Translation of metaphor into Russian and English as a means of creating pragmatic meaning in Chuvash poetry

Abstract

The article examines the problem of transferring the pragmatic potential of metaphor when translating a poetic text from the Chuvash language into Russian and English. It considers the issues of the correlation between the text pragmatics and translation pragmatics, as well as the role of metaphor as a key means of realizing the author’s idea and conveying ethno-cultural identity. Metaphorical units, representing the value dominants of the Chuvash culture in L. Filippova’s poem “Tracing Sespel’s Life” and their translations into Russian and English, are subject to a comprehensive comparative analysis. The research examines ways to reproduce the pragmatic meaning of metaphors, including loan translation, concretization, generalization, and lexical additions. The findings show that the Russian translation is focused on preserving the content-related aspect of pragmatics and emotional impact within the framework of a close cultural tradition. The English translation is based on the principles of deep pragmatic adaptation. The pragmatic adequacy of metaphor translation is determined by the cultural distance between languages, while the choice of translation strategy depends on the personality of the translator and his/her goals. The study demonstrates that metaphor translation in Chuvash poetry requires balancing the precision of the image with its accessibility to the target audience. The research opens up prospects for further comparative studies on the translation of national literatures.