MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University
Institute of Humanities
Department of Theory of Language and Cross-Cultural Communication
Faculty of Linguistics
Student: Nana Khachatryan
Bachelor Graduate Paper
Analysis of Stylistic Devices in Chuck Palahniuk’s Works
Allow to defend the paper
Head of the Department
D.Sc., Professor Academic Supervisor: Gonchar-Khanjyan Natalie
Armine Aramovna
Yerevan-2018
CONTENTS
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………….…1
Chapter I. The History and the Problems of Translation ………………………..….......3
• The Main Periods of Translation……………………………………………….....................3
• The Difficulties of Translation of Chuck Palahniuk’s Novels “Fight Club” and “Pygmy” ………………………………………………………………………...….........................................6
Chapter II. The Broken Rules of Language…………………………………………...............19
2.1. Standard, Non-standard English and Slang……………………………………..............20
2.2. Broken Language of “Pygmy”........................................................................30
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...............................36
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………………..….50
Appendix……………………………………………………………………………...................................52
Introduction
This paper is devoted to the relatively new novel of Chuck Palahniuk “Pygmy”, written in broken English in a very interesting way. Unfortunately this novel is not so popular and the reasons are quite clear – the broken language of the novel and its genre, but as we know popular does not always mean good.
The subject matter of our research paper is non-normative language of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel “Pygmy”.
The main objective of this work is to analyze the Chuck Palahniuk’s novel “Pygmy” from a linguistic point of view. We try to look at this novel as a rich linguistic text, which has a lot of layers and demonstrates itself a linguistic value.
The novel of Chuck Palahniuk is an eccentric metaphor unfolded by imagination and pen of bright, witty and talented writer for the world of modern civilization and it is provoked in it the state of human souls that exposed to the virus, psychiatric confusion, painfully lost their integrity in the race and change of values. The novel – metaphor inspired and permeated by bitterness, fear and pain of person who lost faith in God - the savior and protector, encumbered with complexes torn by reality.
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The bitterness and even a tragedy in his novels, as the main massages are hooded by witty satire, by mocking at the sin, by jokes and even grim humor. Like Oscar Wilde Chuck Palahniuk shock the public, but if Wilde’s works are saturated with aestheticism, in the pages of Palahniuk’s novels we find anti-aestheticisms, which appears in rude expressions, scenes of violence, non-normative lexis and detailed descriptions of sexual intercourse. The works of Chuck Palahniuk provoke contradictory feelings – they are funny and scary at the same time.
Chuck Palahniuk is like Herman Hesse or J.D. Salinger, who were cultic writers for hippies, as in his novels Chuck Palahniuk also says, that destruction is not the door with the tag “exit”, that a person should live in peace and harmony. His massages are like the words from Bible “It is time to cast stones and to get stones together, a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing” [Internet 1]. Palahniuk also says that it is time to build, not skyscrapers, but ourselves, our spiritual palace, because God lives in us.
The novel “Pygmy” has not only a literary, but also a linguistic value and the aim of our research was to show it through the examples where we see how the author breaks the standard language rules or how the translator solves the problem and translating from English into Russian, saves the spirit of the novel.
The topicality of the given paper is to show that poplar is not always good. The novel “Pygmy can be a subject of endless discussions between linguists, but unfortunately very few people are familiar with this novel.
The novelty of this paper is that no one has ever examined this novel, because it is not classics, but alternative prose, which is not popular and also because of the broken language of novel.
The paper consists of introduction, three chapters and conclusion. And for each chapter a research was made, connected with a particular topic.
The first chapter focuses on the translation - shows the main periods of translation, then the difficulties of translation in Chuck Palahniuk’s novels “Fight Club” and “Pygmy”. We’ve chosen the most interesting examples from these novels, made tables which include the original version and the translated one. From the linguistic point of view the translation of broken English of “Pygmy” into broken Russian should be noted.
The second chapter analyzes non-standard English and slang and also the broken rules of language in Palahniuk’s novel “Pygmy”. It shows the bright peculiarities of Pygmy’s speech, so funny and spicy and main mistakes. There are a few examples of slang in this chapter, not only the general slang, but also professional.
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The last third chapter dwells on counterculture in literature, its history and its origin. Here we cannot help mentioning the master of alternative prose, “crazy genius” Chuck Palahniuk, his works and career. In this chapter we also speak about main characteristic feathers of this genre – grim humor, slang, non-normative lexis and the plentitude of aphorisms.
The conclusion sum up all that is made in this work.
Chapter I
Translation
• The Main Periods of Translation
It is obvious that translation is as old as the language itself. As translation is an important activity, different theories and theoretical reflections appeared with its existence. From the historical perspectives theories of translation commenced with the Romance, but they have gone through four periods.
The First period starts with the Romans. Eric Jacobsen claims that these are the Romans, who invented translation, though we can admit that translation and language have appeared analogically [Bassnett,2002].
The distinctive part of this period is the change of the practical work of translating from the statements and theories. An important remark is made by Horace and Cicero about word for word and sense for sense translation. Alexander Tytler, a Scottish writer, advocate, judge and historian terminates this period with the definition of a good translation, as “that in which the merit of the original work is so completely transfused into another language, as to be as distinctly apprehended, and as strongly felt, by a native of the country to which that language belongs, as it is by those who speak the language of the original work”. [Bell,1991: 11]
For the aformed mentioned, Tytler gives the following three laws for translation:
• The translation should carry the full transcription of the meaning of the original work.
• The style and tone of the translation should coincide with nature of the original work.
• The translation should have all the content with the original work.
