Translation Pragmatics of Phonic Expressive Means in English Poetic Texts

Abstract

Phono-stylistics is a promising research area. Expressive power of a text depends on its phonetic imagery. The research objective was to identify the pragmatic features of phonic expressive means in translations of contemporary English poetry. The methods included a comparative analysis, phono-semantic and phono-stylistic interpretation of the original poems and their translations, and O. N. Tynyanov's law of versification. The method of sound counting developed by E. V. Elkina and L. S. Yudina was used to calculate the frequency of sounds in the context of phono-semantic analysis in the Russian translations. The method of sound counting designed by Tsoi Vi Chuen Thomas was used to calculate the frequency of sounds in the original English texts. The theoretical foundation of the research was formed by the works by M. A. Balash, G. V. Vekshin, Z. S. Dotmurzieva, V. N. Elkina, A. P. Zhuravlev, L. V. Laenko, F. Miko, L. P. Prokofyeva, E. A. Titov, etc. The study featured the phonics and pragmatics of S. Dugdale’s poem Zaitz and its three translations made by E. Tretyakova, A. Shchetinina, and M. Vinogradova, and C. E. Duffy’s Anne Hathaway translated by Yu. Fokina. The author compared the pragmatics of sound imagery in the English originals and their Russian translations. The research made it possible to define the role of sound imagery in the poetic discourse, as well as the relationship between the sound organization of poetic speech and the pragmatic value at the phonographic level. The results can be used in courses of translation, stylistics, and phonetics.