The present paper deals with the features of the transfer of phonetic modality to achieve the communicative goal of the statement when translating Russian song poetic texts into English. The means of expressing phonetic modality are analyzed in the article, the dominant means singled out and their ways of interaction defined.Particular attention is paid to the transfer of semantic accents during translation, preservation of the expressiveness of the work and the special intonation of the original of the poetic work in translating it into English.
phonetic modality, psycholinguistic level, expressiveness of the work
The purpose of this article is to analyze the phonetic modality of poetic texts in their translation from Russian into English. The object of our research is the means of expressing phonetic modality in English translations of song poetic texts. The material for the study was the poems of the famous Russian bard Vladimir Semenovich Vysotsky.
In our work, we use various methods, since the modality presupposes a large set of tools for its study: descriptive, structural, transformational method, the method of neutralizing meanings, the scale method and the method of the functional-semantic field [2]. However, since the emphasis is on the study of phonetic components, the first place is taken by methods of studying phonetics (observation, as well as instrumental methods (acoustic and articulatory: sound recording). Our research examines the features of the phonetic modality of a poetic text, reaching the psycholinguistic level, which “allows us to demonstrate the influence of the structure of speech activity (in the context of conventionality and ritualization of didactic speech interaction) on the generation, perception, interpretation and understanding of the communication product (text) » [4].
According to Yu.M. Lotman, "additional restrictions are imposed on a poetic text that obeys all the rules of a given language, consisting in the requirement to comply with certain metro-rhythmic norms and strict organization at the phonological, rhyme, lexical and ideological-compositional levels" [3]. So, for example, a restriction on the poetic meter, which creates an inversion within the polypredicative syntactic constructions, contributes to the transfer of semantic accents, an increase in the expressiveness of a work, the creation of a special intonation, etc. [5].
The peculiarity of the phonetic modality is that it depends on the division of the utterance into phrases and syntagmas (minimum segments of a sentence, which are characterized by intonation and semantic completeness). This process is always conditioned by the meaning, the meaning that the author wants to convey in his statement. Syntagmas are separated by pauses, and in the translation of prose texts this division may not be preserved, in contrast to song texts, which must always correspond to the melody of a musical phrase. All this presents a certain difficulty for the translator.
It should be noted that poetic presentation imposes certain restrictions on the use of the number of temporal and modal plans of polypredicative sentences with parataxis and hypotaxis. Monotemporality of a polypredicative sentence with a predominance of the past tense prevails over bitemporality and polytemporality, since it defines the boundaries of the temporal sphere in which the thoughts, feelings, emotions of the lyric hero are expressed. Polypredicative sentences have mainly a monomodal structure that implements real modality [5].
The phenomenon of Vysotsky’s song has existed for several decades, and his precise and biting lines of songs about life, war, friendship, loyalty and love have repeatedly become the object of interest for the translators. A story has always taken the first place in his songs. A story that has always been really true, taken from life, told in simple and precise language. But it is only in the sound that the strength and the power of his songs exist, and therefore the ways to achieve an adequate translation are of particular interest, provided that the phonetic modality of his songs is preserved.
One of the ballads is “Private Borisov”, written as a transcript of the interrogation of a man who shot at the offender at the post. It is rather difficult to save short, chopped phrases, elliptical sentences in translation into English so that they could convey accurately enough the speech of a person who answers questions not of their own free will. Translated into English, the parallelism of the construction of a polypredicative sentence with the parataxis is preserved:
“Private Borisov!” – “Here!” – “Tell me how this went down!”
“It was cold. I barely hung on.
Then it rained, then it got dark, and I was getting tired…
But I warned him, as per protocol!
(translated by Julia Deshtor, 2011)[1].
However, the ellipsis of the Russian phrase potom ustal is not preserved in the English translation (“and I was getting tired”), which smoothes the sound, and the torn rhythm is somewhat lost. In addition, the choice of the translator to repeat the refrain at the end of each stanza, although it preserves the rhythm and sound, slightly shifts the emphasis in the logic of the narrative, revealing the intrigue from the very beginning:
I didn’t argue, didn’t get upset,
Spat out my smoke and shot him in the head [1].
