National stereotypes as a translation problem
Abstract
The article is investigating the impact of national stereotypes (ethnostereotypes) on creating the image in the source literary discourse and its re-creating in the target literary discourse. The research is substantiated by the development of imagology – a new and dynamic discipline, whose focus of attention has been gradually shifting from literary aspects of image formation to linguistic and stylistic means of its embodiment in different languages and cultures. The research is aimed at studying national heterostereotypes as a problem of translation based on the novel “A short history of tractors in Ukrainian” by the British author Marina Lewycka, that is seen as an exemplary case of a manipulative representation of the image of a Ukrainian in the modern British literature, as well as its two translations – into Ukrainian and into Russian. The object of research is national stereotypes as a factor of a literary image formation, while the subject of analysis is their linguistic and stylistic markers in the original and translated texts. Among the research methods we distinguish the following: method of “ascribing qualities” by Katz–Braly employed for identifying stereotypes as projected on the novel characters; methods of lexical, semantic, stylistic, and contextual analysis employed for identifying linguistic and stylistic means of these stereotypes’ discourse actualization; method of comparative analysis employed for juxtaposing the source text with the target texts as well as two target texts between themselves. This approach allowed to perceive the strategies of both translators and to explain their differences. The involvement of two different translations accentuated the role of an ideological factor in reproducing linguistic and stylistic means of stereotypes’ embodiment. When the attitude towards the stereotyped image in a target culture is neutral or positive, the translator may apply the strategy of a negative stereotype softening, but when the attitude towards the stereotypisized image in a target culture is negative, the translator may resort to intentional deterioration of already negative characteristics.
Downloads
References
Belej, L. (2013). «Rosijs’kyj oryhinal» «Korotkoi istorii traktoriv po-ukrains’ky» [“Russian original” of Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian]. Retrieved from http://litakcent.com/2013/06/26/rosijskyj-oryhinal-korotkoji-istoriji-traktoriv-po-ukrajinsky. (in Ukrainian)
Flynn, P., Van Doorslaer, L., & Leerssen, J. (Eds.). (2016). Interconnecting translation studies and imagology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Katz, D., & Braly, K. (1933). Racial stereotypes of one hundred college students. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28, 280–290.
Komyssarov, V. N. (1999). Perevodovedenye v XX veke: nekotorye itogi [Translation studies in the 20th century: Some results]. Tetradi perevodchika [Translator’s notebooks], 24, 4–20. (in Russian)
Korte, B. (2010). Facing the East of Europe in Its Western Isles. Charting Backgrounds, Questions and Perspectives. In B. Korte (Ed.), Facing the East in the West Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture (pp. 1–21). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Kurkov, A. (2005, March 19). Human Traffic. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/mar/19/featuresreviews.guardianreview20.
Lechner, D. (2010). Eastern European Memories? The Novels of Marina Lewycka. In B. Korte (Ed.), Facing the East in the West Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture (pp. 437–450). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Levickaja, M. (2006) Kratkaja istorija traktorov po-ukrainski [Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian]. Moskva: Eskmo. (in Russian)
Levyts’ka, M. (2013). Korotka istoriia traktoriv po-ukrains’ky [Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian]. Kyiv: Tempora. (in Ukrainian)
Lewycka, M. (2005). Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. London: Penguin Publishing Group.
Lippmann, W. (1922). Public opinion. New York: Macmillan. Retrieved from https://wps.pearsoncustom.com/wps/media/objects/2429/2487430/pdfs/lippmann.pdf
Martyniuk, A. P. (2012). Slovnyk osnovnykh terminiv kohnityvno-dyskursyvnoi linhvistyky [Glossary of the main terms of cognitive-discursive linguistics]. Kharkiv: KhNU imeni V. N. Karazina.
Myronchuk, N. (2013). Movni stereotypy v komunikatyvnykh aktakh [Modern stereotypes in communicative acts]. Students’ki naukovi zapysky Natsional’noho universytetu «Ostroz’ka akademiia». Seriia «Filolohichna», 6, 202–205. (in Ukrainian)
Panther, K.-U., & Thornburg, L. L. (2007). Metonymy. In D. Geeraerts, & H. Cuyckens (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 236–263). New York: Oxford University Press.
Sibirtseva, M. (2021, April 8). Stereotypes every Ukrainian hates. Retrieved from https://theculturetrip.com/europe/ukraine/articles/7-stereotypes-every-ukrainian-hates.
