Teaching Lexical Aspects of Translation on the Example of Archaisms

Abstract

The paper deals with the peculiarities of translation of the German archaisms taught at the translation practice lessons with university students-linguists trained as interpreters and translators. The study is relevant, since the process of archaization is the vivid evidence of the language dynamism, and the analysis of this phenomenon in different languages will help students to identify the peculiarities of archaic words functioning in the language and to avoid translation errors in the future. Archaisms and obsolete vocabulary in general are the valuable material not only in terms of linguistic heritage, but also in terms of language learning. Despite the fact that archaic words are rarely used in modern speech, their role is important. First of all, learning these units allows identifying the features of the national worldview, cultural identity and uniqueness of people. Secondly, archaisms carry a large amount of historical information, and thirdly, when studying archaisms, we enrich both our passive and active vocabulary, our oral and written speech. Learning archaisms at the lessons helps students to identify and interpret them appropriately. The aim of the paper is to study the features of archaisms in the German language and to analyze the ways of formation skills necessary for translation of this lexical phenomenon into Russian. The authors applied such research methods as descriptive, continuous sampling method and method of comparative analysis. Material for the study was selected from the etymological dictionaries and other lexicographical sources (electronic resource "Kunstworte", online dictionaries of the archaic words of the Russian and German languages). The analysis of obsolete vocabulary revealed changes on the phonetic and morphological levels in both languages. Among the thematic groups of archaisms there are groups with the names of professions and names of abstract notions. In the German language historisms are considered to be a type of archaisms. As a result of the study, the authors compiled a set of exercises and tasks, on the basis of factual material, aimed at the developing translation skills in students trained as translators and interpreters.