National stereotypes as a translation problem

Abstract

The article is investigating the impact of national stereotypes (ethnostereotypes) on creating the image in the source literary discourse and its re-creating in the target literary discourse. The research is substantiated by the development of imagology – a new and dynamic discipline, whose focus of attention has been gradually shifting from literary aspects of image formation to linguistic and stylistic means of its embodiment in different languages and cultures. The research is aimed at studying national heterostereotypes as a problem of translation based on the novel “A short history of tractors in Ukrainian” by the British author Marina Lewycka, that is seen as an exemplary case of a manipulative representation of the image of a Ukrainian in the modern British literature, as well as its two translations – into Ukrainian and into Russian. The object of research is national stereotypes as a factor of a literary image formation, while the subject of analysis is their linguistic and stylistic markers in the original and translated texts. Among the research methods we distinguish the following: method of “ascribing qualities” by Katz–Braly employed for identifying stereotypes as projected on the novel characters; methods of lexical, semantic, stylistic, and contextual analysis employed for identifying linguistic and stylistic means of these stereotypes’ discourse actualization; method of comparative analysis employed for juxtaposing the source text with the target texts as well as two target texts between themselves. This approach allowed to perceive the strategies of both translators and to explain their differences. The involvement of two different translations accentuated the role of an ideological factor in reproducing linguistic and stylistic means of stereotypes’ embodiment. When the attitude towards the stereotyped image in a target culture is neutral or positive, the translator may apply the strategy of a negative stereotype softening, but when the attitude towards the stereotypisized image in a target culture is negative, the translator may resort to intentional deterioration of already negative characteristics.