TRANSLATION AS A GAME: NEW METHODOLOGY FOR RESEARCHING TRANSLATION OF LANGUAGE GAMES

Abstract

The present paper concerns formulating a number of provisions that collectively claim to be a methodological model for the study of translation as a game. The relevance of this topic is due to the desire to expand the range of traditional approaches to highlighting the specificities of the foreign language reproduction of language game and potentially all other forms and means of linguistic expression of discourse. Language game is interpreted as a dichotomous phenomenon: a linguistic creative activity aimed at expressing discourse through the unconventional combination/use of units/elements of different linguistic hierarchies, and the result of this activity in the form of various linguistic and speech formations: from a word to a text. Like a game, translation also has a dichotomous status, which in its procedural dimension is embodied in a sequence of translation decisions that resemble moves in a game. The translator’s behavior in such a game is guided by the minimax principle: he/she stops searching for a solution (based on trial and error heuristics) when he/she considers the result to be adequate (optimal, but not necessarily perfect). In terms of Peirce’s semiotics, the game of translation is similar to semiosis, i.e., the continuous creative interpretation and construction of multi-level sign formations. In its productive dimension, translation as a game leads to the creation of a target text, each element of which is located in a predetermined place to match the model (source text). The game-like nature of translation is determined by the presence of strategies and rules. The translation strategy is aimed at winning, by which we mean a sufficient level of correspondence between the source and target texts at the relevant levels of comparison. The rules of the translation game are objective and subjective. The objective rules are the linguistic factors that regulate the transition from the source text to the target text, while the subjective rules are those of a situational, personal, cultural, etc. nature. At the cognitive-psychological level, the translator’s activity is determined by both the desire for pleasure and the feeling of frustration.