J. Balčikonio vertimų pragmatika ir stilistika

LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE SANDARS STUDIES QUESTIONS OF LITHUANIAN LINGUISTICS, XXVI (1987) RŪTA MARCINKEVIČIENĖ J. BALČIKONIS TRANSLATIONS PRAGMATICS AND STYLISTICS Translations can be examined in various aspects: literary, linguistic, psychological, social. Which aspect the translation critic will choose depends on what features of the translation interest him. However, the choice of the aspect of translation analysis may be dictated not only by the ambitions of the critic, but also by the translation itself, one or more of its more pronounced tendencies. J. Balčikonis’s translations could be studied in terms of the norm of translation and literary language, adequacy, impact on the reader and other aspects, but one feature of his translations stands out more than others, namely pragmatism, which also encompasses the aforementioned aspects of evaluation. In this respect, all Balčikonis’ works are interesting, but we have limited ourselves to one of his last translations — that of J. Gulliver's Travels. This book was not chosen by chance: it is more adapted than other translations, and it has been translated by several translators and published several times. For the first time, Mr. J. Swift’s novel was translated into Lithuanian in 1924 by an unknown translator, who wrote only his initials — L. D., 1936 —P. Mashiotas. In the Soviet Union, Gulliver’s Travels was screened twice in that year: 1947 —S. Tomonio, 1957 —J. Balchik. In 1975, the second edition of P. Mašiotas’ translation appeared. J. Balčikonis’ translation was analyzed by comparing it with the original, S. Tomono and M. Mašiotas translations. From a pragmatic point of view, translation is examined in three ways: Whether the pragmatic meanings of words (connotational, emotional, social, stylistic, expressive, functional and otherwise called by researchers information of language signs) are conveyed, whether a specific pragmatic task is correctly solved, or whether the translation is appropriately adapted. In the first case, when the translator- ’s entire attention is focused on the pragmatic meanings of words, the translation does not deviate from the original, because its aim is to convey as adequately as possible the pragmatic meanings of the signs of the original language. But the nature of every translation is dual. As a result of the interaction of two languages, it is directed to the original, and as an independent work in the translation language — to a specific recipient?. Often this duality does not emerge, because the situation of the non-linguistic, i.e. the communication process, does not contradict the linguistic – pragmatic transmission of meanings. In other words, the translator is more interested in the original work than the reader. However, it may have other purposes that are not directly related to the main purpose of translation – adequacy. These additional objectives are1 Ambrasas-- Sasnava K. Translation studies. —V., 1984, p. 75. 2? KomMuccapos B. H. Jianrsucrarxa riepeBojia, —M., 1980, c. 48 na various: propaganda, didactic, pedagogical. The translator may redirect the work to one of any group of readers, assigned according to social, professional ar A sign of evil. It can also provide the reader with an evaluation of the author's thoughts, events depicted. Often the translator tries to influence not only the ne audience, but the language ir itself, to turn it in the desired direction. ją Such a translator’s relationship su with jo translation and the tasks posed contradict the purpose of translation. Thus, translation pragmatics, perceived as the realization of additional su translation objectives not directly related to the original work being lų translated, determines the translation gap from the original. The translator in this case translates, but ne creates something new, adapting to new circumstances, iš specific goals. O the objective, as is known, determines the result of the activity. How is this result achieved — J. Balčikonis’ adapted translation of Gulliver’s Travels, we find out after į delving into the translator- ’s goals, after examining the means to achieve them. We learn about the translator’s goals iš jo through translation selection. In fact, J. be Swift ir Ž. Verno, Balčikonis J. mainly translated fairy tales: Arabic, Hauf, Pero, Andersen, brothers Make-up. He was concerned that children and ir young people could read as many masterpieces of world literature in Lithuanian as possible, iš so that from these books they could learn the correct and beautiful Lithuanian language. Therefore, in translating J. Balčikonis .,... sought the most Lithuanian, folk expression. Quite often the translation was very far from the original, because Balčikonis translatne ed words ar into o sentences, the very thought ir ją wanted to convey in a way that only ne the people of science, but the ir children of the soil could understand”. Thus, didactic, pedagogical and educational incentives prompted Balčikonis to take up translations. Ir ne Only her. The translator worked most intensively when the Lithuanian