“ENGLISH HUMOR IN THE TRANSLATION”: VERBAL MEANS OF MODELLING THE HUMOR CONTEXTS IN RUSSIAN TRANSLATIONS OF ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’S DETECTIVE STORIES ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES

Abstract

Introduction. Many works in philology are devoted to the study of nationally specific characteristics of humor and irony in communicative cultures of the different languages’ native speakers. Contemporary linguistics is characterized by investigation the linguistic means of expressing the irony in the English literary works and their translations.
Purpose. This paper focuses on the linguistic features of English humorous contexts’ expression in Russian translations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective stories about Sherlock Holmes.
Methods. Some linguistic methods are applied in our research: descriptive, component analysis method, quantitative and calculative method.
Results. The paper illustrates that the range of the linguistic means of expressing the irony in Arthur Conan Doyle’s translations is very wide and variegated. Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels about Sherlock Holmes are analyzed in the paper. Humorous contexts have been selected and categorized. 110 objectifications are presented there. Connection of ironic contexts with human emotions and evaluations has been investigated and illustrated in the paper. Nationally specific characteristics of English humor have been described. The ways of comic effect’s formation and mechanisms of irony demonstration are suggested. The linguistic features of creation the irony are examined and classified. Humor’s and irony’s functions in English communicative cultures are described. Ironic masks of communication acts’ participants have been characterized. Quantitative and semantic analyses are applied in the work.
Conclusion. The English humor is very intelligent, intellectual, exquisite, covert, deep self-ironic and sarcastic. Ironic masks of interlocutors are found in Doyle’s detective stories: “smart” and “stupid”. Among the ways of comic effect’s formation hyperbole / litotes, irony, self-irony, sarcasm, black humor, the cheated expectation device has been used. There are a lot of mechanisms of expressing the irony in Doyle’s texts: double digit irony, nonobservance of communicative expectations, explication of the obviosity and absurd. The linguistic features of irony creation in detective stories about Sherlock Holmes are characterized by variety and intensity. The paper concludes that such emotions as fear, anger, sad, shame, disgust, amazement, gratification, gladness and others are objectivized in the text under investigation. Morphologic, syntactic, lexical, phraseological means, phonological characteristics and literature citations have been systematized. Special attention has been paid to the ironic contexts with emotional and evaluative markers. Doyle’s texts are rich in self-ironic reflections, ironic reflections, which can be directed to another participants of communication, ironic reflections, which imply human’s emotions and comparative or metaphoric verbalization.