COMMUNICATION ETIQUETTE IN A CLASSICAL BRITISH NOVEL: ECOLOGY OF LANGUAGE IN TRANSLATION

The paper considers different translations of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice into Russian in the ecological linguistic aspect. The paper investigates the correlation between the translators’ strategies which were considered conventional in their epoch to the key translation principles and norms. The effect of “text lifting” is analyzed in the current translations of the classical British novel. When translating communicative situations of informal communication from English into Russian, the use of the compensatory substitution you – вы in translations was observed in accordance with the conventional norm of classical translation (translation by Immanuel Marshak). On the other hand, the following ecological linguistic effect was observed in modern translations by Irina Gurova and Anastasia Gryzunova: Jane Austen’s novel, when placed in a situation of “text lifting”, the re-creation of the text in accordance with the norms and expectations of a new generation of readers, demonstrates linguoasthenic features associated with a tendency to weaken strict norms of speech etiquette. In some cases of modern translational adaptive changes in the novel, a tendency has been identified towards the use of communicative linguistic toxins, which also disrupt the linguistic and ecological balance of the text. The communicative situations of formal speech communication during the translation of Jane Austen’s novel have undergone much less changes from an ecological linguistics point of view, although there have been cases of the use of linguistic toxins that were not intended for use in Jane Austen’s text. Overpoliteness of the novel’s main character, resulting from the use of an outdated Russian-language formula of polite address in the text of Anastasia Gryzunova’s translation, can be interpreted as a linguistic toxin phenomenon in a situation of institutional communication. Conversely, the pragmatic strategy of archaization, which is actively used in the Gryzunova’s translation text, proves to be the most effective in a communicative situation of an abrupt and non-ecological change of the speech register. Thus, rethinking the key issues of the classical theory of translation within the framework of ecological linguistic research makes it possible to explain many phenomena of postmodern translation discourse not as anomalies, but as natural communicative processes.