Pavlović, Dejan

English

University of Niš: Facta Universitatis (E-Journals) / Универзитет у Нишу

FACTA UNIVERSITATIS  Series: Linguistics and Literature Vol. 21, No 1, 2023, pp. 163 - 166   © 2023 by University of Niš, Serbia | Creative Commons Licence: CC BY-NC-ND Book Review  Aleksandra Janić, Dušan Stamenković  ENGLESKO-SRPSKA KONTRASTIVNA LEKSIKOLOGIJA  [ENGLISH-SERBIAN CONTRASTIVE LEXICOLOGY] Niš: Faculty of Philosophy, 2022, 257 pages   Dejan Pavlović Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš, Serbia The process of translation may at times be an arduous task even for those who choose it as their profession. Each of the two (or more) languages that meet in this undertaking bears unique characteristics when it comes to morphology and syntax, so a translator is required an extensive knowledge from both sides of the translational equation, so to speak. It is therefore a legitimate undertaking on behalf of the esteemed professors Janić (from the Department of Serbian Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, Serbia) and Stamenković (formerly from the Department of English Language and Literature at the same faculty, and currently at Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden) to, first of all, create a course in contrastive lexicology (the first one to be conceived by professors from different departments) for the master academic studies of both the English language and literature and Translation, and then to write an appropriate coursebook dealing with the potential lexicological issues one might encounter when translating English to Serbian or vice versa. The coursebook in question is entitled Englesko-srpska kontrastivna leksikologija, published in 2022 by the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, Serbia, and reviewed by well-regarded professors in the field of language study, namely Tvrtko Prćić, Vladimir Ž. Jovanović, and Rajna Dragićević. The coursebook features a foreword written by the authors (pages 7-8) as well as the following thirteen chapters: The Principles of Lexicological Contrasting of English and Serbian (9-16), The Dictionaries and Lexicological Handbooks in English and Serbian (17-38), Synonymy as Seen Through Contrastive Lexicology (39-50), A Contrastive View of Antonymy (51-62), Contrasting Hyponymy (63-74), Polysemy and Homonymy Through the Lens of Contrastive Lexicology (75-94), Polysemy, Context and Translation from English to Serbian (95-110), Anglicisms and Anglo-Serbian Words (111-126), False Friends Exemplified in Serbian and English (127-134), Contrasting Colour-Related Terms (135-156), Contrasting Modal Verbs in English and Serbian (157-176), Slang Lexemes in English and Serbian (177-190) and, finally, Phraseologisms in English and Serbian (191-220). Each of  Submitted February 17, 2023; Accepted April 12, 2023 Corresponding author: Dejan Pavlović University of Niš, Faculty of Philosophy, Ćirila i Metodija 2, 18101 Niš, Serbia E-mail: dejan.pavlovic@filfak.ni.ac.rs 164 Book Review the aforementioned chapters begins with a brief summary of the covered topic, together with a selection of the most notable key words, and finishes with a set of questions for consideration and discussion and a reference list. To start off, chapter 1 introduces the main tenets of the lexicological contrastive studies performed between two languages, more specifically English and Serbian. The basis of the contrastive studies is found in the works of Tvrtko Prćić, while an overview of some contemporary literature on this matter is also added. Prćić's approach is based on contact-contrastive linguistics, and important terms such as tertium comparationis are defined in this chapter. Other authors of note mentioned here include Wierzbicka, Ke, and Krzeszowski, whose approaches offer an adequate addendum to Prćić's theoretical views. Dictionaries are the main subject of the following chapter, focusing on both monolingual and bilingual types. Online versions of English monolingual dictionaries, such as those of Cambridge Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Dictionary, are represented through screenshots and examples such as the lexeme grammar; the online versions are arguably the most preferred and utilized type of dictionary in this day and age, and the visual aspect of the screenshots included may be very useful to the readers. Aside from standard monolingual dictionaries, certain specialized dictionaries are also mentioned, dealing with idioms, phrasal verbs, and slang; these include Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, Cambridge Phrasal Verbs Dictionary, and Stone the Crows: Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang. Other important facets of this chapter include a discussion on selected monolingual Serbian dictionaries of different types, for example Rečnik srpskoga jezika, Srpski gramatički rečnik, and Srpski rečnik sinonima (the latter being a dictionary of synonyms in particular), as well as showcasing an assortment of bilingual dictionaries including Veliki englesko-srpski rečnik and Oxford English-Serbian