MOKSLO KALBOS KULTŪROS IR TERMINOLOGIJOS PROBLEMOS LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXIV (1985)

ПЕТР ВИКЕНТЬЕВИЧ САДОВСКИЙ

ON TERMINOLOGICAL INTERFERENCE IN CONDITIONS OF CLOSELY RELATED BILINGUALISM (BASED ON SCIENTIFIC-TECHNICAL AND LITERARY TERMINOLOGY)

From the perspective of the relationship between the rational and the emotional in language, every national literary terminology in general, and the names of objects of artistic creation in particular, differ substantially from that part of the terminological nomenclature that can provisionally be grouped under the label “scientific-technical terminology.” Although in the scientific-technical terminology of every language—even when its spheres of use are known to be limited—it is always possible to identify a substantial number of names bearing the marks of a national “spiritual landscape” and linguistic thought, at its core, however, it relies on the functional-semantic principle, that is, it approaches a certain average, “supranational” image. This state of affairs is referred to, in simplified terms, as the internationalization of terminology.

From the perspective of inner form (in the spirit of Humboldt, Potebnya, and Weisgerber), the terminology of some languages may, on the whole, be more “figurative” or more “functional” than that of other languages. For example, even a cursory glance at the terms of German classical philosophy (which, incidentally, were calqued by most European languages) and at the key concepts of the philosophy of French existentialism makes it possible to note that the former—by the expression of one French philosopher-publicist—is more characterized by the principle of “unyielding functionalism” than by “ephemeral imagery,” which permeates the latter. Although these expressions may involve a certain degree of exaggeration, they reflect the indisputable truth that all humanistic definitions and terms, bringing us closer to the eternal enigma of human nature, are always more vague and indeterminate than concepts that reveal the nature of the material world and its causal relationships.

Moreover, the use of the same sources of spiritual culture in different cultural and linguistic traditions can produce different stylistic and figurative patterns in national languages. For example, no one can doubt that Luther’s translation of the Bible into

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German is more down-to-earth, more “functional” than the Church Slavonic version, which is characterized by greater sublimity, rich imagery, elaborate phrasing, and grandiloquence.

Under conditions of bilingualism (not only closely related bilingualism—as in the case of Soviet national-Russian bilingualism) and the scientific and technological revolution, there is a greater or lesser differentiation between the spheres in which national languages and the intermediary language function. Introducing new terms in the native language under pressure from the factor of social prestige, terminology creators often resort to calqued translation, fully reproducing the borrowed semantics, imagery, and morphological structure of the corresponding lexeme. In situations of mixed bilingualism, as is often observed, for example, in Belarusian-Russian bilingualism, speakers of the borrowing language are not always aware of the systemic affiliation of the corresponding elements of a terminological naming unit, which leads to widespread interference in spheres where the intermediary language is predominantly used. At the same time, the national specificity of word formation, syntactic relations, and morphological relationships is gradually displaced from the speaker’s consciousness.

In scientific-technical terminology, to avoid possible disruption of systemic relations in the recipient language, instead of calqued translation from a closely related intermediary language, one can use semantic-morphological models from unrelated languages, in which the corresponding term is expressed by a word that reflects the essence of the concept and its functional character. For example, in Russian-Belarusian translation dictionaries, the Russian error (in the phrase measurement error) is rendered by the artificial calque хібнасць вымярэння. This version of the term seems unacceptable for several reasons. First, fitting into the general semantic-lexical system of Belarusian, the newly coined term acquires an additional non-terminological nuance: incorrectness of measurement in general, which may be caused, for example, by a breach of the technical conditions of the measurement process, and so on. On the other hand, a word-formation model foreign to the recipient language is introduced into its system: noun + formant/-n|asć. Incidentally, recently words formed according to this model have shown enviable aggressiveness. Expressions such as high-rise buildings have almost become the norm, although the adjectival component from which a noun with the formant -ness is usually formed occurs only in compound words (two-storey). One cannot use storeyed separately and form a noun from it by analogy with the standard forms humane — humaneness, Belarusian людскі — людскасць.

