PRECEDENT NAMES AND CULTURAL REALIA IN THE RUSSIAN TRANSLATION OF DAN BROWN’S NOVEL «THE DA VINCI CODE»
Keywords:
precedent name, realia, culture-specific item, proper name, literary translation, Dan Brown, «The Da Vinci Code», translation technique.Abstract
The article examines the rendering of precedent names and cultural realia in the Russian translation of Dan Brown’s novel «The Da Vinci Code» made by N.V. Rein. The material comprises the prefatory «Fact» page, the prologue and the first two chapters of the original and of the translation, from which 58 aligned units were extracted, namely 30 proper names and 28 culture-specific items. The techniques were classified on the basis of the typologies of S. Vlakhov and S. Florin, D.I. Yermolovich and J.F. Aixelá. Traditional equivalents (27.6%), calques (25.9%) and transcription (24.1%) prevail, so the translation preserves the form of most names. Culture-specific items behave differently. Almost a third of them (32.1%) are generalised, substituted or described, among them the cilice, the numeraries of Opus Dei, the keystone and Harris tweed, while only six footnotes support the reader. The findings can be used in translation criticism and in teaching literary translation.
