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проелемы современного осрпзоопнип
E. Naugolnykh
LANGUAGE DEVIATIONS IN JAMES JOYCE'S ULYSSES AND THEIR TRANSLATABILITY
Keywords: language deviation, nonce word, word-formation model, translator's decision, semantic shift.
Abstract: The paper focuses on antinorm as one of the main literary devices in James Joyce's Ulysses. Various levels of deviations and possibilities of their translation into Russian and German are researched using various techniques from word-formation to comparative linguo-stylistic analyses of the original novel and its foreign versions. Some regularity in the choice of a translation method is outlined and the certain dependence of this choice on structural similarity/distance of source and target languages as well as the type of deviation applied is revealed.
Ключевые слова: языковая девиация, окказиональное слово, переводческое решение, семантический сдвиг.
Аннотация: Статья посвящена антинорме как одному из основных авторских приемов, применяемых Дж. Джойсом в романе «Улисс». Проанализированы разноуровневые девиации и возможности их межъязыкового перевода на русский и немецкий языки с помощью различных методов лингвистического анализа. Выявлена зависимость выбора переводческого приема от структурной близости/дальности языка оригинала и языков перевода, а также от специфики использованных девиаций.
Any text is known to contain a sort of contradiction: it is the reproduction product of the former as well as novel language state. According to Leonid Murzin, the text is a field of language norm reproduction and creation of antinorm, the latter making the text unique and being the driving force of text-processes [8, p. 9]. Indeed any brilliant author embarks with each new work on a radically different experiment in literary language through starting an ongoing creative process that would be possibly seen as revolutionary by the next generations. The antinorm as a literary device has been of concern for a long time due to its remarkable diversity and fruitful ability to reveal the fascinating opportunities of the text.
James Joyce's desire "to fashion a language that would transcend all languages, beyond the reach of tradition" is well-known [7, p. 3]. He lived in the age when the attention of philosophers and writers was mainly drawn to the secret depths of a word's meaning. In fact, Joyce's literary legacy portrays the thinnest line between sense and nonsense, the constant search for new ways of expressing thoughts and emotions. Ulysses as a bright example of how "imagined world is d e-pendent upon the language" is a grateful object for examination of various linguistic games and strategies for their translation [10, p. 58]. Diverse language deviations appear throughout the whole massive fabric of Ulysses irradiating on all linguistic shifts. These devices are incorporated in the novel with absolute accuracy demanding immense intellect and deep text perception from both a translator and a reader. So it is not surprising, that Joyce's text has fostered ever-renewed critical developments each time showing Ulysses in a different light.
Linguistic deviations characterizing Joyce's book include puns, portmanteau words, syntactic deformation, insistent onomatopoetic and rhythmic patterns, various forms of reduplication, and repeated verbal motifs. In accordance with conventional approach deviations from lexical (unas-similated foreign words inset, unexplained abbreviations and acronyms, odd word collocations, nonce words), grammatical (spelling errors, grammar mistakes), syntactic (concentration of elliptical constructions, misused punctuation marks or even their absence, sentence border shifts, wrong word order), graphic (special write's marks, various graphic insets) norms were revealed. However, "Joyce's experiments with the musicalization of language" spur us to evolve a broader concept describing Joyce's technique with combination of musical terms and simple rhetoric tropes [9, p. 82]. Thus, a list of suppressions and additions was outlined. The mostly frequent suppressions include:
Apheresis (loss of a syllable or letter at the beginning of a word): Idolores, a queen Dolores, ternoon.
Apocope (loss of a syllable or letter at the end of a word): language of flow (flowers), ljv (liver) as said before, how will you pun (punish), best value in Dub (Dublin).
Ellipsis (omission of a portion of the events sequence, allowing the reader to fill in the gaps made): That is to say she.
Telescoping of words (blending, word formation from parts of two or more other words): Siapold (Simon + Leopold), mooncarole (moon + barcarole), Yessex (yes + Essex), enclap (encore + clap).
