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Hieronymus : Journal of Translation Studies and Terminology, No. 7, 2020.

Original scientific paper

https://doi.org/10.17234/Hieronymus.7.4

“Excuse me, hands off the monument”: A case study of the Russian (re)translation of The Catcher in the Rye

Marta Brajnović ; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

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Abstract

This paper studies two Russian translations of J. D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye: the first translation, produced in the Soviet period, and a retranslation produced in the 2000s.The presence of English loanwords and youth slang expressions is selected as a micro-textual variable which may be an indicator of the influence of the target culture context on the shape of the first translation and the retranslation studied. In view of the tendencies in borrowing from English in contemporary Russia, the total number of English loanwords (Anglicisms) is expected to be significantly higher in the more recent translation, and the two translations are also expected to differ in the number of English loanwords belonging to youth slang. These hypotheses are tested by analysing the English loanwords in the two translations. Further, various paratextual elements surrounding the first translation and a retranslation of Salinger’s novel are analysed. The aim is to shed light on the dynamics of the relations between the first, canonized translation and the retranslation as a possible explanation for their linguistic make-up and for the attitudes of the members of the Russian literary establishment towards them. The insights gained by the analysis of the paratexts are interpreted relying on Lefevere’s concepts of patronage and poetics. The analysis of the attitudes of the political and literary establishments in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods towards the first translation and the selected retranslation is also used to provide a wider insight into the dominant attitudes towards retranslation in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods.

Keywords

English loan words; youth slang; paratextual analysis; patronage

Hrčak ID:

265496

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/265496

Publication date:

5.1.2021.

Article data in other languages: russian croatian

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