Aug 2026· Slavistica Vilnensis· Vol 71, pp. 82-95· 0 citations· 1 references
Abstract
The translation of non-standard speech (dialects, sociolects) poses a significant challenge for translators, as it requires unconventional translation solutions to achieve both stylistic and pragmatic equivalence. This article analyzes the Lithuanian translation of Bartosz Połoński’s novel Robczik. Powieść wileńska, in which, the author employs sociolectal stylization – the characters use slang common among Polish-background youth in Vilnius at the turn of the 20th and 21th centuries. On the linguistic level, the author introduces two types of stylistic elements: (1) Northern Borderlands Polish features across all levels of language, and (2) lexical borrowings from Russian, Lithuanian, and English. Each of these elements required a different translation strategy in the target text. The analysis employed four theoretical categories: full substitution, ‘shifted’ substitution, neutralization, and additional stylization. Since the sociolect of the period depicted in Lithuania was largely based on Russian and English loanwords, translational equivalence was achieved through their substitution. In the case of dialectal expressions lacking precise equivalents, a compensatory strategy was applied by replacing them with colloquialisms. The Lithuanian lexical elements deliberately introduced in the source text were neutralized. At the same time, the translation introduced an additional layer of stylization by incorporating selected Polish linguistic features with the aim of conveying the authentic social identity of the novel’s characters.
Poetry translation, which requires consistency in both artistic and semantic terms, has been one of the most controversial areas of translation studies, creating various obstacles to theoretical and practical discussions. While translation studies in the 1950s and 1960s were more linguistically oriented and focused on the language level, a cultural approach came to the forefront in the 1970s. Lawrence Venuti’s strategies of “domestication” and “foreignization” in translation are notable examples of this approach. Analyzing the translations produced by a Turkish translator (S. Behlül Toygar) and native English-speaking translator (Roger Finch), this study aims to determine which translation technique each translator primarily uses and the extent to which their translational decisions reflect domestication or foreignization tendencies. Moreover, the study comparatively examines how the translators dealt with the lexical, syntactic, semantic, phonological, and graphological elements of the source text. By comparing these linguistic and stylistic categories, the study identifies the parallels and discrepancies between the two translations, assesses how well they capture the aesthetic and semantic elements of the original poem, and highlights the gains, losses, and changes in poetic form and meaning in the translation from Turkish to English. It was concluded that poetry translation often requires a compromise between meaning, form, and culture, rather than achieving complete equivalence, and that Toygar and Finch, instead of copying Beyatlı’s poem “Flight,” recreated it within new linguistic and cultural contexts.
Senem Üstün Kaya· Türk Dili ve Edebiyatı Dergi...· 0 citations
This study examines the Sanskrit translation of a text designated in the target language as Ogamadecā. The original Middle Persian text was based on selected quotations from Avesta with its title derived from the first word: aogəmadaēcā ‘and we pronounce’. The result is a multi-layered document of intertwined grammar, vocabulary and syntax drawing from Indian and Iranian heritage. The analysis centers on systematic deviations from Pāṇini’s grammatical framework, with particular emphasis on substitution, a foundational principle in Aṣṭādhyāyī and a key mechanism in Pāṇinian linguistics. The methodological approach adopted here foregrounds phonological, morphological, and syntactic irregularities within the translation, thereby elucidating characteristic features of Parsi Sanskrit renderings. The structural clarity inherent in Pāṇini’s system is juxtaposed with examples drawn from Ogamadecā, accompanied by detailed commentary on the violated rules. This comparative perspective advances our understanding of Zoroastrian Sanskrit translations within their broader linguistic, cultural, and religious conditions, contributing to the study of Indo-Iranian textual transmission and the adaptation of classical grammatical norms in Zoroastrian setting.
Oskar Podlasiński· Cracow Indological Studies· 0 citations
This pilot study examines how the English adverb actually is rendered in Slovak translation, drawing on a corpus of literary texts and their translations. As a multifunctional item, actually performs a range of syntactic and pragmatic functions in context, most notably those of emphasizer and disjunct. The analysis draws on three Slovak translations of works by the same English-speaking author. Although each translator worked on a different set of books, the corpus still makes it possible to compare translation strategies within a relatively consistent authorial style and to observe how individual translators deal with the same multifunctional source item. The study combines qualitative functional analysis with quantitative observations in order to identify recurrent Slovak renderings of actually, including lexical substitution, structural reformulation, attenuation, and omission. The findings suggest that translation difficulty arises not from the lack of Slovak expressive resources, but from differences between English and Slovak in the grammatical encoding of discourse-related meaning. In particular, functions expressed in English through sentence adverbials do not always correspond to a single formal category in Slovak, which increases the likelihood of functional shift or translation loss. The study contributes to translation studies and contrastive linguistics by showing how the pragmatic contribution of a frequent multifunctional item may be preserved, reinterpreted, weakened, or omitted in translation, and how these outcomes vary across translators.