Particularly striking process of dislocation and fragmentation of the text, on the other hand, is accompanied by different additions which are even more various and numerous. Some of them are presented below.
Anadiplosis (repetition of words in echo): Heartbeats her breath: breath that is life.
Prosthesis (addition of sound or syllable to a word either at the beginning or at the end): a) rever, vobiscuits b) endlessnessnessness, cleverever. The highest amplitude of such sound effects and rhythms can be described as echolalia (the automatic repetition of vocalizations): imperthnthn thnthnthn.
Epenthesis (intercalation of a consonant in a word): I care not foror the morrow.
Diaeresis (the separate pronunciation of the two vowels in a diphthong for the sake of meter): waaaaaaalk. This devise is especially frequently used as being so close to musical scale it helps Joyce to turn the language into the capturing sound of insistent song - magic and unforgettable.
Tmesis (separation of a phrase into two parts, with other words interrupting between them): Miss voice of Kennedy answered; a flush struggling in his pale, told Mr Bloom, face of the night.
Gemination ("twinning" of words): Big Benaben..., Big Benben. Big Benben.
Augmentation (proportional lengthening of the value of individual phrases, in Joyce's text imposed by desire to produce an echo effect): Luring. Ah, alluring. Inexquisite contrast, contrast inexquisite non exquisite.
Anaphoric extension (addition of two or more words at the beginning): The boots to them, them in the bar, them barmaids came.
Interpolation (entry or passage in a text adding no change to the structure or sense): he (who?) gazed in the coffin (coffin?).
The broader syntactical devices covering larger rhythmical units also included: chiasmus (like lady, ladylike), apposition (Bloom, I feel so lonely Bloom), asyndeton (I see. He see. He drank), coluthon (that doll he was: she doll: the tank), etc.
As seen from the examples given author's language games and nonce words are great in number and various in formation patterns, highly complicating the work of translators. Since other languages are witnessed to be not as conveniently loose as English, "the translators' languages allow them far less flexibility and force them to sort out, or impose, grammatical relationships" [11, p. 34]. Indeed, there is only one original, but the number of possible translations is enormous. Joyce himself said that only the original Ulysses was authentic, but then he also helped and encouraged translations. However hard, comparing translations in different languages and Ulysses itself may be quite rewarding in telling us something about the nature of translation and about its limitations as well as broaden the sense of original Ulysses after the novel is looked at from several languages' perspective.
When choosing the target language for our analysis the following criteria were used: affinity of the languages and chronology (German version of Hans Goyert is considered to be the first translation into other language made in 1927 when Joyce was alive, Russian translation of Sergei Makhov is among the latest ever made dating back to 2007). Hereafter examples are given and analyzed in the following order: Goyert version, Wallschlager version, Shamir version, Khinkis and Khoruzhyi version, Makhov version.
The criterion for the example given below was diversity, i.e. exemplification of the main types of language deviations and strategies of their translation. The part was taken from Sirens - undoubtedly one of the crucial and most difficult episodes of the novel. Here music and writing join together in a kind of a swirl leading to deformations and numerous language deviations. In this
прослемы современного осппзоопння
respect, it was tempting to analyze the "knot" of James Joyce language conundrum and show the striking example of a complicated language games incorporated in a short piece of text.
Death. Explos. Knock on the head. Outtohelloutofthat. Human life. Dignam. Ugh, that rat's tail wriggling! Five bob I gave. Corpus paradisum. Corncrake croaker: belly like a poisoned pup. Gone. They sing. Forgotten. I too. And one day she with. Leave her: get tired. Suffer then. Snivel. Big Spanishy eyes goggling at nothing. Her wavyavyeavyheavyeaveyvyevyhair un comb.'d [3, p. 265].
