Narrative Peculiarities in Translation: Lexical Units Pauvre and Bonhomme in G. Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary

Abstract

The present research featured some narrative peculiarities, which could belong both to the narrator or other characters and violate the initial focalization. The paper focuses on zero focalization and evaluation of personages. The research objective was to analyze Russian equivalents of adjective pauvre and substantive bonhomme, which contain subjective evaluation in character’s nomination. The research featured fragments from G. Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary and its nine Russian translations. They were selected according to the continuous sampling method and then analyzed using the comparative method. The study was based on mono- and bilingual Russian and French dictionaries. The multiple translations often preserved the original evaluation, especially in case of pauvre. Unlike bonhomme, pauvre has more Russian equivalents. Therefore, lexical isomorphism was not always preserved in translation: in some cases, the evaluation was neutralized, or even opposed to the original one, and Russian variants acquired extra semantic and stylistic meanings. These flaws may change the initial narrator-character or character-narrator point of view. They could have resulted from the lack of Russian equivalents. In early translations, they might be explained by the translator’s choice of obsolete words with an archaic effect or adding extra semantic and stylistic information. In some cases, translators might have ignored the original meaning or could have been misled by the overall peculiarities of the narrative. The research can contribute to bilingual corpora of parallel texts, as well as to textbooks on comparative lexicology.