Methods and techniques of interpretation of mythical and magic characters’ names in Russian folk tales in Persian

Abstract

The rapidly developing cultural relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia predetermine the importance of studying the realities of Russian culture in teaching Russian as a foreign language. Despite the constantly growing interest of the Iranian reader in Russian fiction, we have not found translations of Russian folk tales. A distinctive feature of fairy tales is the presence of specific monsters and mythical creatures in them. The relevance of this study is emphasized by the fact that the opinions of researchers on the issue of translating these realities are divided: some researchers note that realities are untranslatable, others argue that there are no words that would be impossible to convey in another language. This research work presents methods and techniques for an adequate and equivalent translation of the proper names of mythical creatures that are the heroes of Russian folk tales of a magical nature. The translation experiment was conducted in student classes of the RFL departments of higher educational institutions of Iran. The main methods on which the study is based are the comparative method, the method of linguistic description, and the method of experiment. The students were asked to translate typical sentences, selected by continuous sampling, in which there was a mention of the magical characters of Russian folk tales. The purpose of the experiment is to identify what methods and techniques of translation strategies were used in the process of translating realities that do not have equivalents in the Persian language. Thus, the empirical basis of this study is the interpretation of fragments of Russian folk tales of a magical nature in Persian by students learning Russian as a foreign language. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that it is the first attempt to analyze the method of equivalent or adequate conveyance of national and cultural color of the Russian fairy tales characters into Persian. Based on the experiment, we can conclude that when translating the names of mythical heroes and monsters of Russian folk tales, students resorted to two main translation strategies − foreignization and domestication. Russian students chose the method of phonetic transliteration and transcription as the main method of foreignization, as well as calques that contribute to the preservation of Russian cultural and ethnic specificity and overcoming the difficulties of conveying semantic content and the national color of the mythical heroes of Russian folk tales. The main technique of the domestication strategy used by students is the borrowing of the designation of a fairy-tale character from the culture of other peoples with whom they were previously familiar. The results of our research can find practical application in literary translation in Iran. Theoretically, the material can contribute to the development of the theory of translation of literary texts of the folklore genre, as well as arouse interest in further research among undergraduates and graduate students studying in higher educational institutions of Iran.