrase highlighting its specific feature and being desipherable only in the context. Thus, it has to be distinguished from a mere synonymic expression.

Its subtypes are circumlocution ( the roundabout speaking of simple, ordinary things, which is pompous and deprived of any aesthetic value ) and euphemisms ( replacing the names of vulgar or abusing content with the words and expressions depicting it in a softened and covert way ) . Hyperbole - a stylistic device in which emphasis is achieved through deliberate exeggeration. Opposite to it is understatement. The contextual realization of the transferred and direct meaning ( dictionary) or different dictionary meanings serve the source of the phenomenon of pun ( referring to the latter ) and zeugma.

Zeugma - the use of a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to two adjacent words or collocations, the semantic relations being on one hand literal, and on the other transferred ( 16 ; p.145 ). It restores the literal meaning of the word, which also occurres in violation of phraseological units. The importance of the separate consideration of images in translation studies is undeniable, as they are the main bearers of the emotional and expressive artistic load ( the author puts his thoughts and impressions into it [ 17 ; p. 25 ] ) in any text of belle-lettres, the core of its literary value. In order to translate verbal image properly one should penetrate into it, which implies studying and researching its characteristic features, structure, etymology ( as language is dynamic and it constitutes an integral unity with verbal image, the image sense itself may change in the course of time reacting to the semantic change in its lexical constituants and acquiring new semantic tinges, the new semes ) in close-up, history of its formation ( how it was brought into being, what is the reason for choosing this or that real life object for its creation, how are the objects interrelated ( the ground of semblance ) what emotional impact does their liason produce on the SL reader ( pragmatic aspect ) ), its relation to other expressive images in the canvas of the literary ( artistic ) discourse. A good way of understanding the image and the methods of its translation was provided by V.V. Koptilov. Subordination of all the lexical units of belle-lettres style to the task of forming the artistic image is the main feature of literature.

Image is the main component of a literary text and its main translation unit. But it shouldn't be regarded separately from the linguistic means of its realization. One should find out the reasons for this or that way of its embodiment on paper ( the choice of words, types of sentenses, rhythmics ). After finding out the the answer to this question, he endeavours to find the means of his native literary language which would correspond to the SL in the most profound way, i.e. which would help him to express the author's idea naturally and truthfully [ 18 ; p. 74. ]. R.P. Zorivchak provides the types of equivalence of verbal images, proceeding from the contrastive approach ( SL / TL ) to the works of literature of both languages. According to her conclusions, such imageral equivalents may be drawn : Full image equivalents These are the cases of imageral parallels existing in Ukrainan ( TL ) and English ( SL ) . Such images coincide in all aspects ( denotative content, stylistic and emotionally - expressive tinges ).

Partial sense-image equivalents Sometimes inspite of the fact that the denotative imagery of verbal images varies ( because of the componential difference of the SL and TL ), they still preserve the equal subject-logic meaning, emotional-expressive characteristics and contiguous funtional-stylistic connotations. Generally, it is possible to reproduce the semantic-stylistic specifics of SL by partial equivalence because of such reasons : 1) the images themselves tend to become trite ( or dead ), losing their expressiveness and becoming the neutral lexical units of the language, which is surely reflected in dictionaries ; 2) sometimes the expression with a vague imagery in TL corresponds to the bright SL image. It is very rarely possible to find the total equivalents in artistic image translation, except when it concerns a phraseological unit. One of the solutions can be resorting to the type of translation, effective in reproducing the SL national colouring and the author's individual style. This is calquing. Still, it cannot be considered proper to use calque translation if it concerns the cases when the SL image became a clichee like phrase, with no expressiveness left in it that could be perceptible by the SL reader.

While translating the SL image into TL it's very important to allow for the lexical - grammatical specifics of, aesthetical potentials, stylistic traditions of the TL and the background knowledge of the TL reader. Denotative-image calque The verbal image is based on the meanings of its separate lexical components ( it's related to the first semantic layer ). Thus, they should be primarily taken into account by the translator, who sometimes manages to preserve the sense of original by reproducing each semantic component of the SL verbal image's first layer. But, due to the norms of the TL grammatical order, restricting the translator's ability to reproduce the image's specifics as fully as possible, even such type of translation cannot provide the full equivalence. Sense-image calqueOften, due to target language norms and restrictions, the translators task resolves itself to translating only the image's second layer, or logical sense by violating its outer manifestation, especially if it concerns the genetically distant languages. Effective calque can enter the TL image system in the course of time.

Descriptive translation The last and the least effective type of reproducing the verbal image is its main content rendition by means of a separate word or by occasional collocation deprived of any imagery on the level of speech ( partial non-imageral equivalence ) rendering neither expressiveness, nor the stylistic- markedness or other important characteristics of the SL units. But it doesn't mean that this translation type should be avoided totally. The translator has to resort to it when it's impossible to use calque - in reproducing the original, nationally coloured images, related to a people's mode of thought and its understanding of the surrounding world. As tropes ( based on imagery ) are the main structural units of an artistic text, dealing with its translation means encountering with the difficulties of their reproduction into TL. The practical issues concerning their translation are highlighted in the following chapter. D r o w's y i's a n e p i t h e t w i t h l i t t l e e x p r e's's i vs. e n e's's ( b e c a u's e o f f r e q u e n c y o f i t's u's a g e ) t h o u g h i t i's a t r a n's f e r r e d o n e ( t h e f e a t u r e o f a n i m a t e o b j e c t i's t r ansferred to inanimate one ).

According to Galperin it is a speech epithet. [ Galperin ; 154 ] In ST the word silence collocates with the word to break ( initially was used metaphorically, but in the course of time the image became trite ( and even neutral ) ). The type of translation used here is the full image equivalence, as the image parallels exist in both languages, and the trite imagery is normally translated by the neutral TL unit. 3 ) [ T h e's m a l l c r u e l l i p's... ( p. 6 ) ] ..

U n u's u a l f e a t u r e o f t h e p a r t o f b o d y i's f o r e g r o u n d e d. I t 's a t r a n's f e r r e d e p i t h e t. T h e S L's e n t e n c e h a's a's i m i l e c o n's t r u c t i o n ( b a's e d on the sustained metaphor ) . It was reproduced without essential transformations of the 1-st layer, and, thus, no changes were introduced in the sense (2-nd layer) .

I n S L t h e r e i's a t r a n's f e r r e d e p i t h e t. The imagery of some kinds of animals is created in ST by means of personification and reproduced equivalently ( lexical components and the image's sense ) in TL by means of full-image equivalence. 9) [ He took to drink instead ( 22 ) ] [ ... F u l l  i m a g e e q u i vs. a l e n c e.