Zuzana Knižková· Studies About Languages· 0 citations
The article examines the analysis of lexical-semantic and stylistic asymmetry emerging in the process of translation of Ioannikii Haliatovskyi’s Ukrainian Baroque prose, produced by the 17th-century Athonite hieromonk S. Bakachich for South Slavic Orthodox readers. The study focuses on the text of the Marian miracles collection, which is included in the appendix to the Kyiv edition of Haliatovskyi’s book “Kliuch Rozumiennia” — “Kazania prydanyia do knyhy “Kliuch razumiennia” nazvanoi” (Kyiv, 1660), and its manuscript translation performed by S. Bakachich. The subject of the study is identified as the lexico-stylistic transformations and asymmetric correspondences arising in the process of transmitting the Ukrainian Baroque text into the linguistic-cultural tradition written tradition of South Slavs of the period under study. The study draws on the manuscript fifth (Venetian) autograph of S. Bakachich from the second half of the 17th century, which belongs to the Giuseppe Praga collection and is kept in the Oriental fund of the National Library of St Mark in Venice (Marc. MS. Or. 297), as well as the early printed book of the 1660 Kyiv edition of the appendix to Haliatovskyi’s “Kliuch Rozumiennia”. The study employs the comparative-textological method, transformational analysis, contextual-stylistic analysis, and the linguocultural approach.
The paper analyzes examples of lexico-stylistic asymmetry manifested in the translator’s deliberate avoidance of reproducing specific Old Ukrainian elements, including Polonisms, Latinisms, vernacular idioms, and metaphors. It is established that, to compensate for this asymmetry, Samuil Bakachich employed the strategies of stylistic substitution, demetaphorization, and confessional adaptation, replacing locally marked Baroque expressions and loanwords with established high-register liturgical formulae, biblical phraseology, and lexemes of the Byzantine-Orthodox tradition deeply rooted in the Orthodox Balkan cultural environment. The analysis demonstrates that this approach enabled the translator to bridge differences between the two linguistic systems, neutralize Western and vernacular influences present in the Ukrainian Baroque original, elevate its stylistic register, and successfully adapt the Baroque narrative to the traditional ecclesiastical literary tradition and the South Slavic post-jer orthographic tradition of Slavia Orthodoxa.
D. Stoianova· Opera in linguistica ukraini...· 0 citations
This article examines Lithuanian noun phrases with the prepositionless genitive case and the challenges of translating them into Russian. Such Lithuanian phrases often represent set names, including various types of toponyms, names of urban objects, educational institutions, media outlets, political parties, etc. The difficulty of translating them into another language is explained by the minimal context of the two-member phrase, as well as the potential for ambiguous interpretation of the prepositionless syntactic construction. The method of rendering such phrases in a foreign language largely depends on the function the name performs and the usage traditions of the target language. The specific speech material analyzed in this article names relevant to society, including neologisms. Methods of rendering them in the Russian language can vary widely – from transcribing Lithuanian names that represent addresses to replacing the genitive form with a nominative or adjective as a coordinate modifier. Particular attention is required when translating Lithuanian phrases with national specificity, whose components do not have exact equivalents in Russian.
Birutė Sinočkina· Slavistica Vilnensis· 0 citations
The article investigates the issue of intertextuality in a literary work. The aim is to determine the variability of the ways to transfer an intertext from one language into another. The paper focuses on the patterns of an intertext formation based on the mock “Hamlet’s soliloquy” in the novel by M. Twain “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and its seven translations into Russian. The results demonstrate that one translator adopted the pattern to omit the intertext (A. Muravyeva) while other translators compiled the intertext from the lines picked out from several Shakespearean plays or used the existing translations of the original Hamlet’s monologue. Translation strategies displayed the similar compiling procedure from the numerous Russian translations of the Shakespearean plays or combined their own more or less literal and free translation of the lines. R. Braude and S. Il'in were more instrumental in the former (compilation), and N. Daruzes - in the latter (translation proper). The line-picking strategy requires scrupulous work to perform an extremely difficult translation task of conveying the author’s message and is, therefore, more complex.
Aleksey A. Streltsov· Theoretical and Applied Ling...· 0 citations