Translation Process Strategies: Psycholinguistic Aspects

The aim of the paper deals with the preliminary verification of the hypothesis concerning the impact of the source text structure on the choice of translation strategy (form-oriented or sense-oriented) in the process of rendering a text in a native (Ukrainian) into a foreign (English) language by university students majoring in Translation. The methods of the research included a comparative analysis of the target texts (English) translated (within a predetermined time limit) from the source text (Ukrainian) related to the domain of economics. The structure of the source text, while remaining grammatically acceptable in the Ukrainian language, had been deliberately made structurally non-congruent with that of the direct word order, which is most frequently used in English. The subjects, the fourth-year BA students majoring in Translation, whose command of English ranged between B2 and Cl levels within the CEFR classification, had been properly motivated to achieve the maximum possible result. The analysis of the target texts was based on a number of parameters, which included the preservation of the source text information and its structure in them. Results. It was established that in translating from a native into a foreign language, the subjects have a tendency to replicate the structure of the source text at the levels of clauses and sentences. However, it does not always result in the distortion of the source text sense or/and the violation of the target language norms as the subjects often managed to render the said sense and to keep to the said norms by means of changing the functions of the words in the sentence. The probability of the subjects' abandoning the source text structure increases when the latter is evidently unsuitable for replication, in which case they switch over to the sense-oriented strategy. The correlation of the two strategies in translating sentence segments is generally identical to the one related to clauses and sentences, while the form-oriented strategy generally prevails in rendering phrases. Conclusions. The source text structure has a certain impact on the choice of translation strategy increasing the share of the form-oriented approach. However, this impact is not unequivocal and may depend on a number of factors, which require additional study. The paper outlines the prospects of further research.