Domestication Strategy Implementation in the Translation of O. Wilde`s Fairy Tales

Abstract

This article focuses on the analysis of translation strategies employed in rendering O. Wilde`s fairy tales into the Ukrainian and Russian languages. O. Wilde`s fairy tales cannot be addressed as intended solely for children, though they are usually described as belonging to “children`s literature”. Being against the “art for art`s sake” idea, the author touches upon a number of topics, like beauty, love, generosity, etc. At the same time, his works render all the essential features of literary fairy tales. This is important in the aspect of translation with regard to the stable and long-run tradition of this genre in the Ukrainian and Russian literature. The aim of the study is to reveal the tactics and means employed by the translators, using the main strategies – domestication and foreignization. The material for the study includes two fairy tales by O. Wilde – “The Nightingale and the Rose” and “The Happy Prince” and their translations into Ukrainian and Russian. Two Ukrainian translations and two Russian ones belong to well-known highly qualified translators – T. Nekriach, I. Korunets, K. Chukovsky, M. Blagoveshenskaya; while two other ones (both into Russian) are done by unknown translators and available only in electronic versions. The results of the study give grounds to argue that all the translators chose to employ domestication strategy. This strategy comprises the following tactics: structural-semantic adaptation (adding suffixes, combined affixation); semantic adaptation (generalization, concretization, modulation); lexico-semantic adaptation (exclusion, addition, complex transformation); stylistic-semantic adaptation (the change of neutral lexical means for colloquial and dialect ones). Among all these the addition of diminutive suffixes shows the greatest productivity and is employed most widely by all well-known translators. This can be accounted for by (1) language differences, i.e. a much greater number of such suffixes in Ukrainian and Russian, and their ability to combine the meaning of “small in size” with positive evaluation; (2) typical use of words containing such suffixes in Ukrainian and Russian fairy tales which allows for the young readers to feel themselves in the familiar world of native language and literature.