Student's Dictionary. Chapter 2 is completed by lexicological literature recommendations in both languages, such as Lexical Semantics and Leksikologija srpskoga jezika. The central point of the following five chapters are different lexical relationships found in language. Namely, chapter 3 is concerned with synonymy in both English and Serbian, and how close proximity in meaning does not necessarily equal synonymy, specifically utilizing the synonymy scale as suggested by Rajna Dragićević. A number of examples are used to illustrate this relationship, both isolated and in context; Paul Auster's novel Invisible is used to supply the examples in context (both the original and the Serbian translation). The age-old question, whether absolute synonymy exists, is also one of the topics dealt with in this chapter. Conversely, antonymy is the main topic of chapter 4. Among other things, the interconnectedness between antonymy and synonymy is discussed, as well as the notable difference between contrary and complementary antonymous pairs of lexemes. The morphological basis of antonymy is another important feature of this chapter - how different derivational affixes contribute to the opposite or at least different meaning of the base used in derivation. Chapter 5 introduces the phenomena of hyponymy and hyperonymy, as well as the related notions of troponymy, meronymy and holonymy. The contrastive approach is represented through the analysis of the verbs of visual perception, namely look (English) and gledati (Serbian); the resulting research yielded six groups of lexemes, created according to the semantic nuances exhibited by the lexemes themselves. The results showcase the semantic overlap between the lexemes in both languages, as well as the exceptions unique to each language. The following chapter offers readers an overview of polysemy and homonymy through the lens of contrastive lexicology. Utilizing different mechanisms of polysemy, such as  Book Review 165 metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche, the similarities and the differences between the two aforementioned terms are illustrated via a vast array of examples from both languages. Other related concepts, such as homography, homophony, and conversion, are discussed at the end of the chapter 6. Doubling down on the previous one, chapter 7 presents the difficulties a translator faces when dealing with a highly polysemous word such as the verb run. A theoretical basis is given, which emphasizes the importance of context, followed by the relevant dictionary translations of the verb in question and, finally, a detailed analysis of the corpus, comprised of examples from two Paul Auster's novels, Invisible and Sunset Park: A Novel, and their respective Serbian translations. The remainder of the book deals with other aspects of the relationship between English and Serbian. For example, chapter 8 focuses on the characteristics and use of Anglicisms in Serbian, as well as Anglo-Serbian combinations. Janić and Stamenković, the authors of the book, deal with the controversial stances of incorporating English words into Serbian, both positive and negative. They also deal with the different changes an English word usually undergoes when being adopted into Serbian, especially in phonetic and morphological terms. Foreign words are also separated semantically between those retaining their original meaning and those undergoing a certain change in meaning when introduced into Serbian. The seven different types of Anglicisms in Serbian, as introduced by Sonja Filipović-Kovačević, are also defined in this chapter. Chapter 9 introduces the readers to the phenomenon of false friends. These lexemes are defined, while the authors emphasize their importance in not only translation but also in the processes of teaching or learning a second language. Vladimir Ivir's classification of cognates (lexical forms of similar lineage and shape) into four groups is also included, augmented by a classification of false friends devised by Lenka Ticova, the latter of which is illustrated and labeled with an appropriate table. The chapter ends with a number of false friends found between Serbian and other non-English languages, such as Hungarian, Bulgarian, Russian and Greek. The extensive chapter 10 deals with contrasting the terms signifying colours in English and Serbian. Most notably, the authors focus on the primary colours - red, blue and yellow; each colour is thoroughly examined in terms of which meaning it carries in either of the languages, and the entries are then classified into five semantic categories: the flora, the fauna, and biological aspects; physical characteristics; emotional states and behaviour; politics, organizations and groups; and miscellaneous. Important collocations featuring the primary colours are also included. For example, the following examples in Serbian illustrate the aforementioned five categories: crvendać, crvenokosa, crveneti, crvena stranka, and crvena nit. At the end of the chapter, the colours black and white are also discussed; this part focuses