A. Conan Doyle THoB

The hound of the Baskervilles
A. Conan Doyle
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon
those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the
breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our
visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood,
bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a “Penang lawyer.” Just under the
head was a broad silver band nearly an inch across. “To James Mortimer,
M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date
“1884.” It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to
carry—dignified, solid, and reassuring.
“Well, Watson, what do you make of it?”
Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my
occupation.
“How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back
of your head.”
“I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me,”
said he. “But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of our visitor’s stick? Since we
have been so unfortunate as to miss him and have no notion of his errand, this
accidental souvenir becomes of importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man
by an examination of it.”
“I think,” said I, following as far as I could the methods of my companion,
“that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man, well-esteemed since those
who know him give him this mark of their appreciation.”
“Good!” said Holmes. “Excellent!”
“I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a country
practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot.”
“Why so?”
“Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one has been so
knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying it. The thick-
iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident that he has done a great amount of
walking with it.”
The text I am going to analyze is the beginning of the book “The hound of the
Baskervilles” by A. Conan Doyle. Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930)
was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for A
Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson.
The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction.
First of all, we need to examine the text and find words and phrases that can be
translated using lexical transformations. Transcription (SL word or word combination is
transcribed in TL) Watson – Ватсон; Sherlock Holmes – Шерлок Холмс; James Mortimer –
Джеймс Мортімер;
Moving forward to lexical semantic transformations, we may use such transformation
as modulation (logical development of meaning): what do you make of it - які у вас будуть
думки щодо цього; I had given him no sign of my occupation - я думав, що моїх маніпуляцій
він не помічає; I have, at least - Чого не маю, того не маю; We may also use Differentiation
(applied in the process of translation of polysemantic words) in this example: stick – ціпок;
Also, there are some lexical grammatical transformations in the text, such as
Descriptive translation (is resorted to when there is no lexical correspondence to the SL lexeme
in the TL): hearth-rug – килимку біля комина ; Decompression (consists in addition of words
or word combinations in the translation) is also used in this text: Let me hear you reconstruct the
man by an examination of it - Обстежте ціпка і спробуйте відтворити за ним образ його
власника, а я вас послухаю;
Grammatical transformations are shown here. For example we may use partitioning
(is a translation device which involves the change of the sentence structure in this sentence:
(outer) Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not
infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table – Містер
Шерлок Холмс сидів за столом і снідав. Зазвичай він прокидався о пізній порі, крім тих
доволі частих випадків, коли йому зовсім не випадало поспати; (inner) I have, at least, a
well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me. - Чого не маю, того не маю. Зате переді
мною стоїть начищений до блиску срібний кавник;
To conclude, all I want to say, is that we need to avoid using word-for-word translations
by applying transformations instead. It is needed to adapt a SL text to the standards of the TL
text and to make it adequate.

A. Conan Doyle THoB

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

A. Conan Doyle THoB

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

A. Conan Doyle THoB

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The hound of the Baskervilles

You might also like