The World of Nature and Man in the Metaphorical Models in the Poem of A. S. Pushkin “Ruslan and Lyudmila” and Their Translations into Chinese

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 considers the metaphorical models in the totality of their implementation in the text of A. S. Pushkin’s poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” and their reflection in the Chinese translation. The relevance of the research is determined by the attention of contemporary linguistics to the metaphorical modeling of reality reflected in the language, as well as to the concept of the linguistic personality that is implemented in the texts that it creates. The novelty of the work lies in identifying and considering metaphorical models in the text space of the poem, identifying the similarities and differences between the original and translated texts in terms of conveying Pushkin’s figurative parallels to Chinese.

The purpose of the study is to characterize the corpus of the metaphorical models presented in the poem, to define the features of their translation into Chinese. The main research methods are descriptive and comparative. The paper describes the linguistic components of the subject and object areas of the metaphorical models which are included in the thematic complexes “Nature” and “Man”; identifies the characteristics that underlie figurative comparisons; and defines the role of the metaphorical models in describing the realities of nature and characters.

The implementations of the metaphorical models in the work of A. S. Pushkin and its Chinese translations were considered in the comparative aspect, conclusions were drawn on the significant similarity of their composition and semantics in the original text and the translation due to the universality of a number of traditional figurative comparisons. The deviations of the Chinese version of the poem from Pushkin’s text were caused by the translators’ intentions to take into account the peculiarities of the Chinese world view, the specifics of the Chinese language in order to adequately convey the semantics of the figurative comparisons in the A. S. Pushkin’s poem.

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