Analyzing linguocognitive operations of mapping at the stage of pre-translation analysis of the comic texts (based on the prose by J.K. Jerome and O. Henry)

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ANALYZING LINGUOCOGNITIVE OPERATIONS OF MAPPING AT THE STAGE OF PRE-TRANSLATION ANALYSIS OF THE COMIC TEXTS (BASED ON THE PROSE BY J.K. JEROME AND O. HENRY)

Savina Yu.O.

Department of Translation of the National Technical University Dnipro Polytechnic

The present paper is aimed at analyzing the linguocognitive operations of mapping at the stage ofpre-translation analysis of the comic texts based on the prose by J. K. Jerome and O. Henry. Pre-translation analysis is an important step in the process of rendering any text, especially comic one as the comic in such texts is based on certain cognitive structures and mechanisms, and it is important for the translator to properly understand them for providing the adequate translation. The comic has cognitive nature being based on various types of poetic thinking determining the nature of the linguocognitive operations aimed at understanding the objects, phenomena and events of the surrounding reality in order to organize, categorize knowledge about the world. Linguocognitive operations of mapping are various types of conceptual mapping as the main, fundamental cognitive process which accompanies the search and mastering any information, any of the described knowledge by the person. These are analogous, substitutive, contrastive, and narrative mapping which are important to be understood in the translation process. It was revealed that linguocognitive operations of mapping in the flash fiction by J. K. Jerome and O. Henry provide an opportunity to identify those entities that in the English and American cultural consciousness become objects of an appreciable attitude and create a comic element, explain the mechanism of creating the comic through linguocognitive procedures of analogy, substitution, contrast and narration. The explanation of cognitive tools for the formation of a comic in the literary text is based on the main provisions of the theory of conceptual integration which enriches the possibilities of pre-translation analysis of these works and determine the key concepts which need to be preserved in each comically marked context.

Key words: translation, pre-translation analysis, linguocognitive mapping, the comic, flash fiction.

Савіна Ю.О. Лінгвокогнітивні операції мапування на стадії передперекладацького аналізу комічного тексту (на матеріалі малої прози Джером К.Дж. й О. Генрі).

Метою пропонованої статті є аналіз лінгвокогнітивних операцій мапування на стадії передперекладацького аналізу комічних текстів на основі прози Дж. Джерома та О. Генрі. Окреслено, що передперекладацький аналіз є важливим кроком у процесі перекладу будь-якого тексту, особливо комічного, оскільки комічне в таких текстах Грунтується на певних когнітивних структурах та механізмах і для перекладача важливо правильно розуміти їх для забезпечення адекватного перекладу. З'ясовано, що комічне має когнітивний характер і, базуючись на різних типах поетичного мислення, визначає характер лінгвокогнітивних операцій, спрямованих на розуміння об'єктів, явищ і подій навколишньої реальності для організації і категоризації знань про світ.

Зазначено, що лінгвокогнітивні операції мапування - це різні типи концептуального відображення як основного, фундаментального когнітивного процесу, що супроводжує пошук і засвоєння будь-якої інформації, будь-яких знань людиною. До них належать аналогове, субститутивне, контрастивне і наративне мапування, які важливо брати до уваги у процесі перекладу. Дослідження демонструє, що лінгвокогнітивні операції мапування в малій прозі Дж. К. Джерома та О. Генрі дають можливість визначити ті явища, які в англійській та американській культурній свідомості стають об'єктами помітного зіставлення і протиставлення, створюють комічний ефект, пояснюють механізм створення комічного через лінгвокогнітивні операції аналогового, субститутивного, контрастивного і наративного мапування. Простежено опертя пояснення когнітивних засобів створення комічного в художньому тексті на основні поняття теорії концептуальної інтеграції, що збагачує можливості передперекладацького аналізу цих творів і визначає ключові поняття, які необхідно зберегти для адекватного відтворення комічно маркованого контексту.

Ключові слова: переклад, передперекладацький аналіз, лінгвокогнітивне мапування, комічне, мала проза.

comic literary translation cognitive

Defining the problem and argumentation of the topicality of its consideration. Revealing the cognitive nature of the phenomenon should ensure the application of the cognitive approach by which one can determine the information put into the text by the author and the cognitive operations with various language constructions and types of information transmitted only by the means of the nominative signs, is necessary for isolating the necessary knowledge from the text. Using the cognitive approach, one can also determine the correspondence or inconsistency that exists between the individual text, on the one hand, and, the information they encode and the mental structures and their elements that stand behind this information, on the other, and thus it allows to explain the incongruence as the nature of the comic is extremely important in the process of translation where the conceptual spheres of the cultures of the source and the target languages face each other.

