Ukrainain Swearing in the Mirror of German Translation

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of swearing and its translation from Ukrainian intoGerman. It provides the analyses of the previous researches covering the topics “foul language”,“obscene language” and “swearing”. Swearing is a language taboo that conveys the negativeenergy a speaker wants to get rid of by the means of shifting it on the recipient. It is not always therecipient who is the addressee of the swearing, since language taboo includes the usage of anaddress-free swearing, the latter one belonging to the parenthetic words which are languageincrustations and which do not carry semantic meaning. But in the language there are also otherobscene words with the semantically-lowered connotation. The article reveals the differences in theusage of swear language by different nations, it also provides the comparison of the Ukrainian,Russian and German swearing. It is pointed out that Russian obscene language is more connectedto the rude names of genitals, sexual intercourse and sexual deviations, but it is less connected tothe physiological ejections. The article studies the influence of the Russian culture on other nations’cultures, including the Ukrainian one. In the Ukrainian and German languages, contrary to theRussian language, obscene words are mainly connected to the physiological ejections (scatologicalhumour). After careful study of the certain scholars works the author of the article alsodemonstrates the ways obscene words come up in the Ukrainian language. The article alsodemonstrates the ways of translation of the swearing the examples being provided from the fromthe post-modern literature works.