The Second period goes back to the forties of the twentieth century. It is considered to be the period of theory and hermeneutic query and the development of vocabulary and methodology of the coming translation. The approach ‘hermeneutics’ was developed by German Romantics. The term has a Greek origin and means ‘to understand’.
One of the theorists of this time proposed five principles, which should be followed by a translator [Bassnett, 2002].
• The translator should completely perceive the sense and the context of the original work, though he is free to resolve uncertainty.
• The translator should perfectly master both Source Language (SL) and Target Language (TL).
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• The translator should escape word-for-word rendition.
• The translator should choose forms of speech, which are common in usage.
• The translator should formulate the words in a way to get the right tone.
The above mentioned principles put into the following order show the importance of understanding as a primary requirement. The principles were restated by George Chapman, who is the translator of Homer.
G. Chapman states his theory more completely in the Epistle to the Reader, in the translation of The Iliad [Bassnett, 2002]. So according to Chapman the translator should:
1. avoid word-for-word translations;
2. avoid overloose translations;
3. try to get the spirit of the original work.
John Dryden introduces the questions of translation by formulating three basic types:
• metaphrase, or changing the author’s word by word, and line by line, from one language into another,
• paraphrase, or rendering with extent, sense-for-sense translation;
• imitation, here the translator can leave the original text as he sees.
[Bassnett, 2002]
The Third Period is the shortest one as it lasts less than three decades. The start of this period is the publication of the first papers on machine translation, which was in the 1940s. The period is associated with the introduction of applied and structural linguistics, parallel studies in morphology and syntax. These all help the translator to spot the resemblance and difference between Native language (NL) and Foreign language (FL). It is composed of two eras: pioneering era is referred to the first one; the invention of the first machine translation is the second era.
The fourth period, which is the last period exists side-by-side with the third period as its roots start from the early 1960s. This period is characterized by the review of translation which puts the discipline in a wide framework which carries many other disciplines.
During the fourth periodmany new theories appeared such as the polysystem theory, which has first emerged from the work of Russian group theorists. The polysystem theory has got noticeable attention among certain translation scholars. A general model for understanding, studying and describing the functions and change of literary systems is offered by the theory. These systems both in the original and translated texts classify the following levels: linguistic, cultural and social, all of which cooperate and overlap with one another.
Another theory which is worth mentioning is the skopos theory which was developed in Germany in the late 1970s. The word ‘skopos’ is a technical term for translations which has a Greek origin. The theory attempts to face the increasing need in the recent half of the twentieth century for the translation of non-literary texts: scientific, tourist guides, instructions for use, academic papers, contracts and so on. The goal of this theory is to remind that contextual factors of translation should not be forgotten. The factors involve the culture of the proposed readers of the specific text and the function which tends to perform in the concrete culture for the concrete readers.
The emergence of computer has led to the development of an automatic machine translation (MT).This period of translation is called Translation Computarization Era. The texts may be translated either completely automatically by the computer or with the assistance of a man, who follows the process.
We can admit that translation-oriented computerized technology and machine translation is a varied field, where an important role play translation theorists, linguists, trainers, professional translators, etc.
As it was mentioned above, MT is means of translation which occurs either purely automatically by computer or the help of assistance, i.e. the process of pre-editing which is performed by a man. From the historical perspective, MT has experienced five stages of development, starting with the pioneering era, then comes the second period. During this period ST words are replaced with TT words. This change was based on the contrastive difference of Source language (SL) and Target language (TL).
The third period is identified as a period of stagnation of any kind of research. At the time of fourth period a new approach appeared called ‘rule-based approach’. It explains the concept of translation as a process holding the analysis and representation of the ST meaning by TL equivalents. Besides, during this period a new rule-bases approach appeared which changes an abstract SL representation into abstract TL one. These systems need diverse transfer models for different language pairs. The fifth period is identical with ‘corpus-based approach’, which became popular in 1990s.
• The Difficulties of Translation Chuck Palahniuk’s Novels “Fight Club” and “Pygmy”
As we know translation is a long, hard, painstaking process, which is at the same time very interesting and creative. The translator himself should be not only a good specialist in the field of languages, but also should be a creative person and have a bright imagination to understand the author’s thoughts correctly in order to create the needed atmosphere and to pass the whole feelings and messages of the book following and preserving the style of the original version.
The translated literature can be divided into several categories.
• Literary classics, which is published and republished and thus appears in newer and newer translations. These are such works that are consider to be pears of literature and each educated person read them or at least heard about them. These are such works, that will be popular even in thousands years.
• Low-grade literature, which is very popular nowadays, but at the same time it is very short-lived. As Oscar Wild said “Popularity is the crown of laurel, which the word puts on bad art. Whatever is popular is wrong.” [Internet 2] These are such works, which has a wide range of readers, but after a certain period of glory leave the stage. Generally these works comes to the readers of different languages in one sole version of each language as this type of literature does not generate new versions, it does not even need them.
• Alternative literature, which according to certain parameters is not included in classics and even if it is included as for example Tolkien, it becomes such kind of alternative classics. This type generates a lot of versions of translation and has its certain contingent of readers.
An interesting phenomenon in the field of alternative literature is American novelist of Ukrainian origin Chuck Palahniuk, who began his writing career relatively late. “Chuck Palahniuk, who is named as our days William Barrows, is an idol writer among modern reader – intellectuals. According to the “Times” the prose of Palahniuk has no analogues neither in the past nor in present. But at the same time “not X but coming generation’s crazy genius”, as the critics truly call him, takes us far to the classical, as well as philosophical and physiological literature examples by interpreting their theories in his own unique way. “The Fight Club” is an existential message to the modern person who lost his spiritual links with the universe because of his materialistic considerations: this is a novel-denouncement by getting acquainted with which the reader tries to find out the answer to the eternal question: to have or to be.” [Natali Gonchar-Khanjyan, 2012: 57]
Palahniuk’s “Fight Club” has different versions of translation. In United States “Fight Club” was published in 1996 and simply blew the word, but in Russian bookstores this work of master of alternative prose appeared only in 2002. By that time Russians had been already familiar with the title film directed by David Fincher. Shot in 1999, “Fight Club” even now, in 2015 is in the list of best films of all ages, which a person should watch before die.
