Means of Irony Expression in German Translations of Gogol’s Texts

Abstract

The question of irony expression means in the original literary text and the degree of their identity in translation into German by the material of N. V. Gogol’s works and their German translations is considered. Traditional and modern definitions of irony in linguistics are given. The author defines the structural and functional status of irony as an implicit form of expression of the author’s modality that implements intentions, value positions, the worldview of a literary text author. The main linguistic means of its expression are revealed. The problem of identity of the translation of texts containing irony into another language is discussed. The features of the conveying ironic meanings in the literary text are revealed. The equivalent German translations of ironic contexts and problematic aspects of conveying ironic meaning into German in N. V. Gogol’s works are established and analyzed. The causes of distortion in ironic meanings in translations are established. It is concluded that irony realized in N. V. Gogol’s literary texts using a variety of linguistic means is characterized by the complexity of translation into a foreign language and in some cases can be classified as untranslatable.

Keywords

• irony
• ironic assessment
• subjective modality
• author’s modality
• literary text
• translation
• translation transformations