literary language was not yet established, when its norms fluctuated greatly, when poor translations led the language in the o wrong direction. Such circumstances required the interpreter to be a language normifier. Therefore, the main focus of the translation was placed on ir the rendering of the individual language and style „... characteristics of the original author, as well as on ne the fact that į the Lithuanian vertical was simple, clear, pictorial, folk and regular. mo These translations were primarily aimed at developing ir the Lithuanian literary language and raising language culture." J. Balčikonis strived for translations to contribute to the stabilization of written language norms, to develop readers’ sense of a lively and expressive language. This was the second goal of the translator, which determined the main feature of jo the translation language, — the folkness. The pupils recall that the only criterion for evaluating translations for Balčikoni was "or so people would say." For the translator, the spoken language of the people was a reliable test of literary language norms. His silent tales, another reading for young people, writes D. Urbas, just confirmed the connection between the book and the living language of people.”* Thus, the standardization of the Lithuanian language and the redirecting of the book to young people were two main goals that determined the nature of the translation. 8 Pupkis A., Mažiulis V. Juozas Balčikonis. - Kn. : J. Balčikonis. Selected Writings. V, 1978; t.71, p. 13. * Kruopas J., Ulvydas K. The famous Lithuanian linguist academician J. Balčikonis. — Language 1965, culture, ss. 8, p. 4. * Urbas D. About J. Balčikonis’ translations. —Kalbotyra, 1966, t. 14, p. 41. 49 The three Lithuanian versions of Gulliver’s Travels mentioned above are very different. S. Tomonio’s translation is detailed, very accurate, as far as the norms of the native language allow, adequate to the original. The translator used external means of adaptation — comments, without changing the text of the translation. Its aim is to introduce a sophisticated reader to Swift’s political satire, to adequately convey the author’s genre and style. Conditionally, this translation could be called literal, written in a regular, but overly bookish language. A completely different translation by P. Mašiotas, re-released with the certificate “for younger school age”. This translation briefly recounts only the first two parts of the novel, the more difficult things are omitted. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to call the work of P. Mašiotas a translation. It is only a retelling of the plot of the novel for children, not claiming to be a complete representation of the original. The intermediate position between these two translations is occupied by J. Balčikoni- ’s famous Gulliver’s Travels. They are intended, as the annotation announces, for children of middle and older school age. Furthermore, in discussing the pragmatics and stylistics of the translated novel text, we will compare it with the original and analyze the methods of translation adaptation according to the language categories. We will refer to S. Tomonio’s translation as literal. ; Phonemic translation is best illustrated by the translation of English real nouns — personal names, place names. Many of them are fictionalized by the author, so they have no tradition of translation into Lithuanian. This allows more freedom in the choice of translation methods. S. Tomonis transliterates, translates long and complicated names into Lithuanian, adding endings wherever necessary. J. Balčikonis transcribes proper nouns, changing difficult to pronounce sound combinations with simpler ones. In the second part, Gulliver travels to Brobdingnag, not Brobdingnag as in the original and S. Tomono's translation. Especially different is the name of the fourth part. J. Balčikonis was not satisfied, like his predecessor, neither with the transliteration of the Houyhnhnms region, nor with the little different transcription of this illegible word. He used a functional equivalent and named the land, whose inhabitants are horses, the Lithuanian onomatopoeia — Ygagų kraštas. In this case, the transliteration of the Latin letters is correct. The development of language was important for this. In the decade since the translations, Lithuanian language norms have changed dramatically. However, it is not only the new requirements for translations that have led to the transcription of actual nouns. The translator’s attitude towards the reader was also important. J. Balčikonis translates not only proper nouns, but also general nouns denoting units of measure, measures, household and military objects. Swift's novel has two realities: English and fictional. J. Balčikonis creates English realities, replaces them with Lithuanian analogues, explains them with descriptions, etc. Therefore, instead of “yards and inches”, “cables and leagues”, transcribed in S. Tomonis’ translation, there appear “steps” and “inches”, “feet” and “miles”. Pinta is changed according to the situation (unfortunately, not everywhere equally and not always accurately). this to the "glass", this to the "quarter of our drinking cup". J. Balčikonis rejects J. Swift's protocol-like accuracy and detailed passages parodying travel descriptions are translated by summarizing: e.g.,,... and about four yards from me, over against my right ear, I heard a knocking for above: an hour, like that of people at work...