Analysis of recent research and publications. The cognitive nature of the formation of a comic in the literary text, in particular in the flash fiction by J.K. Jerome and O. Henry, is based on various types of poetic thinking that determine the nature of the linguocognitive operations and the linguistic and cognitive processes subordinated to them and aimed at understanding the objects, phenomena and events the surrounding reality in order to organize, categorize knowledge about the world. The linguocognitive operations of mapping were studied by A. Barcelona [4], L. I. Belekhova [1], G. G. Colomb [5], W. R. Gibbs [6], M. L. Gick [7], Z. Kцvecses [8], G. Lakoff [9; 10], M. V Nikitin [2], V. H. Nikonova [3], Y. Shen [11], P. Shofer [12], M. Turner [13] and other scholars, however, the impact of the linguocognitive operations of mapping on the process of rendering the comic texts still lacks the attention in modern Translation Studies.

Formulating the aim and objectives of the article. The aim of the article is to prove the necessity of analyzing the linguocognitive operations of mapping at the stage of pre-translation analysis of the comic texts (based on the prose by J. K. Jerome and O. Henry). Accordingly, the objectives are as follows: 1) to define the concepts of linguocognitive operations and conceptual mapping; 2) to characterize the specifics of linguocognitive operations of mapping at the stage of pre-translation analysis of the comic texts; 3) to prove the necessity of analyzing linguocognitive operations of mapping at the stage of pre-translation analysis of the comic texts.

Presentation of the main research material. Linguocognitive operations (from Latin operatio “action aimed at solving a problem”) of mapping are, following I. Belekhova [1, 182], various types of conceptual mapping as the main, fundamental cognitive process which accompanies the search and mastering any information, any of the described knowledge by the person [5, 388-390; 10, 219-237]. These operations include: analogous mapping based on analogic poetic thinking, substitutive one based on associative poetic thinking, contrastive one conditioned by paradoxical poetic thinking, and narrative one, the basis of which are parabolic and essayistic poetic thinking [1, 217-218]. Linguocognitive operations of mapping consist of various types of linguocognitive procedures: generalization, expansion, identification, compression, perspective and inter- textualization [1, 218]. Linguocognitive operations of mapping and linguocognitive procedures for creating comic are the first step in the study of the cognitive nature of comic which needs to be taken into consideration in the process of translating the comic texts.

It is assumed in modern cognitive science that the analogical reasoning of a person by some objects or phenomena through the prism of others is the main cognitive process on which the cognitive activity of the person is based [7, 306-355; 9, 91-93], and that it is analogous mapping that underlies not only metaphor but also metonymy and oxymoron [4, 8; 8, 33-77]. The linguo- cognitive operation of analogous mapping, the implementation of which is associated with the “projection of signs, properties that are opposite but ontologically related, the qualities of the essence of the source to the essence of the purpose” [1, 217] supposes the transferring of not only attributes of entities (attribute mapping), but also the cause-effect relationship between them (relational mapping) and situations described by them (situational mapping) [1, 219].

The most commonly used linguocognitive operation explaining the formation of a comic in the flash fiction by J. K. Jerome and O. Henry is relative mapping. For example, in a comically marked context: The man they had got now was a jolly, light-hearted, thick-headed sort of a chap, with about as much sensitiveness in him as there might be in a Newfoundland puppy (3, 58) expresses a comparison (there are no formal signs of comparing like as, as if or like) of the adult husband and Newfoundland puppy. The basic conceptual metaphorical scheme a man is an animal serves as the cognitive foundation for comparison on the basis of the common feature of multi-class objects. Such a conceptual model is the result of a linguocognitive procedure of generalization of the essence of the aim (the man a man) and the source (a Newfoundland puppy an animal). Consequently, linguocognitive operations of modeling conceptual metaphorical schemes in the flash fiction by J.K. Jerome and O. Henry provide an opportunity to identify those entities that in the English and American cultural consciousness become objects of an appreciable attitude and create a comic effect. In order to preserve the relative mapping in the presented context, the translator needs to preserve the ground of comparison людина цуценя where man is substituted by юнак to determine the light-heartedness of a person: Тепер у них був веселий, легковажний, пустоголовий юнак, у якого здатності до співчуття було не більше, ніж у ньюфаундленда (1, 61).

