МРНТИ 16.01.45 LEXICAL FEATURES OF THE FUNCTIONING AND TRANSLATION OF DIPLOMATIC DISCOURSE A. Smagulova1 G. Mukhametkalueva 2 A.Otepova 3
МРНТИ 16.01.45
LEXICAL FEATURES OF THE FUNCTIONING
AND TRANSLATION OF DIPLOMATIC DISCOURSE
A. Smagulova1 G. Mukhametkalueva 2 A.Otepova 3
1candidate
of Philological Sciences, professor of Diplomatic Translations chair, faculty
of International Relations
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Almaty, Kazakhstan
E-mail:
smagulova.aigerm@kaznu.kz
2candidate of philological sciences, associate
professor of diplomatic translations chair, faculty of international relations,
al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
e-mail: gulnar1962@ mail.ru tel.:87758643918
3master of2nd year Humanitarian science of Diplomatic translations chair, faculty of International Relations
al-Farabi Kazakh
National University Almaty, Kazakhstan,
email: utepovaa15gmail.com
Abstract
Modern international
relations cover all new spheres of communication, including those areas that
have traditionally been considered intra-national. The study of diplomatic
communication from the standpoint of linguistic understanding of a diplomatic
document, from the point of view of strategic communication, the study of
language means of modern diplomacy allow us to consider additional aspects of
the process of functioning of international cooperation. The subject of the given article is functions of the
diplomatic discourse and its connection to the UN documents discourse. The
functions of the diplomatic discourse are being analyzed from the point of view
of their linguistic influence on the discourse. Moreover, a special
consideration is given to the lexical similarities of these two discourses and
to the statistic data of the UN Convention on international information
security and to the statistic analysis of the data obtained during the
research. It can be concluded that the English text of the Convention is
characterized by a wide use of nouns, verbs and verb forms. Modal relationships
are conveyed through modal verbs, theme-rheumatic relationships are conveyed
through impersonal verb forms such as participle I and II. Often (in 80% of
cases), dictionary matching is used, but there are also omissions (8%),
grammatical replacements (7%), additions (3%), contextual replacement and
conversion The analysis exposes the most often used lexemes, their contexts and
meanings in order to define translation techniques used in the texts of the
given type.
Key words: diplomatic discourse, the UN documents, lexical
similarities, quantitative analysis, translation techniques.
Introduction
Diplomatic discourse serves to
convey information in a situation of diplomatic communication [1, p. 24]. At
the same time, the participants in the communication declare the position of
this or that country in the field of international relations, but they need to
comply with the regulatory norms of speech practice. Today, the study of
diplomatic discourse is of increasing interest, and its deep study from a
linguistic point of view makes it possible to recognize new aspects of
international interaction [6, p.2]. Thus, the study of linguistic and
translation features of diplomatic discourse is important for the development
of effective international interaction. The diplomatic discourse fulfills the
most important function - the implementation of the state's foreign policy. At the
same time, diplomatic discourse is a diverse phenomenon: it can contain
political discourse, legal discourse, military discourse, economic discourse,
as well as the discourse of the media. [4, p.8] So, in the diplomatic
discourse, the regulation is not so high due to the fact that the
implementation of diplomatic functions and the achievement of goals occurs
during oral negotiations [2, p. 54]. But do not forget about such a way of
communication as diplomatic correspondence, which is the basis for written
diplomatic genres, such as declarations, notes, memoranda, communiqués,
resolutions, conventions, etc. In diplomatic discourse, there are two
system-forming signs - the presence of communication goals and the actual
participants in communication, who have as their task to achieve these goals.
Each type of institutional discourse has its own measure of the ratio between
the personal and status components. According to H. Trabelsi, this measure is
small in diplomatic discourse [7, p.11]. It seems possible to consider the
discourse of documents of such an international organization as the United
Nations as a subdiscourse of diplomatic discourse.
Methodological research
The term
"discourse", despite the lack of a clear definition, has firmly
entered the everyday life of Sciences that have as a subject of study the
functioning of language (linguistics, semiotics, psychology, philosophy,
sociology, literature), which is largely due to the desire for
multi-discipline, synthesis of scientific results obtained in various fields.
The last decades are marked by the appearance of a number of works devoted to
the analysis of various aspects and types of discourse (N. D. Arutyunova, N. N.
