Способи відтворення неозначеності в німецькомовному перекладі роману Сергія Жадана «Депешмод»

Abstract

This scientific research deals with a topical linguistic and translation problem – the category of definiteness / indefiniteness. The category is a functional-semantic, conceptual category in the Ukrainian language, and a grammatical category in the German language. That is why it is expressed differently in both languages. The article analyzes the works of leading linguists devoted to the study of issues related to the category of definiteness / indefiniteness from different points of view and on the basis of Ukrainian and German languages. The purpose of this article is to determine the means one can use to reproduce the category of indefiniteness in the Ukrainian-German translation. The object of this research is linguistic indefiniteness as it is, i.e. the name of the object it designates belongs to the class of similar phenomena. Indefiniteness describes something new. In the Ukrainian language it is mostly expressed by indefinite pronouns that indicate an indefinite person, object, quality, quantity, etc. Indefinite pronouns are the main means of reference. Linguistic researchers state that indefiniteness in the Ukrainian language is always marked. The subject of the given study is the analysis of implicit means of expression of indefiniteness in Ukrainian as well as means of its explicit expression in the translation of the novel “Depeche Mode” by S. Zhadan into German. Comparative and descriptive methods of linguistic research allow considering different ways of expression of indefiniteness in the translation of modern fiction. The analyzed material contains examples where indefiniteness in the original text is expressed by (якийсь, хтось, який-небудь, деякий, один з і т.д. / some, someone, some, one of, etc.) which is translated by articles (mostly indefinite articles – ein / eine), as well as by their equivalents in the target language (einer aus… / einer von…, irgendwelche, ein paar), rarely by a zero article. Reproduction of the quantitative expression of indefiniteness into the target language doesn’t present a translation problem. The analyzed material contains examples where the indefinite pronoun якийсь / some is rendered by means of the definite article der. Indefiniteness in not reproduced in this case. Among the methods of translation of indefiniteness there are translation transformations both lexical-semantic, such as addition, generalization, and lexicalgrammatical. It conclusion, the further research on the issue of reproduction of indefiniteness / the category of definiteness / indefiniteness on the basis of translations of texts of other genres and analysis of a wider range of means that express indefiniteness, as well as ways of its translation.