scholarly journals Vladimir Nabokov’s Self-Translated Lolita: Revisiting the Original Alliterative Modes

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (27) ◽  
pp. 115-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Artūras Cechanovičius ◽  
Jadvyga Krūminienė

This paper is a case study comparison of Vladimir Nabokov’s self-translated Russian version of his English novel Lolita with its original text within the frame of the theory of literary translation. Here, self-translation is referred to as a branch of literary translation whose distinctive feature is that the work is both composed and translated by the same person. It is interesting to observe that, for the most part, the authors who translate their own works into another language are bilingual. Theoretical investigation into the field of self-translation is a recent endeavour; the term only appeared around 1976. Before it appeared in A Dictionary for the Analysis of Literary Translation, self-translation was thought to be related to bilingualism, and was therefore approached from the perspective of linguistics.This paper analyses some alliterative modes, including suballiteration, produced by Nabokov in the two versions of Lolita. Throughout, the process of translation is viewed as a “two-stage reading-writing activity.” The novel’s translation into Lithuanian, which was performed from Nabokov’s Russian translation, is used to show the difference between translation and selftranslation, and to reveal the clash or the interplay between the foreign and the domestic in the development of alliterative appeal.

Author(s):  
I. V. Boiko ◽  

The article considers the concept of equivalence in the context of the diachronic plurality of retranslations of Shakespeare's tragedies. An analysis of different approaches to determining the levels of equivalence is given: E. Nida and K. Rice distinguish formal and dynamic equivalence; J. Catford differentiates formal equivalent and text equivalent; J. House determines the difference between explicit and implicit translation. W. Koller distinguishes five types of equivalence: denotative equivalence, connotative equivalence, text-normative equivalence, pragmatic equivalence, and formal equivalence. V. Komissarov defines the levels of equivalence that form a hierarchical structure: levels of communication objectives, description of the situation, utterance, messages, and linguistic signs. The article highlights the notion of diachronic plurality of retranslations of a time-remote original text on the example of Ukrainian retranslations of the XIX–XXI centuries of Shakespeare's tragedies „Hamlet” and „Romeo and Juliet” and defines the basic principles of equivalence theory on which diachronic plurality of retranslations is based. The specifics of translators' use of different strategies in achieving equivalence of the original text and the translated one, which are due to the creative personality of the translator and translation style, is described. The article demonstrates that achieving the equivalence of a time-remote original text that is not a fixed quantity is a very important task for every translator, whose decision is determined by various factors, including the translator's choice of appropriate strategies and tactics. Each translation reflects its „own” original, which always follows from the individual vision of the text by the translator.


Author(s):  
Kovpik S.I.