Belozerova, R. Vodak, O. S. Issers, O. Yokoyama, V. I. Karasik, M. L. Makarov,
Yu. E. Prokhorov, P. Serio, L. J..Phillips, M. V. Jorgensen, Chan Kim Bao, A.
P. Chudinov, E. I. Sheigal, T. A. van Dijk, N. Fairclough, M.A.K. Halliday, E.
Laclau, C. Mouffe, D. Schiffrin).
This allowed modern
science to come closer to the disclosure of the problems of the relationship
between language and power, language and politics, the problems of language
manipulation, insincerity (S. N. Plotnikova, E. I. Sheigal).The most common
approaches to distinguish the concepts of "text" and
"discourse" include the opposition "oral" (discourse) -
"written" (text); "process" - " product
(result)"; a broad interpretation of the discourse, reduced to the formula
"discourse = speech + text". Developing the position of Yu.
Prokhorov, we have determined that text and discourse are works that exist in
the structure and content of communication and are "figures of
communication". The study of approaches to discourse analysis allowed to form
the basis for the construction of a complex model of discourse analysis.
The analysis of the
provisions of the theory of discourse by E. Laclo and S. Muff leads to the
conclusion that no discourse is closed and complete; rather, it is constantly
changing due to contacts with other discourses.
Experiment. The activities of this organization are carried out not only through
oral negotiations, but also through written documents. UN documents can be
divided according to the target setting and communication focus into two types:
statutory documents and declarative documents. They differ according to the
difference of addressees. In the case of statutory documents, the addressees
are the UN member states, and in the case of declarative documents, the addressee
is the world community [3, p.12]. Some of the UN documents are discussed below.
The analysis of UN documents is
based on declarations and resolutions of the United Nations. The diplomatic
discourse and discourse of UN documents have a number of common features at the
lexical level: 1) the language includes the vocabulary and phraseology of state
law, civil law, criminal law, labor code, family code, etc.: political
subdivision, terminate the employment. [3, p.45] The language of
diplomatic discourse includes vocabulary and phraseology related to the work of
administrative bodies, official activities of citizens, etc.
For example: rules of procedure, human
rights violation,1) to justify; 2) the use of vocabulary related to
political discourse: an armed conflict, national and regional mechanisms,
implementation [4, p.2]; 3) the use of expressions inherent in business
discourse: to exercise functions, settlement agreement, give the consideration
[3, p. 46]; 4) vocabulary is also specific, a significant part of which is
international in nature: control, contact, nation, normalization [1, p. 4]; 5)
nouns are often used that denote the state system of countries, for example:
The United States, People's Republic of China, Czech Republic, etc. 6) the use
of collective nouns is great: assembly, authority, government. [2, p.5] 7) the
use of various clichés: high contracting parties - high contracting parties, on
behalf and instruction - on behalf of and on behalf of, I beg to inform you - I
have the honor to inform, I have the privilege to introduce - I have the honor
to present, the ambassador presents his compliments - the ambassador expresses
his respect, presented his credentials - presented his credentials, the letter
of attorney - the agreement.
Research results
The document
examined in this article is the Convention on International Information
Security (UN). A frequency dictionary of word usage and grammatical categories
of the English and Russian versions of the text was created. As a result, we
obtained data for statistical analysis of texts. The most significant
discrepancies were identified in the following cases. Table 1 Noun
English-language word Russian-language word State 58 state 70 Party 33 right 29
right 26 participant 29 technology 23 technology 19 Convention 11 Organization
17 Organization 9 person 13 law 9 Convention 12 individual 9 offense 9 In the
Russian version 1130 nouns, which is due to the regulated nature of the text,
since a convention, as an international treaty on a particular issue, presupposes
a large use of nouns related to the subject of the treaty. It is consider that the most commonly used nouns. In the first
place in terms of frequency of use is the noun "state", since the United Nations Organization consists of a
certain number of states and all documents of this organization are oriented
towards them. The second most frequently used noun is "safety", it directly names the
subject of the Convention. This is followed by the word "space", since we are talking
specifically about the security of the information space. The nouns "right" and "participant"
reflect the regulatory function of the text of the Convention, where the
parties to the treaty are designated, as well as the preservation of human
rights. This is followed by "information" and "use", since
the subject of the Convention is the information space and its correct use
without violating human rights. Such a difference in the level of frequency is
due to the phenomenon of conversion in English, thus, one can observe how the
same lexical unit acts as both a noun and an adjective. It should be noted that
most nouns, such as "means",
"development", "cooperation", are translated by
dictionary correspondences, which is fully consistent with theoretical
conclusions on this topic. However, there is another interesting discrepancy in
this table. "Law is 7" and "law is 29". This is due to the
fact that "right" in this text is the equivalent of 2 lexical units -
"law" and "right -
26", thus, in 4 cases of using right in the English version, the method of
omission is applied in translation into Russian. The word party is translated
by the vocabulary correspondence “participant” in 29 cases, in one case it is
translated by the variation correspondence as “party”, and in the other three
it is omitted. The word "organization" is used in the
Russian-language version more often than the word organization in the
English-language version, which is associated with the method of adding, in
order to create a complete two-part sentence in Russian. The word technology in
3 cases is translated into Russian as "technology", thus, the
translation by varied correspondence is used, and in 1 case it is omitted. Of
particular interest is the use of the word information. The text contains 102
cases of conversion during its translation. From these data, we can conclude
that part of the word usage "information" falls on the
Russian-language word usage "informational", another case of
conversion. In these cases, the given token is part of prepositive attributive
phrases, for example, information security, information technology, information
space.
