Translating artlangs: the clash of worldviews

Abstract

The research is dedicated to the problem of translating artlangs as a means of the alternative worldview embodiment. The object of research is twofold: the worldview in its linguistic manifestation and artlangs – artistic languages created within literary discourse mainly for expressive purposes. The aim of the research is equally dual: to determine what (kind of) worldview is reflected in artlangs and how it can be reproduced in translation. Our first hypothesis outlines three instances of worldview clashes connected with the perception, interpretation and translation of a piece of fiction depicting an alternative reality via an artlang. The first occurs when the reader decodes the text and recreates in their mind the author’s artistic worldview, because the resulting ‘picture’ is never identical to the original one due to the uniqueness of information processing. The second occurs in translation, because the image of an alternative world in the translator’s mind is indeed the projection of that of the author, but formed under the influence of their own (target) worldview and incarnated through the available target linguistic resources. The third occurs when the target reader retrieves the information from the target text and once again forms their own view of the alternative reality. According to our second hypothesis, artlangs’ principal translatability is determined by their inextricable ties with natural donor language(s), though their reproduction is a highly demanding creative act whose outcome depends on a number of concomitant circumstances. Here belong: the relation between an artlang’s donor language(s) and a piece of fiction’s source language; the relation between a piece of fiction’s source language and its target language; and, finally, the method of artlang’s manufacturing.

Keywords

• alternative reality
• artlang
• clash
• translatability
• worldview