CHALLENGES OF TRANSLATING COLLOQUIAL VOCABULARY INTO GERMAN ON THE BASIS OF SERHIY ZHADAN'S NOVEL «INTERNAT»

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the challenges that arise in the German translation of colloquial vocabulary in S. Zhadan's novel «The Orphanage». Colloquial vocabulary plays a key role in reproducing the cultural and social peculiarities of the linguistic environment of the characters in this novel. Therefore, the main challenges lie in the difficulty of adequately conveying informal expressions, phraseological units and other elements of colloquial speech, which can be difficult due to the lack of direct correspondences in German.

The study was conducted on the basis of a sample of words and phrases of colloquial vocabulary from the novel by S. Zhadan's novel «The Orphanage», which consists of 73 units from the original text and their translations into German by translators Juri Durkot and Sabine Stor. The selected sample made it possible to analyze the typical difficulties faced by translators in conveying the linguistic features and stylistic nuances of Ukrainian spoken language in German translation. Attention is drawn to the issue of accuracy of the original language flavor.

The article describes the translation problems of lexical, grammatical and lexico-grammatical categories on the basis of a sample of colloquial vocabulary of the novel. The specifics of the use of the main types of translation transformations used by the translator are analyzed and examples are given to confirm this. In particular, the author analyzes artistic examples of such transformations: lexical (differentiation, modulation, specification), grammatical (grammatical substitution, addition, deletion, grammatical rearrangement of sentence members) and lexico-grammatical (holistic transformation).

To demonstrate the quantitative ratio of translation transformations, diagrams are provided that show in detail which transformations are more common at each level. The quantitative analysis shows that the most commonly used translation transformations are at the grammatical level, which is due to significant differences in the grammatical structures and norms of these languages.

The study proves the importance of a careful approach to the translation of colloquial vocabulary, since translation decisions concerning the rendering of informal expressions, idioms, and culturally marked elements directly affect the accuracy of reproducing the atmosphere of a work and its emotional expressiveness.