THE CHALLENGES OF STYLISTIC SYNTAX REPRODUCTION OF THE NOVEL “THE MINDS OF BILLY MILLIGAN” BY D. KEYES INTO UKRAINIAN

Abstract

The article examines the ways of translation of stylistic syntax in the novel “The Minds of Billy Milligan” by D. Keyes into Ukrainian. This literary work can be called innovative for American literature. Its belonging to the genre of documentary novel determines its peculiar compositional, lexical and stylistic features. “The Minds of Billy Milligan” is a novel portraying Billy Milligan, the first person in U.S. history acquitted of a major crime by pleading multiple-personality disorder. However, the uniqueness of the narration syntax gives the reason to speak of the novel’s belonging not only to documentary, but also to fiction. The reproduction of stylistic syntax into Ukrainian is the most difficult task for a translator. We found out that D. Keyes’s novel has got various stylistic syntax devices: anaphora, epiphora, rhetorical questions, repetitions, parallel constructions, ellipse, special construction of sentences and dialogues. Those stylistic devices are marked by form originality and they are used as means of logical selection and organization of the text. They contribute to the expressiveness of lexical means and increase their emotional potential. Stylistic syntax has an impact on the narration rhythm. That is why the translator had to choose such syntax reproduction means that do not break the rhythm of the novel. Mechanical copying of a foreign prose rhythm, reproduction of number of its individual elements and their sequence do not lead to artistic and functional equivalence. As syntax is closely connected with vocabulary, a lot of translation transformations are mixed, i.e. the lexical and syntactic changes occur in translation. Reproducing the syntactic features of D. Keyes’s language, the translator succeeded in preserving the original imagery and translating the syntactic devices without significant losses. We found out that almost all the stylistic syntax devices in the source text are preserved in the target text. A special type of syntactic transformations in translation is the division of one complex sentence into two or more simple ones. The only syntactic device that is not reproduced in the target text is ellipse.