on the metaphorical usage of these colours, whereby white usually relates to something good, clean and benevolent, while black is normally associated with something bad, dirty or malevolent. The next important subject of this coursebook is the contrastive approach to the modal verbs in both languages (Chapter 11). Firstly, the verbs morati, moći, trebati, should, must and can are defined using appropriate dictionary entries, while the different meanings and usages of these verbs are then analyzed in a sentential context, utilizing, once again, examples from Paul Auster's Invisible and its Serbian translation. Subsequently, the epistemic, deontic and dynamic modality of these verbs in both English and Serbian are discussed. Chapter 12 brings us to another controversial topic when languages are concerned - slang. This phenomenon is observed primarily through morphological and semantic lenses, i.e. the 166 Book Review way such lexemes are created and what they mean. Different slang dictionaries, such as Rečnik srpskog žargona (i žargonu srodnih reči i izraza) and McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions, are referred to in order to define certain lexemes as elements of slang, including kuka, sveća, drool, and earwig. The authors pay special attention to the slang Anglicisms as used in some of the local Serbian dialects, like bilbord, mejkap and tatu. They supplement their analysis by using a table focusing on the frequency of such Anglicisms and their etymologically Serbian counterparts as found in Srpski mrežni korpus. The final, chapter 13, is dedicated to phraseology in English and Serbian. Diverse phraseological structures are examined, including nominal, prepositional and verbal phrases. Janić and Stamenković also pay attention to the semantics of some of these structures, namely those of a different shape yet of the same meaning in English and Serbian, but also those phraseological constructions which are unique to either of the two languages. Furthermore, the phraseological expressions are classified according to nine contrastive patterns, depending on the type of correspondence or equivalence occurring between them. As an illustration, contrastive pattern A signifies a complete formal and semantic correspondence, as exemplified by the relationship between the expressions as slippery as an eel and ljigav kao jegulja, while contrastive patterns Ž and Z epitomize the expressions which lack any formal or semantic correspondent in the other language, such as smrdljiv kao jarac (pattern Ž, no correspondents in English) and as lively as a cricket (pattern Z, no correspondents in Serbian). Each of the aforementioned chapters ends with a set of questions and discussion tasks, which seek to revise what has been elaborated on in the chapter itself or to initiate the readers to delve into some further research on the matter, at times by providing examples of their own. To that effect as well, each chapter ends with a list of the literary sources used, both online and printed, as well as the source of the corpus material. Aside from the thirteen chapters, the coursebook features the obligatory index of literature, the dictionaries and the online sources used, as well as the recommended phone apps which might come in handy to a translator (pages 221-240). Furthermore, indices of important terms and authors are included (241-244, 245-250), a Serbian-English dictionary of lexicological terms (251-252), the biographies of the book's authors (253-254), summaries in both languages (255), as well as excerpts from the three reviews written by professors Tvrtko Prćić, Vladimir Ž. Jovanović, and Rajna Dragićević (256-257). As such, the book is thoroughly equipped for the course it is first and foremost written for, Contrastive Lexicology: Use in Teaching and Translation, as well as additional academic courses concerning contemporary Serbian and English language, lexicology, and proofreading. However, it can also be useful to anyone examining translation, from students still learning the basic principles of this process to the experienced translators looking to expand the horizons of their profession, and also of great value to proofreaders working with any of the two languages. To that extent, Janić and Stamenković's coursebook Englesko-srpska kontrastivna leksikologija offers a comprehensive view about the relationship between English and Serbian and all the processes at the meeting point between the two languages. Acknowledgement: Prepared as a part of the project Scientific publications in teaching English Linguistics and Anglo-American Literature and Culture, conducted at the University of Niš – Faculty of Philosophy (No. 300/1-14-1-01).  

Aleksandra Janić, Dušan Stamenković ENGLESKO-SRPSKA KONTRASTIVNA LEKSIKOLOGIJA [ENGLISH-SERBIAN CONTRASTIVE LEXICOLOGY]

http://casopisi.junis.ni.ac.rs/index.php/FULingLit/article/download/11572/4959

Aleksandra Janić, Dušan Stamenković ENGLESKO-SRPSKA KONTRASTIVNA LEKSIKOLOGIJA [ENGLISH-SERBIAN CONTRASTIVE LEXICOLOGY]

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