Image of the Inner Personality in the Poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” by A. S. Pushkin and Its Translations to the Chinese Language

About the authors:

Elena V. Kupchik, Dr. Sci. (Philol.), Professor, Department of Russian Language and General Linguistics, University of Tyumen; e.v.kupchik@utmn.ru

Jingwen Wu, Postgraduate Student, Department of Russian Language, University of Tyumen; 523557572@qq.com

Abstract:

This article analyzes the verbal poetic images in A. S. Pushkin’s poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, in particular, the peculiarities of the Chinese translation of the metaphors and comparisons, describing an individual’s inner personality. The modern anthropocentric linguistics shows interest in the issues of language expressive means, concerning human feelings, emotions, and intelligence. This research focuses on the figurative representation of a person’s inner world mapping and comparative reviewing of the original text and its translation, which allows the foreign-language reader to gain the impression about the work of art. The novelty of this study lies in detecting the metaphorical model’s corpus, relating to “the inner personality” in A. S. Pushkin’ poem and its translation into Chinese. It also touches upon the specifics of the translated text regarding person’s inner world.

This study aims at characterizing the figurative representation of these concepts by reviewing the metaphorical model’s representations and determining their translation peculiarities. Employing the descriptive and comparative methods, the authors provide a list of the lexemes, representing subjective and objective parts of the metaphorical models. The authors determine the quantity and the types of the models, relating to the following areas: “Soul”, “Emotional and Sensual Sphere”, and “Intellectual Sphere”. That reveals the attributes of comparison of the concepts relating to inner world and the objects of animate and inanimate nature. Providing the typology of feelings and emotional statuses of the poem’s characters, the research considers the vision of the inner world concepts of the Russian and Chinese people.

Based on comparative reviewing of the metaphorical models in the poem and its translation, the authors reveal the features of likeness and distinction of the original and translated texts. The corpus of metaphorical models and the majority of their text representations as well as the characteristics of Pushkin’s characters inner world did not undergo any substantial changes while being translated. The changes made by the translator are as follows: the change of a lexeme “Soul” to “Heart”, that is connected to the peculiar stance on the soul and the heart, that Chinese people have; elimination of a metaphor yet saving the name of the feeling or without it; introduction of the images absent in Pushkin’s text; incidental change of one model for another. Alterations by the translator can be explained by the aspiration to retell the contents of the poem to the Chinese readers in a most adequate way, taking into account the peculiarities of their mentality.

References:

1. Karasik V. I., Sternin I. A. (eds.). 2007. Antologiya kontseptov [Anthology of Concepts]. Moscow: Gnosis.
2. Apresyan Yu. D. 1995. “Obraz cheloveka po dannym yazyka: popytka sistemnogo analiza” [The Image of a Person according To the Language: An Attempt at a System Analysis]. Voprosy yazykoznaniya, no 1, pp. 37-67.
3. Vasilieva N. V., Vinogradov V. A., Shakhnarovich A. M. 1995. Kratkiy slovar' lingvisticheskikh terminov [A Concise Dictionary of Linguistic Terms]. Moscow: Russkiy yazyk.
4. Karasik V. I., Slyshkin G. G. 2007. “Bazovye kharakteristiki kontseptov v lingvokul'turnoy kontseptologii” [Basic Characteristics of Concepts in Linguocultural Conceptology]. In: Karasik V. I., Sternin I. A. (eds.). Antologiya kontseptov [Anthology of Concepts], pp. 12-13. Moscow: Gnosis.
5. Ozhegov S. I. 2010. Slovar' russkogo yazyka [Dictionary of the Russian language]. Moscow: Oniks: Mir i obrazovanie.
6. Pimenova M. V. 2004. Dusha i dukh: osobennosti kontseptualizatsii [Soul and Spirit: Features of Conceptualization]. Kemerovo: Grafika.
7. Popova Z. D., Sternin I. A. 2007. Kognitivnaya lingvistika [Cognitive Linguistics]. Moscow: AST Vostok-Zapad.
8. Pushkin A. S. 1993. “Ruslan i Lyudmila” [Ruslan and Lyudmila]. In: Pushkin A. S. Zolotoy tom. Sobranie sochineniy [Gold Volume. Collected Works], pp. 43-67. Moscow: Imidzh.
9. Sapegina I. A. 2011. “Kontsept serdtse kak dominanta emotsional'noy kartiny mira v russkom yazyke v zerkale kitayskogo yazyka” [Concept Heart as the Dominant of the Emotional Picture of the World in Russian in the Mirror of the Chinese Language]. Cand. Sci. (Philol.) diss. abstract. Moscow.
10. Stepanov Yu. S. 2004. Konstanty: Slovar' russkoy kul'tury [Constants: Dictionary of Russian Culture]. 3rd edition, revised. Moscow: Akademicheskiy proekt 
11. Tan Aoshuan. 2004. Kitayskaya kartina mira: Yazyk, kul'tura, mental'nost' [Chinese Picture Of The World: Language, Culture, Mentality]. Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskoy kul'tury.
12. Tolstoy L. N. 1983. “Rech' v Obshchestve lyubiteley rossiyskoy slovesnosti” [Speech in the Society of Amateurs of Russian Literature]. In: Tolstoy L. N. Sobranie sochineniy [Collected Works] in 22 vols. Vol. 15, pp. 7-9. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura.
13. Uryson E. V. 1995. “Fundamental'nye sposobnosti cheloveka i naivnaya ‘anatomiya’” [Fundamental Human Abilities and Naive “Anatomy”]. Voprosy yazykoznaniya, no 3, pp. 3-15.
14. Jing Haimin. “Vyrazhenie emotsiy v kitayskom yazyke” [Expressing Emotions in Chinese]. https://sibac.info/studconf/hum/xi/32770
15. Zhu Ruishuang 2017. “Soderzhanie moral'nykh tsennostey v yazykovoy kartine mira (na materiale kitayskogo i russkogo yazykov)” [The Content of Moral Values in the Language Picture of the World (On the Material of Chinese and Russian Languages)]. Cand. Sci. (Philol.) diss. abstract. Moscow.
16. Pushkin A. S. 2014. Skazki A. S. Pushkina [Pushkin’s Fairy Tales]. Translated by Qiong Yu. U Khan: Chanshaskoe detskoe izdatel'stvo.