Imagery in Translation

hov's «Чайка» {The Seagull) as translated into English and staged at Rutgers University (USA). The collision may be based on the cultural stereotype of "Usually Russians look shabby."

Another aspect of the same problem is compatibility be­tween the mood of an episode and the structure of a sentence or the choice of words. There is essential difference in syntactic rules and communicative functions of words of the same mean­ing between English and Russian. What sounds brief and ex­pressive in English may appear too wordy, complex and lanky in Russian. Accordingly, what is vivid and expressive in Rus­sian, often becomes too lofty and archaic or, on the contrary, too rude and low in English. The translator has to interpret the drama text he translates, as if he himself were a director of the performance. It is important to analyse characters, moods and relations in the play. Thus, translating, we are to have our own point of view on what and how is going on at the stage, other­wise, the text will remain rigid and alien to the audience while the play is being performed.

Another problem is the cultural gap. When we come across this or that realia in the text meant for reading, we may find the way out using comments, descriptions, or the like, that is, by us­ing extra-text. Nothing of the kind is appropriate in a drama text meant for performance. In Chekhov's Seagull Arkadina has a quar­rel with her son, and is so irritated that she insults him, shouting at him in Russian, «Киевский мещанин!» The word meshcha-nin, quite neutral in itself (town dweller or burger as opposed to an esquire, a noble man), from the point of view of its stylistic status, could be considered an insult in Russia in the times of the turn of the 20^th century, when certain "low" or "mean" qualities were implied, peculiar to this social group! Using the word, Ark­adina meant that her son Konstantin was much below her in so­cial status: she was a noblewoman by birth, while he was a son of a common man, no gentleman, thus himself not a gentleman by birth, conceivably, low and mean as a personality. But the En-

glish translation gives a quite inappropriate substitute "You are a

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Практикум по художественному переводу

Kievan burger!" This phrase is a literal translation of the Russian words but absolutely wrong in the cultural context of the play because the English phrase lacks any emotive implications. An American spectator may be puzzled knowing not why it is so mean to be a dweller of Kiev. Probably, it might be more appro­priate to use English substitutions "You are a mere nobody!" or "You are not a gentleman]"

■When -we translate a play, we distinguish whether it is a tragedy or a comedy, a modern or a classical work, a fantasy or a psychological drama. But the hardest challenge is a nationally biased play. In the comedy they use a lot of folk phrases, the street language, idioms and names of which are clear and com­prehensible to a native speaker but inevitably lose their bright colouration in translation. The selected text is a play of Alex­ander Ostrovsky, an outstanding Russian playwright whose lan­guage was deeply rooted in the national character and history. He invented a lot of words and names that became popular. In a way, he may be compared with Sheridan, whose language is almost untranslatable into Russian. The characters of Ostrovsky speak the language of their own, in which even the form of a word is important to convey a lot of subtext and implicit shades of mean­ing. Suffice it to mention such forms as «маменька», «эка», «сердце-вещун», «заела», etc. Usually, such words and forms lose their expressive power when translated into English, and with them Ostrovsky's characters lose part of their individuality.

The problem of the "national colouring" is not only associ­ated with drama. However, it is in this kind of text that national colouration is especially complicated because it penetrates into all components of the text: it colours the language of dialogues, contents, form, and authorial remarks. The first task that each translator faces is about what is to be saved first and foremost. Strictly speaking, the major "national" component of a play, that is, its language, is inevitably lost in any translation. Dressed in their national clothes but speaking a foreign language, the char-acters appear very unusual, even funny, on the stage. Probably, 210