Abstract:
The article discusses the problem of choosing ways and means of pragmatic adaptation in translating a text. The relevance of the topic is due to the necessity to facilitate cross-cultural communication in view of the increased intensity and diversity of forms of international contacts. The definition of pragmatic adaptation as the actions of a translator aimed at adapting the source language text to its perception by a recipient belonging to a different culture, does not answer the questions of when and how a translator can and should change the text in order to preserve the pragmatic potential of the original. The aim of the article is to analyze the problems arising in translating texts requiring pragmatic adaptation and evaluate the impact of different types of pragmatic adaptation on reproducing the pragmatic potential of the original and achieving the possible purposes of translation. In order to do it an experiment was carried out: a text was translated in four different ways with different means used for its pragmatic adaptation, and the translations were compared. The results of the experiment show that the choice of pragmatic adaptation methods and techniques is determined not by the type of text or the type of adaptation, as is usually believed, but by the specific purpose for which the text is translated. Thus, when translating a literary text, which always contains factual, conceptual, emotional, aesthetic, and cultural information, the choice between the naturalness of the text, the preservation of the author’s style, the completeness of the content and the communication of culturally relevant information means, in fact, setting different accents. The means of pragmatic adaptation used by the translator depend entirely on the prioritization of these types of information, in other words, on the purpose of translation.
Keywords: Pragmatic adaptation, pragmatic potential, original, translation, information, nationally biased units, purpose of translation
For citation: Petrova O.V. What, where, when, what for and how? (Reflections on Pragmatic Adaptation). Current Issues in Philology and Pedagogical Linguistics. 2021, no 3, pp. 266–279 (In Russ.)
Bionote:
Olga V. Petrova
Linguistic University of Nizhny Novgorod,
31-A Minin Str., Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Federation, 603155;
ORCID ID: 0000-0003-1781-7853;
References:
1. Dreeva Dzh. Free rhythms in the light of new trends in translation studies. Bulletin of the North-Ossetian State University. Social sciences. 2010;4:111-116. (In Russ.).
2. Washbourne RK. The outer limits of otherness: Ideologies of human translation in speculative fiction. Translation Studies. 2014;8(3):1-18. DOI: 10.1080/14781700.2014.931817.
3. Gupta S. Big issues around a small-scale phenomenon: Vernacular pulp fiction in English translation for Indian readers. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature. 2013;48(1):159-175. DOI: 10.1177/0021989412470337.
4. Kruger JL. The translation of narrative fiction: Impostulating the narrative origo. Perspectives Studies in Translatology. 2009;17(1):15-32. DOI: 10.1080/09076760902940120.
5. Nida EA. Principles of Translation as Exemplified by Bible Translating // On Translation. Harvard University Press, 1959:148-164.
6. Nida EA. Towards a Science of Translating. BRILL, 1974.
7. Nida EA., Waard J de. From one language to another: functional equivalence in Bible translating. Nashville, 1986.
8. Dreeva Dzh., Mildzikhova A. The iconicity of a modern poetic text as a linguosemiotic phenomenon. Vladikavkaz: Publishing house of the North-Ossetian State University; 2016. (In Russ.).
9. Enzensberger HM. World language of modern poetry. Details. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1962: 255-272. (In Germ.).
10. Andreotti M. The structure of modern literature. Bern, Stuttgart, Wien: Verlag Paul Haupt, 2009: 488. (In Germ.).
11. Matyash SA. On the typology of the functions of verse transfers (enjambements) in Russian poetry. Bulletin of the Orenburg State University. 2017; 6(206):42-48. (In Russ.).
12. Stepanov AG. On the semantics of transfer: remarks on the problem. Archaic structures of artistic consciousness. Ekaterinburg, 2002; 3:139-144. (In Russ.).
13. Zubova LV. The language shift in the position of poetic transfer (based on the material of the works of M. Tsvetaeva). Problems of structural linguistics 1985-1987. Moscow, 1989:229-246. (In Russ.).
14. Oppert K. Possibilities of Enjambement. Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft. 1926;20(1-4):235-237. (In Germ.).
15. Lobanova MS. On the question of verse transfer. Bulletin of the Leningrad University / Ser. History-Philology. 1981;2:68-73. (In Russ.).
16. Dreeva Dzh. The phenomenon of free rhythms in German-language poetry: genesis, formation, language features. Vladikavkaz: Publishing house of the North-Ossetian State University; 2012. (In Russ.).
17. Zhirmunsky VM. Theory of verse. Leningrad: The Soviet Writer; 1975. (In Russ.).
18. Tynyanov YuN. The problem of poetic language. Leningrad: Academia, 1924. (In Russ.).
19. Dreeva Dzh., Semonova T. The Syntax of the English Free Verse as an Object of Linguopoetic Analysis. Journal of Critical Reviews. 2020;7(12): 1774-1780. Available at: https://www.ejmanager.com/mnstemps/197/197-1594539646.pdf?t=1594848974. The link is active on 04.09.2021.
20. Matyash SA. “Protracted” transfer in the Russian poetic epic. Slavic verse. VII: Linguistics and the structure of Verse. Moscow: Languages of Slavic culture, 2004: 206-220. (In Russ.).
21. Gasparov ML, Skulacheva TV. Articles on the linguistics of verse. Moscow: Languages of Slavic culture, 2004. (In Russ.).
22. Pospelov NS. The syntactic structure of Pushkin’s poetic works. Moscow: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1960. (In Russ.).
23. Obolenskaya YuL. The dialogue of cultures and the dialectic of translation. Moscow, 1998. (In Russ.).