The subject of
the Convention is information security, therefore, the most frequently used
adjective is "informational", followed by "international", which is associated with the international
activities of the United Nations. The third most frequently used adjective is
“national”, followed by “communication”,
since the topic of information security carries an integral part of
communication. The most common adjectives in the English version are:
international, national, illegal, such a wide use is due to the subject of the
Convention and the fact that the document belongs to the United Nations, in the
discourse of which the lexemes "national",
"international" are among the most used. This is followed by human,
social, global, which is due to the fact that the Convention is global in
nature and takes care of human rights and his social needs. The same group can
include such adjectives as fundamental (human rights) - 6 cases and civilian -
3 cases. It is worth noting that the lexeme "communication" is also
translated by conversion in 13 cases, it is translated as "communication" and only in one case as
"communication". In these cases, the given lexeme is part of
prepositive attributive phrases. "Illegal" and "illegal" are matched 5 times out of 10, so omission is
applied in the remaining 5 cases. Similarly, “social” is translated as “social” and “public”, in this case with the help of variation correspondence, as
well as 1 case of omission. The word "global" assumes 2 types of
translation in the Russian-language version "world" and
"global" also with the help of variable correspondence. In general,
we can conclude that adjectives in the ratio "original-translation"
are used in the same way. Table 3 Verb Russian-speaking word English-speaking
word to be, to be 21 be 38 Have 8 have 10 must 8 Since the convention, like any
contract, has a prescriptive and regulatory function, it contains a sufficient
number of verbs. It is interesting to analyze the frequency of verb uses, there
are 201 verbs in the Convention in English, and 120 in Russian. The most frequent are: the verb to be (38
cases), which is natural for the text of the official business style, in which
most sentences are nominative. informative. These discrepancies are due to the
fact that in English the verb to be can act as a linking verb in a nominal
predicate, and the have verb also conveys grammatical tense, while in Russian
these relations are transmitted by changing the end of the verb or are omitted,
as in the case of the nominal predicate. In this Convention, it is worth noting
that the verb make is used as part of a nominal predicate and a phrasal verb,
such as to make decisions (1), to make sovereign norms (2), to make up the
information space (3), are translated by means of dictionary correspondence
(1), contextual replacement (2), dictionary matching (3). Another
distinguishing feature of the verbal uses of this Convention is the presence of
a synonymous number of verbs: to ensure (7 cases), to protect (4 cases) and to
secure (3 cases). At the same time, to protect and to secure are complete
synonyms: to secure is used in the following contexts - secure information
space / information infrastructure / functioning of cooperation; to protect
meets with such as - to protect critical information infrastructures / protect
national and social security of each State. Thus, it can be argued that these
verbs are interchangeable in this context. Consider the contexts of the verb to
ensure, it is used like this: to ensure information stability / information
security / to ensure that…. Thus, we can say that this verb has its own
peculiarity of use in this document, since it can be followed by a subordinate
clause, which is not observed in the case of the verbs to protect, to secure.
