The two more or less universally recognised main types of linguistic contexts which serve to determine individual meanings of words are the lexical context and the grammatical context. These types are differentiated depending on whether the lexical or the grammatical aspect is predominant in determining the meaning.
1. Lexical Context
There are cases when other parts of speech are changed. So, pronoun is often subject to transformation (converted into a noun). Adjectives are often converted into nouns and backwards. For example,
Example:
He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of theforest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overheadthe wind blew in the tops of the pine trees.
The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; butbelow it was steep and he could see the dark of theoiled road winding through the pass.
There was a stream alongside the road and far downthe pass he saw a mill beside the stream and thefalling water of the dam, white in the summersunlight.
"Is that the mill?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I do not remember it."
"It was built since you were here.
The old mill is farther down; much below the pass."
Translation:
Он лежал на устланной сосновыми иглами бурой земле, уткнув подбородок в скрещенные руки, а ветер шевелил над ним верхушки высоких сосен.
Склон в этом месте был некрутой, но дальше обрывался почти отвесно, и видно было, как черной полосой вьется по ущелью дорога.
Она шла берегом реки, а в дальнем конце ущелья виднелась лесопилка и белеющий на солнце водоскат у плотины.
— Вот эта лесопилка? — спросил он.
Here we should pay attention to the way the word shoes and trousers are translated. The translator used more concrete Russian word to render the ......
Thus, “shoes” were translated as “сандалии”. The word “trousers” are more often translated into Russian as “брюки”. But here the translator dresses the elderly man in “штаны”. Actually, that’s right because this word has simpler connotation which is more appropriate for this particular novel.
Here we clearly perceive the combined effect of both the linguistic arid the extra-linguistic context. The word wall does not ordinarily occur in combination with the adjectives sweet and lovely. So the peculiar lexical context accounts for the possibility of emotive overtones which are made explicit by the context of situation.
The translator is capable of changing the syntactical structure of the sentence in order to create another one in the target language which would sound more idiomatic. A range of grammatical transformation is employed for that purpose.
Example:
I wonder if he has a pair of boots or if he rides in those alpargatas, he thought.
Любопытно, есть ли у него сапоги, или он так и ездит в этих альпаргатах, подумал Роберт Джордан.
He must have quite an outfit.
Наверно, у него полная экипировка есть.
