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43Translation as a subject of theoretical text analysis
by Elena B. Borisova, Anna V. Blokhina and Valentina V. Kucheryavenko
Elena B. Borisova Samara State University of Social Sciences and Education [email protected] Anna V. Blokhina Samara State Technical University [email protected]
Valentina V. Kucheryavenko Griboedov Institute of International Law and Economics [email protected] Published in Training, Language and Culture Vol 2 Issue 3 (2018) pp. 55-70 doi: 10.29366/2018tlc.2.3.4 Recommended citation format: Borisova, E. B., Blokhina, A. V., & Kucheryavenko, V. V. (2018). Translation as a subject of theoretical text analysis. Training, Language and Culture, 2(3), 55-70. doi: 10.29366/2018tlc.2.3.4
The paper reviews research in translation as a special subject in linguistics and philology. The first part of the paper deals with the well-elaborated principles of the linguistic and literary criticism approach to translation, which has been applied to a wide range of studies worldwide. The authors offer a thorough investigation comparing different ways of rendering original texts into another language. In the second part of the paper, the concept of philological translation is explained to highlight the associated stages, methods, approaches, principles and categories. The concept of a philological approach to translation (the synthetic method) is contrasted with an analytical approach which violates the requirement of the unity of form and content of the translated text. The conclusion summarises arguments supporting the application of the philological approach to translation.
KEYWORDS: translation theory, translation studies, philological translation, translation equivalent, linguistic theory of translation, functional similarity, corpus-based translation study
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0)
1. INTRODUCTION
The interest of philologists in the issues of translation is in many ways determined by the ongoing development of international contacts in all fields of human activity, as well as by a growing urge for the exchange of spiritual values. In today's world, peoples seek mutual understanding through communication. While fiction literature is undoubtedly one of the best means of human communication, the role of the translator gains ever more prominence. Despite extensive coverage of translation theory, the complex issue of literary translation is still relevant. On the one hand, the majority of translators, drawing on their
practical translation experience, are convinced that so-called literary translation is possible. Indeed, all languages boast translations of foreign works that have entered the archive of world literature and are a basis for communication among nations. For those who do not speak foreign languages, such translations are the only way they can be exposed to the works of foreign literature. On the other hand, philologists, as well as writers and poets at various times and in different countries, cast doubt on the very possibility of creating a work in another language that would match the original not only in terms of content, but also in terms of form. Martin Luther
© Elena B. Borisova, Anna V. Blokhina, Valentina V. Kucheryavenko 2018
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saw an apparition of the devil when rendering the Bible into the German language and threw an inkpot at him, so that to this day, in the German fortress of Wurzburg, one can see a brown ink stain on the wall (Bainton, 2013). In this case, the 'devil' is the embodiment of the devilish difficulty Luther the translator had to face.
In modern philology, the negation of the possibility of translating from one language into another is based, inter alia, on the concepts of the American linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf who believed that as the individuals taking part in the cross-cultural communication have different ideas of the world determined by the structural discrepancy of their language systems, discussions of certain topics prompt situations of misunderstanding (O'Neill, 2015). Quite predictably, this area of philology sees a contradiction between theory and practice, as it is obvious that the practical work, i.e. thousands of translations into various world languages, far outpaces the development of the respective theory.
2. MATERIAL AND METHODS
The paper relies on the diachronic analysis of related research shedding light on the evolution of translation theory in the 19th and 20th centuries to investigate the principles of the linguistic and literary approaches to translation and explain the concept of philological translation further opposed to analytical translation through comparison.
3. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 3.1 General notions and achievements of translation theory
The translation of fiction literature holds a special place in the hierarchy of translations. This is because a fiction text has certain specific features that differentiate it from other kinds of literary activity. Apart from an unusual semantic pithiness, national and historic traits and the writer's individual creative style, its unique creative identity manifests itself not only in the individual approach to the depiction of the world through imagery, but also in the choice and combination of the means of creating those images. As noted by Naitnik's (2006), It is through the creative use of language that the writer reveals the subjective-objective attitude to the events described, characterises phenomena and objects and reveals his or her perception of the world. Therefore, the translation of such a complex structure as a literary text inevitably causes many difficulties' (Naitnik, 2006, p. 3).
