DOMESTICATING STRATEGY IN FICTION ENGLISH-UKRAINIAN TRANSLATION OF SYNESTHETIC METAPHORS

Abstract

This article deals with the instantiation of cognitive models and cognitive operations, licensing the translator’s applicationof domesticating strategy during the translation of synesthetic metaphors from the English language into the Ukrainianlanguage. The strategy of translation is differentiated from the method of translation and is interpreted as both the processand the product of mental activity: development of translations’ decisions plan, pursuing a definite aim. Method of translationis understood as the system of interconnected linguistic acts (techniques/procedures/transformations of translation), whichimplement this mental strategic plan. Domesticating translation strategy aims at assimilation with the cultural traditionsof the broad target audience and keeping to the norms of the target language. Synesthetic metaphor is interpreted as a kind of conceptual metaphor, as a result of the cognitive operation of mapping, that is understanding of one essence (targetconcept/domain) in terms of another essence (source concept/domain). The cognitive model is defined as a relativelystable cognitive structure, which organizes our cognitive experience of interaction with the world, and cognitive operation –as conscious and unconscious mental activity, the content of which lies in restructuration, re-interpretation, and a newway of mapping of our experience. Application of tools of the conceptual metaphor theory allowed to reveal the basicmodels of synesthetic metaphoric descriptions in English fiction texts and their translations: HEARING SENSATION isORIENTATION IN SPACE (UP-DOWN) / TOUCH SENSATION / PRESSURE / TASTE / VISION SENSATION; TASTESENSATION is TOUCH SENSATION; SMELL SENSATION is TOUCH SENSATION / TEMPERATURE SENSATION;VISION SENSATION is ORIENTATION IN SPACE (NARROW) / TEMPERATURE SENSATION. According to the dataof cognitive translation analysis domesticating translation strategy is realized through the cognitive operations 1) substitution(metaphoric model of original linguoculture is substituted by another metaphoric model (e.g., metaphoric model SMELL isTEMPERATURE is substituted by the model SMELL is TOUCH) or by another specification of the same model, which isspecific for the translation linguoculture (the model specification SMELL is TOUCH – SMELL SENSATION is SENSATIONof HARD SURFACE is substituted by the specification SMELL SENSATION is SENSATION OF SHARP SURFACE));2) elimination (e.g. the original metaphoric descriptions, licensed by the models SIGHT is TOUCH, SOUND is TOUCH arelost in translation); 3) introduction (metaphoric description, absent in the original appears in translation (e.g. metaphoricdescriptions of the models SMELL is TOUCH, SIGHT is TOUCH)).