The main character of the book, whose name does not mention, suffers from insomnia. He works as insurance consultant for unnamed car company and hates his job. From the first pages of the book we can see that he hates everything about his life. Following the advice of his doctor, who does not prescribe him a sleeping pill he goes to several support groups for terminally ill people, whose chances to survive are equal to zero to see what real suffering is. Seeing suffering of those people give him the feeling that he is alive and only after that he can sleep. “Babies does not sleep this well”[Chuck Palahniuk: 1996, 36]. But everything changes from the moment he meets a mysterious stranger, whose name is Tyler Durden. Tyler shows him another sort of life, gives him opportunity to see the life through his eyes. Then they establish in a basement fighting club, where come men of all ages from different social classes, who does different jobs, live different lives. These men have a lot of problems, each his own connected with health, job, personal life and they want to fight. Of course, fighting they imagine completely another person instead of their opponents and only at that time they fell their strength and strong desire to live and can relax. This “Fight Club” is a desperate act of desperate men.
The protagonist suffers from dissociative identity disorder, which is rare mental disorder from the group of dissociative disorders during which a person’s personality is divided and it seems that in the body of one person live several personalities, which alternate each other and may have different gender, age, abilities, outlook, nationality, temperament and so on. The reason for such disorder can be emotional traumas, which are rooted in the childhood. It is not mentioned, but reading the book the reader taking into consideration everything that has happened with the main character can easily understand it. It is also obvious that his parents had very strange relationships, as he mentioned when the one appeared the other went away. So the protagonist was not brought up in the atmosphere of love and caress, what impressed all his future life. Then Marla Singer and Tyler Durden became the prototypes of his parents.
In 2002 the Russian translation of “Fight Club” by Chuk Palahniuk was edited by publishing house “AST”. The official translator was I. Kormiltsev, who was the first, who ventured to translate this scandalous novel. Then four alternative versions of translation appeared in the Internet. Some of translators accepted Karmiltsev’s translation, the others criticized him and said that it was awful that Russian readers had been acquainted firstly with his version and that it was absurd that his translation was the official one. But the fact is that all of them translating the novel used as a base Kormiltsev’s translation and they did not deny it. Some of them just want to correct Kormiltsev’s mistakes, but instead of it make their own, the others had a goal to make the translation as closer to the original version as possible. Of course all alternative translators: A. Amzin, A. Yegorenkov, D. Savochkin and V. Zavgorodniy have huge armies of readers, who chose them for this or that reason, chose the translator, who is closer to them. It is obvious that foreign language speaking people are looking forward to reading the translation of bestsellers and after all they judge the novel and the author by translation. So, all these translators faced the huge problem: how to translate in such a way in order not to spoil this masterpiece, but only to improve the previous translation and to be the best.
The following table shows the interesting and obvious differences and peculiarities in style and vocabulary of five Russian translators of “Fight Club”. See appendix 1.
It is interesting to note that in this sentence “Sticking feathers up your butt,” Tyler says, “does not make you a chicken” word “chicken”, which is translated into Russian as “курочка, цыпленок” in translations of V. Zavgorodniy became “соловей”, which means “nightingale” and “павлин”, which means “peacock” in I. Kormiltsev’s translation. The reason is that Russian readers have another associations connecting with the word “chicken”. In Russian culture this word has a negative connotation, meaning stupid and forgetful woman. Russians have such an expression, a praseological unit “куриные мозги”, which equivalent in English is “the brain of a pigeon”. The birds “nightingale” and “peacock” au contraire are associated with something beautiful and lovely. So we can mention that translator must take into consideration not only the language peculiarities, but also the culture and background knowledge of the readers of translation.
This statement is also actual for the second example. “ You wake up at Sky Harbor International ”, where “Sky Harbor International” is a name of the airport, situated in Phoenix and Russian readers may not know about it. But the only translator, who clarified this expression, was V. Zavgorodniy. He translated it in this way “Ты просыпаешься в международном аэропорту Феникса”. For Russian readers the name of the airport doesn’t matter, but reading “Феникс” they immediately understand where the action took place.
There are such cases, when the translator completely changes the meaning of the sentence. “ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love ”. Here we have very clear and understandable phrase and a reader doesn’t have to be a professional to get it, but what is surprising that not all translators translated this sentence correctly and one translator, A. Amzin translated it in an absolutely different way. Now it is time to compare the translations and to choose the best one.
“Есть много вещей, которых людям, что мы любим, знать не следует”. - A. Amzin.
“Есть много вещей, которые мы не хотим знать о тех, кого любим”. – V. Zavgorodniy.
“Мы многого не хотим знать о тех, кого любим”. – D. Savochkin.
Here we see that A. Amzin changed the whole meaning of this sentence and it is very interesting, because this sentence is not one of those, which contains some game of words or words or expressions that are considered to be false friends of translators. The phrase “ …we don’t want to know about the people we love” in A. Amzin’a translation looks like it is written “ … people, who we love, should not know”. So the reason of A. Amzin’s incorrect translation is not clear.
The other translator, D. Savochkin, also slightly changed the meaning. The same sentence in his interpretation has a shade of indifference, as if we are not interested in people we love. Of course, a good translator should know and feel the subtleties of the language.
