Antonymic translation

Antonymic translation is a transformation in which meaning is conveyed through the negation of its opposite in another language, or vice versa through the affirmation of the opposite.

Key ideas:

•  Transfer of a concept through negation or affirmation of the opposite in the target language.

•  Vocabulary matching does not always maintain meaning, style, or shades of pragmatism.

•  Such transformations are often found in Russian-English translations, where a construction with two negatives can be replaced by a statement in order to save cognitive resources and make the text more natural.

•  Formulations with two negatives in simultaneous translation often require alternative antonymic variants to save time and cognitive load.

Practical examples:

1. not small → large (it depends on the context in different ways; more often they convey the opposite through a statement of a large size).

2. interesting → not boring (or more naturally: 'not boring' in the right context).

3. not as interesting → interesting can be conveyed as “makes it less interesting" in generalization, but the exact choice depends on the style and purpose of the text.

Application:

•  when lexical and syntactic structures do not match between languages.

•  for maintaining the style, register and pragmatics of the author.

•  when literal transmission leads to text overload or denaturalized.

Antonymic transformations are an important element of high-quality translation, allowing you to maintain the accuracy and authenticity of the text.