PECULIARITIES OF AUDIO-VISUAL TRANSLATION OF PUBLIC SPEECHES AT TED TALKS

Abstract

One of the main difficulties of translating public speeches lies in the fact that they are a complex system of ideas and knowledge. Besides purely linguistic difficulties, translation of a public speech involves a great number of problems caused by numerous extralinguistic factors that are especially important for understanding the original message. The aim of the article is to define and analyse the strategy and tactics of audio-visual translation of public speeches at TED Talks conferences. So, there are several specific features of the studied speeches: verbal (words) and nonverbal means (posture, gestures, facial expressions, clothing, signs, symbols). Within the communicative approach to translation, the strategy of translation is understood as the program of translation activity, the main components of which are orientation in the communicative situation and strategic planning of the translation process necessary to achieve the goal of translation. It is determined that the strategy of communicatively equivalent translation of public speeches is realized with the help of tactics (translation operations used to solve a certain problem considering the chosen translation strategy): the tactic of pragmatic adaptation, the tactic of precise and complete information transfer, and tactics of modification of the syntactic structure of the original message. Translation techniques are predetermined by differences between the systems and structures of the two languages, and transformations necessary to achieve the goal of translation within a certain translation strategy. The most common transformations used in translation of public speeches at TED Talks conferences are: generalization, omissions, replacements, compensation and generalization. These changes depend on the character of correlation between the rules of syntax and grammatical coherence within the sentence and phrase of source and target languages This choice of translation techniques is due to the unique combination of verbal and nonverbal means of communication, the relationship between image and sound, as well as the peculiarities of the functioning of English and Ukrainian.