Overcoming Strangeness in Translation: International Presentation Discourse of High School

Abstract

This study examines the approaches to defining the notion of strangeness from the standpoints of philosophy, intercultural communication, and translation studies. Depending on intensity of axiological characteristics by such criteria as space, affiliation, trust, and compliance with linguistic norms, strangeness is verbalized by expanding the "own : : other – foreign" opposition. On the textual level, "otherness" and "foreignness" are characterized by borderline, subjective perception of the recipient; meanwhile, it is noted that the translation decision on overcoming strangeness is made directly by the translator as the initial recipient. Interactions with representatives of other countries and cultures are an active part of the academic discourse, defined by the authors as communication in the high school space and its educational, research, and sociocultural areas. This paper focuses on the international presentational discourse of high school, which implements its phatic tasks in the informative texts posted on an educational institutions website in the original and translated versions. As participants of the presentational discourse are inclined to have a dialog, strangeness tends to be perceived as a form of otherness. Its explication in translated texts is performed by full and functionally adequate translation of the units, such as realia, forms of address, neologisms, proper nouns, which communicate unique information and reflect linguacultural peculiarities.