Substitutive mapping is based on associative poetic thinking, the essence of which is “projecting in the consciousness the implicit connections of the semantic variation of the linguistic units” [2, 251]. According to L. I. Belekhova, associative thinking is the ability of the human brain to comprehend the whole through its part, and part through the whole [1, 229]. Cognitive Linguistics sees substitutive mapping as a mechanism for conceptual metonymy [12; 13]. Conceptual metonymy, or metonymic conceptualization, is a “cognitive process in which one conceptual essence (source) provides mental access to another conceptual essence (purpose) within a single conceptual sphere” [8, 39].

For example, it can be found in a comically marked context from short story “Tommy and Co” by J. K. Jerome: Returning to college with some other choice spirits at two o'clock in the morning, it occurred to young Grindley that trouble might be saved all round by cutting out a pane of glass with a diamond ring and entering his rooms, which were on the ground- floor, by the window. That, in mistake for his own, he should have selected the bedroom of the College Rector was a misfortune that might have occurred to anyone who had commenced the evening on champagne and finished it on whisky (4, 53). The metonymy champagne is no longer perceived as a trope as it is the result of a systemic (rooted in the minds of people) substitutive mapping with a prototypical metonymic model “location of manufacture replaces the goods produced” where Champagne (a province in France where champagne is produced) stands instead of champagne (drink). The situation when a student on a dip, returning home late at night, mistakenly gets into the room of the college rector would be more tragic than a comic, if not the result of a story: a misfortune that might have occurred to anyone who had commenced the evening on champagne and finished it on whisky (a similar misfortune, however, can happen to anyone who, having begun drinking champagne in the evening, switched to whiskey by morning). In the process of translating, the cognitive background of the comic is preserved by preserving its key concepts - шампанське and віскі as the names of the drinks of different alcohol by volume degrees: Повертаючись о другій ночі і напідпитку до коледжу, молодий Гріндлі був переконаний, що проблема може бути вирішена, якщо він виріже шматок своїм діамантовим перснем і потрапить до кімнати на першому поверсі через вікно. Однак, помилившись, він вдерся до спальні ректора коледжу - це нещастя, яке могло статися з кожним, хто почав вечір шампанським і закінчив його віскі (our translation - Yu. S.).

Substitutive mapping realized through the linguocognitive procedure of replacement is the cognitive foundation of metonymy, synecdoche, paraphrasis, and euphemism. Consequently, the linguocognitive operation of substitutive mapping explains the mechanism of creating the comic through linguocognitive procedure of substituting referential signs of two different entities belonging to a single conceptual sphere.

Contrastive mapping is based on a paradoxical (contrastive) poetic thinking, the essence of which is “in projecting the ontological properties of one entity onto the opposite ontological properties of another entity” [1, 230]. In the Cognitive Linguistics, contrastive mapping is seen as a mechanism for conceptual oxymoron [6, 75-89; 11, 33-71]. Conceptual oxymoron, or an oxymoron conceptualization, is a cognitive process of understanding phenomena and events in which a new concept is created as a result of the combination of opposing, semantically incompatible concepts and the opposition of their essential features and properties [3, 264].

For example, oxymoron damaged by improvements implemented in the sentence Street damaged by improvements (2, 36) reveals the writer's subjective attitude to the effects of industrial development and urbanization. The characteristic features of the concept improvement at the periphery of its semantic field collide with a negative axiological characteristics damaged, that is, during contrastive mapping, the related ontological properties of the components of an oxymoron expression are found in antonymic relations. To render this sentence in translation, it is important to preserve the opposition damage / improvement: Вулиця, яку так поліпшили, що вона ледь тримається (our translation - Yu.S.). Here, the additional information is introduced, and the opposition is realized as the opposition of improvement and ability to live at all.

