INTERTEXTUALITY IN THE TRANSLATION ASPECT (BASED ON THE NOVEL BY A. S. BYATT “POSSESSION”)

Abstract

The article highlights the main problems arising during the process of translating the novel’s intertextual inserts. According to the classification by Gérard Genette, the book contains three types of intertextuality: intertextuality, paratextuality, architextuality. The difficulty is caused by the fact that English language has the largest dictionary of all and ambiguity is its prominent feature.

As a postmodern novel, “Possession” involves a reader in a game with numerous hints and subtext which are difficult to convey in other languages mostly because of strong presence of the British culture and mythology. It is proved that the translator is obliged to study the context in which the intertextual insertion of this type is used. Hence, intertextualisms of the national encyclopedia require special attention during the process, since there are generally accepted equivalents for intertextualisms in the universal encyclopedia. In the course of the study, appropriate translation strategies were selected based on the analysis of the nature of the intertextual fragments. The inserts that were mentioned in this article are based on English idioms which are alien to the Ukrainian and Russian recipient. Absence of identical data in the host culture encourages the search for the most satisfying equivalents that reproduce the author's scheme in the target language.

The choices of adequate translation solutions are illustrated by the examples of the Russian version of the novel. The authors mainly use semantic translation and adaptation strategies. In this case allusion is partially lost, but the main idea is preserved. An important role is played by footnotes as a source of additional information beyond the main text.

In the future it is proposed to consider the problem of translation of characters’ names as it is not only a common problem for translation studies by itself, but also they contain allusions to literary figures and protagonists of their works.