The term 'translation' is hereby perceived to have three meanings: 1) the comparison of two or several languages with the purpose of finding semantic correspondences between their units, usually for the dual-language lexicography, for the comparison of semantic studies, etc.; 2) conveying the information by means of another language; 3) finding in another language such means of expression that would provide not only the
by Elena B. Borisova, Anna V. Blokhina and Valentina V. Kucheryavenko
'A practical interest in translation caused by the development of translated literature has evolved into a theoretic interest '
rendering of information contained in this speech product, but also the fullest correspondence of the new text with the initial one in terms of form (external and internal), which is necessary in the case of a literary text, as well as when rendering into another language the notions that do not have a fixed expression in it.
Definitions 2 and 3 are directly relevant to this research.
It is understandable that in dealing with verbal-artistic creative activity, one cannot limit oneself only to conveying information (meaning 2), as is the case with the translation of scientific and technical literature. Having said that, what is defined under item 3 proves almost unfeasible. The cross-language transformations necessitate semantic losses which prevent the translated text from being the absolute equivalent of the original. Apart from that, the rendering of the stylistic and artistic idiosyncrasies of the original poses insurmountable difficulties. The 'equivalents' of the original resulting from the literary translation of the original cannot be considered translations in
the true sense (especially as applied to the poetic translation). They constitute certain variations of the main theme, with varying degrees of success, performed by translators who are in an adversarial relationship with the author of the original.
At the same time, in the last decades a new philological subject - translation theory, or translation studies, - has taken shape. A practical interest in translation caused by the development of translated literature has evolved into a theoretic interest (see, for example, Alekseeva, 2004; Komissarov, 1999; Retsker, 2004; Robinson, 2012; Fawcett, 2014; Fedorov, 1983; Schweitzer, 1988; Munday, 2013).
Translation scholars have made a number of valuable observations and generalisations and have formed the categories of this academic field. For example, an attempt has been made to define the notion of translation adequacy, which Fedorov (1983) calls 'the full value', by which he means 'the exhaustive conveying of the semantic content of the original and the full-fledged functional and stylistic correspondence with it' (Fedorov, 1983, p. 27). Fedorov has also formulated the principle of the original text's translatability. Specifying the principle of translatability, he departs from the fact that 'every highly developed language is a means mighty enough to be able to convey the content expressed in another language, in its unity with the form' (Fedorov, 1983, p. 122-123).
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The recognition of the strong connection between translation studies and comparative linguistics is another issue which is of an indisputable importance for the development of translation theory (see, for example, Alekseeva, 2004; Barkhudarov, 1975; Vinogradov, 1978; Gak & Roisenblit, 1965; Granger, 2003).
The most important achievement of translation theory has been the development of the concept of functional similarity. It stemmed from the ambition to prove the possibility in principle of text translation from one language into another. According to the concept, which is based on understanding language as a function and not a form, the information and stylistic function of certain linguistic elements of the original is studied and the language means are established that can perform the same function in the translation.
This theory was first developed in the works of the Czech linguists Mathesius (2013), Levy (2011) and others. Levy (2011) attaches the following meaning to the notion of functional similarity: We are not going to insist on the identity of what the reader of translation receives with what the reader of the original does, but instead we shall insist that the translation and the original performed the same function in the system of cultural and historic ties of the reader of the original and that of the translation, we will depart from the necessity to subordinate the parts to the
'The recognition of the strong connection between translation studies and comparative linguistics is another issue which is of an indisputable importance for the development of translation theory'
whole in accordance with the demands of functional similarity' (Levy, 2011, p. 397).