The following example is very interesting and delicate. “ The insomnia distance of everything, you can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you ”. Here we deal with literal and figurative meaning of the word “touch”, which is translated differently into Russian. It is like a game of words. The first “touch” is translated as “дотронуться” and the second one as “трогает”, which means here “to impress, to cut to the heart”. It is a rare case, when we have almost complete analog in other language. The only one, who felt the difference, was V. Zavgorodniy. He translated this sentence in this way “Бессонница отделяет тебя от всего вокруг. Ты не можешь дотронуться ни до чего, и ничто тебя не трогает”.
To be a good translator a person should not only be a good specialist of language, but also be a well-informed person. For example in this sentence “ With seminoma, you have almost a hundred percent survival rate ” we have a word “seminoma, which is a name of disease, also known as pure seminoma or classical seminoma. It is testicular cancer and as any type of cancer, of course, it is dangerous and of course there were people whose lives were carried away by this disease. But I. Kormiltsev turned out to be a very optimistic person, because he translates this sentence in this way “От семиомы еще никто не умирал”.
While translating a book the author faces a problem how to translate the names correctly, but it is very strange that a simple name “ Chloe ” besides a correct version “Хлоя” three other versions are given. The Russian readers should be familiar with this name from the Longus’ novel of 2rd century AD “Daphnis and Chloe”, which is translated into Russian as “Дафнис и Хлоя”. “А чтоб все поверили, что это ее дочка, она тоже обычное имя пастушеское ей дает, Хлоей ее назвав”[Internet]. But there were such versions as: “Клои”- I. Kormiltsev, “Хлой”- A. Amzin and “Клоуи” – A. Yegorenkov.
The translators changed the name “ Joe ”, which we meet a lot of times throughout the novel. “ I am Joe’s White Knuckles ”. For unknown reasons in V. Zavgorodniy’s and A. Yegorenkov’s translation “Joe” became “Jack”.
“Я — Белеющие Костяшки Пальцев Джека”. – V. Zavgorodniy.
“Я — Побелевшие Сжатые Костяшки Джека”.- A. Yegorenkov.
The following example shows the differences in vocabulary. “ Our Chloe, however, is a skeleton dipped in yellow wax ”. V. Zavgorodniy translated it in this way “Но наша Хлоя похожа на скелет, обмазанный жёлтым воском”. A. Yegorenkov and A. Amzin translated it almost in the same way. In I. Kormiltsev’s translation the word “wax” was translated as “желтый пергамент” and “вакса” in D. Savochkin’s translation. It is obvious that translating this sentence D. Savochkin use the word “вакса” because of Russian and English resemblance of these two words. But, of course, this cannot justify his rude mistake, a mistake that a good specialist of languages cannot make. Why I. Kormiltsev translated “wax” as “пергаментная бумага” will remain a mystery for us. “Wax” also means “ушная сера”, so we should be grateful to the translators for not giving that variant of translation.
In this example the differences are also connected with the vocabulary. “ Chloe had oils and handcuffs ”. The word “handcuffs” is translated into Russian as”наручники”, but for unknown reason in I. Kormiltsev’s translation instead of it appeared “кожаные плетки”. Of course, tastes differ. In D. Savochkin’s version the word “oils”, which means “масла” is translated as “кремы”, which is incorrect.
So, we discussed the examples from “Fight Club” and now it is time to pass to the next novel of Chuck Palahniuk “Pygmy”.
A satiric novel “Pygmy” by Chuck Palahniuk published in 2009 is written on behalf of a 13-year-old boy, nicknamed Pygmy or agent number 67, how he called himself, who came to the United States, the “nest of corruption” from an unnamed totalitarian state with a group of adolescents, masqued as exchanged students. These teenagers, that is to say operatives hate United States with all their hearts and plan an act of terrorism, called “Operation Havoc”. Since four years they were taken from their parents and soon they were told that United States made terrorism and their parents were dead. So since childhood these boys and girls have been taught that the United States is a rotten, immoral country, a bunch of predators and were brought up as future killers, death machines. They had to integrate with their host families, eat American food, celebrate with them their holidays and go to the church. Of course it was very difficult for them, but they did everything for their state they could even die for it. But most of all these teenagers wanted to revenge an injustice, to revenge their parents’ death.
So the main character and the narrator of this novel is a 13-year-old boy, who everyone called Pygmy. The whole novel is about his memories, feelings, emotions, plans, relationships with his fellow operatives, host family members, classmates and his final decision.
Firstly Pygmy hated everything about the United States and was ready to destroy everything connected with it. He gave funny nicknames to his host family members: host father – vast breathing cow father, who is a stereotypical image of fat American, host mother – chicken mother, because of her bony constitution, host brother – pig dog brother, who at first was very rude to him and host sister – cat sister, who was the most adequate person for him.
Once he cruelly sodomized a bully Trevor Stonefield, who because of Stockholm syndrome fall in love with him and came to “Model United Nations” with a gun and began to shoot. Pygmy killed the bully and saved lives of dozens of teenagers. This day from a funny guy he became a national hero and everyone wanted to be friends with him. For the second time he rescued his classmates during Science fair, when artificial multifunctional plastic phallus made by cat sister burnt and began to circle the room. The third time he saved lives of a lot of people in the United States was in the airport when he thwarted the plan “Operation Havoc” and betrayed his state only to save the life of cat sister, who he loved from the moment he had seen her. We can also say that Pygmy did not envenom American dollars, which had to explode and avid people were expected to carry them. The reason of this is very clear: he understood that in this rotten country ordinary people lived, who lived their lives and unconsciously he did not want to harm them, especially when among them was beautiful host sister.
