TFM Proposal Student: Milana Galavanova Supervisor: Susagna Tubau Title: The expression of definiteness in English-into-Russian translations Abstract: Definiteness is a semantic category that expresses the uniqueness of an object, as often understood within the framework of the theory of uniqueness (Roberts 2003, Dayal, 2017). Uniqueness is identified as the existence, in the extension of an NP, of exactly one referent that satisfies the descriptive content of this NP in each context. (Seres, 2021). Many Indo-European languages express definiteness by means of definite and indefinite articles, and for native speakers of these languages, it is logical to have special words to convey the meaning of uniqueness. However, this is not the case for most Slavic languages. Yet, it is not the case that Slavic languages do not allow the difference between definite and indefinite nominal phrases to be interpreted. Since it is important for accurate communication to understand whether the object is unique or not (Lyons, 1999), such languages certainly do have the category of definiteness, but the difference is that it is not grammaticalized. Some authors suggest that the lack of an overtly expressed category of definiteness is not necessary and that a language can exist without it (Lyons, 1999). Many researchers have studied the question of how definiteness is expressed in articleless languages. In the case of Russian, which is a language without articles, there are many different means of expressing uniqueness. For example, Seres proposes the following means referring to (in)definiteness in Russian: (i) lexical means (determiners, quantifiers), (ii) morphological (alternations of the verbal aspect and the case of nominals), (iii) prosodic (deaccentuation of ‘discourse old’ given information) and (iv) syntactic (linear word order alternations) (Seres, 2020). According to Lyons (1999) languages that do not have an article system have instead semantic/pragmatic definiteness (i.e., topic markers, word order, classifiers). Furthermore, Seres and Borik also distinguish the ontological uniqueness of the referent to classify (in)definiteness of an object, which holds for entities like ‘the sun’, ‘the earth’, etc. (Seres and Borik, 2021). Given that English is a typical example of a language with an overt article system and Russian is a typical example of an articleless language, this master thesis aims to investigate the question of how the category of definiteness, which is implicit in Russian, can be translated into English by means of the appropriate articles. According to Proshina, translation from Russian into English may be challenging since “article translation depends on the function the article has in the sentence” (Proshina, 2008, p. 87). In addition, Khoshaba and Alsultan (2021) highlight that translators should keep in mind the following means that express (in)definiteness in Russian to choose an appropriate English article: (i) demonstrative and indefinite pronouns, (ii) adverbs, (iii) possessive pronouns, combinations with particles, (iv) phrases with numerals, (v) deicticity, (vi) anaphoricity, (vii) phrase units with the core of definiteness / indefiniteness, (viii) phraseological combinations, (ix) the opposition of the Accusative and Genitive cases, and (x) word order. (Khoshaba, Alsultan, 2021). Thus, the research question of this thesis is as follows: (1) How is fiction literature translated from a language without an explicit system of articles (Russian) to a language with an explicit system of articles (English)? The short stories “At Christmas time” (1883), “On the road” (1886) and “About love” (1898) written by A. P. Chekhov and their corresponding English translations have been chosen as material for the study and will be used to compile the corpus of study. In this dissertation the translations of different translators, to be exact C. Garnett (“At Christmas time”, 1918, “On the road”, 1920 and “About love”, 1918) and R. Bartlett (“At Christmas time”, 2008, “On the road”, 2008 and “About love”, 2008) will be considered and a comparative analysis will be conducted, focusing on the selected strategy regarding the choice between definite and indefinite articles. In addition, the study seeks to investigate in which cases translators used definite and indefinite articles and how it was justified. References: Dayal, V. 2017. Determining (in)definiteness in the absence of articles. In: Vera Hohaus, Wanda Rothe (eds.). Proceedings of Triple A 3: Fieldwork Perspectives on the Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages. Khoshaba, L. M., Alsultan, M. 2021. Problems of Translating Definiteness and Indefiniteness from Russian Into English and Arabic. Qalaai Zanist Journal, 6(3), pp. 1018–1036. Lyons, C. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Proshina, Z. 2008. Theory of translation (English and Russian). 