The Specific Features of Translating Exotic Words in Post-Colonial Literary Work
Abstract
This research focuses on the translation of exotic words from S. Rushdie’s famous novel “Midnight Children” into Ukrainian and Russian. Post-colonial literature is widely recognized to be of special interest for the theory of translation. The general issues of its analysis concern the metaphoric link between post-colonial literature and translation, while the concrete issues are presented by the problems of its translation, including the problem of rendering exotic words. Exotic words – words-realities and barbarisms – are proper to post-colonial literature as they perform the important function of marking the author’s discourse culturally. In the translation theory perspective the exotic words from the novel under study have been subjected to analysis in the translations of this novel into Ukrainian and Russian. The results of the research show that in most cases the translators reconstitute the function of these words rendering them by usual or occasional transcoded equivalents-barbarisms or creating transcoded equivalents-neologisms. A less typical use of equivalents / functional analogues – native words or assimilated borrowings – is indicative of the translator’s failure in rendering the cultural discoursive function of exotic words.
Downloads
References
Вайсбурд М. Л. Реалии как элемент страноведения / М. Л. Вайсбурд // Русский язык за рубежом. – 1972. – №3. – С. 98–100.
Верещагин Е. М. Язык и культура. Лингвострановедение в преподавании русского языка как иностранного / Е. М. Верещагин, В. Г. Костомаров. – М. : МГУ, 1983. – 269 с.
Зорівчак Р. Розкошуючи мовою перекладу: роман Салмана Рушді «Опівнічні діти» вийшов українською мовою // Літературна Україна. – 2009. – 28 трав. – С. 7.
Иванов В. О. Английская безэквивалентная лексика и ее перевод на русский язык / В. О. Иванов. – Л. : ЛГУ, 1995. – 95 с.
Карабан В. І. Переклад англійської наукової і технічної літератури. Граматичні труднощі, лексичні, термінологічні та жанрово-стилістичні проблеми / В. І. Карабан. – Вінниця : Нова Книга, 2004. – 576 с.
Стернин И. А. Лексическая лакунарность и понятийная безэквивалентность / И. А. Стернин. – Воронеж : ВГУ, 1997. – 195 c.
Фененко Н. А. Язык реалий и реалии языка / Н. А. Фененко. – Воронеж : ВГУ, 2001. – 140 с.
Ashcroft В. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures / B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, H. Tiffin. – London & New York : Routledge, 1989.
Bandia P. F. Translation as Reparation: Writing and Translation in Postcolonial Africa / P. F. Bandia. – Manchester : St. Jerome Publishing, 2008.
Barucha R. Rushdie’s Whale / Rustom Barucha // Fletcher M. D. (ed.) Reading Rushdie: Perspectives on the fiction of Slaman Rushdie. – Amstredam : Rodopi, 1994.
Blaise C. A Novel of India’s Coming of Age [Electronic resource] / Clark Blaise // The New York Times. – April 19, 1981. – [Cited 2013, 15 March]. – Available from: http://www.intralinea.it/.
Gane G. Postcolonial Literature and the Magic Radio: The Language of Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children / Gillian Gane // Poetics Today, 2006.
Larson M. L. Meaning-Based Translation: A Guide to Cross-Language Equivalence / M. L. Larson. – Lanham and New York : University Press of America, Inc, 1984.
Mohit K. Ray. The Atlantic Companion to Literature in English / K. Ray Mohit. – Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2007 – P. 453-454.
Rushdie S. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticisms / Salman Rushdie. – London : Granta, 1991.
Spivak G. The Politics of Translation / Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak // The Translation Studies Reader / [Ed. by L. Venuti]. – London and New York : Routledge, 2000.
Tymoczko M. Post-Colonial Writing and Literary Translation / Maria Tymoczko // Post-Colonial Translation: Theory and Practice. Ed. by S. Bassnett and H. Trivedi. – London and New York : Routledge, 1999.
Tymoczko M. Translation in a Postcolonial Context. Early Irish Literature in English Translation / Maria Tymoczko. – Manchester : St. Jerome Publishing, 1999.
Tymoczko M. Translations of Themselves: the Contours of Postcolonial Fiction. In Changing the Terms: Translating in the Postcolonial Era. Sherry Simon & Paul St-Pierre (eds) / Maria Tymoczko. – Ottawa : University of Ottawa Press, 2000.
Zabus C. The African Palimpsest: Indigenization of Language in the West African Europhone Novel / C. Zabus. – Amsterda & Atlanta : Rodopi, 1991.