The purpose of the paper is to identify the peculiarities of literary translation of small genre works by the Polish writer of the 19th century B. Prus into Ukrainian. In accordance with the purpose of the study, the following methods have been used: the analysis of the translated text, the analytical review, the synthesis method.Results. This paper reveals the attempts of exploring the literary translation as a kind of the lingual perspective of the translator mental structures, basically represented by the process of reconstructing one type of information into another. The difference between the linguistic and mental model of the original text and its literary translation primarily is caused by the absence of “common areas” in the mental spaces of the author and the translator. It is extremely difficult for the translator to preserve the mental originality of the text.The overlap areas of mental structures of the author and the translator should have as many similarities as possible, since it makes the literary translation more successful. The translator’s knowledge of the customs, traditions and culture of the original language text contributes to establishing a functional correspondence between the original text and its translation. Translation is an obvious presentation of inter-literary and intercultural relations, which is the basis for the development of multilingual communication. The similarity of the mental structures of the author and the translator allows optimizing intercultural multilingual communication.This paper determines the essence and content of the overlap areas of the mental spaces of the Polish writer B. Prus and the Ukrainian translator D. Andrukhiv in the literary translation of the short story “Antek”.Conclusions. As a result of translating the work of fiction from one language into another, the semantic code of the text changes due to interpenetration of cultural signs. Analyzing the quality of literary translation of the story of “Antek” by the Polish writer B. Prus in Ukrainian proves some differences between the linguistic model of the original text and its literary translation into another language.Key words: mental space, translator, author strategy, common area space. Мета статті полягає у тому, щоб виявити специфіку художнього перекладу українською мовою творів малих жанрів поль-ського письменника ХІХ ст. Б. Пруса. Відповідно до мети дослідження були використані такі методи, як: аналіз перекладаць-кого тексту (у процесі визначення відповідних стильових особливостей тексту (вживання стилістичних прийомів, тобто заміна в перекладі елементів тексту одного функціонального стилю елементами іншого та експресивних засобів мови, фразеологіч-них одиниць, асиндетичних (синонімічних) іменникових сполучень тощо), аналітичний огляд (використано на етапі вивчення актуальності дослідження), метод синтезу (для підбиття підсумків, узагальнення результатів дослідження).Результати. Авторка статті спробувала дослідити художній переклад як своєрідну лінгвальну проєкцію ментальних структур перекладача, основу якої становить процес переробки одного виду інформації в інший. Розбіжність лінгво-ментальної моделі тексту оригіналу та його художнього перекладу на іншу мову зумовлена насамперед відсутністю «загальних зон» ментальних просторів автора тексту оригіналу та перекладача. Надзвичайно складним завданням для перекладача є збереження ментальної своєрідності тексту оригіналу. Дуже важливо, щоб зони перетину ментальних структур автора та перекладача мали якомога більше спільних ознак, що робить художній переклад успішним. Зона перетину ментальних структур автора та перекладача презентує смислове ядро тексту перекладу, де дуже добре можна відстежити те, настільки ментальність перекладача виявилася спорідненою з ментальністю автора. Обізнаність пере-кладача зі звичаями, традиціями та культурою мови оригіналу сприяє встановленню функціональної відповідності між текстом оригіналу та перекладу.Висновки. У результаті перекладу тексту твору художньої літератури з однієї мови на іншу змінюється смисловий код тексту, відбувається взаємопроникнення культурних знаків, котрі презентують авторську стратегію. Усе це сприяє успішному функціонуванню тексту в іншій культурі. Аналіз якості художнього перекладу оповідання польського письменника Б. Пруса «Антек» українською мовою дав можливість установити певні розбіжності лінгвоментальної моделі тексту оригіналу та його художнього перекладу на іншу мову. Лінгвальна розбіжність на культурологічному рівні зумовлена тим, що перекладацький текст став відображенням зони перетину ментальних просторів автора тексту оригіналу та перекладача. Проте вказані розбіжності суттєво не вплинули на зміст твору та не стали перепоною у сприйнятті художньої інформації реципієнтом.Ключові слова: ментальний простір, перекладач, авторська стратегія, простір спільної зони.


2020 ◽  
Vol 210 ◽  
pp. 21013
Author(s):  
Georgiy Khukhuni ◽  
Svetlana Vekovishcheva ◽  
Elena Pugina ◽  
Tatyana Kholstinina

The present paper considers and analyzes one of the most controversial problems of theory and practice of literary translation. This problem is associated with the use and representation in a target text of lexical and phraseological units designating concepts or phenomena that are alien to a particular language and/or culture, within the framework of which the text is composed. Special attention is payed to the issue of the so-called foreignness of a concept for a primary and secondary audience, which stems from the difference in background knowledge of members of each audience in regard to the reality described in a book. The material for the study were fiction works of British writers of the 19th – the first half of the 20th centuries, as well as of Indian authors who either initially wrote in English or translated their own works into English, which was conditioned by the following aspects: 1. The existence of a plethora of colonies, people’s life in which attracted the attention of a significant number of English writers; 2. The diverse nature of the lexical and phraseological layer loaned from other languages; 3. The existence of author's translations into English of those pieces of writing that were initially written in languages of colonized peoples, as well as of original books initially written in English by local authors. 4. A long-term practice of translating such texts into Russian that increases the relevance of the research into means and methods applied for conveying such culture specific concepts. The paper uses methods of philological analysis of an original text and its translation, as well as methods of their comparative study. These methods allow estimating the appropriateness and equivalence of cross-lingual communication.


2021 ◽  
pp. 157-168
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Mozgacheva

This article describes the core structure of one of the most important concepts in the series of novels by J. K. Rowling «Harry Potter», the concept «witch» and its corresponding concept in the Russian language, the concept «ведьма». Both of these concepts are extremely important for the majority of fantasy pieces of literature, they contribute to the authentic worldview. The model of the author’s concept «witch» is conveyed with the help of the analyses of verbalization of the concept in the original text. The invariant features of the concept are identified by comparing the models of traditional and author’s concepts, as well as the unique markers of the author’s concept. The most common transformations and techniques used by translators are highlighted through the comparative analyses of two variants of translation of the same novel. This also shows the ways that were used to verbalize the English concepts in Russian translation.


