destroy all coloring, to be more exact; it would lead to anachronisms and
analogisms that can destroy the harmony, so called truth of life.
It is clearly seen when such close in meaning word like хайдутин and
клефт are compared. Both of them mean peasant-partisans who fought
against Turkish ruling; both of them mainly attacked local Turkish
feudalists and representatives of Turkish Administration, and also their
landowners who called them “thieves” or “bandits”; both of them acted in
the same historical epoch (the time of Osman Dominion on the Balkans).
These dates about клефт are related with хайдутин; the only difference is
that хайдутин is Bulgarian and клефт is Greek. But it is enough to be
impossible to translate хайдутин as клефт.
Connotations and coloring are part of meaning that means they can be
translated equal with semantic content of a word. If a translator managed
to convey only a semantic lexical unit the translated text lost its
coloring for the reader.
But there are cases when connotation of a realia dies down, erasures.
Such erasure logically leads to the turning of realia into common,
uncolored word.
To distinguish this phenomenon from loss of coloring in a translation we
use a term “erasure” of coloring or connotation (erased reality).
Some exotic words can be adopted by language and lose their exotic
character.
To lose its status realia must lose quality that differs it from a common
word, that is loss of coloring. Here are some examples.
1. It will take much time to turn proper realia such as Russian пирожок
into national uncolored, neutral word entered in the kitchens and
languages of many countries and to make people forget its strange origin.
Related to a strange realia it will also take much time to adopt it into
a language. It can turn into usual borrowing in the result of intensive
usage of this object in private life depriving it both original national
coloring and a kind of alliance.
It seems that international and regional realias are to lose their status
of realia at first owing to their wide-spreadness. Many international
realias go around the world without losing their national originality.
For example, the names of money. There is another case with regional
realias. Their national coloring is almost equal to national but it is
limited by its regional belonging. For example, “the eastern coloring” is
close to Syrian, Turkish and Egyptian etc. All above-mentioned regarding
to proper realias is equal for national and regional realias.
2. These are the general considerations about coloring erasure or color
keeping that depends on peoples and countries. But there are positions
where color erasure depends on proper realia and its function in speech.
Often the realias can have an extended meaning in the context.
3. Sometimes a realia can be used in a text not in the direct but in the
figurative meaning. For example щербет can be used in Bulgarian language
as an adjective in the meaning of something oversweet and it is almost
similar with Russian сироп.
In general we may say about realia using in the figurative meaning in all
cases of their usage as tropes, metaphor and comparison. When an author
says about mushroom’s cap “about two kopecks size” he does not mean a
kopeck as a kind of money but only its two signs: its size and its round
form, so the kopeck here has only word cover.
For example, when an author describes land that is flat like a pan-cake
he takes only one characteristics of a pan-cake: its flatness and plane
and Russian reader even does not think about pan-cake as a food but it is
only an image that author promoted with the help of trope.
The same with “stone jungles” and “cowboys of cold war” etc.
Some adjectives derived from mentioned realias can be literary
comparisons and metaphors. Using such words as богатырский, стопудовый,
аршинный, саженный at first we look at their figurative meaning, certain
signs but not on their sign as a realia: for example, пудовый means very
heavy, грошовый means very unimportant, cheap.
4. Among these examples there were phraseological units and set
expressions as well, where realias lose their status more often than in
the mentioned cases.
In these four cases realias are to lose their coloring that is the status
of ralia is to turn into common language unit. However, if we look more
attentively we shall see that a total erasure is not possible. If it
happens it will be an exception.
For example, macaroni (international realia) and tyubeteyka (regional
realia). Macaroni, also spaghetti entered in the languages by way of
transcription. These words appeared in the languages having kept the
meaning of national Italian dish. The best example is Italian scornful
nickname baked macaroni pudding. Tyubeteyka also did not lose its
oriental coloring in spite of its wide-spreadness in the USSR and even on
Gorky’s and Kuprin’s heads reminds East.
One should take into account all above-mentioned choosing a translation
style in these cases.
The transcription is usual way of translation of such words. Ruble,
macaroni, tyubeteyka keep their form after translation.
Another case when realia is wrong used or when it is a part of
phraseologism. Right translation is stipulated with finding the most
concordant and equivalent words that is usually deprived of coloring in
the translation as a usual lexical unit. For example, вершок in
Goncharov’s story is translated into the English language as a miserable
part. Дюйм translated from English inch is a realia but it also may have
an extended meaning.
Realia preservation in trope function (comparison, juxtaposition,
metaphor etc.) could mean the volume definition of one thing unknown by
author. If, for example, an English faces with two kopecks coin with the
help of that we define a size of mushroom cap in Russian translation he
would never know the mushroom size. Here a realia almost totally lost its
natural coloring: in one language a reader almost does not understand its
meaning, seeing only the given quality indicator. Transcription is
possible in two languages only as an exception, for example,
international realia that indicator is known in both languages. But it is
easier to translate a realia as a neutral function equivalent because in
the original text realia is used without connotative meaning.
But even in the third and fourth positions realia is kept. For example,
translating comparison we usually substitute a strange realia for ours:
it is not always convenient to use such phrases as как блин. The same is
with a realia that forms phraseologism.
In conclusion one should notice that translating a realia in one or
another means it is wanted to lose a trope and accordingly phraseologism.
Trope should be transferred by tropes, phraseologism by phraseologism;
only “fulling” will differ from origin one.
5. There are many cases of realia translation in the comparison when the
realia not only loses its coloring but also receives excessive
connotation and they are wide-spread. An author compares the contents of
strange realia with his own realia. And in a translation one notion is
happened to be denoted with the two realias: internal and external. What
should a translator do to convey the content of realia without coloring
losing?
There are some theoretical variants.
At first a translator should transcribe each separate realia. For
example, we can face with such translation from the Czech language: “In
the evening a young teacher couple … invited us for barbecue. It reminded
us our evening by the camp fire where we did not do shpekachkis.” These
two words: barbecue and shpekachkis are explanations of one unknown word
by another.
At second place a translator can substitute an internal realia for his
proper realia. For example, he should substitute shpekachkis - for a
regional realia – Caucasus shashlik. As a result a reader would be able
to get more clear notion about Australian dish (barbecue is a Haitian
word that was taken by the English language from Spanish and then was
borrowed by Australian). But a reader would be astonished hearing from
Czech about “evenings with shashlik”. Theoretically this variant is more
vicious because it leads to mixture of different realias that belong to
different nations.
The third possibility is to refuse transcription of both realias and to
convey their contents with the help of descriptive translation that
approximately can sound so: “… in the evening we were invited for a
picnic that reminded us our evenings by a camp fire and we ate meat
grilled on a spit.” But this translation deprives the text of Australian
coloring.
And, at last, the fourth variant consists in transcription of external
realia and conveying internal realia with its functional equivalent. And
we shall have the next sentence: “In the evening … a young teacher pair
invited us for barbecue. It reminded us our evenings by camp fire when we
ate meat grilled on a spit.”
The last variant is considered to be more successful because the
translation is true and the translator managed to keep coloring having
transcribed main realia.
In Margaret Aliger’s notes “Chilean summer” we face with more difficult
case: “… it is possible to eat here, one woman bakes pies – empanados.