Tod. Explos. Schlag auf den Kopf. Reinindie Hölle rausausdem. Menschenleben. Dignam. Die Ratte mit dem Ringelschwanz. Hab fünf Schilling gegeben. Corpus paradisum. Wiesenknarre. Krächzer: Bauch wie eine vergiftete Hündin. Vorbei. Sie singen. Vergessen. Ich auch. Und eines Tages sie mit. Verlässt sie: hat genug. Leidet dann. Flennt. Grosse spanische Augen blicken gierig nach nichts. Ihr wiwawuwawallendesschwischwascheres Haar un gekämmt:t [5, S. 312].
Tod. Explos. Schlag auf den Kopf. Runterzurhölleundrauausdem. Menschenleben. Dignam. Uff, der Schwanz von dieser Ratte, wie er sich ringele. Fünf Schilling hab ich gegeben. Corpus paradisum. Krächzender Unglücksrabe: Bauch wie ein vergifteter Köter. Aus und vorbei. Aber die singen. Vergessen. Ich auch. Und eines Tages auch sie mit von der. Sie verlassen: satt kriegen. Tiefe Trauer dann. Heulerei. Große spanische Augen, ins Leere glotzend. Ihr welligwalligwilligwelwelwelling Haar ent k: 'mmt [6, S. 375].
Смерть. Взрыв. Бах по башке. Ковсемэточертям. Судьба человеческая. Дигнам. Их-х, крутится крысиный хвост! Пять шиллингов я дал. Corpus Paradisum. Коростель кричит: брюхо как у отравленного пса. Сгинул. Они поют. Забыт. Я тоже. В один прекрасный день она с. Оставь ее: надоело. Тогда помучится. Заверещит. Большие испанистые глаза затаращатся в никуда. Ее вьювьювьюдлиньвьющиеся волосы не собраны в убо: ре [2, p. 599].
Смерть. Крах. Обухом по башке. Ковсемчертямчтобтвоегодуху. Жизнь человека. Дигнам. Бр-р, как та крыса шевелила хвостом! Пять шиллингов я пожертвовал. Corpus paradisum. Карканье клирика, его брюхо, как у дохлого пса. Сгинул. Отпели. Забыт. Так вот и я. И в один прекрасный день она с. Оставишь ее - сыт по горло. Сперва пострадает. Похныкает. Большие глаза испанистые уставлены в пустоту. Волнистыистыистыгустыу-стыустыустые волосы не прич-причесан-ны [4, p. 268].
Смерть. Взры. Обухом по башке. Валиковсемчертямсобачьим. Жизнь человека. Дигнам. Бр-р, как у крысы той хвост вилял! Пять шиллингов я вручил. Corpus paradisum. Квакающий пастырь; пузо точно у отравленного щенка. Помер. Отпели. Забыт. Я тоже. А в один прекрасный день она с. Оставляешь ее: сыт по горло. После страдает. Хнычет. Большие глаза испанки уставлены в пустоту. Волнистыистыистыигустыустыустые волосы рас трепан; ны [1, p. 267].
Herein Joyce applies the following: apocope (explos), nonce words (Outtohelloutofthat, spanishy, wavyavyeavyheavyeaveyvyevyhair, un comb.'d), ellipsis ("cut" sentences having no subject or predicate), inversion (five bob I gave), orthographically unassimilated foreign words (Corpus paradisum), shifting of sentences border (And one day she with), etc. Reading language games is already translation, but let us analyze some approaches offered by various German and Russian translators trying to cope with language deviations produced by Joyce.
All five translators tried to find the strategy that makes it possible to preserve a discontinuous "sobbing" melody of Leopold Bloom, often keeping punctuation deviations, inversion and elliptical constructions untouched. Yet, in some cases certain differences in translation decisions are vivid. This, for instance, occurs while rendering Joyce's apocope. In order to keep the rhythm and fill the phrase with incompleteness Joyce cuts the end of the word explos. Both German translators quote the original author. Shamir, Khinkis and Horuzhyi suggest monosyllabic analogues (взрыв, крах). However the trouble is that though the rhythm of the paragraph is maintained, the lack of the phrase finality is observed. Makhov also proposes a monosyllabic unit (взры), the latter being deprived of the final letter. Such a decision helps him to incarnate Joyce's idea to the full.