Chuck Palahniuk wrote this novel in a very interesting way. Instead of chapters there are dispatches, written by agent number 67, same Pygmy, who complains about western culture and bad temper of Americans in a very comical way, using awful, incorrect grammar and quotes of famous political leaders, tyrants, philosophers and rebels. Pygmy has an impressive vocabulary, but he uses the words improperly, but in a very scientific tone, which sounds strange and funny. This novel is not for everyone not only because of difficult, broken English, but also because of abundance of violent scenes. “Pygmy” is written in a very sarcastic way – it is comical and scary at the same time and sometimes the verges are erased.
In Russia “Pygmy” was published in 2010 by publishing house “AST” and the only translator of this novel is N. Krasnikov. As this novel is very difficult, because of the specific language of Pygmy, we must give tribute to the translator for passing to us the spirit of this fantastic novel. Some readers of the original version and the translation can say that it is not exactly “Pygmy”, it is something similar to it. But can anyone from them translate this novel better? As we have already mentioned in “Pygmy” Chuck Palahniuk created specific, broken English and the translator, of course, faced the problem how to pass it to Russian readers. The problem was solved, because N. Krasnikov created his own language, which was broken Russian. So his translation shows how Pygmy would speak if he was Russia and, of course, reveals translator’s good attitude and respect to the author and because of it the translation came out to be glorious.
What is also interesting about “Pygmy” that almost each chapter, that is to say, dispatch has quotes of famous people, most of whom are very cruel political leader and mad dictators such as Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini. It is not a coincidence, because during their trainings young operatives were taught that they must be cruel, must kill and spare nobody for the happiness of their glorious state. So they know by heart quotes of powerful politicians or rebels, who were for them a prototype of strength and courage.
The following table demonstrates some of quotations of tyrants and political leaders are mentioned in “Pygmy” and N. Krasnikov’s Russian translation of them. Comparing the original version and the translation we can see that the translator made a good job, because these two versions are as like as two pears in a pod.
See appendix 2.
While speaking about translation we cannot help mentioning the fact that N. Krasnikov in order to make the language more broken changed the correct Russian spelling of the word.
“Label tag inside collar of Jesus tunic, print “Made in China.”
Под воротник Иисус фуфайко ярлык, «Сделано в Китае».
Here we can see that the translator created his own word “фуфайко”, which does not exist in Russian. In fact the Russians have the word “фуфайка” The same thing N. Krasnikov made with the word “рубашко” instead of “рубашка” in the following example: “Самец-делегат Габон сам белый, да рубашко-дашики африканский…”
“…male delegate Gabon adored dashiki…” But we cannot blame the translator, because he had to cover all the units of the language to make the language incorrect and strange and can use for it all possible methods.
As it has been already mentioned the protagonist of the novel, Pygmy nicknamed all his family members and this example shows one of the nicknames and the difference between the original version and the translation. “ Host sister, stealth cat” and “Приемный сестра — кошка невидимка”. The word “stealth” is translated into Russian as “хитрость, уловка”, which means “ruse”. N. Krasnokov could use instead of the word “stealth” “stealthy”, which is translated as “тайный, скрытый”, but he translated the word “stealth” as “invisible”. Of course, in Russian “кошка невидимка” sounds better than “скрытый кошка”, how he could translate it, but there may be other reason for that. Cat sister used to apparel in black, paint the face with black paint and leave the house in such a way that nobody could see her. So, may be because of it N. Krasnikov decided to translate “stealth” as “невидимка”.
In this sentence “ Darling, my Oleg! ” the translator translated the expression “my darling” as “my son”. Here is the translation: “Олег, сынок!” It is not a secret for anyone that the word “darling” is translated into Russian as “дорогой, милый, родной”. But here we have another thing: while in United States parents tenderly called their children “darling” and so on, for Russians it is more typical to call their children as “сынок” and “доча”.
The interesting thing happened also with verbs: “ This agent say… ”, which is translates as “агент моя говори…”. Here we see that N. Krasnikov conjugated the Russian verb “говорить” incorrectly, using instead of “говорит”, which is third person singular, imperative mood “говори”. In the original version, as we see, there is also a mistake. Instead of “says”, because “this agent” is a third person singular the author wrote “say”. So, it is shown here that the translator did the same thing, using other methods.
The following sentence “ Thank you, much esteemed madam living skeleton ”, which was translated by N. Krasnikov “Спасибо, многопочтенный мать, иссохший скелет!” we can see that we an expression “living skeleton”, which should be translated as “живые мощи” was translated as “иссохший скелет”. But it doesn’t mean that the translator made a mistake. The expression “живые мощи” in Russian is used to mention a very spiny person, who is thin as a rake. So the translated variant of that expression can be easily used, because as we see it is something like synonym.
Something interesting can be noted in the second sentence. “ Wish safe quick soon mission into next eternity ”. The word “mission” is translated into Russian as “командировка”, which is something like special trip and the reader may not understand the meaning. The word “mission” can also be translated as “поручение”, which means “commission”. Of course, it would be very funny if it was written so that an old woman is sent to the next eternity with a mission. And here N. Krasnokov clarified the situation. He translated it the following way “Пожелай скорый да безопасный переход в следующая вечность”, where the word “mission” was changed into “переход”, which means “transition.
In this sentence “ Say deity no display such mercy ” we have the word “display”, which is translated into Russian as “проявлять, показывать”, but the translator did not translate it in this way, he translated this word as “ оскорблять”. N. Krasnikov also did not translate the word “such”, which means “такой, такая, такое”, he simply tossed this word away. So, we can say, that he simply paraphrased the sentence and it came out as “Милосердие, скажи, Божество оскорбляй”.
