Domestication of Realities in English-Russian and Russian-English Translations at the Beginning of XX Century. Component Analysis

Literary translation is an inseparable part of modern translation practice. Though the majority of literary works undergo translations in more than one variation, all translators in this sphere face a concrete translational difficulty of translating realities and preserving the ambiance and culture of another country in a translated text. These distortions in the text elements we have listed most often refer to the process of domestication. This study will consider translations of Russian and English classics from approximately the same time period of the early XX century. The material for analysis will be the translations “Notes from the Underground” and “Alice in Wonderland” made by Constance Garnett and Vladimir Nabokov, respectively. We will apply special methodologies for the analysis of translations, moreover, we put forward a number of hypotheses that we consider plausible. The current study, if it justifies itself, will be useful for subsequent researches on lexis and semantics of the connection between the realities of the English and Russian languages, and the text of this study itself can be used as referential material. Finally, this study may be beneficial for literary translators, linguists in corresponding spheres and all those who are interested in translation analysis.