Since one of the widest and most diverse levels of language deviations is that of the lexis various nonce words are giving the most striking and challenging examples of Ulysses translata-bility/nontranslatability. Lexical unit outtohelloutofthat is a blending of four prepositions, a noun and a pronoun, i.e. the fusion of the whole sentence. It is only Goyert who decomposes the syntagmatically complete unity into three words (Reinindie Hölle rausausdem), the second word being a usual unit. The other five translators render the original unit as a single composite. Makhov, on the other hand, applies imperative verb instead of a noun (валиковсемчертямсо-бачьим), while Shamir (ковсемэточертям), Khinkis and Horuzhyi (ковсемчертямчтобтвое-годуху), Wallschläger (Runterzurhölleundrauausdem) closely adhere to the word formation model suggested by Joyce, intending to transpose effect produced by the original in their native languages.
Even the process of analyzing a simple newly formed word spanishy created by adding two suffixes -ish и -y may be of a certain interest. The first of two suffixes is typically used in English to build nouns and adjectives. On the contrary, two-suffix subtype is represented by a limited number of models and is unacceptable in the case revealed. -y is an adjective-forming suffix meaning "characterized by or inclined to" the substance or action of the word or stem to which the suffix is attached. Thus, the newly created unit contains double emphasis on the national quality possessed by the noun described. The three translators including Goyert (spanische Augen), Wallschläger (spanische Augen) and Makhov (глаза испанки), do not preserve a "mistake" intentionally made by Joyce when building up an adjective. Shamir, Khinkis and Khoruzhyi with their decision испанистые are trying to remedy some deficiencies through adding one suffix -ист used in Russian in the formation of adjectives to denote the quality of "being similar to something", "having something in large quantities", "having tendency to any action". Yet, their unit lacks two -suffix construction, thus it cannot fully render the intralingual game suggested by Joyce.
It is also Joyce's characteristic to play a type of a language game based on different language deviations at the same time. This sort of device creates an impression of music and calls the reader attention to accumulation of sound and sense. The center of the abstract analyzed is truly in that of the nonce word combination wavyavyeavyheavyeaveyvyevyhair un comb.'d. The first unit can be considered as an example of echolalia - a literary device inspired by Joyce's desire to produce an echo effect allowing the reader to sing the end of the phrase. All elements in the sentence function as a leitmotiv attempting to imitate the real music. Herein it is possible to reveal three semantic elements (wavy, heavy, hair) interconnected and interreflected trough augmentation and alliteration.
Translation is always a creative transposition neglecting stereotypes in thinking. When it comes to sound there is always a potential fleeting translation problem. The translators frequently have to decide on displaying either the sense or the sound of an original unit. So very often music is switched off in favour of the correct meaning. All translators suggest cutting a long nonce word into two by separating the part "hair" at a cost of disturbing general image and sound percepti on. Indeed, two words instead of one make the difference. Khinkis, Khoruzhyi (волнистыистыи-стыгустыустыустыустые волосы), Makhov (волнистыистыистыигустыустыустые волосы) render an echo effect through combination of -ист and -уст. This looks like a good strategy to approach the original rhythm. However Joyce reaches the chanting impression owing to predominantly abounding vowels, but not consonants as in two Russian texts. Shamir manages fairly well with vowels (вьювьювьюдлиньвьющиеся волосы), but his translation fails to visualize the interreflection word semantic elements so skillfully punned in Joyce's text. In all translations no sense shifts are observed.
While rendering the text where music and language fight against each other striving for total mastery, the German translator Wallschläger focuses on "sound" rather than "sense". His welligwalligwilligwelwelwelling Haar is phonetically quite a successful decision (the combination of wellig (wavy) и willig (ready)). At the same time his choice of willig may seem rather odd in terms
прослемы современного осрпзоопнип
of its meaning. Joyce uses heavy to describe long hair of a girl and willig is more about the character. Goyert's version tends to be the obscurest among all (wiwawuwawallendesschwischwascheres Haar). His novel unit is comprised of more elements than those yielded by Joyce (wallenden - rolling in waves, schwierig - heavy, waschen - wash). His "drawling echo play" is mainly mustered through alteration of vowels combinations.
