Types of Interlingual Equivalents of Phraseological Units and Metaphors in Literary Translation

Abstract

In the following research, the types of interlingual phraseological equivalents, similes, and some metaphors in the novels of Turgenev Rudin and A Nest of the Gentry are studied from the perspective of their structure, semantics, and origin; attention is paid to differences related to the specifics of realia and lacunae translation (when reproduced in Slovak and English). We focus on biblical and ancient phraseology, aphorisms, catchphrases, allusions, reminiscences, and similes, which are translated in different ways. Based on the theory of equivalence in general and the translation of idioms in the fiction text, and the principle of structural-semantic modeling and variability of phraseological units, analogs and partial equivalents are analyzed from the point of existing lexical-grammatical and stylistic differences and formal-semantic transformations. The latter is a sign of the specific idiostyle and individual writer’s manner of Turgenev. When the original phraseological unit is translated without noticeable emotional and expressive connotations with the help of metaphors or a free word combination, or when, on the contrary, a free word combination or metaphor is replaced by a phraseological equivalent, various cases of transfer, reproduction of figurative and expressive means, and literary and lexical tropes are distinguished. In the meantime, the original phraseological unit may correspond to a comparative phrase during translation.