Comparative Analysis of the woman and женщина Conceptual Representation in English and Russian Languages in the Localization of the Series “The Handmaid's Tale”

Introduction. The topic of this study is a cognitive semantic analysis of the woman/женщина conceptual representation in the localization of the series “The Handmaid's Tale”. Due to the increasing interest in foreign series, the problem of localizing film texts is of particular importance. The relevance of the research topic is determined by the need to study the mass culture products from a linguistic point of view to draw conclusions about the most relevant problems of the modern society. Methodology and sources. The study aims to obtain objective conclusions about the structure and content of the woman/женщина concepts within a given film discourse. In the course of the research, such methods as definition and lexicographic analysis of synonymous lines, continuous sampling method, Antconc machine analysis, as well as a cognitive semantic and comparative analysis of the original and localized text were used. The research material is the first season of the TV series “The Handmaid's Tale”, as well as its Russian adaptation. The amount of the analyzed material is 50 000 words. Results and discussion. The categorical structure of the woman concept consists of 23 cognitive characteristics, which form 13 classification features. The material under study illustrates the equal level of lexical diversity of the original and localized texts. The most common transformation is the replacement of a part of speech since one-to-one correspondences do not always suit the norms of the translating language. Phraseological units included in the nominative fields of the woman/женщина concepts can be divided into 6 categories and nominate a woman as an object of social and personal relations. Conclusion. The woman/женщина concepts in the framework of a given film discourse are constructed around the idea of the subordinate position of a woman. The predominant component is the interpretative field, which includes emotionally and stylistically charged units. Thus, the evaluative essence of the concept under study is doubtless. Translation transformations enabling a translator to reverbalize the concept with minimal losses are widely used in the localization.

Authors: Nataliia V. Stepanova, Vlada N. Matveeva

Direction: Linguistics

Keywords: definition analysis, cognitive features, localization, nominative field, translation transformations, cognitive semantic analysis

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