PRAGMATIC AND DISCURSIVE CONSTRAINTS IN THE TRANSLATION OF IRONY IN AUDIOVISUAL TEXTS

Abstract

The article summarizes the results of the ways irony is translated, taking into account the choice of translation strategies depending on the definition of the cognitive-interpretive complexity of source text. It has been determined that literal translation provides formal accuracy, but loses shades of ironic intention, which leads to a weakening or loss of the humorous and evaluative effect. However, traditional translation strategies of adaptation, explication and compensation make it possible to preserve pragmatic intentions, even in the absence of formal equivalence. It may sound obvious that the use of the above strategies requires additional skills to analyze contextual environment, cross cultural features and recognize the communicative impact on the addressee inherent in the original text. To reproduce the cognitive-emotional effect of target text, irony should be considered as a dynamic process that integrates linguistic, pragmatic and cultural factors. Thus, the authors dare to claim that the translation of irony is primarily aimed at the reconstruction of communicative intention rather than the reproduction of linguistic form. Thus the irony translation appears as a complex, multi-level process of intercultural communication, which emphasizes the importance of translation competence, intercultural awareness, analytical flexibility, etc. In audiovisual translation, in particular in the translation of sitcoms, this means preserving the speech characteristics of the characters, the dynamics of interpersonal interaction, and the comic effect, which allows us to define the audiovisual translation of sitcoms as a creative interpretative act of cultural mediation. It has also been determined that adequate translation of irony used in sitcoms involves achieving pragmatic equivalence, which is realized in the ability of the target audience to experience comparable emotional reactions as a result of mastering a similar inferential process.