The following sentence “ For official record, announce instructor, the state requires no epic hero ” we see the expression “epic hero”, which is translated into Russian in one word as “богатырь”. In his translation N. Krasnikov omitted the word “epic” and translated the expression “epic hero” as just “hero”. Here is his translation “Сообщи, что государство герой не нуждайся”.
The next example also shows the differences that took place in the translated version. “ Required to erase own self. Otherwise state will do so ”. Here is N. Krasnikov” translation “Амбициозная личность своя уничтожь — или сам, или государство на помощь приходи”. We can clearly see that in the original version we do not have the expression “ambitious personality” (how should the phrase “амбициозная личность”be translated). Instead of it in the original version we have “own self”, which should be translated as”самого себя”. The phrase “the state will do it” should be translated as “государство это сделает”, N. Krasnokov a bit changed this phrase. He translated it in such a way, as if it was written “the state will help you”.
This example “ Next now, host cow father say ” shows how difficult it was to translate such sentences, which are written in broken English and how good N. Krasnikov solved that problem. We see the phrase “next now” might be translated as “следующий сейчас” or “снова сейчас”, but the translator found the best solution, which would sound more normal for Russian reader. So, he translated in this way “Скоро-скоро отец одышливый корова говори”.
It is very interesting how N. Krasnokov translated colloquial words or expressions or words, that belong to slang. We all understand that it is very difficult to translate slang, because the target language may not have the equivalent. For example, Stolt asserts that the problems with translating come from the reason that slang does not have simple meaning [Stolt, 2010].
In this sentence “ Thanks for the cash ” we see the word “cash”, which is colloquial and is translated as “наличные деньги” or simply “деньги”, but the translator found the better way to translate this word. Instead of “деньги” he used Russian slang word ”бабло”, which also means money. Here we can see the translation “Спасибо за бабло!”
The following example is also connected with slang. “ Mom and Dad conk out yet? ” Here we have phrasal verb “conk out”, which means “to break out” or “suddenly fall asleep”. In Russian his phrasal verb is translated as “сломаться,” “внезапно уснуть” and also as “упасть в обморок”. N. Krasnokov translated this sentence as “Предки отрубились?”, because “внезапно уснуть” and “отрубиться”are synonyms and the second one is slang variant. Here we can see that “mom and dad” is translated as one word “предки”, which in such context belongs to Russian slang.
Here is the next example, connected with slang “ Geez, Pygmy ”. The word “geez “ is translated into Russian as word-parasite “блин”, but N. Krasnikov translated it otherwise. He translated the word “geez” as “приколись”, which is also slang word.
Another interesting example is “ Whoa, there, little fella ”. Here “whoa” is an interjection, the equivalent in Russian is “тпру!”. The word “fella” is colloquial and is translated into Russian as “человек”, “парень” or “малый”. Now it is time to see how N. Krasnikov translated this sentence. “Стоп, стоп, малыш!”. “Whoa” here became “стоп”, which is not right. The word “fella” as translated as “малыш”, which is a synonym of the word “малый”.
The following example is “ Much venerate ancient mother… ”. Let’s see N. Krasnikov’s variant to understand clearly to see how he has passed this broken language. Here is his translation “Достопочненный старый мать!”. Now, comparing these two sentences we see that Chuck Palahniuk to make the language broken used instead of adjective “venerable”, which does not have comparative and superlative forms, the verb “venerate” with the word “much”. Translating this sentence into Russian it is impossible to pass the reader this particular grammatical mistake and because of it N. Krasnikov found another way to make the language sound broken. Instead of the adjective “старая”, because the following word “мать” is feminine, and in Russian gender is very important the adjective always conforms the noun, he used the adjective “старый” which is masculine.
Comparing these two variants “ No worship leader able visible.” And its Russian translation “Ни Тони жалкий дельфин. ” we can see that here the translator allowed himself ad-lib, to make this sentence more colorful, but we can blame him, because some of the specific Pygmy’s expression are not translatable. So, he creates the right atmosphere, adding the expression “жалкий дельфин”, what we do not have in the novel.
In this example “Much-brilliant instructor say” we also have a mistake in adjective which can hardly be translated the same way in Russian. It is interesting to see how N. Krasnikov solved this problem. Here is his translation “Мудрый многоопытный наставник продолжай”. He translated “much-brilliant” as “мудрый многоопытный”. The verb “say”, which should be translated as “говори” he translated as “продолжай”, what is quite normal in such case, because the instructor was continuing his speech.
Here is the following example “ Sister hand lift to touch location own heart muscle. ”. Now we will try to translate this sentence ourselves. It will come out something like “Сестра рука подними чтобы трогай местоположение сердечная мышца”. Now it is time to see N. Krasnikov’s translation “Сестра кошка невидимка рука сердечная мышца наложи.” Here we see the word “невидимая”, which means “invisible”. But in the original version we do not have such word.
A bit different N. Krasnikov translated this sentence “ Solely remain trail blood steps ”. First of all because in this context the word “trail”, which means “след” and the word “steps”, which means “шаг” or “след ступы” here have almost the same meaning. The word “blood”, which means “кровь” in N. Krasnikov’s translation is omitted. Here is his translation “Ничего обидчик не оставь, кроме данный след”. As we have already mentioned he omitted the word “blood”, but instead of it he added some other words. For example the words “обидчик”, which means “bully” and the word “данный”, which means here “this”.
So we discussed different examples, showed how might be the translation or why the translator translated that particular sentence in that way. The following table does not need any comments, because looking at it you can see how difficult the original version is and how difficult was to translate this book.
