Translating Russian Fiction into Chinese: The Specifics in Building Chains of Pragmatic Markers

Introduction. Russian writers quite actively use pragmatic markers (PM) to create a speech portrait of a particular character. At the same time, studies have shown that Russian PMs are characterized by increased syntagmatic activity and tend to appear in text not alone but in ‘company’ with other similar units. Goals. The study seeks to analyze the methods employed to translate PM chains contained in Russian literary texts into Chinese — through the example of the markers eto, eto samoe and kak yego (yeyo, ikh). Materials and methods. The paper analyzes a total of 19 contexts from 8 Russian fiction works included in the main subcorpus of the National Russian Corpus — and their Chinese translations. The work employs purposeful sampling, as well as contextual, comparative and discursive types of analysis. Results. The study shows that the Russian eto samoe has no absolute Chinese equivalent in terms of form and function, which presents big challenges for translators. Only few of the latter were able to translate eto samoe using the Chinese counterparts 这个 zhe ge or 那个 na ge. Structural variants of the Russian pragmatic markers eto and kak yego (yeyo, ikh) are often found both in literary texts and Russian oral (live) speech. Translators easily associate the pragmatic marker kak yego (yeyo, ikh) with the full-value expression kak yego (yeyo, ikh) zovut/nazyvajut performing the same search-hesitation function, and the pragmatic marker eto with its Chinese counterparts 这个 zhe ge or 那个 na ge. As a result, when it comes to translate PM chains with the components kak yego (yeyo, ikh) and eto, functional equivalence is achieved much easier than in case of PM chains with the component eto samoe. Conclusions. The ability of pragmatic markers to ‘attract’ to each other further complicates both the procedure of their identification in a text and their translation into other languages.

1. Leonov L. M. The Russian Forest. Jiang Changbin (transl.). Heilongjiang: Heilongjiang People’s Publishing House, 1984. Part 1, 457 p.; part 2, 828 p. (In Chin.)

2. Makarenko A. S. The Pedagogical Poem. Lei Ran (transl.). Beijing: Qúnzhòng Publishing House, 1981. 299 p. (In Chin.)

3. Russian National Corpus. Available at: http://www.ruscorpora.ru/ (accessed: 10 November 2022). (In Russ.)

4. Shishkov V. Ya. Gloomy River. Li Tongsheng et al. (transl.). Harbin: Northern Literature and Art Publishing House, 2002. Part 1, 554 p.; part 2, 1177 p. (In Chin.)

5. Shishkov V. Ya. [Yemelyan] Pugachev. Dai Cong, Ren Zhong (transl.). Vol. 1. Fuzhou: Haixia Literature & Art Publishing House, 1985. Part 1, 342 p.; part 2, 538 p. (In Chin.)

6. Sholokhov M. A. And Quiet Flows the Don. Li Gang (transl.). Nanjing: Yilin Publishing House, 2010. 1462 p. (In Chin.)

7. Sholokhov M. A. Virgin Soil Upturned. Li Bo (transl.). Beijing: Writers Publishing House, 1936. (In Chin.)

8. Shukshin V. M. Snowball Berry Red. Wei Fanxu et al. (transl.). Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1987. 379 p. (In Chin.)

9. Zoshchenko M. M. Selected Humorous and Satirical Writings of Zoshchenko. Lu Shaozong (transl.). Nanjing: Yilin Publishing House, 2004. 494 p. (In Chin.)

10. Baudouin de Courtenay I. A. Some general provisions to which Baudouin was led by his observations and studies of language phenomena. In: Baudouin de Courtenay I. A. Selected Works on General Linguistics. In 2 vols. Vol. 1. Moscow: USSR Academy of Sciences, 1963. Pp. 348–350. (In Russ.)

11. Bogdanova-Beglarian N. V. (comp., ed.) Pragmatic Markers of Russian Everyday Speech: A Monographic Dictionary. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriya, 2021. 520 p. (In Russ.)

