4 Style-Specific Challenges in Translation of Fiction

Literary translation faces the same tasks as other types of translation: it is intended to reproduce everything that is said in the original language by means of the target language. From a linguistic point of view, genres have many common features in different languages, because they are based on the same criteria. A translator must be familiar with the peculiarities of genres of speech in the English and Ukrainian languages and to be familiar with the principles of transmission of these features in the translation. The problem of translation equivalence is closely connected with the stylistic aspect of translation - one cannot reach the required level of equivalence if the stylistic peculiarities of the source text are neglected. Full translation adequacy includes as an obligatory component the ade­quacy of style, i. e. the right choice of stylistic means and devices of the target language to substitute for those observed in the source text. This means that in translation one is to find proper stylistic variations of the original meaning rather than only meaning itself.

Special attention is to be paid by a translator to overt and covert quotations. Whereas the former require only correct rendering of the source quotation in the target language (Never suggest your own home­made translation for a quotation of a popular author!), the latter usually takes the shape of an allusion and the pragmatic equivalence seems the most appropriate for the case. For example, «the Trojan horse raid» one may translate as напад, підступний, як кінь троянців (i.e. preserving the allusion) or as підступний напад (loosing the meaning of the origi­nal quotation).

A translator is to be ready to render dialect forms and illiterate speech in the target language forms. It goes without saying that one can hardly render, say, cockney dialect using the Western Ukrainian dialect forms. There is no universal recipe for this translation problem. In some cases the distortions in the target grammar are used to render the dialect forms but then again it is not 'a cure-all' and each such case requires an individual approach.

Thus, any good translation should be fulfilled with due regard of the stylistic peculiarities of the source text and this recommendation applies to all text types rather than only to fiction

There is the following classification which the translator should take into account when choosing the style and genre of translation.

1. The genre of the source language has an equivalent genre in the target language that performs the same adequate function.

2. The genre of source language is absent in the target language, but another genre or genres performs its function.

3. The genre of the target language performs only some functions of the genre of source language.

4. The genre of source language is presented in the target language, but they perform different function. This is the biggest challenge for the translator, as the original text and the translated text will have different stylistic features.

The vivid example is comparison of Russian and German ballad. The German ballad refers to the folk genre. It characterized by use of colloquial language (archaisms), any extra details about the surroundings, atmosphere or environment, dialogues, repetitions, invasion of grammatical rules.

While in Russian literature we can find Literary Ballad. Usually the literary ballad is more elaborate and complex; the poet may retain only some of the devices and conventions of the older verse narrative.