See appendix 3.
Chapter II
The Broken Rules of Language
• Standard, Non-standard English and Slang
In world literature and culture there are several recognized and inaccessible tops – antique Homer, medieval Dante, Goethe with his "Faust" and Stendhal with "Red and black", but indisputably the most popular and famous everywhere is William Shakespeare, who still speaks with his readers, listeners, viewers in the language of the world, in English language.
It is not a secret for anyone that English is a language of science and technology, trade, business, diplomacy and cultural relationships. Nowadays wherever you look, in every sphere of life, almost in every profession, in every corner of the world you need English language. Positively, English gives a lot of opportunities that is why today a lot of people of all ages, each for realization of his own aims and dreams start learning English, making their motto a quote “It is never too late to learn”.
We know that language is a living organism: it is growing, changing and sometimes dying. Living in the century of modern technologies every single day we hear some new words, which are related to new devices, items. These new words penetrate to the other languages from English and influence them. Now it is very fashionable while speaking native language use some English words. Taking as an example Russian language we can see some of new borrowings, coming through the Russian from English: hipster, track, like, nickname, teenager, speaker, user, looser, boyfriend, talk-show etc. A great amount of them, of course, is connecting with the Internet. So we can say that whether we like it or not English encircles us and infiltrates into our life through TV, radio, Internet or our work.
Every language on the earth has its own standard version, which is accepted by the state, used in educational system of that particular country and is also taught abroad as a foreign language and English is not an exception. Now we will try to understand what Standard English is. According to American Heritage, dictionary of the English language Standard English is
“… the variety of English that is generally acknowledged as the model for the speech and writing of educated speakers, especially when contrasted with speech varieties that are limited to or characteristic of a certain region or social group” [Internet 3].
According to Random House Kernerman Webster’s College dictionary “… the English language in its most widely accepted form, as written and spoken by educated people in both formal and informal contexts, having universal currency while incorporating regional differences” [Internet 4].
So we can say that Standard English is correct, proper and pure variety of English, which is used in written and oral forms, in formal and informal contexts, which is grammatically correct and do not show any of the regional or other variations, which is widely used by media and press and is taught to non-native speakers. Sometimes people confuse the notion “Standard English” with “Standard language”, which is not right, because Standard language is not a language, but the most important variety of English, which is officially accepted. Speaking Standard English does not exclude speaking in any accent, because a person may speak in a grammatically correct way, using beautiful vocabulary and have an accent. Standard English speak public figures, famous people, broadcasters, teachers of English language at schools, colleges and universities. We can find it in textbooks, in fiction, in newspapers. We can hear it in the court, in the church, in speech of officials. From everlasting language has been an indicator, which gives us a lot of information about our interlocutor, shows us his educational level, where he is from, his social class etc.
Now the situation has a bit changed and from time to time we can hear non-standard English even on TV, in novels of famous authors, in the Internet, affecting the speech of younger generation. And here raises the question: what is non-standard English? The English language is considered non-standard when it includes any deviations from the accepted norms and rules. Collins English Dictionary gives the following definition of this term. “(linguistics) denoting or characterized by idiom, vocabulary, etc, that is not regarded as correct and acceptable by educated native speakers of a language; not standard” [Internet 5]. The other dictionary Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary gives us diverse definition: the words are different, but the meaning is the same: “not conforming in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, etc., to the usage characteristic of and considered acceptable by most educated native speakers” [Internet 6].
While speaking about non-standard language all linguists mention dialects, which according to American Heritage Dictionary of English language is “ … a regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, especially a variety of speech differing from the standard literary language or speech pattern in which it exists” [Internet 7]. David Crystal, a famous linguist, academic and author once during his lecture said “ Dialect is inferior English of low quality, which is deficient in some way to be judged against the criterion of the Standard English” [Internet 8].
We also should mention that there are two kinds of dialects:
• Standard dialect, which is also known as Standard language. This is a grammatically correct form language, which is used in educational system (taught in schools, universities to native speakers or abroad to non-native speakers, who learn English as a second language), in literature, in media and has on official status. So, it is a standard, accepted form of English language, which has its inviolable rules, has its complete vocabulary, correct grammar and proper syntax, for example: Standard American English, Standard Indian English, Standard Canadian English, Standard Philippine English and Standard Australian English.
• Non-standard dialect is not accepted form of English. It is mostly colloquial variant of English, because it does not give the speaker of the dialect opportunities to publish newspapers, to teach in institutions, to speak publically, etc. It does not mean that it is not allowed and speaking dialect or writing someone in dialect is a crime. Simply there exist some inviolable rules in Standard English and dialects are beyond them. Of course, people, speaking dialect can use it while speaking with their family members, relatives, neighbors, friends and it is great, because dialects are also complete parts of the language, in spite of the fact that they do not have an official status. Some of them are very old, much older than the official Standard version and of course has their history, are mentioned in literature, because of which represent some value for the language and at least because of it we should preserve dialects as a part of history of our country, as a remainder of our ancestors. Southern American English, Scouse and Western Australian English are considered to be non-standard dialect.
The following points show some differences in grammar between Standard English and other non-standard dialects.
• The auxiliary verb do in Standard English in first person singular becomes I do and in third person singular he/she does, whereas in non-standard dialects exist the form I do, he do. Standard English do not distinguish between auxiliary verb do and the main verb, but in non-standard dialects these are different categories and as a main verb in dialects do is conjugated as I does, he does. The same verb in past tense also differentiates the auxiliary as did, and the main verb as done, while Standard English has only did. For example: I done this work, did I?
