Контрольная работа по "Иностранному языку"

Chapter I. Theoretical basis

1. Definition and types

According to the Collins English Dictionary instruction is a booklet or book, usually accompanying an appliance, device, computer game or vehicle, which contains written guidelines informing how to use it.

Manual in its turn is a book that gives you practical instructions on how to do something or how to use something [ coll, 413].

The instruction as a genre is traditionally referred to as an official business style. Consequently, the main features of this style are inherent in the genre of instruction. Therefore, it seems appropriate to identify the main features of the official business style and on their basis to highlight the features of the instruction genre.

Like other speech styles, the official-business style has certain goals of communication, has its own laws and language characteristics common to this style.

The official business style is the style of documents of various genres: international treaties, legal laws, decrees, charters, instructions, official correspondence, business papers, etc. But, despite the differences in content and the diversity of genres, the official-business style as a whole is characterized by common and most important features. These include:

1. Precision precluding the possibility of foreign interpretations;

2. The language standard.

The instruction has existed for many centuries and has come a long way in development, specialization, as well as interference with other speech genres. So there are borderline options in the modern arsenal of instructions that absorb some features of other types of text. To describe the characteristic features of the instructions, we will not involve all the subspecies, but use a convenient simplified classification:

1. Consumer instructions for goods (instructions for television, for bicycles, for baby food, etc.).

2. Annotation to medicines

3. Departmental instructions (rules for filling out documents and rules for customer behavior: customs declaration, fire instructions, etc.).

4. Job description (rules of conduct for the employee in this position).

The main purpose of the instruction: to provide significant objective information and prescribe the necessary actions associated with them, to regulate human actions. So the communicative task, which carries the text of the instruction - a message of information and prescribing actions.

Who is the instruction text for? Like a huge number of human-generated texts, it turns out that it is intended for any adult citizen of the country. Any person can become a consumer of a product, a patient, a client of a department or an employee in a certain field. Therefore, the language of the instruction should be understandable to anyone, and special training, special (say, professional) competence is not required. Indeed, the instructions do not contain purely special terms known only to professionals. Perhaps, an annotation to medicines is a certain exception, when reading which the patient sometimes can not do without a dictionary, but it is intended for both the doctor (professional!) and the patient.

1. Lexical peculiarities and ways of their translation

The qualitative specificity of the texts of instructions for household appliances is associated with a special relationship between the addressee of the translation and the subject of the translation (i.e., with the content of the translated texts).

On the one hand, the addressee can be any potential consumer of this product, that is, any member of society, with any cultural and educational level. On the other hand, information intended for translation often refers to subject areas that have a rather complex conceptual structure or operate with extensive nomenclature series.

Thus, there is a contradiction between the unpredictable (in some cases rather low) educational level of the addressee and the possible complexity of the subject of the translated text. Because of this contradiction, an adequate translation of special vocabulary, that is, terms and some lexical units similar to them, in the texts of instructions for household appliances presents a certain complexity.

Another consequence of this contradiction is the possible unpreparedness of the addressee to perceive not only the substantial complexity of the translated text, but also its structural features. Structuring is understood in this case in the broadest sense - from the location of sections within a document to graphic design.

Special vocabulary is used primarily in texts for specialists, but by necessity (due to its indispensability), these lexical units penetrate into texts for non-specialists. Moreover, the first border on the path of their penetration from the special language into the everyday language is just the texts intended for consumers of goods and services [Гринев С. В. (1993) Введение в терминоведение. -- М.: Московский Лицей, 1993. - С. 49-52 .].

1. Terms and term phrases:

voltage; wattage alternating current; the drive shaft of the bowl; appliance

2. Set phrases and clichés:

out of the reach of children; significant hazards; for household use only; to meet applicable safety standards

3. Verbal nouns:

kneading; mixing; blending; chopping; slicing; shredding; grating

4. Appeals, initial and final formulas of respect, etc. Such formulas, expressing formality, are at the same time a means of expressing courtesy and maintaining a distance between communication partners.

We hope you thoroughly enjoy your new appliance.

5. Acronyms, abbreviations, compound words, etc.

amp. (short for ampere) - ампер

ASTA (short for automatic system, trouble analysis) - автоматический анализ неисправностей в системе

BS (short for British Standard) - Британский стандарт [Брандес М.П., Провоторов В.И. Предпереводческий анализ текста (для институтов и факультетов иностранных языков): Учеб пособие. - 3-е изд., стереотип. - М.: НВИ -ТЕЗАУРУС, 2001. - С. 30].

In some cases, the nomenclature can be transmitted in the text of the translation in the form of exact equivalents, nomenclatures, even if they are not known to the general consumer, without any further explanation.