Cultural Adaptation of the Target Text: the Case of Translation of Literary Fairy Tales

In modern world, translation has become an effective tool in communication. Nevertheless, the role of translation is broader. Apart from being a means of communication, translation always goes through the process of cultural adaptation, which commonly occurs in fiction. This happens because of the differences that exist among cultural values of various nationalities and other peculiarities applicable to the representatives of a certain culture. Without special knowledge, the readers will not be able to perceive the overall information of the source text. Thus, many writers create adaptations of some books, saving the plot, but making it sound in another manner, which is more common for the target audience. Moreover, the process of translation can be aggravated with such parameters as the time, political and economic background, religious awareness, etc. Consequently, it leads to significant changes in terms of ideological, religious, historical or household context, while going through the process of adaptation. In this research, the mechanisms of cultural adaptation will be investigated on the examples of literary fairy tales that have their Russian analogues. The differences between the source and the adapted versions on the cultural level will be analyzed with the help of comparative and discourse analysis.