3.2 Literary translation studies
At present, translation theory differentiates two trends - literary and linguistic. The literary trend emerged through works by Chukovsky (1964), Gachechiladze (1951), Kashkin (1955) and other scholars who promoted the literary approach to translation thus restricting its linguistic aspect. Until the 1950s, Russian translation theory developed along these literary lines. The proponents of this approach suggested focusing attention on conveying the 'images' of the original, considering translation a creative process and placing great importance on the personality of the translator.
The foreign school of literary translation studies is represented by scholars such as Bassnett (2002), Hermans (2014), Toury (2012) and Venuti (2017), whose studies are confined to the study of separate literary texts and their translations. They see
by Elena B. Borisova, Anna V. Blokhina and Valentina V. Kucheryavenko
translated literature as an important cultural element of the language of translation striving to take its rightful place among other texts written in that language.
The approach of the representatives of literary translation theory is characterised by a tendency towards empiric study and description. Being a part of comparative literary studies, this area of research exploits all its methods and techniques with the only difference that the research material in this case is the translated texts.
Lately, the literary school has made considerable progress. Not only has it absorbed all the achievements in this academic field but has also expanded the perception of translation. In the past decade translation has come to be understood not only as a means of interaction between literatures and cultures of various epochs and nations but also as an opportunity to gain an insight into the original. So, for instance, it was established that different translations of the same work make a considerable contribution to the understanding of both the entire work and its parts, up to the lexical level units (Rose, 1997).
3.3 Linguistic translation studies
The emergence of the linguistic branch of translation theory is connected with the works of the Czech structuralists and primarily with Vilem Mathesius, who formulated the concept of
functional similarity as early as in 1913. The concept was to play an important role in forming the linguistic school of translation developed later in the works of Jin Levy and Roman Jakobson. According to Mathesius (1967), translation is only possible via meticulous information, stylistic and aesthetic analysis of the functions of all the language elements comprising the original text. The translator has to identify which expressive means of the translated text perform the same functions as the elements of the original text (Mathesius, 1967, p. 239-245).
Linguistics has garnered extensive experience in contrastive-comparative language analysis, which helped draw a number of general conclusions that played an important role in the development of translation thought. In the mid 20th century the linguistic approach came to secure a leading position in translation theory. This period saw the emergence of fundamental academic schools pursuing this approach. The English-language school is represented by the English scholars Catford (1978), Newmark (1988) and Snell-Hornby (1995) and American scholars, the most influential of whom are Nida (Nida & Taber, 2003) and Jakobson (1960). Among the German researchers one can distinguish the works by Dressler (1972), Nord (1992), Reiss (2000), and others. As far as the French-language school is concerned, one should mention the studies by Canadian researchers Vinay and Darbelnet (1958)
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and French linguist Mounin (1963).
In Russia, the founder of the linguistic branch of translation theory was Andrei Fedorov (1983). The linguistic branch developed mainly in the framework of general translation theory, mostly on the basis of non-fiction works. The overarching feature of the works in this field was the tendency to organically bind modern theoretical linguistics and general translation theory (Alekseeva, 2004). The establishment of types of translation equivalence was a tangible contribution of the proponents of the linguistic concept to the theory. The notion of equivalence was based on the above-mentioned criterion of the functional correspondence between the original and the translation (Komissarov, 1999). Researchers also attempted to 'construct' translation models. The linguistic theory largely contributed to the creation of the theory of machine translation. Since the 1950s linguistics has started to extensively exploit the precise methods of language fact analysis. The theory built around machine translation played a prominent role in the studies of the functional style of the scientific and technical literature and the issues of translation (Arnold, 1994; Schwanke, 1991).
3.4 Corpus-based translation studies
At present, corpus-based studies of translations are actively developing as a field of the linguistic theory of translation. The representatives of this
field focus their attention on studying a great number of translated texts in their relation to the broad cultural, political and social context and the language of everyday use, which constitutes a considerable step forward in the development of translation theory. Scholars dealing with corpus-based translation studies include Baker (2011), Kennedy (2014), Kenny (2014), Laviosa (1998), Olohan (Olohan & Baker, 2000), and others.
