Interlingual transfer of culture-bound set expressions in translation from Kazakh into English based on the trilogy by Ilyas Yesenberlin "Nomads": analysis of translation strategies and their influence on the perception of the cultural context.

Abstract

This research investigates the translation strategies used in Ilyas Yesenberlin's Kazakh trilogy, "The Nomads," focusing on direct and indirect translation. Additionally, it examines how these translation strategies affect the perceptions of the cultural context. Given that the study encompasses Kazakh, Russian, and English, the central aim is to uncover how direct and indirect translation strategies influenced the portrayal of the cultural identity depicted in the trilogy. The study poses two research questions: “What are the strategies involved in transferring culture-bound words and expressions from Kazakh into Russian and Russian into English in the trilogy?” and “How do these strategies shape the representation of Kazakh cultural identity in the English translation?” This study employed a descriptive qualitative research design, which allowed for a thorough exploration of various materials and viewpoints and helped uncover hidden insights in the existing literature. The research involved seven key steps: gathering essential materials, identifying culture-bound expressions, categorizing them into two groups—words related to tradition and custom, as well as proverbs—investigating translation strategies for Kazakh-Russian and Russian-English, conducting a semi-structured interview to assess how translations influence cultural identity perception, and creating a table of corresponding Kazakh proverbs in Russian and English. The research led to the following conclusions: 1) The primary strategy for translating terms related to tradition and custom involved omission for both direct and indirect translations. The dominant strategy for proverbs translated from Kazakh to Russian was demetaphorization, while a mix of methods was used for indirect translation from Russian to English. Additionally, the frequency of omissions in proverbs is slightly lower than the aforementioned strategies and is also regarded as a key translation strategy for direct and indirect translations. 2) The interviews revealed that primary direct translation strategies—such as transliteration, explication, and lexical substitution—fail to fully convey the cultural identity present in culture bound expressions when used independently. Therefore, a combination of transliteration, explication, and lexical substitution is necessary. Most participants also emphasized the need for an in-depth exploration of the trilogy. They suggested investigating further appropriate translation strategies to accurately convey the meanings and cultural specifics of culture-bound expressions.