Contrastive mapping is a cognitive foundation not only for oxymoron but also for such lexical and semantic stylistic techniques as irony, antithesis, zeugma, in which there is also a collision of the pole signs of two entities. The difference between these tropes is only in their structure: if, in the oxymoron, the opposition of two components is realized within the same phrase (for example, wise foolishness), the antithesis is a opposition of at least two phrases expressing oppositional (or incompatible) ideas (for example, the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness). So, in a comically marked context: That's Harris all over - so ready to take the burden of everything himself, and put it on the backs of other people (3, p. 23), Harry is described as a person who is always ready to help others having dropped all the burden on himself (so ready to take the burden of everything himself) and, finally, putting it on the shoulders of other people (andput it on the backs of other people). Consequently, the linguocognitive operation of contrasting mapping, which is presented by the linguocognitive collision and squeezing procedure, forms the basis of the formation of a comic in the “small” prose by J. K. Jerome and O. Henry. In the course of rendering this utterance, the contrast is strengthened by the contrast of the time periods спочатку /потім: У Гарріса так завжди: спочатку зробити вигляд, ніби він готовий усе зробити сам, а потім перекласти все на інших (1, 19).

The cognitive basis for the formation of a comic in the flash fiction by J. k. Jerome and O. Henry is also linguocognitive operation of narrative mapping which, following L. I. Belekhova, is understood as “projecting the knowledge of well-known motifs or plots of fiction to a new poetic text through their rethinking and incantation in verbal poetic images” [1, 233].

The verbal signals of allusion and, accordingly, narrative mapping, are proper names of characters from the Bible, Greek or Roman mythology. Knowledge of the relevant mythological and biblical plots helps in decoding the content of intertext and designing it on a new plot. So, in a comically marked context: Harris always does know a place round the corner where you can get something brilliant in the drinking line. I believe that if you met Harris up in Paradise (supposing such a thing likely), he would immediately greet you with: “So glad you've come, old fellow; I've found a nice place round the corner here, where you can get some really first-class nectar” (3, 19), allusion is based on the Biblical concept of Paradise. According to the biblical legend, Paradise is a garden in which the first people Adam and Eve lived before the fall; according to religious ideas, the Paradise is associated with a beautiful, fertile terrain where righteous people live after death, with quiet and calm happiness. Projecting the well-known signs of paradise as a quiet, fertile place where sinless people live after death, to a new situation is comic: Harry has such a predisposition to drinking alcohol that he would find a good place to drink even in Paradise (I've found a nice place round the corner here, where you can get some really first-class nectar). Consequently, as a result of the linguocognitive operation of narrative mapping which occurs through the linguocognitive procedure of intertextualization, the biblical allusion Paradise becomes the ground for comic rethinking in the fabric of J. K. Jerome's narrative. Rendering the comic based on intertext in most cases requires finding the traditional representation of the concept in the target language culture, for example, Paradise - рай: Насправді у Гарріса завжди є місцинка неподалік, за рогом, де постійно є щось надзвичайне з випивки. Я переконаний, що якби ви зустріли Гарріса десь там, у раю (якщо таке можна припустити), його привітання звучало б приблизно так: «Який я радий, що ти прийшов, мій старий друже. Ти знаєш, я знайшов тут чудову місцинку, неподалік, за рогом. Кажу тобі правду, нектар там - перший клас» (1, 14).

Conclusions and prospects for further research. Linguocognitive mapping operations (analogous, substitutive, contrastive and narrative), the purpose of which is projecting the content of one sphere (domains of the source) to another (domain of purpose) and modeling the corresponding conceptual schemes, constitute the cognitive basis for the formation of a comic in the flash fiction by J. K. Jerome and O. Henry. An explanation of how comic meaning emerges in the analyzed texts of short stories, and the use of cognitive tools for the formation of the comic in the literary text is based on the main provisions of the theory of conceptual integration which enriches the possibilities of pre-translation analysis of these works and determining the key concepts which need to be preserved in each comically marked context. The prospects for further research include further application of linguocognitive operations of mapping at the stage of pre-translation analysis and their impact on the text of translation.

References

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Illustrative material

1. Джером К. Джером. Троє в одному човні (якщо не рахувати собаки) / Джером К. Джером; пер. з англ. О. Якушик. - К.: Країна Мрій, 2011. - 176 с.

2. Henry O. 100 Selected Stories / O. Henry. - L.: Wordsworth edition limited, 1995. - 750 p.

3. Jerome K. Jerome. Three Man in a Boat / Jerome Klapka Jerome. - London: Wordsworth, 2008. - 171 p.

4. Jerome K. Jerome. Tommy and Co / Jerome Klapka Jerome. - L.: Hutchinson and Co., 2007. - 165 p.

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