GAYBULLA SALOMOV AND UZBEK SCHOOL OF TRANSLATION 13 dekabr
MYTHOLOGICAL UNITS IN ENGLISH FICTION AND THE ISSUES
OF TRANSLATING THEM INTO UZBEK
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7482046
M.U.Sultanova
student of masters degree,
National University of Uzbekiston
Scientific adviser: PhD.
N.E.Abdullayeva
National University of Uzbekiston
Annotation:
This article is devoted to the application of mythological units in
English literary texts and the problems of translation of myths in Uzbek language.
The connection between myth and literature is one of mutual dependence, as myth is
integral element of literature, as a result while translating literary works it can be
found mythologemes as well and their translation should be adequate to the source
language. Translation is briefly definedas the result of linguistic-textual operation
in which a text in one language is re-contextualized in another language. As a
linguistic-operation, translation is however, subject to and substantially influenced
by a variety of extra-linguistic factors and conditions.
Key words:
myth, mythology, culture, literary translation, untranslatability
One of the everlasting mysteries of translation is transplant of the source values
to the target culture. It becomes possible in the course of creative efforts of the
Translator who surmounts challenges of the untranslatable. Mythology has been
always placed among those challenges and never is entropy so intensive as in texts
associated with mythological images and ideas. On the one hand, it may seem easy
to transliterate or loan mythic names and thus introduce them into the target cultural
use. But the borrowed signs turn out to be malicious shape-shifters and begin to live
on their own in the foreign environment.
Literary translation focuses on the artistic value of the original text. In this case,
GAYBULLA SALOMOV AND UZBEK SCHOOL OF TRANSLATION 13 dekabr
translation becomes an artistic activity. Thus, the translation of a literary text or a
poem is very different from the translation of a scientific text because the creative
element is an essential thing in the translation of a poem but it is not in the scientific
text. Willis (1996) proposes that the most creative translator is the one who possesses
a creative mind which is part of the translator’s intelligence. Thus, translation
creativity is more prominent in literary translation than any other text type especially
poetry which is considered as being a treasure of figurative, rhetorical and aesthetic
language which is highly and intricately sensitive, effective and rich with all kinds
of implications, associations, connotations and emotions. So, the translator of literary
texts is free, more creative and less direct when he tends to translate literature in
general and poetry in specific. Hence, the literary approach emphasizes on the talent
of enriching a text when translating it which needs the mastering of different skills
starting by the reading skill passing by the understanding of the text and ending by
the linguistic talent.
Literature is representative of a nation’s culture and, it is the culture that
determines the motifs and beliefs behind the literature and myth of a society. Due to
the vast scope of differences between cultures, there are barriers and problems during
the process of translation that some of them may even lead to untranslatability. In
translating myth works, especially English myth, motifs, and cultural issues are very
different from their Uzbek counterparts. Accordingly, it is appropriate to study the
historical roots of mythological images, to make a comparative analysis of their
mythological and historical features on the basis of folklore and written sources so
that sometimes translation of mythologemes is sometimes is becomes a problem, and
translators tries to find equivalent for this units. For example, in English culture has
some specific characters such as, “fairy”, “gnome” and “redcap”. Their translation
in Uzbek language “pari”, “gnom” and “redcap”. This mythological units are
unfamiliarfor the Uzbek culture so in translation of myth-based texts translators
gives definition of this images.
In literature, the diversity of meaning or the lack of exact correlation and
figurative means make the task of literary translation significant. Thus, this kind of
GAYBULLA SALOMOV AND UZBEK SCHOOL OF TRANSLATION 13 dekabr
translation is recognized as a dynamic and problematic process of translation in
culture-bound discourse that needs attention both in linguistic and cultural aspects.
During translating a literary work, some factors cause to misinterpret of the authors
or devalue their literary works; such as lack of adequate knowledge and prejudice of
translators. A literary translator should know both source language and culture and
also target language and culture completely. As Larsen (1998), stated that two
criteria are necessary to produce a good translation: an adequate knowledge of the
source language (ST) and an adequate command of the language into which one is
translating that is target language (TL).
