UNDERSTANDING OF THE ORIGINAL IN TRANSLATION AND PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE PHENOMENON

Abstract

Consideration of translation as a dialogue of languages, cultures, national discourses reveals the unique phenomenological features of understanding the original in translation. In contrast to the general epistemological phenomenon, the understanding of the language, the translation understanding of the text excludes the excess of subjective vision, determined by the target of the translation on the consumer, allows some variation in the range of assessment of “high-quality translation” from the position of completeness and depth of understanding, depending on the translation conditions. Translation technology is traditionally viewed by linguists as a double act aimed at ensuring translation equivalence. It includes: an adequate choice of translation transformation by analyzing a number of verbal and non-verbal conditions for translation and the correct application of this technique. This formally accurate, but unconvincing vision of translation seems unpromising for the creation of translation learning technologies, since it ignores the key intellectual stage of decoding the translation process: verbal perception and understanding of the source text. The study of the problem of understanding the language in the process of translation requires the identification of its unique phenomenological aspects, which are determined by translation practice. Revealing the exceptional peculiarities of understanding the source text during translation seems promising in the framework of the dialogical methodological approach. Since full understanding in human communication seems impossible, we believe that it is possible to introduce the concept of a competent sufficiency of understanding of the original text in the translation process. This is seen as a variable outcome of understanding in terms of its accuracy, completeness, and depth. The sufficiency of a concept as a criterion for understanding is measured by the quantitative ratio of all objects, phenomena and their qualities in the translated version and in the original text. The maximum completeness of understanding the text seems to be possible in written translation, but hardly possible in oral forms of translation. The depth of understanding of the language can be measured using hierarchically ordered levels of meaning of the text: content, general meaning, idea. Each of these levels can indicate a competent sufficiency of understanding of the source text, which depends on the form of translation and its functional communicative type. The research results reveal the ways to improve translation practice both in terms of the quality of translation results and in terms of rational use of the translator’s intellectual reserves.