Translating the Stalker jargons in the Novel “Roadside Picnic” by the Strugatsky Brothers into the Serbian language

Abstract

This article presents a comparison and analysis of two translations of the story “Roadside Picnic” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky into Serbian using the example of the translation of the working jargon of stalkers, which refers to artifacts and phenomena in the so-called Zone, where space aliens stopped for a halt in their travel and then went on, not wanting to establish contact with people from Earth. The introduction to the article deals with the science fiction work by the Strugatsky brothers, their style, in particular the story “Roadside Picnic”. The main part of the article is an analysis of translations of objects and phenomena left after visiting the aliens’ visit. Here, the author introduces two translators of the Strugatskys’ story into Serbian: Milan Čolić, who published his translation in 1979, and Andrija Lavrek, who published his translation in 2011. In the main part, a comparison and an analysis of the two translations is made; where a deeper analysis is needed, the translated words are checked against the dictionary of the Serbian language and their meanings are explained. Purpose of the work: to show to what extent the translators managed to translate into Serbian the special names of extraterrestrial artifacts and phenomena, most of which are listed here, as well as to explain their features. This work with examples is a contribution to the practice and style of translation of the works by the Strugatsky brothers. Here, for the first time, an analysis of the translations of their works into Serbian is conducted. It can be seen that the first translator, Milan Čolić, translated the jargon of the translators verbatim, whereas the second translator used the method of describing artifacts and phenomena on two occasions. There is no need for descriptions, because artifacts and phenomena from the Zone are described in the text itself.

References

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