TRANSLATION OF CABIN CREW VOCABULARY INTO GERMAN AS BASED ON ARTHUR HAILEY’S “AIRPORT”

Abstract

Arthur Hailey’s novel “Airport” is the demonstration of a general tendency that emerged in the middle of the 20th century and significantly influenced the subsequent literary process the merging of high and mass genres and going beyond the strict framework of what – was considered worthy of the writer’s attention. It provides the insight into the inner world of a professional sphere being thus categorized as professional (occupational, workplace) novel. In order to reconstruct the workplace atmosphere, A. Hailey employs a variety of stylistic techniques with the abundant usage of professional vocabulary being the predominant one. Every profession has its own terminology which enables its members to interact effectively and express themselves. The core of communication in the professional aviation environment is aviation English, which reflects in its contents the results of scientific and professional knowledge. It is the system of terms which objectively includes not only basic aviation concepts but also general scientific notions and semi-technical vocabulary. Our research has concentrated on the investigation of the means of translation of professional vocabulary observed in A. Hailey’s “Airport”. The lexical items used by cabin crew members in the professional and private settings, which are further classified into realia, terms, professionalisms, jargonisms and slang, have come into the focus of our attention. The translations of the novel into German conducted by Wilm W. Elwenspoke in 1968 and published by the publishing house “Ulstein” has served as the material for the investigation. The following techniques were resorted to: literal translation, borrowing, transposition, calque, compression, generalization, adaptation, expansion, omission, reduction. The translation appears to be direct and equivalent, consequently, closer to the ST and few transformations have been applied. Nevertheless, it occasionally results in certain loss in translation.