Rendering enforces decisions, not alone lexical ones. The graphic constituent may also be involved and influence the perception of the text. Indeed, a unit un comb.'d is a bright example of interactive derivation (accompanied by a visual separation of formant). The word is built by cutting a negative prefix un- and simultaneously inserting two author's symbols in the middle. Naturally translation of such a case implies minimum transformation. Yet the transposition of it into Russian and German varies considerably. Past participle un comb.'d is turned by both German translators into prefix separated word un gekammt:t (Goyert) and ent k: 'mmt (Wallschlager) with only one difference - leaving colon untouched Goyert deprives the word of an apostrophe.
Shamir replaces past participle with the verb having negative particle не- (не собраны в убо: ре). Joyce's game, in contrast, is primarily based on the abnormal decomposition of prefix in the word. According to Russian grammar negative particle -не when used with a verb always stands alone. That is how the translation has already performed the work that the reader of the original Ulysses has yet to do. The language has been changed into one considered more normal to our practice in a place where Joyce tries to challenge English linguistic norm. Like Goyert Shamir uses only a colon, thus reducing the number or author's symbols. Yet, Shamir tries to compensate for the loss through calling a whole stream of musical associations. It is not by chance he ends his unusual word with -ре (equivalent to D) trying to approach "musicalization" of language in his own way. Such a decision leaves a room for doubt as even the most erudite reader will not understand this hint at once. The example analyzed looks like another proof that not only Joyce's Ulysses, but its numerous translations as well provide a happy hunting ground for inquisitive mind. Reading language game and revealing language deviations can be in some way rendered as translation. Keeping this in mind Ulysses translation is a translation of translation, so interconnective losses are often inevitable.
It appears that in pursuit of imitating Joyce Khinkis and Horuzhyi make an attempt to keep closely to the desegmentation model proposed in the original novel. In their version one can find a verb не прич-причесан-ны. Russian grammar norms concerning the separate writing of negative particle with the verb are observed, herein the interactive derivation is preserved through division of the unit in three parts. Yet other Joyce's symbols are lost. Makhov's analogue of the piece includes рас трепан; ны which is a triple-portioned word with inseparable prefix рас- instead of negative не-. In doing so, the quality and quantity of other graphic symbols are not displayed at all. This pertinent, though not uniquely felicitous solution deprives the translations analyzed of being semantically and pragmatically alike to Joyce's masterpiece.
The analysis of Ulysses German and Russian translations brings to a conclusion that even the most skillful translation is subjective. Each target language imposes restrictions of vocabulary, aspects, usage and language norm. The comparative analysis of original deviations and their Russian and German equivalents made it possible to find some regularity in the choice of translation method and to discover the dependence of this choice on the translator's language and complexity of devices used by James Joyce. In some way German being closer to English is a more appropriate "tool". Frequently Russian language does not come forward with suitably matching solutions especially when it entails deviations based on phonetic aspect. But the translations into German in some cases presumably give us a more normal text than proposed by Joyce as they occasionally hit the norm and miss the deviations. All this was especially true in the process of rendering two and three words merged into one - a device typical for Joyce in Ulysses. There were cases when translators avoided syntactical, grammatical and lexical turbulences depriving translations of unsurpassable language experiments in both languages.
However it would be unfair not to stress a titanic work of translators whose great talent, scrupulosity and inventiveness are hard to overestimate. Many differences notwithstanding, one can find thousands of places where decisions taken by them are elaborate and lofty and there is a vivid attempt to make losses as fewer as possible.
In this respect, it is tempting to continue the further investigations, keeping in mind what Joyce himself once said: I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that Ulysses will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.
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