12. Bogdanova-Beglarian N. V. Editorial. In: Bogdanova-Beglarian N. V. (comp., ed.) Pragmatic Markers of Russian Everyday Speech: A Monographic Dictionary. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriya, 2021. Pp. 5–52. (In Russ.)

13. Bogdanova-Beglarian N. V. One in the field is not a warrior: On the “magnetism” of pragmatic markers in the Russian speech. Socio- and psycholinguistic studies. 2019. No. 7. Pp. 14–19. (In Russ.)

14. Fedorov A. V. Translatability revisited. In: Current Questions of Theory of Literary Translation. Symposium proceedings (Moscow, 25 February – 2 March 1966). Moscow: Sovetskiy Pisatel, 1967. Pp. 31–37. (In Russ.)

15. Frank-Job B. A. Dynamic-interactional approach to discourse markers. In: Fischer K. (ed.) Approaches to Discourse Particles. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006. Pp. 395–413. (In Eng.)

16. Gorbunova D. A. Pragmatic Markers of Russian Colloquial Speech: Correlation with the Speaker’s Personality Type. Cand. Sc. (philology) thesis. Typescript. St. Petersburg, 2021. 275 p. (In Russ.)

17. Hayashi M., Yoon K. A cross-linguistic exploration of demonstratives in interaction: With particular reference to the context of word-formulation trouble. Studies in Language. 2006. No. 30. Pp. 485–540. (In Eng.)

18. Kim T. G. Pragmatic Markers of Russian Colloquial Speech in Combined Chains: Monologue vs Dialogue. BA thesis. Typescript. St. Petersburg, 2020. 104 p. (In Russ.)

19. Modestov B. C. Literary Translation: History, Theory, Practice. Moscow: Maxim Gorky Literature Institute, 2006. 463 p. (In Russ.)

20. Podlesskaya V. I. Parameters for typological variation of placeholders: Fillers, pauses and placeholders. In: Amiridze N., Davis B. H., Maclagan M. (eds.) Typological Studies in Language (TSL). Vol. 93. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2010. Pp. 11–32. (In Eng.)

21. Podlesskaya V. I. Vague reference in Russian: Evidence from spoken corpora. In: Selegey V. P. (ed.) Computational Linguistics and Intellectual Technologies. Conference proceedings (Bekasovo, 29 May – 2 June 2013). Is. 12 (19). In 2 vols. Vol. 1: Basic Conference Program. Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities, 2013. Pp. 631–643. (In Russ.)

22. Ryzhova N. V. Exploring colloquial speech as a special variety of fiction language. Bulletin of People’s Friendship University of Russia. Series ‘Russian and Foreign Languages. Methods of Its Teaching’ (Russian Language Studies). 2003. No. 1. Pp. 29–34. (In Russ.)

23. Sun Xiaoli. The pragmatic marker eto samoe within combined chains in modern oral discourse (corpus study). Socio- and psycholinguistic studies. 2022. No. 10. Pp. 63–69. (In Russ.)

24. Sun Xiaoli. The ways of translating pragmatic marker ETO SAMOE (Based on the material of parallel Russian and Chinese literary texts). Communication Studies. 2021. Vol. 8. No. 2. Pp. 323–332. (In Eng.)

25. Vinogradova V. N. Stylization of colloquial speech in contemporary fiction revisited. In: Essays on Stylistics of Fiction. Moscow: Nauka, 1979. Pp. 66–76. (In Russ.)

26. Zaides K. D. Pragmatic Predicative Type Markers in Spontaneous Russian Colloquial Speech. Cand. Sc. (philology) thesis. Typescript. St. Petersburg, 2020. 247 p. (In Russ.)

27. Zemskaya E. A. Russian Colloquial Speech: Linguistic Analysis and Teaching Problems. 2nd ed. Moscow: Russkiy Yazyk, 1987. 237 p. (In Russ.)