Author’s communicative intention

 

A translator should be aware of the author’s purpose of introducing this or that element into the text. Some problems are associated with this requirement:

· Rendering regional dialect;

· Rendering social dialect;

· Rendering foreigners’ speech;

· Rendering substandard speech.

Why did the author use these elements, challenging the translation? To answer the question is to find a clue to the problem.

A regional dialect may be introduced into the text either as a means of the author’s narration or as a means of a character’s speech characteristics. When used as a means of the author’s narration (e.g., V. Astafyev’s novels are written in Siberian dialect), the regional dialect is neutralized in translation,207 since it is inappropriate and misleading to substitute a Russian (say, Siberian) dialect with an English one (for example, Southern American). Of course, this can lead to the loss of local coloring in translation, but the miss can be compensated by using realia belonging to the region.

A regional dialect used as a means of a character’s traits is normally compensated by a social dialect (sociolect). Dialectal words are colloquialisms, or slang, that is they evoke certain social associations. In “Pygmalion” by B. Shaw, London cockney spoken by Eliza Doolittle reveals a low-class girl. Cossacks from “Тихий Дон” (“Quiet Flows the Don”) by M. Sholokhov speak the dialect recognized as the speech of Southern Russia’s peasants. To translate this type of vocabulary, it is necessary to compensate it with stylistically marked, expressive colloquial words and structures, which lack a local ring.

Sociolect is used in the text for the stratifying characteristics of a character, that is, to show social class the person belongs to.

A translator is free to manipulate these locally and socially colored elements. S/he can make the compensation in some other part of the text. S/he can compensate phonetic peculiarities of speech with phraseological or syntactical units, etc. For example, in the beginning of the play, Eliza Doolittle speaks the following way: Nah then, Freddy: look wh’ y’ gowin’, deah. <…> Theres menners f’ yer! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into the mad. <…> Ow, eez ye-ooa son, is e? Wal, fewd dan y’ de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel’s flahrzn than ran awy athaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f’ them?208 [which means Now then, Freddy: look where you are going, dear. There’s manners for you. Two bunches of violets trodden into the mud. <…> Oh, he’s your son, isn’t he? Well, if you’d done your duty by him as a mother should, he’d know better than to spoil a poor girl’s flowers and then run away without paying. Will you pay me for them? ] In her translation Y. Kalashnikova focused on depicting the sociolect through low colloquial words and phrases: Куда прешь, Фредди? Возьми глаза в руки! <…> А еще образованный! Все фиалочки в грязь затоптал. <…> А, так это ваш сын? Нечего сказать, хорошо вы его воспитали…Разве это дело? Раскидал у бедной девушки все цветы и смылся, как миленький! Теперь вот платите, мамаша!209

When rendering a foreigner’s speech, it is necessary to take into account contrastive typology of the languages under consideration and traditions of the target language literature.

Regarding typology, a translator must know the contrastive features that differ one language from another and reveal a foreigner at once. For example, a typological mistake made by a foreigner speaking Russian is the usage of the verb aspect form. A German or English-speaking person tends to use analytical forms of the verb, since their mother tongue is analytical, unlike synthetic Russian. Therefore, it is typical for a German to say in Russian Я буду уходить. instead of Я пойду.

Traditionally, German speech in Russian is marked by voiceless consonants. It is vividly shown in Pushkin’s «Капитанская дочка»: …в его речи сильно отзывался немецкий выговор. <…> «Поже мой! – сказал он. – Тавно ли, кажется, Андрей Петрович был еще твоих лет, а теперь вот уш какой у него молотец! Ах, фремя, фремя!»210

Most typically, when translating foreign speech from English into Russian, a translator has to violate Russian rules of morphological and syntactic bonds between the words to show a foreign accent.

A non-traditional way of rendering Russian words in the speech of English teenagers was found by the translator of Anthony Burgess’s novel ”Заводной апельсин”, V. Boshniak. Burgess used Russian words, sometimes distorted, but written in Latin letters, to make the text sound strange for an English-speaking reader, to produce an ironic effect upon the receptor. This is mostly youth slang or neutral words, the meaning of which is incomprehensible for an English reader. To produce the same strange effect upon the translation reader, the translator borrowed a transliterated form of these Russian words and wrote them in Latin letters: Тут мы уже выступали этакими pai-malltshikami, улыбались, делали благовоспитанный zdrasting… 211

Substandard speech includes four-letter and other taboo words as well as agrammatical forms and constructions. To maintain communicative adequacy in translation, it is necessary to understand that, transferred from one culture into another, these forms may provide a different, often inappropriate response from the receptor if translated too literally. In English many words of this type (abundant in videos) sound less rude than they do in Russian. Therefore, they are often neutralized in Russian translation.

This tactic is vital in oral translation of negotiations, interviews and the like. If there happens to be a participant who prefers an obscene word, the professional etiquette will not allow an interpreter to translate it. An experienced interpreter will soften the expressiveness of the word. A good example was provided by R. Minyar-Beloruchev’s practice. As a simultaneous interpreter, he happened to be translating Nikita Khrushchev at the Communist Parties leaders’ meeting in Moscow (1959). When the leader of Albanian communist party began to criticize Khrushchev for reducing help to Albania, the latter blew his cool, «И этот человек обос…л нас с ног до головы, туды его мать!» What should a simultaneous interpreter do in his booth? Minyar-Beloruchev, who was translating into French, used a milder phrase, of the kind “this man has thrown mud at me from head to toe”. At first this translation infuriated the General Secretary’s assistant, but in some minutes Krushchev sent his thanks to the interpreter, as he did not want his rude expressions to be heard in all the languages.212

Agrammatical phrases purposefully used by the author to create a character can be compensated by other agrammatical forms typical of the speech in the target language or by colloquial structures, also typical of uneducated people. An example from “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” illustrates the case: Tom and Huck Finn are wading through the graveyard: “Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?” Huckleberry whispered: “I wisht I knowed. It’s awful solemn like, ain’t it?” “I bet it is.”213 In the Russian translation, Huck’s incorrect forms are compensated by low colloquial syntactic constructions:

- Как ты думаешь, Гек, мертвецы не обидятся, что мы сюда пришли,

- Я почем знаю. А страшно как, правда?

- Еще бы не страшно.214