Author(s):  
Veronika Bialik ◽  
Ilona Derik

Translation of fiction, and in particular — translation of poetic works plays an extremely important role in modern translation studies. In the process of global more and more people are learning foreign languages and showing a deep interest in the cultural heritage of other countries, including literature. This explains the increased interest of readers in the poetry of foreign authors. The complexity of literary translation is due to the fact that the translator must not only have the basic translation skills, but also must have the creative abilities and background knowledge to fully reproduce all the artistic means that are found in the original text. The objective of the article is to analyze the reproduction of tropes in translation of the poetic work of E. A. Poe “Dreams” from English into Chinese to identify tactics, techniques and transformations allowing to reproduce artistic means in translation. According to the results of the study, it was found out that in the poetic work “Dreams” the following artistic means were employed: epithet, metaphor,personification, comparison and rhetorical question. Despite the difference in the mentalities of the English and Chinese people, the translator used the tactic of national coloring preservation while rendering in translation all the above-mentioned artistic means. This tactic made it possible to fully implement the desired emotional impact on the target audience and convey the mood and attitude of the original author. In the five cases out of the twelve, the translator resorted to the transformation of the addition to deepen the emotional impact on the recipient. It may be concluded that the translator hasn’t only achieved the goal but also managed to preserve the main function of the work of art — an aesthetic impact on the reader, and besides successfully re-created eleven of the twelve artistic means at work.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 396
Author(s):  
Maya El Hajj

Literary translation is one of the most challenging tasks in the field of translation. This paper focuses on the aporias in literary texts written and/or translated into Arabic, French, Italian, and English. I contend that some terms/phrases are difficult to render in the target text. This argument is bolstered by examples extracted from The Prophet of the Arabo-American author Gibran Kahlil Gibran. I selected this particular oeuvre given its immense success in terms of vast cultural diffusion and translation into various languages. Also, The Prophet, has been translated several times into the same target languages in addition to the large number of languages to which it has been rendered. I will discuss the translator’s dilemma when undertaking the task of faithfully conveying the aesthetics of the original text into the same, or into the closest version of the original. This paper concentrates on the cultural differences between languages by emphasizing on untranslatability and various retranslations. It analyzes how these elements were rendered into the target culture and language. The argument put forth in this paper attempts to shed light on the importance of literary translation, as one of the most critical discourses of translation.


Author(s):  
Tetyana Druzhyna

The article deals with the approach to the psycholinguistic analysis of the original text (the text fragment of the novel “The Light between Oceans” written by M. L. Stedman) and the text of the translation (the Ukrainian translation performed by N. Khaietska). Psycholinguistics is aimed at studying the language as a phenomenon of the mentality, at “disclosing” the work of the translators, their actual actions on the psychological level. The three stages of translation are also of the psychological nature (the understanding of the source text, the “comprehension” of the forms of the source language and the choice of the forms of the target language). Any perception occurs in the field of the psychological science, that’s why there arises the need to highlight the psycholinguistic assumptions of the analysis and the interpretation of a literary text. The employment of the psycholinguistic analysis of a literary text is very useful and appropriate, since it can be used to investigate how professional translators transmit the emotional content of the text to other languages. The method of psycholinguistic text analysis is focused on the study of the linguistic and stylistic characteristics of the texts. The following main categories are taken into account: the scope of the text; the number of sentences; their average size; the coefficient of vocabulary (lexical) diversity; the coefficient of verbiage / aggressiveness; the coefficient of logical connectivity; the coefficient of embolism. The psycholinguistic text analysis has revealed that the text of the translation corresponds to the original text. The difference between the main categories is rather insignificant and can not affect the perception of the translated text by the recipients. The content-analysis has shown that the translated text contains all the categories of the original text and the number of the analyzed words is identical. This proves the correspondence and adequacy of the translated text, its high ability to reproduce fully the author’s intention.