Corpus-based translation has not yet spread wide enough in Russia, the likeliest reason for which is inadequate technical equipment. Nevertheless, research in the field of corpus-based linguistics is being successfully conducted by Gvishiani (2004). The corpus-based approach to translation studies has an immense potential. It involves studying a vast body of texts (including parallel texts) which can provide researchers with the necessary information for establishing and studying various stages of the translation process, identifying the principal translation unit, and determining the authentic nature of translations and their role in forming the literary tradition of a certain people. Apart from that, studies of bulky texts, including fiction, help identify the characteristic features of these particular translations and make an indisputable contribution to the development of translation 'universals'. Thus, in particular, the fundamental analysis of the parallel corpus of German fiction texts, along with their translation into English, was conducted Kenny (2014), who
by Elena B. Borisova, Anna V. Blokhina and Valentina V. Kucheryavenko
'Apart from that, studies of bulky texts, including fiction, help identify the characteristic features of these particular translations and make an indisputable contribution to the development of translation 'universals'
considers translations from the perspective of the lexical aspects of the author's language creative work.
3.5 The blended approach
The linguistic approach was a definitive advance in the development of translation theory. However, the literary and linguistic trends, taken separately, cannot give a full picture of the essence of literary translation. The real possibility to blend the two lines in the approach to translation is borne out by an ever-increasing number of emerging works successfully combining the linguistic and literary approaches (Vinogradov, 1978; Levy et al., 2012; Naitnik, 2006).
Apart from that, translation should be considered as a form of cross-cultural communication, given the past decades of work in the field of cultural linguistics, as the interdisciplinary approach to the most complex issues of literary translation theory and practice allows us to look at the experience
garnered from a new perspective and proceed to such equivalent versions of translation that are the most appropriate in terms of preserving the form and content. We share Shaitanov's (2009) opinion that /translation requires the shift of accents: from the text in its correspondence to the original - to the cultural context, from the language of the original - to the target language, i.e. to the language and cultural situation in which the translation is performed' (Shaitanov, 2009, p. 19).
Yet despite the important theoretical concepts which have undoubtedly raised translation to a new academic level, little has changed in practice. In many cases these concepts remain theoretical. Their application in practice, if any, is more or less intuitive, rather than conscious. As we know, a theory in any scholarly field is inseparably connected with practice and a gap between theory and practice can have an adverse effect on the development of translation theory.
4. STUDY AND RESULTS
4.1 Current status of translation and translators
At present, many private publishing companies in Russia are being set up, while the already released foreign translations of fiction literature are being republished. However, the management of many publishing companies, in their pursuit of cost-effectiveness, chooses to commission a new translation of the book in question instead of repurchasing the rights for the publication of a
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certain translation. In this case, translation ceases to be a prerogative of extraordinarily talented and well-known literary artists and becomes a mass market service. As a result, new translations of classical literature emerge which are qualitatively different from the previous ones.
Undoubtedly, this is not the only reason for the release of new translations, including those of works published previously. Often, the translators who find a creative potential in themselves go on to translate already translated literary texts, striving to create their new version of improved quality. The ambition to make the translated text similar to the original has inspired many a generation of translators.
However, literary translation has not yet achieved the level of philological development which would allow the full recreation of aesthetic (linguistic-poetic) properties of the original. In most cases, it is based on translator's 'inspiration', on his/her intuition, talent, philological erudition, etc. In fact, the translator identifies the main content or idea of the 'source text' and passionately creates a text in the 'target language' in the course of individual independent creative activity without conducting a thorough philological dictionary research, thus making the translation diverge from the original by overlooking the linguistic-poetic idiosyncrasies of the original text.
