STRATEGIES OF ENGLISH-UKRAINIAN TRANSLATION OF FICTION SIMILE: COGNITIVE ANALYSIS

Abstract

The article considers the strategies of English-Ukrainian translation of fiction similes. The topicality of the study resultsfrom its cognitive perspective. The object of the analysis is English fiction simile and its Ukrainian translation, and the subjectinvolves cognitive models and communicative strategies that underlie communicatively successful translations of fictionsimiles. Contrary to the majority of translation research, fiction simile is addressed not as a stylistic figure, but as a cognitivestructure, namely, an explicit conceptual metaphor. Translation strategy is interpreted as a cognitive activity that ensuresthe communicative success of translation. The empirical material includes 300 fiction similes used in the English novel “TheGoldfinch” by Donna Tartt and their Ukrainian translations by Viktor Shovkun. Relying on the results of the cognitive translation analysis of 300 English fiction similes and their translations, the paperargues that the English-Ukrainian translation of fiction similes is realized through three translation strategies: neutralstrategy, domesticating and foreignizing.The neutral translation strategy is used when the cognitive models underlying linguistic expressions of fiction similesare shared by the linguocultures of the original and translation. This strategy realizes through direct dictionary equivalents,loan translation, and transcoding. The neutral strategy also involves the use of grammatical transformations and techniquesof adding or eliminating lexical items.By choosing the foreignizing strategy, the translator preserves the culture of the original language through retainingthe original simile in the target text even if the concept-etalon in its cognitive model is not rooted in the Ukrainian culture.This strategy is realized through tactics of semantic and formal replication of the original. Semantic replication is carried outby means of semantic transformations, and formal replication – by means of purely structural transformations.Using the domesticating strategy, the translator adapts the foreign culture to the culture of the target language. Thedomesticating strategy is embodied through the tactics of semantic, stylistic and formal adaptation. Semantic adaptationinvolves replacement of a simile with the one based on a different cognitive model, whereas formal and stylistic adaptation,on the contrary, presuppose retention of a simile cognitive model involving changes only in its linguistic expression. Semanticadaptation realizes through such translation decisions as replacement of the concept-etalon, removal of a simile, used inthe source text and addition of a simile absent in the source text. Formal adaptation is realized through use of structuraland functional elements of the Ukrainian language, which have no equivalents in the original language. Stylistic adaptationis exercised through the change of the stylistic register.