Pragmatic adaptation in the translation of the short story "Artichokes" by Olena Pchilka

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Pragmatic adaptation in the translation of the short story "Artichokes" by Olena Pchilka

Tetiana Shyliaieva

Abstract

The article focuses on the study of ways of pragmatic adaptation of the translation of the short story «Artichokes» written by Olena Pchilka and translated by Roma Franko. This paper aims at analyzing the significance of the pragmatic potential of the text during translation and defining the main ways of pragmatic adaptation. It is underlined that rendering of the pragmatic meaning of the original by means of which the author of the work offiction achieves a desirable communicative effect presents some difficulties. Translation transformations that can help a translator in the process of pragmatic adaptation of the target text are described. The article also deals with the peculiarities of realia units functioning as sociocultural and ethnospecific elements of describing the world in Ukrainian literature. The ways of the translation of realia as markers of tradition and everyday life of a certain culture are highlighted. The article also describes the ways of pragmatically motivated paraphrasing on the syntactical level. It is underlined that the translator should in any case adhere to the pragmatic equivalence of the source text and the target text, and it is desirable that the text should have the same effect both on the native speaker and non-native speaker. The pragmatic adaptation is an integral part of translation procedures which ensure the necessary level of equivalence.

Key words: background knowledge, pragmatic adaptation, phraseological units, realia, speech acts, translation, transformations.

Анотація

Прагматична адаптація у перекладі оповідання О. Пчілки «Артишоки»

adaptation story pragmatic

Шиляєва Т.

Стаття присвячена вивченню шляхів прагматичної адаптації в перекладі оповідання «Артишоки», написаного Оленою Пчілкою та перекладеного Р. Франко. Метою статті є аналіз значущості прагматичного потенціалу тексту під час перекладу та визначення основних шляхів прагматичної адаптації. Підкреслюється, що передача прагматичного значення оригіналу у перекладі, за допомогою якого автор художнього твору досягає бажаного комунікативного ефекту, створює певні труднощі. Описано перекладацькі трансформації, які можуть допомогти перекладачу в процесі прагматичної адаптації цільового тексту. У статті також розглядаються особливості функціонування реалій як соціокультурних та етноспецифічних елементів опису світу в українській літературі. Виділено шляхи перекладу реалій як маркерів традицій та побуту певної культури. У статті описані шляхи прагматично мотивованого перефразування на синтаксичному рівні. Підкреслюється, що перекладач у будь-якому випадку повинен дотримуватися прагматичної еквівалентності вихідного тексту та цільового тексту, і бажано, щоб текст мав однаковий вплив як на носіїв мови оригіналу, так і мови перекладу. Прагматична адаптація є невід'ємною частиною процедур перекладу, які забезпечують необхідний рівень еквівалентності.

Ключові слова: фонові знання, прагматична адаптація, фразеологічні одиниці, реалії, мовленнєві акти, переклад, трансформації.

Problem statement. The question of the pragmatics of sign systems, including the language system, was first raised by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce at the end of the 19th century. According to his theory of cognition, the process of cognition consists in the production and interpretation of signs (first of all linguistic ones), the pragmatism of cognition follows from this. The term «pragmatics» was introduced into scientific use by another American philosopher Charles W. Morris, who considered pragmatics as one of the sections of semiotics, studying the relationship between signs and their interpreters.

Translation serves as a means of protecting national languages and cultures, giving impulses for their self-development and at the same time preserving them from excessive foreign language influence. Translation as a kind of interlingual and intercultural communication is characterized by multifaceted nature and, accordingly, can be evaluated from different points of view, above all, from the point of view of the original (regardless of the effect created by the translation) or in terms of the communicative effect achieved with the help of the translation (its pragmatic adequacy). It seems imperative that translation should involve a kind of pragmatic adaptation to provide for the preservation of the original communicative effect. This adaptation must ensure that the text of translation conveys the same attitude to the reported facts as does the original text. The task of the translator of works of fiction is to preserve the pragmatic effect of the original and to assert the desired influence on the receptor. There are some recommendations how to achieve pragmatic equivalence, but actually, in many cases, it is translators themselves who find the ways of pragmatic adaptation.

Research review. The problems of pragmatics were studied in the works of many scholars: V.N. Komissarov, A.D. Schweitzer, A. Neubert, N.O. Levkovskaya, E.S. Aznaurova, E. Paducheva, L.S. Barkhudarov, G. P. Grice, I. P. Susova, Yu.S. Stepanova, V.V. Bogdanova, V.I. Zabotkina, S. A. Sukhikh and others. E.V. Paducheva and N.D. Arutyunova believe that one of

the main tasks of pragmatists is the development of the theory of interpretation of speech acts depending on the communicative context, Yu.S. Stepanov relies on the category of subjectivity as the basis of pragmatics in its relationship with categories and units of language, and G.V. Kolshansky considers the intralinguistic and extralinguistic factors that contribute to the achievement of a specific goal of a speech act.

