TY - JOUR
T1 - Arguing in Russian
T2 - Why solzhenitsyn’s fictional arguments defy translation
AU - Wierzbicka, Anna
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - This paper discusses patterns of ‘arguing’ which prevails in Russian speech culture and shows that they differ profoundly from those characteristic of modern Anglo culture(s). The author focuses on the extended arguments (spory) in Solzhenitsyn ‘s novel ‘In the First Circle’ and shows that many linguistic and cultural aspects of the original are lost in the English translation. She argues that this was inevitable because English doesn’t have and “doesn’t need” linguistic resources to render various aspects of Russian communicative practices, which are culture-specific and have no counterparts in Anglophone culture(s). The paper shows too that the techniques of semantic analysis developed in the “NSM” approach to cultural semantics help explain why Solzhenitsyn’s fictional arguments defy translation, and more generally, how they can be used to identify some deep differences between Russian and Anglo speech cultures and communicative norms.
AB - This paper discusses patterns of ‘arguing’ which prevails in Russian speech culture and shows that they differ profoundly from those characteristic of modern Anglo culture(s). The author focuses on the extended arguments (spory) in Solzhenitsyn ‘s novel ‘In the First Circle’ and shows that many linguistic and cultural aspects of the original are lost in the English translation. She argues that this was inevitable because English doesn’t have and “doesn’t need” linguistic resources to render various aspects of Russian communicative practices, which are culture-specific and have no counterparts in Anglophone culture(s). The paper shows too that the techniques of semantic analysis developed in the “NSM” approach to cultural semantics help explain why Solzhenitsyn’s fictional arguments defy translation, and more generally, how they can be used to identify some deep differences between Russian and Anglo speech cultures and communicative norms.
KW - Contrastive pragmatics
KW - Russian and intercultural communication
KW - Russian cultural scripts
KW - Russian particles
KW - Russian speech culture
KW - Translation from russian to english
KW - ’Anglo’ speech culture
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84876126701&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/19409419.2011.10756788
DO - 10.1080/19409419.2011.10756788
M3 - Article
SN - 1940-9419
VL - 4
SP - 8
EP - 37
JO - Russian Journal of Communication
JF - Russian Journal of Communication
IS - 1-2
ER -