A Study of Idiomatic Expressions in Literary Translation: Problems and Possibilities

A STUDY OF TRANSLATION TRANSFORMATIONS AND FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE IN FANTASY LITERATURE

The translation of fantasy literature presents a number of linguistic and cultural challenges due to the representation of culture-specific elements, author-created names, mythological references, and stylistically colored language units. The object of this paper is a classic work of fantasy fiction, J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings provides extensive material for investigating translation strategies and transformations. The study focuses on that the translator’s style to use lexical and grammatical transformations in translation of The Lord of the Rings considering functional equivalence. For analyzing corresponding elements of the source and target texts, comparative, descriptive, and contextual methods are applied. Transcription, transliteration, calque, modulation, concretization, generalization, transposition, and grammatical substitution are among the most frequently employed transformations. Through these transformations, the translator preserves semantic, stylistic, and cultural aspects of the original text, ensuring a high degree of functional equivalence. The study confirms that translation transformations function as essential tools for reproducing the communicative and aesthetic impact of fantasy narratives in the target language.

Translating children's literature: linguistic and cultural challenges

The translation of children's literature represents a complex process of linguistic and cultural mediation between the source text and the young target audience. Unlike other literary genres, children's literature requires translators to take into account the cognitive, emotional, and cultural development of young readers. The translator must not only render the linguistic meaning of the original text but also adapt cultural references, humor, and narrative elements to make them accessible and meaningful. This process often involves balancing fidelity to the source text with the need for cultural adaptation. Translators may simplify certain expressions, clarify implicit meanings, or replace culture-specific elements with more familiar ones. At the same time, they play an important role in introducing children to new cultural realities and perspectives. Thus, translation becomes a form of intercultural communication and education. The translator acts as a mediator who shapes the reception of the literary work in the target culture. Particular attention is required when translating idioms, wordplay, and stylistic devices frequently used in children's literature. These elements often demand creative solutions in order to preserve the expressive and aesthetic value of the original text. Therefore, the translation of children's literature is both a linguistic task and a cultural act that contributes to the formation of young readers' intercultural awareness.

Translation Strategies and Difficulties in Translating English Idiomatic Expressions

Translation plays an important role in transferring meaning across languages, particularly when translating idiomatic expressions whose meanings cannot be interpreted literally. This study aimed to identify the translation strategies employed by sixth-semester students in translating English idiomatic expressions into Indonesian and to investigate the translation difficulties they encountered. The study employed a descriptive quantitative design involving 24 sixth-semester students of the English Department at UIN Fatmawati Sukarno Bengkulu. The research instrument was a translation test consisting of 15 idiomatic expressions selected from Barack Obama's speech Ignorance is Not a Virtue. The students' translations were analyzed using Baker's (1992) translation strategies, while translation difficulties were classified based on Baker (1992) and Larson (1998). The findings revealed that Translation by Paraphrase was the dominant strategy, accounting for 345 translations (95.83%), followed by Using an Idiom of Similar Meaning but Dissimilar Form with 15 translations (4.17%). No data were categorized as Using an Idiom of Similar Meaning and Form or Translation by Omission. Regarding translation difficulties, Contextual Difficulty was the most dominant category with 161 cases (73.85%), followed by Linguistic Difficulty with 33 cases (15.14%) and Cultural Difficulty with 24 cases (11.01%). The findings indicate that students experienced greater difficulty in interpreting the intended meanings of idiomatic expressions within their communicative contexts than in understanding linguistic or cultural aspects. Furthermore, 218 translations (60.55%) were classified as less accurate and inaccurate, indicating that contextual interpretation substantially influenced translation quality. The study suggests that translation instruction should emphasize contextual interpretation alongside linguistic and cultural competence to improve students' ability to translate idiomatic expressions accurately

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PSYCHOLOGICAL DISCOURSE: A TRANSLATION STUDIES PERSPECTIVE

The article examines the peculiarities of translating English psychological terminology into Ukrainian and identifies the most effective translation methods used to ensure semantic accuracy and communicative adequacy. The relevance of the study is determined by the growing popularity of psychological literature and the need for a consistent rendering of specialized terminology in Ukrainian. The research aims to analyze the main translation techniques applied to English psychological terms and to determine their frequency and effectiveness. The corpus of the study comprised 128 terms selected from English-language professional psychology texts and their Ukrainian translations. The findings indicate that the most frequently employed techniques are variant equivalent selection (33%), calque translation (25%), and dictionary equivalents (21%). Less common methods include concretization, generalization, contextual substitution, semantic development, descriptive translation, part-of-speech substitution, and transcoding. The study demonstrates that the choice of translation method depends on a term's semantic characteristics, its degree of standardization in the target language, and its use context.

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Human and AI Translation of Metaphor and Idioms in Postcolonial Arabic Literature: A Comparative Evaluation

The study concludes that, in postcolonial Arabic literary translation, human mediation remains essential for preserving figurative meaning and narrative positioning, while AI tools may serve only as preliminary support rather than as a replacement for human judgment.