Occasionalisms in a literary work and their translation
The problem of the emergence of new words has always interested linguists.
The study of occasionalisms as special neologisms has been widely used since the
middle of the 20th century, however, a generally accepted definition of an occasional
word has not yet been formed. We can name such researchers of this question as: N.I.
Feldman, A. I. Smirnitsky, D. B. Maslennikov, A. G. Lykov. Occasionalism was first
considered as a term in an article by N.I. Feldman "Occasional Words and
Lexicography". Feldman relates the following features to the determining signs of an
occasional word: constant novelty, derivational production, the presence of the
author, close connection with the context in which occasionalism arises, special
expressiveness, existence and functioning of the occasional word “in its place”.
The ways of rendering occasionalisms into target language can be revealed by
comparing the texts of the original and the translation. We have used the novel by J.
K. Rowling "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" and its translation into Russian
by S. Ilyin, M. Lahuti and M. Sokolsky.
As a result of the comparison, the following translation techniques have been
identified:
Creation by the translator of his own occasional words. Of course, this is a very
laborious and creative work, which speaks of translation skills and respect for the
style of the author. The purpose of this method is to keep occasionality, but at the
same time make the new word understandable to the reader of the target text.
The following occasional units can serve as examples of this technique:
Luna Lovegood - the name was translated as Полумна Лавгуд. In the English
text, the word “luna” has an occasional character and has a subtext of “loony”
(translated as полоумный, сумасшедший), since this character is characterized as a
very strange person who believes in the unbelievable.
The Auror - this word is translated as мракоборец, which fully corresponds to
the meaning of the word in the original text. It is known that Aurora is the goddess of
the dawn among the ancient Romans, hence it follows that auror is a person who
dispels darkness and, in the context of this book, evil.
Transcription and transliteration
When using the transcription method, the sound form of the original word is
conveyed, and with transliteration, the graphic. Thanks to these methods, the external
form of occasionalism is preserved, but perception is difficult, since for the reader,
not a native speaker, a set of sounds or the addition of words is completely
meaningless. Currently, translators often resort to transcription, but due to the
difference in the phonetic systems of the Russian and English languages, accurate
reproduction of sounds is not always possible.
The following occasionalisms can illustrate the above mentioned techniques:
Muggle – маггл. The word was translated by transcription and means a person
not endowed magical abilities.
Squib – сквиб. Occasionalism was translated by transcription and means a
person born in a family of wizards, but not having the ability of witchcraft.
Calque.
The use of word-for-word translation which can be compared with a literal
translation: the equivalent of a word is created using translation of its components
and their subsequent combination in one word.
E.g:
Unspeakable – невыразимец. Occasionalism was decomposed into
components: the -un prefix, which expresses negation, the verb speak (express) and
the suffix -able, which forms an adjective from the verb, although in the original text
this word is a noun.
Clankers – Звякалки. It consists of the verb clank (rattle, clang), the suffix -er,
which forms the noun, and the plural endings -s.
Descriptive translation
The translated version of occasionalism corresponds to the meaning of this
unit, regardless of the external form of the word. The essence of a descriptive
translation is to convey the meaning of an occasional word by means of an
explanation in the target language. This method has such disadvantages as excessive
verbosity and lack of equivalent in the target language. In this case, can be applied
substitutional translation, where the normal word with similar to the original word
meaning is used.
E.g.:
Wandless – лишенный палочки. Occasionalism was created by adding the less suffix, which carries a meaning "without anything" corresponding to the word
wand (magic wand). The word was translated using descriptive translation.
To De-gnome (the garden) – очистка сада от гномов.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the translator most often resorted to such
translation methods as: tracing, especially in relation to words denoting magic objects
and concepts, and transcription, often used to convey spells. The cases of creating the
author’s new occasionalisms in the target language and descriptive translation, were
used extremely rarely.