Russian diminutives as special translation units

Abstract

Diminutives are found in many literary works created in Russian and they are an important means of sense-making. They also play an important role in creating a speech portrait of a character as well as in expressing the author’s assessment.

There is a legitimate question due to a frequent use of diminutives in literary works: how to translate fragments of a literary text where diminutive suffixes are found? Do these passages require special attention and do they need a pretranslation comment? Is the diverse palette of meanings that writers put into words with diminutive suffixes comprehensible to people of a different culture?

In this article, we will consider fragments of a text with diminutives taken from the novella “Heart of a Dog” by Mikhail Bulgakov, and their translations into English, French and Chinese. We will try to determine various difficulties a translator faces in working on such texts.

References

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Sources

Bulgakov M.A. «Sobach’e serdtse: povestI» / SPb.: Azbuka, Azbuka-Attikus, 2014.

The Heart of a Dog Mikhail Bulgakov, From the archive section of The Master and Margarita. Translated by Michael Glenny [Ehlektronnyi resurs] — 1968. URL: http://www.masterandmargarita.eu/archieven/tekstenbulgakov/heartdog.pdf

Boulgakov M. Coeur de chien. Traduit du russe par V. Volkoff. Librairie Générale Francaise, 1999

狗心》作者:【俄罗斯】米·布尔加科夫.译者:曹国维. 出版社:漓江出版 社.出版时间:2018-12 Sobach’e serdtse: povesti/ Mikhail Bulgakov /Perevodchik: Tsao Govehi, /izd.Litszyan, 12.2018.