The strategies of rendering the stylistic device of foregrounding in the translation of flash fiction stories

Abstract

The article considers the aspects of foregrounding and the stylistic means of their realization in the contemporary English flash fiction and microfiction stories. Foregrounding is defined as a device of a literary text organization aimed at concentrating the reader's attention at the most semantically and pragmatically important elements of the utterance. Two aspects of foregrounding are investigated - quantitative and qualitative ones (G. Leech) - from the viewpoint of strategies of their translation. Under the strategy of translation we understand not a single technique but a variety of translation techniques applied to render the aesthetic and pragmatic effects of the source text. The investigation reveals that the qualitative aspect of foregrounding in the analyzed flash fiction stories manifests itself in original metaphors, mainly extended metaphors, oxymoron and antithesis, often creating paradox. The quantitative aspect of foregrounding is realized in both flash fiction and microfiction by stylistic convergences. A distinctive feature of convergences in these texts is their location in strong positions, mainly in the endings. The convergences are based on the interaction of metaphors with alliterations ("Traveling Alone", "Whispers"), or metaphors with parallel constructions and antithesis ("Father", "Bullhead", "My Date with Neanderthal Woman"). The metaphors in convergences foreground the ideas of love, tolerance, sympathy as well admiration of nature, its eternal life. The techniques of translating the stylistic means realizing the qualitative aspect include literal translation, specification and compensation. Stylistic convergences are the most explicit technique of foregrounding, so the translation demands retaining the images and sound repetitions applying literal translation and  synonymic substitution in order to exactly reproduce the writer's intentions.