1. Methodological background of the definition of translation

Linguistic theory of translation is a part of translation studies that deals with norms of interlaguage correspondences.

Translation studies as a discipline consists of different trends. The 1^st trend is translation history includes translation as a process and translation as a science. The 2^nd trend is a linguistic theory of translation. The focus is mainly on language. The 1^st approach in the USSR appeared as a linguistic theory in the 60-s of 20-ies century. The 3^rd - translation criticism; the 4^th – machine translation.

According to Barkhudarov’s interpretation translation - is the process of transformation of text, message or utterance of the source language into the text, message or utterance of the target language, providing that the norms of the target language is not violated and the content remains unchanged. Barkhudarov was the first who gave this definition to the process of interpretation of the meaning of text in one language and the production, in another language. Translation is a peculiar type of communication – interlingual communication.

According to the point of view of Korunets, translation as a term and notion is of polysematic nature, its common and most general meaning being mostly associated with the action or process of expressing the content of a source language word, word-group, sentence or passage in the target language or with the result of the process of rendering.

The problem of translatability or untranslatability is closely related to man’s understanding of the nature of language, meaning and translation. From the sociosemiotic point of view, “untranslatables” are fundamentally cases of language use wherein the three categories of sociosemiotic meaning carried by a source expression do not coincide with those of a comparable expression in the target language. Three types of untranslatability, referential, pragmatic, and intralingual may be distinguished.

There are 5 normative requirements which compose the norm of translation: 1) norms of translation equivalence, 2) genre and stylistics norms of translation, 3) norms of translation speech, 4) pragmatic norm of translation, 5) conventional norms of translation.

The pragmatic norm of translation can be defined as a requirement of providing of pragmatic value of translation. It is not a «norm» in complete sense of this word, because pragmatic underlying task of translating act can be individual and not incident to the translation in general. However, modification of results of process of translation for pragmatic purposes is widespread phenomenon, without the account of which the normative estimation of translations is impossible.

2. Techniques in the process of translation

Direct Translation Techniques are used when structural and conceptual elements of the source language can be transposed into the target language. Direct translation techniques include: Borrowing, Calque, Literal Translation.

Borrowing is the taking of words directly from one language into another without translation. Many English words are "borrowed" into other languages; for example software in the field of technology and funk in culture.

Calque or loan translation is a phrase borrowed from another language and translated literally word-for-word.Дом культуры – House of Culture, backbencher – заднескамеечник, стенная газета – wall newspaper.

Literal Translation or word translation is to be employed when dealing with separate words whose surface form and structure, as well as their lexical meaning in the source language and in the target language, fully coincide.

Oblique Translation Techniques are used when the structural or conceptual elements of the source language cannot be directly translated without altering meaning or upsetting the grammatical and stylistics elements of the target language: Transposition, Modulation, Reformulation or Equivalence, Adaptation, Compensation

Transposition - This is the process where parts of speech change their sequence when they are translated (blue ball becomes boule bleue in French).

Modulation consists of using a phrase that is different in the source and target languages to convey the same idea.

Reformulation or Equivalence - expressing something in a completely different way, for example when translating idioms or advertising slogans.

Adaptation occurs when something specific to one language culture is expressed in a totally different way that is familiar or appropriate to another language culture. Compensation can be used when something cannot be translated, and the meaning that is lost is expressed somewhere else in the translated text.

Translation transformation techniques are complicated inter-language transferences resulting in the creation of such a text that at full scope reveals the information of original text. The scholars differentiate between lexical, grammatical and stylistic transformations. Divergences in the structures of the two languages are so considerable that in the process of translation various grammatical transformations indispensable to achieve equivalence. These transformations may be classed into four types: 1. transpositions; 2. replacements; 3. additions; 4. omissions.

Lexical transformations are the devices of logical process that reveal the meaning of the lexical unit of the SL that is different in the context from the dictionary one. Types of lexical transformations: differentiation, concretization, generalization, logical development, antonymic translation, general reinterpretation, compensation.

Stylistic means possess a distinct national character although at first sight they may appear to be identical. Stylistic equivalence may be achieved by different means and not necessary by the same device.