The passive voice in the English version is transmitted into Russian in the
same passive voice, therefore the use of this category in the texts of this
Convention is the same. Touching on the topic of modality, it is worth
mentioning the semi-modal verbs be to and have to, which are translated into
Russian as "must", "necessary", which can be considered a
grammatical substitution. Table 4 Modal Verbs Modal Verb Frequency will 9 must
8 can 6 may 5 shall 2 should 2 This table shows that the verb will is the most
frequently used modal verb in the document under study, followed by must, which
has a pronounced regulatory function, followed by can and may, which give the
text a more recommendatory character, supported by certain arguments. Shall and
should are the least common. Shall is translated by the future tense, as well
as by the imperative mood. In the Russian-language version of the Convention,
the present is used in 99% of cases, which indicates such a grammatical
transformation as grammatical replacement. In the English-language text, the
present tense is used, and most modal verbs are translated by the verb in the
present tense into Russian. Only the verb must translates as “should +
infinitive / necessary + infinitive”, may can be translated as “may, may”,
which explains the frequency of the last word. Modal verbs illustratively
represent the regulatory function of the text, since it is modal verbs in
diplomatic texts that convey the need, urgency, obligation to fulfill and
follow what is stated in the documents. So, in the text there are 10 to have
verbs and 9 will verbs, followed by must (8 uses). You can also say that the
verb shall is of little use, like should (2 cases, respectively). The modal
verbs can and may, on the contrary, are more common - 5 and 6 cases, which can
be explained by the prescriptive nature of the text and the hypothetical
possibility, the meaning of which these verbs convey.
The translation of culturally unique phenomena is also something which might be
a source of difficulty when they turn up during a speech. This was a case some
years ago when Hungarian head of government Fervency
mentioned a Hungarian invention in his speech in Beijing. The name of
the invention – just as creative as the invention itself – comes from an old
Hungarian word which is mostly known from a fairy tale. Also the interpreter
had a hard time when he had to translate it. The politician getting a little
upset by his interpreter’s lack of linguistic competence repeated the word in
Hungarian. The interpreter, however, awkward as it was, replied that he also
knows the Hungarian name of the invention.
Although
according to Mathieu it is “a general rule that the higher the delegate in rank
and reputation, the kinder and more understandable he is in his dealings with
interpreters”, this seems to be a reference to the past times. E.g. due to the
widespread use of the English language in diplomatic context, George Bush, then
President of the United States, even questioned the necessity of his speech’s
interpretation into German, and interrupted the interpreter saying “Everyone
speaks English, right?” It was Chancellor Merkel who asked his patience so
that his speech can also be heard in German translation.
It can also be a nightmare for
interpreters, when speakers read out their speeches, as in this case they don’t
need to think what they say, thus they speak faster, time their pauses in a
different way, and usually use a more formal, more bureaucratic way of
expression.
DISCUSSION
The analysis of the
pragmatic aspects of DD identified the following illocutionary acts:
directives, representative, expressive, declarative, commissive; the General
(communicative, motivational, emotive, metalinguistic, phatic) and private
(informative comissiona, declarative) the functions of diplomatic
communication.
Taking into account the
pragmatic characteristics of the diplomatic text and the need to choose
translation strategies that correspond to the pragmatic features of the text
and the functions of communication, it is possible to reduce the illocutionary
acts and functions of diplomatic communication to the following scheme:
Correlation of functions
and illocutionary acts of diplomatic communication.
It is possible to
distinguish the following strategies of diplomatic communication: 1) General
semantic strategy of compatibility (communicative actions in conflict
situations); 2) semantic strategy of discredit; 3) pragmatic strategy of
self-presentation; 4) pragmatic emotional tuning strategies; 5) rhetorical
strategy of persuasion; 6) conversational strategy of control over the
distribution of initiative; 7) conversational strategy of insincerity. Semantic
strategy of discredit, pragmatic strategy of self-presentation and conversion
strategy of insincerity most fully in our opinion, reflect the features of
diplomatic communication.
The strategy of
discredit is presented by complexes of communicative actions of two types:
objective discredit (the purpose – to Express an objective negative assessment)
and subjective discredit (the purpose - to undermine trust, to cause doubt in
positive qualities of the partner, to present it negatively). Objective discredit
includes the use of tactics of objective criticism and tactics of justified
accusations; tactics of unfounded accusations, insults, ridicule, provocation
are the means of implementing the strategy of subjective discredit.