While in scientific literature the translator is perceived as a slave, in fiction literature (regardless of whether it is prose or poetry) he or she acts as a rival, meaning that the translator is expected to reach the level of the original in his or her mastery of literary speech. So, the ideal translation is the fullest possible re-expression of the content of the original in the target language which complies with all the norms of the latter and performs the same function in the foreign linguistic and cultural environment. Therefore, we have every reason to view the translator as the author's co-thinker and friend, and not at all a slave or a rival.
Unfortunately, in practice, translated literary texts are considerably inferior to the original ones in terms of their artistic merits. They suffer from both 'awkward' word combinations and excessively complex syntax (as concerns translations into Russian). As a result, translated texts sound artificial, unnatural, 'not Russian enough'. Often, the language of translations is paler, drier, obscurer than the language of original texts; as a result, the imagery in parallel texts fails to be equally pithy. Translators confine themselves to household words, thereby impoverishing the translated text. This was pointed out by Chukovsky (1964): 'Translators often suffer from brain blood deficiency which makes their text so sapless. Their supply of synonyms is extremely sparse. Their horse is always just a horse. Why not a stallion, a dapple bay, or a racer?' (Chukovsky, 1964, p. 123).
by Elena B. Borisova, Anna V. Blokhina and Valentina V. Kucheryavenko
Having said that, it does not mean that this type of human activity should cease to exist in the never-ending anticipation of new scholarly discoveries. Sure, here will always be a difference between academic research and practical activity. However, there is a long-felt need to close the gaps between the results of academic studies in literary translation theory and the translation activity itself. Scientific study has an immense importance for understanding the essence of this process.
Prominent research in this field includes studies by Svetovidova (2000), part of which is devoted to the issue of metaphor translation, and Naitnik (2006), in which the author conducts analysis of the creative possibilities of the translator when working on the recreation of idiosyncrasies of the author's language creativity at multiple language levels. The material for the latter research is the English language literature of the 19-20th centuries. Naitnik (2006) views language creativity as 'a conscious deviation from the commonly used language norms for artistic purposes' (Naitnik, 2006, p. 16) and sets out to identify the extent of the creative use of language by translators and the restrictions imposed on their activity. In her study, the author also made an attempt to answer a number of questions relevant to literary translation theory and practice, such as:
• Does translation involve neutralisation of the elements of the author's style?
• Which factors determine the choice of a
certain translation equivalent?
• Which translation techniques are most commonly used by translators in rendering elements of the author's style?
• How has the attitude to translation of the original's stylistic idiosyncrasies changed over the century? (Naitnik, 2006, p. 15-16).
4.2 Translation as inspiration vs translation as a result of scientific analysis
We believe that a distinction should be drawn between 'translation as inspiration', when the translator transposes the original text with the means of another language based on own knowledge, talent and intuition, and the translation which would be based on a meticulous, in-depth philological text analysis, that is 'translation as a result of scientific analysis'. The novelty of the present research is in getting an insight into the essence of translation by comparing parallel texts in two languages. The linguistic-poetic method of study applied in the comparative analysis is instrumental in interpreting the original text which is needed to understand the author's individual concept of the original and the recreation of equally pithy imagery in the target language.
The method of 'philological translation' can be viewed as the first step on the way to turn translation into an academic field. As studies have
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shown, on a certain stage of the development of philological knowledge, the occurrence of new translations of classical literature cannot be a result of individual inspiration or taste. Every new translation of the classics should by all means take into consideration the previous translations. By means of thorough comparison of the original with the existing transpositions, based on philological generalisations, by critically processing and analysing the experience of the predecessors, one can move on to the creatively most appropriate options of rendering in another language of not only the ideas contained in the original but also of its verbal-artistic fabric. Translations of classical works aggregated over the centuries (e.g. translations of Shakespeare) and inevitably emerging translations of modern authors constitute material which philological study may create certain scholarly and philological 'calques' for new, improved transpositions. The use of translations created before is suggested as a scientific method and is referred to as 'philological translation' which is based on a thorough analysis of weaknesses and strengths of the original text and all of its existing translations. In developing this method, the main goal is to create a theoretic base which would allow scholars to make translation an actual part of philological theory, so that we would not be speaking about translation as just a product of creative inspiration.
