К. філол. н. Потураєва Л. В.
Дніпропетровський національний університет імені Олеся Гончара, Україна
TEACHING TRANSLATION AS THE MEANS OF FORMING PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE
Teaching how to understand and translate the texts on economics is very important nowadays due to extensive cooperation of Ukraine with EU countries in the sphere of economic relations. These skills might be vital for graduates who start their career in the modern competitive world, especially in big multinational companies, where a high level of ESP is considered to be a must.
In order to master economic vocabulary and be fluent in its use, it is necessary to know ways and means of economic terms coining so as not to look every terminological unit up in a dictionary. That is why teachers of ESP should present to students various methods of term formation including noun clustering that results in a big number of two-component terminological word-combinations.
It has always been legal in English to use one noun to modify another noun. The first noun functions as an adjective in such a construction, and is usually called «attributive noun». These constructions, bearing the name of «noun clusters» (they may bear other names, though), are not very difficult to understand if they include two components and if a teacher has explained how to decipher the clusters and translate them into the native language. Unless the students are taught some strategies to deal with noun clusters, the latter can slow down reading and translating processes.
One of the strategies is giving the students the idea of the classification of two-component (NN type) noun clusters according to the means of translating the first component of a cluster into the native language. Students then should be supplied with plenty of examples to classify and translate. «The Economics of International Business» by W. A. Kerr and N. Perdikis (1995), for instance, abounds with examples of two-component NN clusters which are organized in the table given below. In the table, only a few examples have been translated, including those that can be translated in two or even three ways.
As one can see from the examples, ways of translating by means of an adjective or a noun in the Objective Case prevail, probably because of the principle of the «economy in the language.» Once the students have mastered the tree algorithms of translating two-component (NN) noun-clusters, they will easily grasp the meaning and/or translate them either orally or in the written form without using any reference manuals.
Further attention should be paid to three-component (NNN) noun-clusters and the means of their translation. However, there are not so many of those in the book mentioned above in fact the random search has produced only six. Statistically, such clusters occupy the second place as to their occurrence in academic texts.
Translation by means of an adjective |
Translation by means of a noun in the Objective Case |
Translation by means of a noun with a preposition |
Air transport – воздушный транспорт Barter agreement – бартерное соглашение Bulk cargoes Currency accounts – валютные счета Command economies Commodity agreement Consumer surplus Custom union Export firm Export restrictions – экспортные ограничения Government procurement Immigration policies Infant economies Investment policy Investment project Option contracts Production possibilities Services trade Trade areas Trade blocs Trade sanctions Trade shows |
Arbitration services – услуги арбитража Consumer protection – защита ( прав ) потребителя Currency devaluation Dispute settlement Export restrictions – ограничения экспорта Growth areas Indifference curve Information costs Market characteristics Market equilibrium Market importance Payment methods Patent system Producers surplus Product characteristics Production possibilities Resource mobility Road network Road use Settlement procedures Trade creation Trade diversion Trade patterns Trade restrictions Trade theory |
Currency accounts – счета в валюте Export restrictions – ограничения на экспорт Health regulations Import license Import quotas Information costs Investment measures Negotiation costs Opportunity costs Transaction costs |
All of them belong to NN+N type of clusters, i.e. the ones with two initial nouns forming a close sense unit having the function of an adjunct to the final head noun. Two initial nouns are treated as a two-component cluster and are translated accordingly pushing then the head noun (given in italics) forward. Thus our examples can be translated in the following way:
· consumer indifference curve - кривая безразличия потребителя ,
· community indifference curve – кривая безразличия ( со ) общества,
· dispute settlement procedures - порядок урегулирования споров,
· consumer protection legislation – законодательство о защите (интересов) потребителя,
· exchange rate management – регулирование валютного курса,
· income similarity theory – теория сходства/подобия доходов.
Apparently, a teacher should devote a certain amount of classroom time (depending on a curriculum possibilities) to studying noun-clusters and practicing their translation, especially with the students of non-linguistic specialities. It is for them that the instant understanding and/or the ability to translate a specialized text are important, because these skills signify both the level of a foreign language and professional competence.