The translation is inevitable to communicate inter-culturally and inter-
lingually. Newmark (1988), defined culture as the way of life and its manifestations
that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of
expression. Thus, each language group has its own culturally specific features.Since
the cultural meanings are steeped in the language, the knowledge and ability of the
translator are significant to capture the cultural concepts and cast them in the target
text. A translator should be aware of the two cultures to understand the original
meaning and transfer it within the counterparts of the target culture and language.
Discussing the issue of untranslatability, Anthony Pym differentiates between
“the basic narrative and definitional structure of the myth” (Pym, 1998). This is a
valuable idea to apply to studying informational challenge that any myth presents in
translation. Mythical values, images, ideas and events are deeply rooted into the
cultural traditions of a people, perceived as a part of the whole and, apart from
scholars, without explanation. For a native, a myth is a true (or imaginative) narrative
that does not require any definitions and is accepted as a traditional value rendered
by a long chain of narrators. Perhaps it is this value that makes myth wholly or, at
least, partly untranslatable. As soon as the myth, clad in the dress of another
language, appears in the context of another culture it loses its natural valuable
structure first of all due to the losses of information, in other words, it suffers
intensive entropy, which predicts all kinds of misinterpreting.
Myths present the spiritual or religious life aspects of a nation. They refer to
GAYBULLA SALOMOV AND UZBEK SCHOOL OF TRANSLATION 13 dekabr
the symbolic beliefs of a typical society in history. Therefore, they are considered
complex cultural phenomena.Newmark (1991), pointed out that a word is essentially
a cultural memory in which the historical experience of the society isembedded.
Therefore, in the myth which embodied the related historical and cultural features of
a nation, transferring the lexical and symbolic structures of the original text is
considerable.
For instance, in the process of translating a English mythic novel into Uzbek,
the translator is faced with two main challenges: firstly, translator should deal with
the concept and lexicon in SL, which require an understanding of English culture
and mythology, and secondly, the translator should take TL meaning equivalent of
an item in SL, include features absent in TL culture. Thus, myth translation does not
have the problem of finding just equivalent but interpreting a text encoded in a
semiotic system. Utilizing cultural equivalents requires knowing the differences and
similarities between the cultures and cultural implications. The choices made by the
translators as the decision whether to keep stylistic features of the source language
text or whether to keep the figurative language of the original become considerable
in the case of myth translation.
The untranslatability always exists in a myth text since its features are rooted
in the culture and language. The more differences between SL and TL, the more
untranslatable aspects occur. Therefore, untranslatability happens when the
translator translates the cultural concepts to the SL while there is no equivalent
cultural issue in the TL.Lotfipour (2015), stated that translation of literary discourse
in the sense of exact meaning transferring and effect of author’s cultural intention
was really testing or even impossible. He believed that cultural factors always
become a barrier in translation, and often the translators face untranslatability.
The function of translation as a mediator in cross-cultural communication is to
introduce one culture to another. Cultural aspects always have been the obstacle
against translation procedures. Sometimes these obstacles result in untranslatability
during the process of cross-cultural communication and translation. Myths are
considered one of the most important literary genres by many literary critics.
GAYBULLA SALOMOV AND UZBEK SCHOOL OF TRANSLATION 13 dekabr
Scholars define myths are tales believed as true, usually sacred, which set in the
distant past or other worlds with extra-human, inhuman, or heroic characters.e, the
cultural gap between English and Uzbek leads to untranslatability and inadequacy of
translation in the case of mythic novels. But the translator can compensate for this
gap by studying more about the background of the original text.
THE LIST OF USED LITERATURE:
1.
Willis (1996), A framework for task-based learning, The university of Michigan,
Longman.
2.
Larsen (1998),
Meaning based-translation:
Guide to cross-language
equivalence, University of Richmond, Virginia
3.
Newmark, P. (1988). A textbook of translation (Vol. 66). New York: Prentice
hall.
4.
Anthony Pym(1998), Method of translation, First edition, Routledge, Manchester
St.Jerome
5.
Lotfipour. K. (2015). Suggestions toward Some Discourse-Analytic Approaches
to Text Difficulty: With Special Reference to" T-Unit Configuration" in the
Textual Unfolding. Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, 3(1), 1-18
6.
Султанова, Шохиста Мухаммаджановна. "Время как показатель культуры
народа." Актуальные научные исследования в современном мире 8-2
(2018): 93-101.