The shift was then made from the ontological
(analytical approach based on a priori premises) level of study to the gnoseological level, i.e. an attempt was made to single out the overarching concepts underpinning this academic field. Gnoseology is a defined as the philosophy of knowledge. In our case, this includes the notions of knowledge of 'word', 'image' and 'text'.
While in no way diminishing the importance of other language aspects, we can confidently state that the main power of verbal and artistic impact is contained in the words used. The understanding of a literary work depends primarily on the understanding of words. In fiction literature, the word tends to expand its semantic possibilities. In every use, it may simultaneously possess all its semantic potencies in an explicit or implicit form. When translators embark on transposing the literary text, , apart from other difficulties they inevitably face the need to convey in another language the entire scope of the word. More often than not, translations impoverish the original, when only one of the meanings is conveyed, and the choice is determined by the context principle.
As was shown in the previous sections, imagery is an integral property of any work of art, including the verbal-artistic one. It is clear that understanding fiction literature is impossible without creating a corresponding image equivalent in the mind of the reader. The problem of 'imagery' in a literary text is resolved on the basis
by Elena B. Borisova, Anna V. Blokhina and Valentina V. Kucheryavenko
of the 'verbal' (cognitive) and 'nonverbal' (metaphoric) aspects, which were initially studied from the point of view of artistic comparison.
This contradiction gains particular importance when we deal with comparative studies. The translator should differentiate the 'image'-containing parts of the text from those dominated by 'verbal/word' expression. In the first case, the translator is required not just to passively perceive the text of the original but to be able to 'grow into' the images and recreate them with the means of the language-object. In the second case, their task may be confined to the simple contrasting of words.
To render into another language the dialectic correlation between form and content of a literary work, one needs to learn to find corresponding 'texts' in the archive of world literature, as 'translation is not just the interaction of two language systems, but the interaction of two cultures, sometimes even civilizations' (Schweitzer, 1988, p. 14). The translator needs to absorb the 'language atmosphere' of the epoch and find the equivalent to the 'source text' in the literature of the target language. This gains particular importance, for example, in the translation of parodies. There is no point in trying to find formal correspondences to the units of the original in the language of translation. The only right way to
' When translators embark on transposing the literary text, , apart from other difficulties they inevitably face the need to convey in another language the entire scope of the word'
render the complex correlation of content and form is to create a new (literary) work which is a parody of a work already well-known to its readers.
Apart from developing the method of philological translation based on the contrasting of different periods of the original both in one language (including the intralinguistic translation) and in various languages, a number of particular techniques of contrastive study has evolved, the most interesting and useful being the 'backtranslation' method. With the help of the latter, the overlaps and disparities between the original text and the translated text are revealed (Ozolins, 2009).
Apart from that, the studies of the problem of rendering the elements of the so-called 'third semiological system' using another language are of relevance. The work in this field has yielded interesting results.
The problem is that the text of a literary work has
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specific elements that cannot be adequately expressed in the language of translation. Such elements are traditionally called 'untranslatable', and the issue gains a solid theoretical underpinning if addressed in the context of the clash of different semiological systems.
As concerns the rendering of a literary work with the tools of another language system, we are dealing with two semiological systems, the language of the original and the language of translation. The translator is assigned the task of transposing the text from one system into another. These systems should be contrasted and brought to a common denominator. However, the language of the original often has elements which are not part of the initial semiological system but are instead somewhat foreign, undermining its integrity. Such elements have been generally called 'the third semiological system' which clashes with the first two. It may include foreign contaminations in the original text which are discordant with the neutral vocabulary of the literary language that the original is written in, including dialecticisms, aureate diction and archaic vocabulary.
