REPRESENTATION OF HISTORICAL TRUTH IN LITERARY TRANSLATION (BASED ON TRANSLATIONS OF LITERARY WORKS INTO ENGLISH/KAZAKH)

Abstract

The historical genre presents a scientific interest in both cognitive and linguistic aspects for translators. The variety of genre-forming features of a historical work, along with the national and cultural specifics of the work itself and the author’s intention; pose a certain challenge to adequate content transposition.

Within the framework of this study, the authors consider various ways of translating language units that reflect historical truth in a literary work. The novels by Kazakh writers I. Yesenberlin and S. Yelubay telling about significant events in the history of Kazakhstan and their translations in Russian and English, and the novel Kazakh Exodus by British journalist and writer G. Lias about a significant period in the history of Kazakhstan and its Kazakh translation, were chosen as the objects of the research. In the course of the analysis, more than 100 lexical units were selected and subjected to linguistic and content analysis, revealing the documentary and historic nature of the narrated events.

The purpose of the study was to critically assess the pragmatic value of the fiction from the cultural approach to the translation process as well as revisit relevant concepts in translation studies such as transformation, adequacy, and equivalence.

The scientific significance of the study implies actualizing the principles of translation of historical works from the point of view of the cultural turn in literary translation as one of the branches of translation studies.

The translation analysis material can be of practical value for students majoring in Translation Studies and translators as methodological recommendations in their work with literary texts.