THE RUSSIAN SONGS BY ANTON DELVIG: THE PROBLEM OF PRESERVING NATIONAL SPECIFICITY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS

The article focuses on the problem of reproducing the national specificity of a text in translation. The object is the “Russian songs” by Anton Delvig, stylized as folk songs. They were created with the use of poetic means of Russian folklore. The subject is the peculiarities of reproducing national...

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Main Author: Maria R Nenarokova
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) 2018-12-01
Series:RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journals.rudn.ru/semiotics-semantics/article/viewFile/20139/16418
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author Maria R Nenarokova
author_facet Maria R Nenarokova
author_sort Maria R Nenarokova
collection DOAJ
description The article focuses on the problem of reproducing the national specificity of a text in translation. The object is the “Russian songs” by Anton Delvig, stylized as folk songs. They were created with the use of poetic means of Russian folklore. The subject is the peculiarities of reproducing national specificity, typical of Delvig’s poems, in English translations. The following texts were analyzed: translations of “Nightingale”, “Sang and sang a bird...”, “Ah, you, night...”, “Tis not autumn’s drizzly rain...”. The translations were carried out both by English and Russian native speakers. The main objective of the research is to determine what artistic means can convey the national features in a text. The tasks of the study were: to describe conveying metrics; to outline the key words of the poem, describe discrepancies in their translation, еxplain, why the variant, chosen by a certain translation, is possible or impossible in translating Delvig's text; indicate how the translators reproduce the artistic means of Russian folk songs in English. The continuous sampling method, the descriptive one, the componential one, the conceptual one, the contextual one, that of collocation were used in the course of the study. The study showed that translators preserve the national specifics of the original by creating a stylization in their own language. In the case of Delvig’s “Russian songs” the palette of artistic means, conveying national specificity, was developed in the course of a century and a half. It includes archaisms, repetitions and parallelisms, re-creating formulas or creating analogues within the receiving culture. An important means of conveying the national specificity of the text is its rhythm. Accurate conveyng of the rhythm pattern helps the reader to get the same impression from the translation as from the original, and can even mask errors in the reproduction of content.
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spelling doaj.art-c0a94080af0f4640a19c2f124603921c2022-12-21T23:08:25ZengPeoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University)RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics2313-22992411-12362018-12-019479581110.22363/2313-2299-2018-9-4-795-81117081THE RUSSIAN SONGS BY ANTON DELVIG: THE PROBLEM OF PRESERVING NATIONAL SPECIFICITY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONSMaria R Nenarokova0A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of SciencesThe article focuses on the problem of reproducing the national specificity of a text in translation. The object is the “Russian songs” by Anton Delvig, stylized as folk songs. They were created with the use of poetic means of Russian folklore. The subject is the peculiarities of reproducing national specificity, typical of Delvig’s poems, in English translations. The following texts were analyzed: translations of “Nightingale”, “Sang and sang a bird...”, “Ah, you, night...”, “Tis not autumn’s drizzly rain...”. The translations were carried out both by English and Russian native speakers. The main objective of the research is to determine what artistic means can convey the national features in a text. The tasks of the study were: to describe conveying metrics; to outline the key words of the poem, describe discrepancies in their translation, еxplain, why the variant, chosen by a certain translation, is possible or impossible in translating Delvig's text; indicate how the translators reproduce the artistic means of Russian folk songs in English. The continuous sampling method, the descriptive one, the componential one, the conceptual one, the contextual one, that of collocation were used in the course of the study. The study showed that translators preserve the national specifics of the original by creating a stylization in their own language. In the case of Delvig’s “Russian songs” the palette of artistic means, conveying national specificity, was developed in the course of a century and a half. It includes archaisms, repetitions and parallelisms, re-creating formulas or creating analogues within the receiving culture. An important means of conveying the national specificity of the text is its rhythm. Accurate conveyng of the rhythm pattern helps the reader to get the same impression from the translation as from the original, and can even mask errors in the reproduction of content.http://journals.rudn.ru/semiotics-semantics/article/viewFile/20139/16418translationnational specificityRussian literaturefolkloreRussian songAnton Delvigstylizationpoetic means“Nightingale”
spellingShingle Maria R Nenarokova
THE RUSSIAN SONGS BY ANTON DELVIG: THE PROBLEM OF PRESERVING NATIONAL SPECIFICITY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS
RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics
translation
national specificity
Russian literature
folklore
Russian song
Anton Delvig
stylization
poetic means
“Nightingale”
title THE RUSSIAN SONGS BY ANTON DELVIG: THE PROBLEM OF PRESERVING NATIONAL SPECIFICITY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS
title_full THE RUSSIAN SONGS BY ANTON DELVIG: THE PROBLEM OF PRESERVING NATIONAL SPECIFICITY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS
title_fullStr THE RUSSIAN SONGS BY ANTON DELVIG: THE PROBLEM OF PRESERVING NATIONAL SPECIFICITY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS
title_full_unstemmed THE RUSSIAN SONGS BY ANTON DELVIG: THE PROBLEM OF PRESERVING NATIONAL SPECIFICITY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS
title_short THE RUSSIAN SONGS BY ANTON DELVIG: THE PROBLEM OF PRESERVING NATIONAL SPECIFICITY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS
title_sort russian songs by anton delvig the problem of preserving national specificity in english translations
topic translation
national specificity
Russian literature
folklore
Russian song
Anton Delvig
stylization
poetic means
“Nightingale”
url http://journals.rudn.ru/semiotics-semantics/article/viewFile/20139/16418
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