New word as by-product of media text translation

Abstract

The article examines the work of a translator in the context of searching for an equivalent to translate a common noun, which is not only used to designate the producer of an action, but also includes background cultural knowledge that is understandable to a native speaker of the source language but requires an explicit translation for a Russian-speaking reader. Translation with the use of such techniques as transformation, approximate analogy, transliteration is not always possible, just as translator’s commentary or additional explanations. In such a situation, the translator needs to come up with an equivalent in order to convey everything that the lexeme of the source text includes. In this case, the work of the translator is productive for the formation of new words and replenishment of the lexical composition of the Russian language. The article examines a case of translating comments to a media text which are about representatives of the Last Generation (Letzte Generation) movement — environmental activists who attract the attention of the authorities with actions of civil disobedience. The history of the phenomenon is briefly outlined in the introductory part of the article. During the translation, a verbal noun was invented by adding the specific suffixes, which have a negative and disparaging meaning, to the stem of the verb. A retrospective approach when checking the formed equivalent confirms the correctness of the selected formants, and the work with groups of students on the selection and formation of translation options for the same word shows that nouns with the suffix -un are perceived as lexemes with a negative connotation, regardless of the presence of context. In addition, the equivalents formed by the students are also common nouns, obtained by attaching the suffixes -un/-yun to the verb stem. The result of the experiment shows that the work of a translator provides material for discussing translation as an activity productive for the emergence of new words and enriching the vocabulary of the Russian language, as well as the purposeful use of word-formative formants in accordance with the system of evaluative suffixes of substantive word formation in the Russian language.