Objectives of the study. The study of pragmatic relations in translation remains relevant due to disagreements regarding this issue, arising among scientific researchers, and the generalization of different points of view that exist in scientific use. In our article we consider the pragmatic adaptation in the translation of the short story «Artichokes» from Ukrainian into English, the translation was performed by R. Franko. The relevance of the study lies in the great significance of the pragmatic aspect in achieving the adequacy and equivalence of translation.

Presenting of the main material: As we know, literary works are primarily addressed to the audience for which the language of the work is native. But the majority of works of fiction have a universal value, that is why they are becoming popular among readers and are often translated into other languages. They can describe historical events, include the names of some national dishes, traditions, as well as other elements of the cultural-historical context. In the translation of all these phenomena it is necessary to take into consideration the pragmatic differences between the source and the target languages. It is considered especially interesting and important to investigate how responsible are translators while performing the task of introducing readers of translation to the world (artistic and locally-cultural) of particular authors rendering their unique styles of writing.

A. Neubert, a German scientist, associates the problem of pragmatic adequacy in translation with classification of texts, distinguishing four types of texts and, accordingly, four types of translation: the first type includes exclusively source culture oriented texts or texts with only locally relevant information; the second type involves texts which are primarily source culture addressed but they contain information that can be relevant for potential addressees in target cultures; the third type is fiction, which reflects, on the one hand, national specificity, but, on the other hand, is based on common human interests and values; the fourth type consists of texts specially created for translation, or target culture addressed1.

The mutual influence of global and Ukrainian cultures is an integral part of the development of modern literature and the world. Familiarization of the British with the spiritual and literary heritage of Ukrainian people with the help of such means as literary translation began almost two centuries ago when one of the first translations from the Ukrainian language was done by Benjamin Beresford in 1816. At present a lot of works by Ukrainian writers are translated into foreign languages. One of those writers whose literary work is popularized, in English in particular, is Olena Pchilka, an outstanding Ukrainian writer, editor, public figure, who is also known to us as Lesia Ukrainka's mother. O.Pchilka revealed the problem of spiritual and intellectual emancipation of a woman in the contemporary society in the ways of the main heroines of her works, thus representing the initial stage of development of the Ukrainian women's literature with its characteristic features.

The story «Artichokes» written by Olena Pchilka is a socio-psychological narrative in the center of which is the problem of the impoverishment of the nobility, their miserable craving only for the material wealth in the world, where even love became the bargaining chip, where there is marriage of convenience. The main character of the story «Artichokes» is Olympiya Svoyska, whose parents are trying to successfully marry her to an unattractive rich neighbour Khomutovnykov, thus avoiding bankruptcy and poverty. Having got acquainted with the fiancй, the girl noticed some touching character traits in him and began to have real feelings for Khomutovnykov. Preparing for the dinner with the matchmaker and Khomutovnykov, the mother of Olympiya decided to impress the guests with the refinement of the festive table. So, artichokes were cooked and they played a decisive role in the life of the family, since they were mistaken for pumpkins, that is, for the refusal of the bride and a jest about Khomutovnykov. This situation is complicated by one more fact: the friend of the Svoyskys - Lady Naska - intercepts the rich fiancй and arranges his marriage to her daughter Sonka. The news about Khomutovnykov's marriage saddened Olympiya, she feels unhappy because of her mother, who sought to demonstrate her aristocratic status by treating guests to artichokes.

The main requirement for good translation is adequacy, that is, the exact rendering of the form and content of the original by means of the language of translation, taking into account the denotative, connotative and pragmatic components of the content. In the process of translation, the text is redirected to a foreign-language recipient, taking into account the pragmatic relations of the language of translation, that is the reaction that the text triggers.

Ukrainian researcher O.O. Selivanova explains the notion of pragmatic potential through the phenomenon of the communicative intention of the speaker: «In accordance with the communicative intention the speaker chooses for communication of information such linguistic units that have the corresponding meaning, both denotative and connotative, and forms utterances with them so as to establish between them the necessary semantic connections. Consequently, the created text acquires a certain pragmatic potential and provides the necessary communicative influence on the recipient» .

Pragmatic adaptation of the text is realized taking into account the information background of the target audience with the help of a pragmatic translation strategies, among which we can distinguish addition, omission, explication and implication of information, the replacement of cultural concepts (cultural filtering), the replacement of speech acts (illocutionary change), change of registers (interpersonal change) . For the sake of pragmatic adaptation a translator can use different translation transformations. V.N. Komissarov points out that pragmatic substitutions are often implemented through the translation transformation of generalization or concretization. Thus, the Ukrainian word «потрава», which means any meal, is translated into English with the use of concretization, that is, the replacement of words or phrases with a broad denotative meaning by the unit of the target language with a narrower meaning - «an exotic dish». The use of it is quite relevant here as it shows that artichokes were not often served up.

