Preserving the Allusion of an English Victorian Novel in Translation Discourse

Abstract

This research is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of preserving the allusions of a Victorian novel when translated from English into Russian. The source of the material was E. Gaskell’s novel “North and South” and its translations into Russian by V. Grigorieva with E. Pervushina and S. Trofimov. The relevance of the topic and the relevance of the material involved are due to the relatively recent entry of the novel into Russian-speaking culture and the clearly insufficient degree of study of its translations into Russian. The study of the linguistic and stylistic features of the novel “North and South” and its translated versions allows us to draw conclusions about the specifics of the idiostyle and worldview of E. Gaskell, as well as about the participation of translators in the creative process. The aim of the work is to identify the specifics of the translation of allusions with an emphasis on preserving their associative-cognitive invariant. In the course of the research, we examined the concept of a literary text as an aesthetic and semantic unity, and defined its pragmatic function. The article raises the question of the dual role of the translator as the recipient and sender of the text at the same time, taking into account their linguistic personality. The definition of allusion as a cognitive concept is given, highlighting its main characteristics, after which a detailed analysis of the most complex and interesting cases of the use of allusions in the text and analysis of translation solutions is carried out. Cases of translation of allusions that have lost their relevance or are not part of the background knowledge of the recipient of the target language are considered. At the end of the article, a conclusion is drawn about the possibility of a creative approach in the translation of allusions, which allows the translator’s linguistic personality to be revealed most fully.

Keywords

• literary text
• linguistic personality of the translator
• allusion
• aesthetic function
• literary translation