LITERARY TRANSLATION: MATRIX OF CULTURE AND LINGUISTIC DISPARITY

LITERARY TRANSLATION: MATRIX OF CULTURE AND LINGUISTIC DISPARITY

Author:  E.M. Maslennikova

Affiliation:  Tver State University, the branch of Foreign Languages and Intercultural Studies

Abstract:  Literary translation is seen as a bilingual communicative activity when the translator is trying to select, classify and estimate parameters of the text-source. The present paper discusses the role of cognitive, socio-and ethno-cultural aspects in activities of the translator who is seen as a primary interpreter of the text-source and an “implicit” or quasi co-author to the secondary reader of the target language. 
Different cultural contexts and linguacultural peculiarities influence the choice of equivalent words within the same lexical category. The semantic of synonymous rows is prefigured. The mechanisms of linguistic cognition depend on social-cultural and cross-linguistic basis as well. When forming a text projection the translator should take into consideration: collocations, conceptual links, differences in categorization, contextual dependence, textual worlds / spaces, intertextuality, etc. Improper use of the strategy of domestication leads to contextual shifts. 
The research based on the analysis of English-Russian and Russian English translations shows that translators may actualise words’ inner links within different categories even if there is no evident connection between two phenomena (ale ¹ cake / tart; izba @ hut). The theory of prototypes would be of value when discussing cultural scripts and cross-cultural pragmatics.

Keywords:  translation, interpretation, linguistic disparity, (mis)understanding

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Pages:  111-117