Этнофразеологическое выражение c’est pas grave в контексте перевода на русский язык

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of translatability of the French ethnophraseological unit “c’est pas grave” into Russian. Its ethnophraseological nature has been established according to Bert Peeters’ criteria: it has to be regarded as “typical French” by speakers of other languages, used as a title of movies, songs, books or articles. 964 translations of this expression into Russian were analyzed, and 40 possible variants were identified. In most cases, the translation of the phraseological unit into Russian is represented by affirmative constructions, in spite of the fact that it is negative in French, as for instance “это нормально / все нормально” (it’s ok; everything is fine). Some translations are sentences in the imperative mood: “забудь” (forget it), “не волнуйтесь” (don’t worry). The paper describes each type of translation. In the conclusion the phraseological unit “c’est pas grave” is presented in Natural Semantic Metalanguage which allows us to conclude that this saying is used after some event happened in which the speaker and his/her partner are involved. The speaker says that the event is not bad, has no negative consequences and that it is not worth worrying about. She / he asks the other communicant not to worry, thus implying that she / he himself / herself will not think about it anymore. The frequency of this saying, the fact, that it is regarded as “typically French” by others, and a large number of translation variants prove its ethnolinguistic character and its link with hypothetical French cultural values, which can be described as “insouciance”.