This article discusses the theoretical and practical features and difficulties in translating the folk tales of the Kazakh language.
Keywords: linguacultural analysis, national and cultural specifics, folklore, folk tale, culture, translation problems.
В данной статье рассматриваются теоретические и практические особенности и трудности перевода казахских народных сказок.
Ключевые слова: лингвокультурологический анализ, национально-культурная специфика, фольклор, народная сказка, культура, проблемы перевода.
In the era of globalization, the spread of mass culture, and general modernization the folk tale genre preserves the national-cultural worldview and the spiritual values of the people. Children's literature, in particular folk tales, has a great influence on the spiritual culture of a child, on the formation of its cognitive base, general and individual picture of the world, on its development as a creative personality. Folklore is reflection of the people's ethnic identity and carries the code of the nation, because they describe the way of life of the people, geographical, natural, ethnic conditions, reveals national character.
One of the characteristic features of the people in the contemporary society is an attempt to study the connection of language units and ethnic identity. To a greater or a lesser degree it concerns younger generation in the period of social adaptation. The process of determination contributes to the development of language identity, ethnic mentality, history and tradition. One of the main reasons for misunderstanding in the course of intercultural communication is cultural differences in the ethnic identity, for the world view is represented through the prism of ethnic culture and language. The relevance of this study is determined by the growing interest in folklore, the identification of national and cultural specifics within the modern anthropological paradigm allows us to reveal the features of linguocognitive content, connection and correlation with the objective world and culture of the ethnos, national and cultural specifics of the linguistic picture of the world.
The study of concepts presents the information about a unique phenomenon — the mentality of the ethnicities. Ethnic self-consciousness is based on language, therefore, the analysis of language is the key to the study of the linguistic picture of the world of a given people. The unit of a language is a word which function is to awaken the linguistic consciousness, a certain concept. The folklore text is the main source for the study of certain basic concepts connected with the culture. It is the text that is closely linked with the culture, since it is permeated with a multitude of cultural codes; it is the text that stores information about history, ethnography, national psychology, national behavior, i.e. about everything that makes up the content of culture [1, 34]. The study of language and culture, gives a possibility to study the interconnections of language and the cultural peculiarities of different ethnic groups. This study is based on theoretical provisions for the translation of the folklore text. The article reveals the problems and principles of translation, based on the analysis of the folklore and its translation into English. Translation as a system is focused not only on the adaptation of the text, but also on the transfer of the information that explains and forms the worldview. In this regard, it is very important to study questions of the national characteristics of folklore and how to render them in another language, which in its turn can help develop basic recommendations for a number of translation issues.
The main carrier of ethnocultural norms is language. It is used as an intra-ethnic communicative means of preserving traditions, information about the history and culture of the people. The peculiarity of languages lies in the inadequacy of their cognitive bases formed by ethnic groups in the process of perception and mastering the world, specific economic, labor activity, as a result of existence in various socio-ecological landscapes. However, many word concepts cannot be understood apart from the intentions of the participants or the social and cultural institutions and behavior in which the action, state or thing is situated [2, 11].
The unit of a language is a word whose function is to awaken the linguistic consciousness, a certain concept. However, language is only a mechanism that promotes the coding and translation of culture. Its true keeper is the text. It is the text that is indissolubly linked to culture, since it is permeated with a multitude of cultural codes; it is the text that stores information about history, ethnography, national psychology, national behavior, i.e. about everything that makes up the content of culture [1, 112]. In the logical tradition that underlies much work in semantics, concepts are ultimately defined by the truth conditions: the conditions, under which one can say that a concept does, or does not, appropriately apply to a situation in the world.
The analysis of folklore (folk tales, epic stories, legends) helps to recreate the characteristic features of oral folklore. The most important feature of folklore is that it is the art of the spoken word. This is what distinguishes it from literature and other forms of art. Another important distinctive feature of folklore is the collectivity of creativity. It originated as a mass work and expressed the views of the primitive community and the clan, and not of an individual.
The specificity of the cognitive mechanisms of cognition of different ethnic groups and the diverse semantic structure of the language lead to the problem of mutual understanding between representatives of different linguistic and cultural communities [3, 18]. The differences in the ethnocommunicative typological knowledge of different peoples are manifested mainly in the ways and means of implementing speech activity. The choice of one or another method and means is determined by the speech attitudes of the personality and the purpose of communication. The presence of ethnic and specific language proficiency is associated with the characteristic features of the complex of speech attitudes [4].