A translator can also use addition or omission. Addition helps to explain to the reader the proper names that are not in the background knowledge of the recipient of translation, for example: Так, щиру правду сказано в Котляревського. - Yes, Kotlyarevsky (a Ukrainian _poet) said it all... Після прізвища Котляревського надається пояснення, що він є українським поетом.

Sometimes a translator deals with deviation from the literary norm. In modern translation studies, there exists a considerable problem of reproducing stylistically marked words. Dialect words in translation are most often rendered with the loss of stylistic coloring, however, preserving the denotative meaning: світлиця - living-room, дробина - fowl, ярина - vegetables.

На печеню можна що-небудь з дробини....А ярина?.. Яка ж ярина?For the meat course we'll have some kind offowl. But what about the vegetables?

Незабаром у світлиці почалася прикра заметня. - A few moments later, an awkward hubbub arose in the living-room.

The translator uses generalization while rendering the peculiarities of the colloquial speech of Khomutovnykov: Ах, бог з ним, нехай уже краще мовчить, а то ще ляпне своє «таперича» та «давеча». - Well, God be with him, it was better that he remain silent;

otherwise he might blurt out something in his _peasant argot.

Вкидав страхітні слова: «оченно-с», «чего-с» - He threw in some dreadful dialectal words.

In the process of pragmatic adaptation of the text of the translation, a comparison of different cultures is made, and corrections are introduced for sociocultural, psychological and other differences between the recipients of the original and the translation. Literary translation is not a photographic representation of the original texts but their content, stylistic and pragmatic invariant correspondences that trigger the same emotions of the reader of the translation to the described events or personages as the originals.

Realia or nationally-biased units of lexicon offer a special difficulty in translation. Realia are words and expressions for culture-specific material elements. Such linguists as R. Zorivchak, S. Vlakhov and S. Florin, A. Reformatsky, V. Uvarov, A. Suprun, V. Repin, V. Krupnov came up with different classifications of realia and studied the difficulties associated with the adequate translation into the target text of the cultural information encoded in the realia of the original and outlined possible ways to overcome these difficulties. The works of these and many other linguists, however, do not only fail to exhaust the question, but rather clearly indicate the prospects and possible trends of its further investigation. One of these trends is to address the problems of translation from the Ukrainian language into foreign ones, to study the functioning of realia in the works of contemporary Ukrainian literature and the specifics of their rendering in current translations. The translation of such expressions is the hardest, since their denotative meaning does not at all correlate with their connotational one, and the background nationally marked information requires from a translator deep knowledge of the original language.

We found the following structural types of realia in the story «Artichokes»:

1) realia consisting of one word: десятина, світлиця, губернія, обиватель;

2) realia consisting of a word combination of nominative character: панська господа, панська річ, мужицькі щі;

3) realia-phraseological units: вуха розвісив, кістки розтрясти, в пику плюй, звізд з неба не хватав.

Transcription and transliteration are the most concise ways in which a certain expressive potential of a story or novel is created: in the context of the words of the native language, the transcribed word stands out as a stranger, which adds connotations of originality and uniqueness. Proper names with a national colouring are rendered by transcription or transliteration: Yevhraf Petrovych, Khomutovnykov, Limpochka, Petrivka. In some cases the translator gives the approximate meaning of the characterizing surnames in parenthesis: Now, it could have been Petrov, Anreyev, Antonov, or even Baranov (a ram) or Kozlov (a goat), but no, it had to be Khomutovnykov.

However, in many cases rendering of the sound or alphabetic form of the Ukrainian word does not reveal the significance of the lexical unit, and such words need explanations for a reader who does not speak the language of the original and has no background knowledge in a foreign language culture. Therefore, a translator often uses a combination of transcription or transliteration with a descriptive translation. The translator gives an explanation of unfamiliar realia in parentheses or with the help of the descriptive periphrase: хомути - khomuty (horse collars), пиріжки - pyrizhky (turnovers), пиріг - pyrih (large meat pie), папуша - papusha (roll of tobacco leaves), махорка - makhorka (strong tobacco of bad quality). This combination of two translation techniques - transcription or transliteration and descriptive translation - makes it possible to combine brief and economical means of expression inherent to transcription with the explanation of the semantics of this unit that is achieved through descriptive translation.

Loan translation is a special type of borrowing when the structural semantic models of the source language are reproduced by means of the constituents of the target language, a word taken from one language is translated in a literal or word-for-word way to be used in another language: панський дім - upper-class home, панська господа - aristocratic household, непанський спосіб - ignoble fashion. So we see that the word «панський» is translated in different ways depending on the context.

