There are three major types of antonymic transformations:

1)substituting a word with its antonym (Snowdrifts are three feet deep. – Сугробы высотой в один метр. ) or conversive (Some of the country’s art treasures have been secretly sold to foreign buyers. – Покупатели-иностранцы тайно скупили некоторые из художественных шедевров страны.)

2)substituting a negative sentence with an affirmative one and vice versa: I never heard of it! – В первый раз слышу!

3)shifting the position of a negative component: I don’t think I can do it. – Думаю, я не смогу этого сделать.

Antonymic translation

This transformation can also take place when we change the negation modality of the sentence:

•She is not unworthy of your attention. – Она вполне достойна вашего внимания.

•In the English sentence we deal with double negation, called understatement, which, according to logic rules, means the positive expressed in the Russian sentence. Through understatement, English-speaking people avoid expressing their ideas in too a categorical tone.

Metonymical translation

•Metonymical translation is the transference of meaning and structure based on the contiguity of forms and meanings of the source and target languages:

•The last twenty years has seen many advances in our linguistic knowledge. – В последние 20 лет наблюдается значительный прогресс в лингвистике.

Metonymy is transference of meaning from one object to another one based on their contiguity. The word is derived from the Greek meta “change” and onoma “name”. Classified semantically, meanings can transfer from

•process to result (e.g. translation indicates the process of decoding and the result of this process)

•material to a work (to drink from a glass)

•location to people (Vladivostok greets honored guests)

•cause to effect (The little horror never stops playing tricks on his mother)

•part to whole and vice versa. This type of metonymy is called synecdoche (Little Red Riding Hood).

•Newspapers often name location meaning officials: Pentagon – американские военные круги; the Kremlin – правительство России, the city – администрация города.

•If the name is well known to the receptor, the metonymy may be preserved. In this case it is impossible to speak about metonymic translation, since no interlingual transformation takes place.

If the translator is not sure that the metonymic realia are well known to the receptor, it is better to explain the realia by a synecdoche shift:

•Downing Street reported a drop in the number of unemployed. –

Правительство Великобритании

сообщило о снижении безработицы.

•Fleet Street can make or break a politician. – Английская пресса

может сделать карьеру политическому деятелю или испортить ее.

Lexical metonymic transformations are often applied in translating predicates. This is due to the fact that in Russian the action is mostly expressed by the verb, whereas English implies the action by verbalizing the state with a nominal language unit.

These interlingual metonymic relations are typical of translating predicates expressed by

•the link verb to be + an adverbial phrase of place: We were at school together when we were boys. – В детстве мы учились в одной школе.

•Are the boys in bed? – Мальчики спят?

This metonymic transformation is a kind of modulation, or logical development of the notion.

to be + adjective / participle:

•Still she was hesitant. – Она все еще колебалась.

•Don’t be rude! – Не груби!

•Don’t be so literal. – Не понимай все так буквально.

•I am serious. – Я говорю серьезно.

•By the time it was dark they were airborne. – К тому времени, когда стемнело, они уже летели на самолете.

to be + noun:

•She is not much of a cook. – Она

плохо готовит.

•If your handwriting is illegible, you are a fast thinker. – Если у вас неразборчивый почерк, значит, вы быстро думаете.