Linguistically and culturally marked units in “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child†by J. K. Rowling and their translation into Ukrainian

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of translating linguistically and culturally marked (LCM) lexical units. The study aims to analyze the usage of such translational strategies as domestication and foreignization or their combination. The research presupposes the definition of LCM words which are used in the play by J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child". The current relevance of the article is defined by a growing interest in the problems of children's literature in general and its increasing role in world literature in particular. While developing the research methodology of the study undertaken the authors substantiated the expediency of utilizing a variety of methods. Using the continuous sampling method, the authors have chosen all linguistic units which can be considered linguistically and culturally marked (understanding this as both linguistically marked, i.e. having some linguistic element specific for this language – a suffix, an unusual valence, etc. and culturally marked). In the play by Rowling, cultural realia are distinguished by the fact that they denote not only objects of the real world, but also those of the magic world invented by the author. This group of realia is prevailing (73%). The key examples (40) of the above-mentioned units have been discussed in this research. There is a wide variation of tactics and linguistic means of translation of the units under consideration but the main strategies are the following two – domestication and foreignisation. The Ukrainian translation is characterized by the major role of domestication.