Os desafios na tradução de itens culturais específicos: o caso de The Master and Margarida de Mikhail Bulgarov

Abstract

Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, a highly complex and multi-levelled narrative, is a challenge for any translator. The emphasis in the current research is on the translation strategies used when translating culturally-specific elements, or historical realia, referred to as "Sovietisms," in three English translations of the novel by Glenny (1967), Pevear and Volokhonsky (1997) and Aplin (2008). Sovietisms refer to items characteristic of the Soviet discourse of the 1930s: word--formations of the non-standard "Soviet Russian." Bulgakov's language is sated with Soviet vocabulary, which refers to various cultural and socio--political elements of Soviet reality. Sovietisms occur at various levels (lexical, syntactic, stylistic and rhetorical) and should be carefully translated as a significant characteristic of Bulgakov's style. A complete domestication of Sovietisms may lead to a loss of a connotative meaning essential for understanding the context, while a foreignisation of these terms, which are most likely unknown to western readers, may disturb fluidity of reading and cause confusion. The purpose of this analysis, thus, is to illustrate the use of domesticating/foreignising strategies employed by Bulgakov's translators and to assess the translation choices. The comparative analysis employs the taxonomies suggested by Vlakhov and Florin (1995) and Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1989)