• In Standard English in present tense to the verb of third person singular is added the particle - s or – es. For example I want, you wants, while in some non-standard dialects is either not added anything for all persons or the particle - s is used for all persons.
• Standard English do not permit multiple negation. We can say “ I don’t see anything ” or “I see nothing”. In some non-standard dialects it is normal to use double negatives.
• The verb to be in Standard English is irregular and is conjugated in present tense as (I am, you are, he/she/it is, we are, you are, they are) and (I was, you were, he/she/it was, we were, you were, they we re) in the past tense. Non-standard dialects turn up to be simpler and in present tense the same verb has the form be for all persons in present tense and were for all persons for the past tense.
• Standard English has pronoun you in both singular and plural cases. Some non-standard dialects differentiate between thou and you, which are maintained from the older English, or have newer version of distinction such as you and youse.
• Standard English has only two demonstrative pronouns (this, that) with their plural forms, which show two-way contrast. This demonstrates, that something is near the speaker, while that shows that something is away from the speaker. In non-standard dialects the situation is a bit different. There was a three-way contrast: that in dialects shows something, which is near to the listener and yon demonstrates that something is away both from the listener and the speaker.
• In Standard English reflexive pronouns form irregularly. Some of them take as a base a possessive pronoun (myself), the others take as a base the objective pronouns (himself). In non-standard dialects the formation of reflexive pronouns is easier, because it has a regular system and use as a base possessive pronouns for all (hisself, etc).
• Some non-standard dialecst omit the adverbial suffix – ly, which is not accepted in Standard English. So, instead of “She was speaking very gently ” in non-standard dialect will be “She was speaking very gentle ”.
• Unlike Standard English in some non-standard dialects it is normal to use double modals. For example: “ She might could make that ”.
Non-standard English is considered as a language of lower class, a language of uneducated people, but nowadays we can hardly find a teenager, who is a native speaker of English, who speaks in proper, Standard English. Why it is so? We know that there are a lot of people, who are not native speakers of English, but have to speak it, for example they live in United States. It is quite obvious that their speech will not be correct in grammar and pronunciation. Almost the same thing we can say about people, who live in regions and speak dialects. These people are native speakers of the English language, but even if they move from heir region to some place, where Standard English is spoken they will hardly be able to get rid of their dialect, because it is very difficult. Thus, we understand several reasons of non-standard speech, but do not find answers to our question. The reason of such phenomenon is slang- a simple word, which is familiar to everyone in every corner of the word. So, it is time to understand what slang is.
Slang is a bunch of words, phrases that exists in every language and is used on the colloquial level in informal language. Sometimes slang is compared with jargon, i.e., special language of certain occupational groups, and it is contrasted with argot or cant, i.e., the secret terminology of certain groups of people. Tough sometimes it is difficult to differentiate to which category belongs the word or the phrase and the translators or authors include them in one category.
Slang is a lot far from standard vocabulary, it includes extremely informal words or expressions and it differs from one region to another. Usually slang words are structurally shortened and changed. Slang vocabulary has become so popular that it is no more considered to be the minor and limited part of the language, nevertheless it is not so widely approved to become the part of the standard language.
One cannot distinguish slang words from others by their sound or meaning. Almost all slang words used to be taboo, jargon or dialect. So when they become slang words they preserve the same meaning and sound, but are already related to another category.
Slang changes from time to time, and so do the sources of it. Each period of time has its source which circulates new slang words or expressions. It is wrong to consider slang a language of underworld groups or people. So at some period of time the main source of slang may be the vocabulary used by jazz musicians or students, at other time the source may be the certain vocabulary practiced by baseball players or criminals.
To fully perceive a slang one must realize that it is the unit of language, of vocabulary that keeps changing with time depending on the society, social classes, etc. Thus there are words which are considered to be standard in one epoch, but may loose their popularity in another, and on the contrary there are words which were treated as taboo words, but they may become common and standard words in later epoch. So we can conclude that a language is like a living body, which changes with time, where words become more common or less common, standard or nonstandard.
Generally slang words come from subcultures of a certain society. Such occupational groups as doctors, engineers, police are the main circulators of slang words; other groups which produce slang words are teenagers, criminals, ethnic minorities. Slang words may often show the mental outlook and the values of the members of the groups.
The word or expression should be widely accepted by the members of a certain group or subculture before it becomes slang. That is why a slang word of one language or country cannot be slang in another language, country or culture. Slang words are not the same in all of the countries.
The use of slang words depends on time and society. So there are slang words which were secret jargons in one period of time, but became widely accepted in another and already widely used and known later.
Civilized societies are divided into main culture and subcultures. Before the slang becomes widely used in a culture it is firstly exercised in subcultures that are as well as the inventors of the slang words. When the slang word or expression is widely used and circulated in the subcultures it becomes passes the borders and becomes popular in culture as well as.
Besides occupational and technical groups there are many other subculture groups who amount the vocabulary with slang words and expressions. These groups represent people of different sexual orientation, drug addicts, political organizations, ghetto groups, ethnic minorities, etc. Great suppliers of slang words are the criminal groups.
Usually subcultures are likely to take words, expressions and phrases from adjacent languages, rather than create their own new words. While taking the words from other languages which are close to their own, they change their meaning and give a new one. As a result there are many borrowings from Greek, Latin languages. They take the root and create a new word, which is called neologism. But these borrowings are not a wide source for slang words. There are mainly slang words in the sphere of medicine, as the roots which were borrowed served for creating medical terms and terminologies.
Almost every slang phrase or word becomes popular for some reason and has its own history of the way it appeared. With the change of situations and conditions the meaning of slang may change and integrate into standard vocabulary or it may remain the same.