In the original poem, only at the very end do we see a line that leaves the listener the opportunity to think out the ending of the story himself.
Tatiana Vardomskaya's translation is closer to the original story in terms of vocabulary, although, perhaps, it does not quite coincide with how these lines sound phonetically:
Luck was with me then, that he survived the year…
While I just did my duty well that night.
It was true, rain, dark and fog, I was on guard right here…
By all the rules, shooting him was right.
For he joked when “Who goes there?” I shout,
At my shot in the air he yelled, “Cut it out!”
I hesitated, but I didn’t quarrel;
I spat out my fag and discharged the barrel [1].
In the ballad “A Road Story"”, written in 1972, a day in the life of truck drivers appears to the audience very vividly, replete with samples of spoken language and elliptical sentences that are not at all easy to convey in translation. An English sentence necessarily has a grammatical basis in its composition: the subject and predicate, and the phonetic sound of such lines slightly smoothes out the tension of the plot and does not convey so vividly the atmosphere of an emergency, one of the many that people of this profession have to overcome:
We both knew all about the road
And how they needed our load
And that our job was sit and drive through day and night
Who could have said - New Year’s day,
500 miles either way
The blizzard’s strong, and we can honk with all our might.
"Shut down the truck", he says at last,
"You see yourself that we won’t last,
You see yourself that there’s no use to even pray
500 miles on either end
By dawn for sure we’ll be dead
And snowed in so well we will not need a grave." (translated by Alex Tolkachev, 1999) [1].
And, of course, the emotional pressure of the author and performer of his songs, his inimitable booming RRR, sounding in the line glushi motorrr... (“Turn off the engine”) makes it almost impossible to achieve an adequate translation and communicative purpose of the poetic utterance when translating the songs of V. S. Vysotsky, but gives a completely accurate answer to the question of representatives of the younger generation of modern music lovers: is this a song? – In fact, it is more than a song, it is a living life that never ends.
Thus, speaking about the complexity of translating poetic texts from Russian into English, one should bare in mind the importance of transferring not only grammatical constructions and equivalent vocabulary for the translation, but, and this is the main thing, preserving the phonetic modality of the text, which undoubtedly is of decisive importance for achieving the communicative goal of the statement.
1. Vladimir Vysotsky. The Monument. [online]. Available at: https://wysotsky.com/1033.htm?296 (Accessed: 06.05.2021)
2. Eshchenko I.O., Osobennosti formirovaniya modal'noy perspektivy polipredikativnykh predlozheniy s parataksisom i gipotaksisom v sovremennom angliyskom yazyke // Sovremennyye problem nauki I obrazovaniya. - 2012. - № 2. - Pp. 450-451. (Features of the formation of a modal perspective of polypredicative sentences with parataxis and hypotaxis in modern English) // Modern problems of science and education. - 2012. - № 2. - Pp. 450-451.
3. Lotman, Yu.M., O poetakh i poezii. Analiz poeticheskogo teksta (struktura stikha) (About poets and poetry. Analysis of the poetic text (the structure of the verse) // Yu.M. Lotman. SPb: Art-SPb, 1996. - 846 p.
4. Oleshkov M.Yu. Modelirovaniye kommunikativnogo protsessa (Modeling of the communicative process) // M.Yu. Oleshkov. - Nizhny Tagil: Nizhny Tagil state. social-ped. academy, 2006. - 336 p. [online]. Available at: http://rudocs.exdat.com/docs/index-48183.html (Accessed: 06.05.2021)
5. Parnikova T.V., Polipredikativnyye predlozheniya s parataksisom i gipotaksisom v poeticheskikh tekstakh sovremennogo angliyskogo yazyka (Polypredicative sentences with parataxis and hypotaxis in poetic texts of modern English). [online]. Available at: https://www.dissercat.com/content/polipredikativnye-predlozheniya-s-parataksisom-i-gipotaksisom-v-poeticheskikh-tekstakh-sovre (Accessed: 06.05.2021)
