SERGEI DOVLATOV’S HUMOROUS PROSE: TRANSLATION AND CULTURAL ADAPTATION POSSIBILITIES (ON EXAMPLE OF HIS NOVEL “ZAPOVEDNIK”)

Abstract

The article analyzes the peculiarities of Sergei Dovlatov’s style and cultural markers present in his prose that represent difficulties for preservation in translation, using as an example the novella “Zapovednik” and its translations into English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. Through a comparative analysis of the texts employing the communicative-functional approach in translation studies, the author studies the translation strategies undertaken by translators into different languages to convey the stylistic originality and the humor of the novella. Translation of humor is particularly difficult, as it always appeals to implicit knowledge, which may be lost on a person raised in a different culture. Due to these peculiarities translators often resort to a strategy of domestication, adapting the humor to the culture of the translation. This strategy is not always justified, as it may contradict the author’s intention. Allusions to cultural phenomena also complicate the perception and understanding of the translated text. As the analysis demonstrates, in spite of a difference in worldview among adherents of different cultures and ignorance of the realities of the source text’s culture, leading to a translation’s inevitable loss in expressivity and misrepresentation of the author’s ideas, the translators largely succeeded in conveying the linguistic and cultural peculiarities of the novella.