Intersemiotic Translation As A Special Type Of A Cultural Dialogue

Abstract

The article is devoted to interpretation of Leo Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace in different cultures of the world through some interlingual translations and mostly through its reinterpretations by means of non-verbal “languages” of various semiotic nature. Intersemiotic translation is considered to be a new interdisciplinary area in Translation Studies enhancing the formation of a hypertext inspired and generated by the primary literary text. Secondary texts and works of art based on the original Tolstoy’s novel are described as possible solutions to the hermeneutic task of its understanding, which is due to the importance of the object of translation for the national and global culture, as well as changes in the cultural, historical and political context of the novel’s “life”. The objects of the present analysis include such intersemiotic novel’s interpretations as films, theatre plays, cartoons, music pieces, songs, pictures / images, comics, ekphrasis, memes, etc. The description of the novel’s secondary versions proves the interdisciplinary of intersemiotic translation, reveals the integration between semiotics and translation and provides the material contributing to the questions concerning the limits of original translatability, the nature and size of intersemiotic translation units, the semiotic conditions of such type of translation and the degree of primary text adaptation.