LEXICAL-THEMATIC GROUPS AND FUNCTIONAL FEATURES OF THE TRANSLATOR’S FOOTNOTE IN ISKENDER PALA'S NOVEL «DEATH IN BABYLON LOVE IN ISTANBUL»

Abstract

The article is devoted to the specificity of the translator’s footnote as one of the methods of translation, the analysis of lexical-thematic groups of words that are commented on, and the functional features of the translator’s footnotes in the novel by Iskender Pala “Death in Babylon Love in Istanbul”, translated into Ukrainian by Oles Oles Kulchynsky. It was established that the genre of the work (intellectual bestseller), the level of education of the author, and encyclopedism largely determine the necessity of the appearance and number of the translator’s footnotes, especially if we take into account a different linguistic and cultural space, differences in religious worldview, a list of precedent texts and iconic personalities with whom an unprepared Ukrainian reader is unfamiliar or has very general ideas.
The text of the literary translation, which has become the object of linguistic and translation analysis, is an example of a combination of three options for explanation, commenting in the text of the work: intratextual (in the verbal structure of the translated text), subtextual (on the page) and extratextual in the form of a glossary, in which the definition of some realities that were interpreted in the other two types of footnotes is repeated. The material analyzed by us has shown the diversity of lexical and thematic groups of the translator’s footnotes, which present both the non-equivalent vocabulary of the Turkish language and provide general encyclopedic information. A significant part of the vocabulary that requires explanation is archaisms and historicisms. A translator’s footnote is one of the important ways of translating intellectual bestsellers, which requires the professional skill of the translator, an understanding of the need to eliminate potential gaps in the perception of the translated text. A footnote can have different functional load: explanation, interpretation, clarification, addition, comment, etc. It contains information of different nature: linguistic, regional, historical and cultural, linguistic. It is implemented in typical models characterized by the presence of fixed components. A translation footnote coexists in a translated text with other forms of commenting (intratextual and extratextual in the form of a glossary). This, in turn, requires unification of approaches to presenting the material, etc.