Translation of folklore raises many difficulties and questions. Each type of folklore, having its own characteristics, requires special attention and approach to translation. The folk tale is probably the most widely used folklore genre. Additions, as a translation technique, carry information that is supposed to be known to native speakers, but not a translated language, is a common translation technique, the purpose of which is to achieve the fullest understanding of the translated text by the native speakers [5, 106].
The conceptual analysis of the folk tales of the Kazakh language allows not only to reveal the individual features and ideas about these concepts, belonging to only one ethnic group, but also makes it possible to capture and recognize the main aspects, to trace the dynamics of its development and functioning in a certain situation. Folklore creates vivid images of a decent and unworthy existence, reflects the values that are significant for a person, complements and completes culturally significant concepts [6]. This article presents an analysis of the Kazakh folk tale «Edyge».
In the course of the analysis, it was revealed that the characteristic feature of Kazakh folk tales is long and expanded, sentences, describe all the details, therefore, in the process of translation there was a need to omit some points that were not so important and interesting to an English-speaking reader. Having considered all types of lexical transformations used in the translation of Kazakh folk tales, it can be concluded that the most common method was the omission, which constituted the main percentage (30 %). “Жас жігітті әкесі басқа қалаға жіберіп, мұғаліммен бір жыл болды.” — “The youth was sent to another town, and remained a whole year with the master”.
A common technique was also generalization (27 %). “Құмырсқа патшасы түнде мыңдаған құмырсқаларымен бірге келді, ал ризашылық білдіретін жәндіктер тарыны жинап, оны қаптарға салды”. — «The King of ants had come in the night with thousands and thousands of ants, and the grateful creatures had picked up all the millet-seed and gathered them into the sacks».
Complex lexical and grammatical transformations include antonymic translation and explication. In the process of translation; transformations are most often of mixed type. As a rule, various kinds of transformations are carried out simultaneously, they are combined with each other — replacement is accompanied by a substitution, the grammatical transformation is accompanied by a lexical one.
The antonymic translation, which function is the transformation of an affirmative construction into a negative one or vice versa, a negative one in an affirmative one, followed by replacing one of the words of the translated sentence of the original language with its antonym in the translation language, was used in 62 % of cases. (Тек бізге уәде еткен нәрсені ұмытпа — бұл сенің бақытың — Remember what you have promised. This is your happiness.)
The grammatical properties of linguistic units consist of a number of linguistic phenomena: the form of a word, phrases, sentences, order of elements, grammatical meanings of forms, contextual functions of forms and meanings.
According to the analysis, when translating folk tales, the most common methods of grammatical transformations were the method of literal translation, which amounted to 39 %. (“Олар бай болды және қалағанның бәрін алды, бірақ олардың балалары болмады” — “They were rich, and had everything they wanted, but no children”; “Осылайша олар таңертеңге дейін тыныш ұйықтады” — “ They slept quietly until early morning”).
Comparing the use of various transformations among themselves, it can be summed up that among lexical, grammatical and complex lexical-grammatical transformations, grammatical transformations were used most often, namely in 51 % of cases. This is due to the difference in the structure of Kazakh and English sentences. Therefore, the translation was carried out in accordance with the rules of the language. Lexical transformations constituted 43 %. This can be explained by the fact that lexical transformations are caused mainly by the fact that the number of meaning of the lexical units of the languages does not coincide. Complex lexical-grammatical transformations were used least of all, only in 6 % of cases. Complex transformations are one of the most complex translation techniques. They require certain skills, vocabulary, imaginative thinking, excellent knowledge of different cultures, traditions and religions of other countries.
As a result of the analysis of lexicographic and textual material the content and features of the concepts dignity and miracle can be formed, they are undoubtedly important as a way to penetrate the linguistic consciousness of the nation. The analysis of the translation of folk tales of the Kazakh language showed that the text of a folk tale does not require major structural changes and therefore the leading grammatical methods for translating texts are literal translation and morphological replacement; lexical techniques are used when there is a discrepancy between the volume of values of lexical units and occupy the second largest place among translation methods; complex lexical and grammatical transformations, as complex translation techniques, are not typical for the translation of folk tales.
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