Let us consider as an
example the communicative move "hint" as an implicit means of
expressing a justified accusation in the following fragment from Russian
language translation: (Убежден: единственным механизмом) I am convinced that the only (принятия
решений
по использованию) mechanism that can make decisions (военной
силы
как последнего довода)
about using military force as a last (может быть
только
Устав
ООН). И в
этой resort is the Charter
of the United связи
я или не
понял
то, что было
Nations. And in connection with (сказано совсем недавно нашим коллегой),
this, either I did not understand министром обороны Италии,
либо
он what our colleague, the
Italian (выразился
неточно). (Я, во всяком случае),
Defence Minister, just said or what услышал,
(что легитимным применение)
he said was inexact. In any case, I силы
(может
считаться
только
в том) understood that the use of force can случае, (если решение принято в
НАТО), only be legitimate
when the decision (или
в Евросоюзе, или
в ООН). (Если он) is taken by NATO, the EU, or the (действительно так
считает, то у нас с)UN. If
he really does think so, then (ним
разные
точки
зрения). (Или я) we have different points of view. Or (ослышался.) I didn’t hear
correctly.
In our opinion, this
series of statements implicitly indicates a fundamental difference in the
positions of the subjects of the DD; it is possible to assume that the speaker
did not "mishear". In addition to the hint, in this fragment we find
the manifestation of one of the values of DD ("non-categorical, tact,
correctness, restraint"), a kind of change of communicative focus,
allowing the partner in the discourse to "save face" (to confirm that
the speaker really misheard).
Russian and English
texts should be clearly emphasized from the point of view of macro-strategies
of translation, and the syntactic structure of the Russian language should be
preserved in some cases in order to create an equivalent pragmatic effect.
Despite the possibility of using the variant I misheard something, which, in
our opinion, would sound more familiar to the English-speaking reader, but
would give the statement a slightly different shade of meaning, to convey the
"positive" pragmatic effect, the expanded construction I didn't hear
correctly is used.
The strategy of
self-presentation to diplomatic communication is the formation of the
international image of the state; from the standpoint of determining Russia's
international image, it is possible to distinguish the following semantic
fields: "cooperation", "a great power",
"continue", "progress of Russian diplomacy", "rivals
and competitors", "the General success", "friendly
powers", "country broker". The strategy includes tactics of
positioning, persuasion, psychological contagion, suggestion.
Conclusion. Continuing the theme of the typical vocabulary of the
conventions, one can also include the participles, which are found 69 times in
this document, among them “combined” - 7 cases, which is associated with the
name of the organization, which owns the document; further "related"
- 5 cases and "specific" - 3 cases, they convey the relationship
between the provisions, terms and definitions in the document;
"Directed", "being", "convinced" - 3 use cases,
respectively, are used to convey the relationship between terms and positions.
Thus, we can conclude that the participles make the text of the Convention
concise and consistent. Returning to the topic of the typical vocabulary of
conventions, it is worth mentioning the participles, which contribute to the
conciseness and consistency of the text. In total there are 29 gerunds in the
text of this Convention. However, this does not diminish their importance. The
most frequently used participles: “including” - 7 cases, “recognizing”, “noting”
and “considering” - 3 cases of use, respectively, which serve to construct
paragraphs in the Preamble, it is this kind of participle that is a
characteristic feature of its writing. The participles I and II play an
important role in the English language. This Convention has 143 participles I.
They are used to give the text structure, brevity and consistency. The most
commonly used ones are: including (10), ensuring (8), taking (into
consideration, 6), increasing (5), using / protecting / affecting / following
(4), appear at the beginning of each paragraph and serve as an introductory
word to link paragraphs. Following, affecting, understanding are synonymous in
their function and meaning in this context, occur in 4 cases, respectively.
This is followed by participle II, which performs the same structuring
function, often used in the function of definition in postposition, for greater
detail. The most common participles II: United (8) - the name of the United
Nations, aimed (6) - explains the purpose and purpose of certain actions,
connected (5), based / related / noted (2) - contextual synonyms that perform
one and the same function and bearing the same meaning.
Thus, it can be concluded that the English
text of the Convention is characterized by a wide use of nouns, verbs and verb
forms. Modal relationships are conveyed through modal verbs, theme-rheumatic
relationships are conveyed through impersonal verb forms such as participle I
and II. Often (in 80% of cases), dictionary matching is used, but there are
also omissions (8%), grammatical replacements (7%), additions (3%), contextual
replacement and conversion.
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