In the process of communication, we do not exchange words, but meanings. On the one hand, meaning, as a communicative category, is not limited to a single language and can be conveyed in translation by various linguistic means. On the other hand, when it comes to translation meaning losses are still unavoidable because most words of any natural language are bound to the culture behind them. The aim of this article is to analyze the ways to compensate in translation the communicative and pragmatic effect of culture-bound elements of literary text, termed within the scope of Russian translation studies as ‘associative realities’. The research is based on the novel Homo Zapiens (Penguin Books Ph, 2002) / Babylon (Faber Ph, 2001) by V. Pelevin and its translation into English, performed by A. Bromfield. The focus of the study is to analyze the functioning of English-language loanwords in the novel, which lose their nominative value and obtain a certain symbolic meaning. Serving as specific signal words emphasizing the changes in the society when the Russian people in the 1990’s found themselves disoriented and trapped between a discredited Soviet past and a banal, Westernized future, they acquire the features of culture bound elements typical for the Russian culture rather than for their source culture. The research identifies several strategies to compensate the communicative and pragmatic effects of multilingual puns in translation. The study allows us to expand our understanding of the functions of foreign loanwords in the text of a work of fiction, as well as to identify the main principles and ways of transmitting the bilingual nature of the text in translation.
literary communication, culture-bound words, translation, communicative and pragmatic effect
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