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Abstract: The article examines a set of translation techniques used to adequately convey the pragmatic meanings of metaphors related to inanimate nature. The urgency of the study is determined by the interest in assessing the quality of literary translation, particularly the evaluation of metaphor translation. The aim of this work is to identify the peculiarities of rendering metaphors of inanimate nature. The research material embraces Solzhenitsyn’s work “The Gulag Archipelago” and its German translation by Anna Peturnig, completed in 1974. A total of 69 metaphorical units and their corresponding 69 translation equivalents were analyzed to evaluate the translation quality. The authors use general scientific methods (comparison, analysis, classification) and linguistic ones (dictionary definition analysis, contextual and seme analysis). The study was conducted based on the authors’ method of comparative translation analysis which is aimed at examining the techniques for translation of metaphors and establishing the degree of adequacy of their translation. The method consists in interpreting the original metaphor and its translation equivalent with the purpose of comparing the form and the content in order to establish the degree of equivalence. The stage of interpretation implies the analysis of the source domain of metaphorical expansion and explication of the semic structure and connotations of the lexical unit so as to identify the translation technique. The comparative analysis embraces several aspects: it presupposes the estimation of the degree of preservation of the form, semantic content, connotations, and realization of the communicative purpose. The coincidence of the stable cultural background within the language pair makes it possible to realize the communicative purpose and to preserve the image in its unity of form and content. However, due to the peculiarities of the linguistic and cultural experience, associations attached to linguistic signs with a similar form may differ within cultures, which leads to the need for image transformation. The translation techniques employed by Peturnig are characterized by a clear tendency to transform the image of the original text and allow conveying a wide range of implicit information hidden behind Solzhenitsyn’s metaphors.

About the author(s) :

Mariya L. Alekseeva

Ural State Pedagogical University (Ekaterinburg, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6416-0618

Viktoriya E. Salo

Surgut State University (Surgut, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1661-7190

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 14.07.2025; date of publication: 31.10.2025

References:

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