Reproduction of encrypted messages in fiction from English into Russian

This article examines cases where translators are confronted with messagesm whose meaning is obscured by a simple cipher. Russian translators had to overcome certain difficulties while translating certain passages in the works of British (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie) and American (Edgar Allan Poe, Dan Brown) fiction writers. Substitution code (―The Gold-Bug‖, ―The Adventure of the Dancing Men‖), anagrams (―The da Vinci Code‖), as well as different kinds of text steganography (―The Gloria Scott‖, ―The Four Suspects‖) can be used to encrypt the information. Each case is illustrated with two examples. The translator has to depict not only the very process of deciphering a message, but also render its cryptic nature with the means of a target language (Russian). We show, that in half of the cases it is a mere translation of the deciphered text. It is a simpler way, because there is no need to create an analogue thereof. The grand purpose, however, remains unachieved. In two instances there were multiple translations of the same text (6 of ―The Gold-Bug‖ by E.A Poe and 9 of ―The Four Suspects‖ by A. Christie). This phenomenon can be explained not only by the popularity of the stories, but by the relatively small circulation of certain editions. We have undertaken a comparative analysis of these translations and have revealed discrepancies, concerning more and less significant translation units and, in some cases minor errors.

Semiotics of symbol according to the data of the Russian scientific discourse

Based on the publications of Russian scientists, the notions of the symbol in the humanities are studied. The problem of the nature, essence and purpose of a symbol, raised back in Antiquity, remains quite relevant at the present time. In Russian linguistics, the "symbolic" theme occupies one of the leading places, but a clear and unambiguous definition of the symbol is still missing. It is established that a symbol is an umbrella semantic formation, covering the subject areas of several scientific disciplines, outside the context of a specific scientific field or theory; it is a pro-term and can act as a generic name for any semiotic unit. The symbolism of the exact sciences and most of the linguistic signs falls into the category of conventional signs, in which the correspondence of the plans of expression and content is arbitrary, the symbolism of the exact sciences and most of the linguistic signs, while the symbolism of all other areas of knowledge falls into the category of motivated semiotic units, in which the plan of expression is one way or another connected with the content plan, and this connection is conditioned by similarity, contiguity, or in some other way. Endowing a motivated sign with a name leads to a ―doubling‖ of the semantic structure of a new formation, when the signifier of this sign – an image or a generalized representation – turns into a signified, sending to another signified, in relation to which it acts as a signifier. A symbol in its most general form is a sign in which the primary content is used as an exponent of another, more abstract and culturally valuable content. The list of specific characteristics of a symbol, both obligatory and optional, compiled according to scientific discourse, includes: ―vector‖ – the direction of symbolization from the concrete to the abstract; transcendence – going beyond the limits of real existence; vagueness and fragility of semantic boundaries, layering and depth; interpretation – the need for active work of thought and imagination to comprehend the symbolized meaning; coded deep meaning, mystery and mysticism; ―passwordness‖, intended for the initiated; intuitiveness; emotiogenicity, mobilizing force; axiology and ideology. The optional properties of a symbol are aesthetic appeal, emphasizing its socio-cultural significance, and, for ancient symbols, ―archetypeness‖ as belonging to the number of primary ideas and images. The functions of the symbol include: generally semiotic – informative and communicative; specific – epistemological, axiological, emotive-affective, social, cultural-unifying, representative, and in some of the symbols – aesthetic and mobilizing.

Names of God in Vulgate and the Italian translations of the Old Testament

The present publication expands the analysis of the Old Testament translations into different languages. This line of studies was initiated by the works of the late French scholar Philippe Cassuto and one of the authors of this publication. The purpose of the article is to look at the strategies applied in translating the Old Testament names of the Supreme Being into Latin (the Vulgate version) and modern Italian. This purpose is two-fold: by doing so, we also expand the data base of the Old Testament terms‘ renditions in different languages. The article provides the full nomenclature of the names of the Supreme God in the Old-Hebrew (Masoretic) text of the Old Testament, concentrates on their semantics and grammatical structure, and explains the contexts of their use. A canonical Russian-language translation is used as a reference base to illustrate the fate of the original names of the God in translation. The widely-accepted English-language translations of the Old Testament are included to provide a broader perspective on translation strategies applied to this particular aspect of the Old Testament texts. The analyzed Latin and six modern Italian-language translations demonstrate a considerable degree of uniformity in translating the names of God. The Latin and the Italian translations apply the philological strategy to translating the Holy Bible (as opposed to another option presented by the typology of the Bible translation – the ideological strategy). Notwithstanding the relative lexical uniformity of the translations, they demonstrate the differences between Catholic and Protestant versions. The analysis of the Italian translations of the Old Testament contributes to the typology of the Bible translation and ultimately makes an input to the general theory of translation.