Are there any ways of rendering the elements of the 'third semiological system' in all the richness of their meanings and connotations successfully through another language? In the majority of cases, the elements of the additional semiological system of the original refer to the 'untranslatable
elements' of the verbal-artistic works. Thus, the cognitive gaps in the text and the problem of the elimination of those culturally significant gaps through the language of translation still remains very relevant (Wu, 2008).
However, studies devoted to the development of typology of translation errors and elaboration of translation strategies have so far been sparse and based on non-fiction material (Hansen, 2010; Ordurari, 2007).
The philological approach to translation has been developed on the basis of and applied to the material of poetic works. In the present research, the foundations of this method of translation studies are extended to prose and applied to imagery studies. Thus, the paper extends the notion of 'philological translation', which prompts deeper understanding of the most significant means of creating an image that can be overlooked when analysing only the initial, national form of the existence of verbal-artistic creativity, i.e. in the language of the original.
4.3 Philological vs analytical translation
A critically important methodological aspect is the fact that the concept of philological translation contrasts with the concept of analytical translation proposed by Rudnev (1994) and suggesting that traditional translation is synthetic and constitutes an interpretation of the original. According to
by Elena B. Borisova, Anna V. Blokhina and Valentina V. Kucheryavenko
'Thus, the cognitive gaps in the text and the problem of the elimination of those culturally significant gaps through the language of translation still remains very relevant'
Rudnev (1994), the interpretative nature of translation is bad, as the translator's interpretation of the original deprives readers of the opportunity to assess the work by themselves and create their own interpretation of it. In this regard, the author proposes to give the reader a word-for-word translation of, say, the English-language original in the Russian language. In this case, Russian-language readers will receive the original in its 'pure state' without any interpretations attached and will be able to interpret it themselves, as they please. The scholar calls this type of translation 'analytical translation' (Rudnev, 1994, p. 48-56). Having published his own translation of Winnie-the-Pooh, he contrasted it with another translation by a Russian poet and children's writer Boris Zakhoder, which he described as 'synthetic'. However, Rudnev (1994) has overlooked one important factor. The building material of the verbal-artistic creative work is language. Different from the sculptor's material (clay, marble) or painter's material (pencil, paints), etc., language is not a neutral, 'dead' material. Even before the creation of a literary text the language is already
pragmatically 'charged'. Unlike, say, clay, language contains the spirit of a nation and is not an interpretative system in itself. When, for instance, the English text of Winnie-the-Pooh is translated into Russian, this 'new host' material to a certain extent transforms the original despite the translator's efforts. It is impossible to transpose a text from one language into another and maintain its initial state. The system of the language of translation will inevitably make changes to it, which will lead to the distortion of the artistic content. To avoid it, the translator should at some point 'fight' against the language of literal translation and find translation transformations to achieve a result.
When the sculptor first moulds a statue from plaster and then casts it in bronze using that pattern, the artistic form remains intact (although, obviously, even the very texture of the material influences the perception). Conversely, the language of translation definitely influences the original and it is philological translation that takes that fact into consideration, unlike the method of analytical translation proposed by Rudnev (1994). Besides, the author contradicts himself in his translation, infusing it with his own interpretation of the original, using verbs in the Historical Present, which Milne does not have, and trying to achieve similarity between Milne and Faulkner. Apart from that, in addition to making calques, Rudnev (1994) equips the text of the original with
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a great number of verbose commentaries, the constant reference to which undermines the integrity of the perception of the literary text. Hence, the method of analytical translation does not allow the reader to perceive the content of the translated text and the emotional and aesthetic impact it produces to its full extent. The average reader undoubtedly needs the synthetic translation, while the analytical translation is useful only for a narrow circle of philologists who do not know the English language and cannot read Winnie-the-Pooh in the original. Analytical translation is, therefore, low-functional.
5. CONCLUSION
The paper argues that only the method of philological translation incorporates, on the one hand, the merits of the 'inspirational' (intuitive) translation, providing the conveying of the spirit of
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