If we turn to other European languages with highly developed functional terminological naming, we can find pro-

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an adequate semantic-morphological equivalent in the form of German Мевfehler, English measuring error, French erreur de mesure, and so on, which corresponds to the expression (permissible) measurement error. In Belarusian, this would be rendered as (дапушчальная) памылка вымярэння. Thus the “emotionality” of the designation is removed, systemic violations in the recipient language are eliminated and, most importantly, the term becomes more internationalized, acquiring a functional feature as its semantic core.

Quite often, calquing terms from an intermediary language, when it has itself borrowed them first from other languages, may lead to a repetition of errors that, for various reasons, crept into the Russian translations of the corresponding foreign terms. For example, in Belarusian periodicals and scholarly literature, the literary-theatrical term эфект адчужэння, incorrectly used in many Russian printed publications, became widespread instead of the correct эфект ачужэння, which was even initially included in the “Dictionary of Volume I of the Encyclopedia of Literature and Art of Belarus” (Minsk, 1981, p. 12). Yet the Russian-German / German-Russian “Dictionary of the Performing Arts” (Wörterbuch der darstellenden Künste/VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie.— Leipzig, 1976), on p. 75 in its Russian-German section, gives the following definition of the term отчуждение: отчуждение ср. 1. Entfremdung f. 2. falsche Übersetzung des Terminus Verfremdung, s. отчуждение. As can be seen, the authors of the dictionary entry considered it necessary to distinguish a second meaning, formulating it as “an incorrect translation of the term Verfremdung”—отчуждение. In turn, отчуждение is explained in the dictionary as Brechtian conceptual “Distanzierung vom konkreten Vorgang, die es dem Zuschauer ermöglicht, das Vorgeführte gesellschaftlich richtig zu verallgemeinern”. Certainly, such an inaccuracy could have been avoided in Belarusian if the translation had been made directly from the German original, without an intermediary language.

Under conditions of the scientific and technological revolution and highly developed bilingualism, the scientific and technical terminology and phraseology of the intermediary language increasingly permeate the figurative thought of bilingual speakers, pushing ordinary lexical units of their native language to the emotional periphery. Thus, a phrase was heard in a radio report by a Belarusian journalist: «На гэтым прадпрыемстве, вобразы кажучы, акумуляваны найпершая дасягненні айчыннай прамысловасці». As can be seen, the word аккумулировать, which means nothing other than собирать, is perceived by the speaker as more figurative and effective than the ordinary “non-technical” word. Or another example. The 1983 publishing plan of “Мастацкая літаратура” contains more than one book title of a technicized character, such as: «Амплітуда смеласці», «Змена фазы», «Эстакада», and so on. These facts attest to the noticeable influence of the “scientific-and-technological-revolution” lexicon on the artistic-imagistic system of the language.

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Because the sphere in which Belarusian functions is currently considerably narrower than the sphere of Russian usage in the urban cultural environment, which has always served as a measure of cultural and linguistic prestige, Belarusian names for traditional works of art show extensive borrowing of Russian titles, even when they have a transparently non-Belarusian semantic-morphological form. For example, Beethoven’s 14th sonata-fantasia, which was once given the title “Mondscheinsonate” in the original language (literally: moonlight sonata), appears in Belarusian radio and television programs as «Лунная саната», although it ought to be called «Саната месячнага святла» or simply «Месячная саната», by analogy with месечная ноч (лунная ночь), since the Belarusian lexical item месяц corresponds to the word луна. Similarly, the heroine of the translated fairy tale Cinderella (German Aschenputtel, Aschenbrödel) is more often rendered in Belarusian with the same word as in Russian. Only a few writers (Korotkevich, Bryl, Paniznik) use the motivated Belarusian names Папялюшка or Капцюшка, derived from the Belarusian word попел. Belarusian fairy tales also feature the character Іскарка-Папяльга, whose name is based on the word попел. Strauss’s operetta «Fledermaus» is also becoming established in modern Belarusian as «Лятучая мыш», although according to all the rules it should be «Кажан».

Such examples could be continued.

Observations of the functioning of art-historical terms and names of works of art in contemporary Belarusian show that an adequate linguistic culture in science and terminology is possible only in those fields where national culture exists not merely as an attribute of national ornamentation, but as a coherent, self-developing organism.