Conceptual equivalence of colloquialisms in cross-cultural cinematic discourse as a translation challenge

Abstract

The article considers the specifics of colloquialisms functioning in English cinematic discourse that defines the choice of translation strategies for representing them in Ukrainian films in order to preserve the conceptual equivalence in cross-cultural cinematic discourse. The research methodology, which incorporates general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction as well as linguistic methods of contextual, lexical, stylistic and pragmatic analyses, resulted in determining the theoretical background of the study, selecting illustrative research material and suggesting the country-specific meaning of colloquialisms used in English cinematic discourse. Colloquialisms, understood as informal words or expressions that are more suitable for use in speech than in writing, contain a lot of dialectal words, slang, jargon and obscene words, which are clearly distinct from each other. Colloquialisms, formed by compounding (44%), shortening (40%), rhyming (10%) and affixation (6%), perform two main functions: emotion-expressive and image-сreating. The methods of translation analysis helped define the specifics of reproduction of colloquialisms in cross-cultural English- Ukrainian cinematic discourse. Depending upon semantic and communicative appropriateness of colloquialisms in cross-cultural cinematic discourse, there have been distinguished three levels of their conceptual equivalence graded as the upper degree (48%), the medium degree (48%) and the initial degree (14%).