Author(s):  
Ксения Игоревна Таунзенд

В центре внимания в статье находятся опущения фрагментов английского романа в русском рукописном переводе середины XVIII в. Пропущенные части относятся к темам восприятия смерти, отношения к вере и понимания роли женщины. Это свидетельствует о том, что подобные опущения носят не случайный и не субъективный характер, но продиктованы различиями в национальной философской традиции двух культур. The article focuses on the omission of considerable parts of the English novel in the 18th century manuscript Russian translation. The left out pieces deal with the topics of attitude to death, attitude to religion and the image of a woman, which gives enough evidence that these omissions are not occasional but they reveal the difference in the national philosophic traditions of both cultures.


Author(s):  
Svitlana Gruschko

In the article the phenomenon of translation is regarded as mental interpretation activity not only in linguistics, but also in literary criticism. The literary work and its translation are most vivid guides to mental and cultural life of people, an example of intercultural communication. An adequate perception of non-native culture depends on communicators’ general fund of knowledge. The essential part of such fund of knowledge is native language, and translation, being a mediator, is a means of cross-language and cross-cultural communication. Mastering another language through literature, a person is mastering new world and its culture. The process of literary texts’ translation requires language creativity of the translator, who becomes so-called “co-author” of the work. Translation activity is a result of the interpreter’s creativity and a sort of language activity: language units are being selected according to language units of the original text. This kind of approach actualizes linguistic researching of real translation facts: balance between language and speech units of the translated work (i.e. translationinterpretation, author’s made-up words, or revised language peculiarities of the characters). The process of literary translation by itself should be considered within the dimension of a dialogue between cultures. Such a dialogue takes place in the frame of different national stereotypes of thinking and communicational behavior, which influences mutual understanding between the communicators with the help of literary work being a mediator. So, modern linguistics actualizes the research of language activities during the process of literary work’s creating. This problem has to be studied furthermore, it can be considered as one of the central ones to be under consideration while dealing with cultural dimension of the translation process, including the process of solving the problems of cross-cultural communication.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-110
Author(s):  
Adrian Firdaus ◽  
M. Dwi Yoga Sutanto ◽  
Rajin Sihombing ◽  
M. Weldy Hermawan

Abstract Every port in Indonesia must have a Port Master Plan that contains an integrated port development plan. This study discusses one important aspect in the preparation of the Port Master Plan, namely the projected movement of goods and passengers, which can be used as a reference in determining the need for facilities at each stage of port development. The case study was conducted at a port located in a district in Maluku Province and aims to evaluate the analysis of projected demand for goods and passengers occurring at the port. The projection method used is time series and econometric projection. The projection results are then compared with the existing data in 2018. The results of this study show that the econometric projection gives adequate results in predicting loading and unloading activities as well as the number of passenger arrival and departure in 2018. This is indicated by the difference in the percentage of projection results towards the existing data, which is smaller than 10%. Whereas for loading and unloading activities, time series projections with logarithmic trends give better results than econometric projections. Keywords: port, port master plan, port development, unloading activities  Abstrak Setiap pelabuhan di Indonesia harus memiliki sebuah Rencana Induk Pelabuhan yang memuat rencana pengem-bangan pelabuhan secara terpadu. Studi ini membahas salah satu aspek penting dalam penyusunan Rencana Induk Pelabuhan, yaitu proyeksi pergerakan barang dan penumpang, yang dapat dipakai sebagai acuan dalam penentuan kebutuhan fasilitas di setiap tahap pengembangan pelabuhan. Studi kasus dilakukan pada sebuah pelabuhan yang terletak di sebuah kabupaten di Provinsi Maluku dan bertujuan untuk melakukan evaluasi ter-hadap analisis proyeksi demand barang dan penumpang yang terjadi di pelabuhan tersebut. Metode proyeksi yang dipakai adalah proyeksi deret waktu dan ekonometrik. Hasil proyeksi selanjutnya dibandingkan dengan data eksisting tahun 2018. Hasil studi ini menunjukkan bahwa proyeksi ekonometrik memberikan hasil yang cukup baik dalam memprediksi aktivitas bongkar barang serta jumlah penumpang naik dan turun di tahun 2018. Hal ini diindikasikan dengan selisih persentase hasil proyeksi terhadap data eksisting yang lebih kecil dari 10%. Sedangkan untuk aktivitas muat barang, proyeksi deret waktu dengan tren logaritmik memberikan hasil yang lebih baik daripada proyeksi ekonometrik. Kata-kata kunci: pelabuhan, rencana induk pelabuhan, pengembangan pelauhan, aktivitas bongkar barang


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