3d edition, revised. Vladivostok. Far Eastern University Press. Roberts, C. 2003. Uniqueness in Definite Noun Phrases. Linguistics and Philosophy, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 287–350. Seres, D. 2020. The Expression of Genericity in Languages with and without Articles. Russian as Compared to English and Romance. Seres, D., Borik, O. 2021. Definiteness in the absence of uniqueness: The case of Russian. In A. Blümel, J. Gajić, L. Geist, U. Junghanns, & H. Pitsch (Eds.), Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2018. Open Slavic Linguistics; Vol. 4. Language Science Press, pp. 339-363. Seres, D., Borrás-Comes, J., Espinal, T. 2021. Uniqueness in languages with and without articles: Catalan vs Russian. Beyond Philology An International Journal of Linguistics, Literary Studies and English Language Teaching. No. 18/3, 2021, pp. 163-195. Materials: Chekhov, A. P. “At Christmas time”. Collection of stories “At Christmas time”. Azbuka, Azbuka-classica, 2022. pp. 18-26. Chekhov, A. P. “On the road”. Collection of stories “At Christmas time”. Azbuka, Azbuka-classica, 2022. pp. 120-139. Chekhov, A. P. “About love”. Arcadia, Black&White series, 2020. 112 p. Bartlett, R. “About Love”. About Love and Other Stories, Oxford World’s Classics, 2008. Bartlett, R. “At Christmas time”. About Love and Other Stories, Oxford World’s Classics, 2008. Bartlett, R. “On the road”. About Love and Other Stories, Oxford World’s Classics, 2008. Garnett, C. “About love”. The wife and other stories, Pharos Books, 2023. Garnett, C. “At Christmas time”. The witch and other stories, Pharos Books, 2023. Garnett, C. “On the road”. The chorus girl and other stories, Pharos Books, 2023. 5 key references: 1. Proshina, Z. 2008. Theory of translation (English and Russian). 3d edition, revised. Vladivostok. Far Eastern University Press. This study provides a comprehensive overview of methods of translation of different parts of speech, including the one that is the subject of our interest—the translation of articles. The study informs on the possible ways that can be applied to translate definite, indefinite and zero articles, depending on the function that an article has in a sentence. 2. Lyons, C. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This study explains what definiteness means. It examines the concept of definiteness and explores different types of noun phrases that can be definite or indefinite. The author points out that definiteness is not always defined by (in)definite articles ‘the’ and ‘a’ but instead can be expressed in other ways. For this reason, the author examines grammatical, pragmatic, and semantic phenomena related to the expression of definiteness in different languages. The author mentions that in all languages there are expressions that have (in)definite meaning, but the ways in which definiteness is understood differ depending on the language’s structure. 3. Seres, D., Borrás-Comes, J., Espinal, T. 2021. Uniqueness in languages with and without articles: Catalan vs Russian. Beyond Philology An International Journal of Linguistics, Literary Studies and English Language Teaching. No. 18/3, 2021, pp. 163-195. The article considers the interpretation of nominals in Russian and Catalan and its relation to the presence of articles. In terms of the master thesis, the information concerning Russian is of the greatest interest. However, seeing Catalan as an example of a language with an overt system of articles can be useful as well. The study proved that in languages with articles, a definite article conveys the uniqueness of a nominal, while an indefinite article means non-uniqueness. In languages without an explicit system of articles, like Russian, bare nominals can combine with both uniqueness and a nonuniqueness interpretation. 4. Khoshaba, L. M., Alsultan, M. 2021. Problems of Translating Definiteness and Indefiniteness from Russian Into English and Arabic. Qalaai Zanist journal, 6(3), pp. 1018–1036. This research paper is devoted to the study of the definiteness and indefiniteness phenomena in three different languages, of which Russian and English are the subjects of interest in terms of the master thesis. The study explores what elements are used to express definiteness in languages with different grammar systems. The study aims to find if there are any similarities or differences between these languages in terms of expression of uniqueness. Additionally, the study examines the ways that can be used for translation from Russian to English and Arabic and considers literary and non-literary types of translation. 5. Seres, D., Borik, O. 2021. Definiteness in the absence of uniqueness: The case of Russian. In A. Blümel, J. Gajić, L. Geist, U. Junghanns, & H. Pitsch (Eds.), Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2018. Open Slavic Linguistics; Vol. 4. Language Science Press, pp. 339-363. This paper is devoted to the study of Russian as an articleless language and the consequences that this fact has on the expression of definiteness. The study claims that although there is no overt system of articles in Russian, natives can perceive the uniqueness of a nominal using different means. The study examines lexical, morphological, syntactic, and prosodic means. Exploring these means of expressing definiteness, the authors conclude that, due to the lack of articles, no single feature can be defined as the only one that in all cases expresses the uniqueness of the nominal.