“ "...about 50 four yards away, at my right ear, for more than an hour, I heard a call, as if people were doing something..." —“There was a noise near my ear, like the noise of carpenters at work, and it lasted about an hour”? In this way, J. Balčikonis’ translation avoids realities that are incomprehensible to the reader – the “yards”, but also J. Another group of realities are the results of the author’s fantasy, exoticisms denoting elements of the countryside, culture, religion, and customs of the countries visited by Gulliver. In the original novel, they are highlighted in italics, and their explanation in English is given in parentheses. The translators of the novel do the same. Realities are not “translated”, they are only explained, because these words in both the original and the translated texts perform not a nominative but a stylistic function — they create the color of the place. Very reasonably, J. Balčikonis avoids using international words. In the original, civilized® means “prognosis”, “jargon”, “egzist”, “patient”, and he translates “enlightened”, “predict”, “a certain language”, “persistent”, “sick”. S. Tomonis left international words. In English, these words have already been assimilated with neutral vocabulary, while in Lithuanian they are still book-like. In translations for young people, international words should be avoided for another reason — their meaning is not always clear. Comparing the original with the translation, we discover more lexical-semantic transformations. In many places J. Balčikonis specifies the description or narrative, abstract English nouns “cause”, “food”, “people”, replacing them with contextual synonyms “angry”, “food and drinks”, “enemies- ”. Elsewhere, on the contrary, concrete words are replaced by abstract ones. Ttin's favorite translator is the word "object" of broad semantics, used instead of "question- ", "product- ", "motive", "cause", "image". Although the aforementioned transformations — generalization and concretization — are opposite to each other, their purpose is the same: to make the text more understandable and closer to the reader. Where, what and how to change, the translator chose, having in front of his eyes the well-known addressee of the translation. A common phenomenon in J. Balčikonis’ translations is stylistic modification. He replaces a neutral word in the original language with a more expressive, more pictorial Lithuanian equivalent. "This is particularly true for verbs. The words “crowd”, “fight”, “imprizon- ”, “obstinate”, “steal off” used in the original translation correspond to “grumbled”, “fighted”, “jailed”, “violent”, “killed”, instead of “crowded- ”, “fighted”, “jailed”, “obstinate”, “run away”. So J. Balčikonis likes emotionally connoted synonyms. Many pairs of English and Lithuanian synonyms differ not so much in expressiveness as in belonging to different functional styles, in other words, not in expressive but in functional connotation. The direction of stylistic modification is always the same: J. Balčikonis translates neutral or more typical English words into Lithuanian colloquial language. The translation of S. Tomonio, which tends more to the book language, only highlights this 8 Swift J. Gulliver's Travels. —Moscow, 1973, p. 34. ? The Journeys of Gulliver by J. R. R. Tolkien. —K., 1947, p. 64. 8 Swift J. Gulliver's Travels / J. Balčikonis. —V., 1957, p. 16. 51 “ the contrast between the original and J. Balčikonis’ translation, e.g.:“... “We labor under two mighty evils: a violent faction at home, and the danger of an invasion of a most potent enemy from abroad”*- —„...we must face two great evils: fight against strong internal enemies and prepare to repel the attack of a powerful enemy from abroad”1° —„.in fact, we are eaten up by two terrible diseases: from within — eternal party quarrels, And from outside — the danger of a strong enemy!”*. J. Balčikonis’s translation could be called a double translation: Gulliver’s Travels is translated not only from English into Lithuanian, but also from the written form of this language into the spoken one. The impression of a vivid, flexible language is reinforced by the use of stylistic figures where you would not find them in the original. Gulliver is not fighting "against the enemies on Blefuscu- 's Island", but "against Blefuscu- 's Island". Here the meaning is metonymyically transferred on the basis of the spatial relationship: from the people living on the island to the island itself. There are also other examples of metonymy, especially when mentioning body parts instead of their purpose or characteristics: “sight” is replaced by “eyes”, “softness” by “good heart”. In the original, the action is described by one word "bristi", "plaukti", and in the translation we find "briste bristi", "plaukte plaukti". The translation is rich in litotics, figurative perphrases of original words, metaphors. All these stylistic figures make the speech pictorial, emotional. Furthermore, “they allow us not to say things in the text that are already clear, thus making the statement more cohesive- ”*. Separately we should talk about the comparisons, which J. Balčikonis adapted very strongly. This is particularly true for objective comparisons, in which the literal meaning is to compare two phenomena in terms of quality or quantity. J. Balčikonis compares the ropes, which were no thicker “than a simple English spaghetti”, to a rope, and the “loaf of the size of a rifle bullet” — to sparrow eggs. Such adaptation of the translation is necessary, because what is the value of a comparison when the subject with which it is compared (rema) is less known to the reader than the subject with which it is compared (thema). Thus, stylistic modification is a characteristic feature of J. Balčikonis’ translations. Here it would be appropriate to recall the translator D. Urbo’s opinion about the place of stylistic figures in translation:,,... it is not necessary for the translator to pedantly adhere to the idea that every stylistic means such as idiom, humor, figurative word (...) should necessarily be put in the same place as in the original — this would be a sign of literalism, slavery. It is important the correspondance of the totality of stylistic means, their internal dialectical relationships.” Of course, when comparing translations, we must take into account not so much the individual words, sentences or paragraphs as the relationship between the two texts. However, even after evaluating the original and translation texts, J. Balčikonis’ Lithuanian translation outperforms the original in terms of the abundance of stylistic means. 9 Swift J. Min. veik., p. 56. 10 Swift, J. Gulliver's Travels, p. 95. 11 Swift J. Gulliver's Travels /Translated by J. Balčikonis, p. 42. 12 Župerka K. Lithuanian language stylistics, —V., 1983, p. 12 Urbas D. Min. str., p. 43. 52 The syntax of the translation under consideration is also closer to the style of spoken language. J. Swift's sentences are long, comma-separated periods, į Balchikoni's J. are shorter. — The translator divides one sentence of the original į into two, three or ar even four, freely choosing what information to keep in the first one and what to transfer to the other į sentences. J. Balčikonis only ne breaks down sentences, but replaces English passive ir constructions with Lithuanian active ones, noun-word combinations with verbs, impersonal sentences with personal ones. — — The sentences translated in this way are easy to read silently ir aloud, easy to understand, memorize, recount. Syntactic transformations of lenses, frames J. Swift's narrative is alive and dynamic. Šį the impression ir is reinforced by the translator- ’s choice of the first narrator instead of the third. In this way, the translator creates the illusion of realism, which is so important to the young reader. Many sentences J. Balčikonis ir misses it. Omissions in translations are already a reprehensible phenomenon. They swallow a lot of information, distort the idea of the work. What and why is ir omitted in the translation we are considering? J. Balčikonis does not convey to the tų reader the places in the novel where the defects of English life are depicted: infidelity, prostitution, lies. He skips the ir descriptions of treatments, Gulliver’s “natural affairs” other ir episodes where Swift ignores the rules of decency, where satire is naturalisticaljo ly harsh. By omitting one other place, the translator expresses his view of the ar things depicted, behaves like a moralist. In the history of translation į there have been many similar reworkings of the work. In our time, such rearrangements are permissible only when a book intended for ir adults is redirected to young people. Vertinant J. Balčikonis’s Gulliver’s Travels, we should be guided by the adequacy of ne the original translation, ir but the pragmatic value of the translation as the main evaluation criterion. mo So it is necessary to look at what were the goals of the translator and how he ir succeeded in achieving them. The pragmatic value of Balčikonis’ translation is twofold: it is an adaptation of the work, a redirect to ją young people, the correctness, simplicity and folkness of the ir translation. DIRECTOries H CTHJIMCTHKA NEPEBOJLOB IO. BAJIbūAHKOHHCA Pesiome B HacTosime#t cTaThe paccMOTpPEHHI HOPAHLATIEI [IEPEBOIYECKOM aJanTaluy Ha MaTepHae pomana Ix. Ceudra ‘Tlyrenrecrane I'ymtusepa®. IlepeBomuMK IpecienoBa IPH TOM JIBe Home: CHEJIa TB POMAH AOCTYIHBIM IOAPOCTKAM H HAYYHTH HX OOpa3HOMY, HADOIZHOMY I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. OOCYXJIEHbI TIO OTIHEJILHLIM YpOBHAM si3bika (DOHeTHUeCKHE, JIEKCHMECKHe, CHHTAaKCHYECKHE H TEKCTOBEIC siBJICHMS). Bbura IpoaHaM3HPOBAHA CTHJIKCTHUECKAS Momuduxauust Sister. STRAWBERRY MeTOJH ItepeCotton neckline IpakKTHKH FO. Bainsukkonuca., ABTOp crated OpHIIIa K BEIBOAY, 4TO ‘ITyremntecrane I'm sure you're B not alone.