Rendering Emotional Coloring in Literary Translation

Abstract The paper presents results of a comparative analysis of three translations of Dostoevsky's “The Idiot” undertaken for the purpose of revealing the ways in which emotional coloring of translations differ from that of the original text. The number of words denoting different emotions in the original and in translations is compared, as well as frequency of their occurrence in each of the texts. A difference in the way emotions are named in English and in Russian is shown. The role of words denoting different types of emotions in reproducing the emotional charge of a literary text in translation, the necessity to preserve the density of such words in the text and the balance of positive and negative emotion words are discussed. The authors come to the conclusion that the same pattern in which all the three translations deviate from the original is predetermined by the difference in the ways emotions are named in English and in Russian, as well as by different literary traditions.