It is essential to emphasize the importance of background knowledge. It influences the choice of the translation variants. The translator is to explain the unknown phenomena to the recipient of translation. Taking into account the pragmatic factor of the translation is a required condition of achieving adequate translation.

The Ukrainian nationally-coloured word, which is very important in the connotative plan is a pumpkin (гарбуз) with a national-local seme - refuse an offer of marriage. The translator applies an adequate counterpart at the denotative level - «pumpkin». But in this case the translation loses the national-local seme, which is very important for understanding the plot of the narrative. Therefore, a descriptive explanation is added. The translator introduces into the text of the translation additional information for explaining the cultural and everyday realia.

Говориться тобі, дурню, що тобі подали гарбуза; а коли подається гарбуз - по вашому тиква, - то се значить, що женихові гикають дулю під ніс, одказують делікатним способом. Ото ж у нас так і говориться: «Гарбуза піднесли», значить, одказали. - I'm telling you, you fool, that you were being served a pumpkin - or a tykva (gourd) as we call it. This means that the suitor, instead of receiving rushnyky (embroidered linen ceremonial cloths), is told in a delicate fashion that he 's a fool, and that he 's to go away empty- handed. And that 's why we have the saying: `he was served a pumpkin' - in other words, he was refused as a suitor.

The strategy of replacing cultural concepts (cultural filter), or (cultural substitution) is also widespread in literary translation. The purpose of this strategy is to adapt to the greatest extent the original to the recipient's expectations by replacing the functional concepts of the original functional language concepts by analogues of the target language. With this transformation, differences in socio-cultural norms and stylistic conventions of two linguo- cultural communities are taken into account. Often the use of this strategy leads to domestication of the translation, which is not always positively perceived by critics. The aim of the translation by means of a functional analogue is to find the closest in meaning equivalent in the target language to substitute the lexical unit of the original which does not have exact correspondences: пан - Lord, пані - Lady, обиватель - bourgeois, купець - buyer, купчик - dealer.

The need to achieve the adequacy of translation forces the translator to make changes not only at the lexical, but also at the syntactic level. This is due to the requirement to take into account the language traditions of the native speakers and translators. M.I.Karanevych believes that in pragmatic adaptation of the text of the translation it is appropriate to use paraphrase, which is understood as a free and spontaneously born foreign expression of one and the same thought. One of the reasons for using paraphrase is the differences in speech clichйs, the particularities of conversation in certain communicative situations, which shows the connection between the theory of speech acts and pragmatics of translation .

In the classification of pragmatic translation strategies N.F. Gladush draws attention to the change of speech acts and gives it the name «illocutionary change» . In the conversations of the characters in the story «Artichokes» there are phrases used to support speech communication, to express surprise, insecurity and other feelings in everyday situations. In each case, a communicatively competent translator finds an English language equivalent, which can be used in identical communicative situations. Different Ukrainian and English clichйs are used in conversations to express: 1. irritation and displeasure: Ах, бога ради! Дай спокій! - Oh, for the love of God! Leave me alone! Дарма! - Well, it doesn't matter! 2. permission: Ага...можна... - Uh-huh...sure. 3. surprise: От як! - So that's how it is! The translator uses the phrases which are non-equivalents in the lexical composition but equivalent in function.

It is always a challenge for a translator to render realia on the phraseological level because their denotative meaning does not correlate with the connotative one. Phraseological units that reproduce the sociocultural identity of the linguistic group, caused by the conditions of life and the peculiarities of historical development, rank among the first on the scale of untranslatability or difficulty of translation .

Figurative phraseological units are translated in the following ways:

1.by a full equivalent with an identical or similar structure, lexical composition, stylistic characteristics, meaning and imagery: зготувала біс її знає що - She 's prepared the devil knows what.

2.descriptively when the meaning of a phraseological unit is rendered without preserving its imagery: Тобі дулю під ніс дали - They 've ridiculed you and sent you away with nothing!

3.by loan translation when a phraseological unit is translated literally: Гарбуза тобі піднесли - They served you a pumpkin. Кістки хочеш розтрясти? - Do you want to shake the bones out of our bodies, or what? However, the connotational meaning of the idiom is lost in this way.

4.by a relative equivalent which differs in its lexical composition or grammatical features: Чого вуха розвісив? - Why are you straining your ears?

Any statement aims at obtaining a certain communicative effect, therefore the pragmatic potential constitutes the most important part of the content of the utterance. A translator's task is to attempt at making a desired impact on the recipient, depending on the purpose of the translation. That is why studying the pragmatic aspects of translation is one of the central tasks of the theory of translation and a promising area of research. We see the prospect of further investigation in a deeper study of the peculiarities of Ukrainian-English translation of fiction and ways of pragmatic adaptation.

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