1.2. Towards the notion of allusion

Allusion – the variety of borrowing without reference to the author, usually short, seemingly casual, but in fact is important reference to the event, situation, detail, person or image. The reader is supposed to notice it and understand in comparison with primary source.

Allusion was highly investigated in its philological aspect as the element of intertextuality by R. Alter, I. V. Arnold, R. Brauer, I. V. Giubbenet, N. O. Fatieieva, I. S. Khrystenko etc. However, in its translation aspect, allusion was researched only by L. Venuti, V. S. Vynogradov, V. N. Komissarov, M. O. Novykova, A. Popovych, R. P. Zorivchak, L. V. Grek, O. A. Ivanov, O. K. Smyrnov, O. Yu. Abramova, A. G. Mamayeva, B. Porot, Ye. V. Rozen etc.

Allusion is commonly manifested by a “frame”. A frame is a “combination of words that is accepted in the language community as an example of preformed linguistic material” [26; 15]. A frame can be almost anything: a proper name, a famous quote, or only a single word. This makes allusion a very economical device for an author. A very small amount of material allows the author to draw upon the meanings inherent in the reference. It is also a potentially inexact device, a wave of a hand in the approximate direction, rather than the exact coordinates on a map.

It is also possible for a frame to lose its original allusive power and become a stereotypical expression or an idiom [26; 15]. This connection to the original context may be lost due to popularity of the expression, or due to the original context being forgotten. Making clear distinctions between allusive frames and idioms is not easy, especially with frames that are clearly in neither category.

I. S. Khrystenko singles out one more component in this category – a hint. The hint’s essence is that the listener is to guess about the presence of a certain intention. The information the speaker puts into a hint contains something new for the listener. On comprehending the new, the listener is to react to it somehow. Allusion differs from a hint in containing widely known information [17; 210].

An allusion has certain important semantic peculiarities, in that the meaning of the word (the allusion) should be regarded as a form for the new meaning. In other words, the primary meaning of the word or phrase which is assumed to be known (i. e. the allusion) serves as a vessel into which new meaning is poured [22; 187].

There are some other factors that influence translation such as literary trend, genre, frequency of using allusion, functions of allusion in the artistic work [13; 208].

1.3. Types of allusion

R. Leppihalme divides allusions into proper name and key phrase allusions.

In proper name allusion, the frame that carries the allusive meaning is a proper name. There is also a term a ‘culture bump’ which occurs when an allusion fails to convey a coherent meaning to a target language reader, and instead leaves the reader puzzled and uncomfortable. It is of course possible that a reader misses the existence of an allusion entirely, and will not be confused by the translation. In these cases the culture bump is still present in the translation, but the reader has avoided stumbling on it. Key phrase allusions can be defined as encompassing all other allusions, those which do not contain the proper name [26; 129].

There can be explicit and implicit allusions. Explicit allusions (“And after dinner, Jesus took the cup of wine, sharing it with His disciples” [37; 258]. “А після вечері Ісус взяв чашу з вином і розділив її з своїми апостолами” [36; 254]) are easily observable in the text. The existence of implicit allusions in the text is not so evident, they have to be inferred. There exists another division of allusions into verbal and real. Verbal allusion is formed by the intentional play of words; its meaning is different from that of a literary one. Real allusions hint at some historical or mythological fact, generally accepted notions, catch-words of well-known writers [17, p.210].