Features of the transfer of quasi-realies of F. Herbert's science fiction novel “Dune” into Russian and French

Abstract

An integral feature of science fiction literature is the realities of the fictional world by the author or the so-called quasi-realities. The transfer of realities from one language to another is still an urgent problem of linguistics and causes difficulties for both beginners and professional translators. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze ways to convey the realities of F. Herbert's novel “Dune” in translations into Russian and French. The choice of the actual research material – F. Herbert's novel “Dune” – was not made by chance. It is explained by the significant influence exerted by this work on the entire industry of world science fiction, the presence in it of all the classical elements inherent in this literary genre, as well as the undying interest in the Dune universe. In the course of the work, the following methods were used as the main ones: comparative analysis, the method of continuous sampling, methods of classification, interpretation and linguistic commentary. The article classifies the author's terminology of the novel and identifies the main groups of quasi-realities. These lexical units became the object of comparative analysis of the original text and its translations, which allowed to identify translation difficulties and ways to overcome them. Of particular interest for the study was not only in comparing the original with each translation separately, but also in comparing these translations with each other. As a result, it was found that when transferring the author's anthroponyms, most toponyms and ethnonyms in Russian translation, lexical transformations of transcription and transliteration were used, whereas in French their original forms were preserved. When transferring quasi-grammatical names in both languages compared, semantic translation, morphemic translation, calcification, creation of similar neologisms and, in rare cases, transcription/transliteration (in the Russian version) and preservation of the original form (in French) were used.