A study of the euphemism “death” in the translation of the novel “The dream in the red chamber” from Chinese into Russian

Aim. To identify the features of the Chinese-Russian translation of the euphemisms of the semantic group “death” on the material of the Chinese novel "Dream in the Red Chamber" by Cao Xueqin.Methodology. Linguistic and linguoculturological analysis of classical fiction texts were the key re­search methods. Besides, the following methods were applied in the research: hypothetical-deductive method; method of parallel comparison of texts having the same functional and stylistic affiliation for both languages; translation analysis; and a description-comparative method to identify the specifics of the units of the Chinese language compared to those of the Russian language and to establish the classification of the euphemisms referring to the semantic group “death” in both languages.Results. The author traces the nature of the euphemisms translations in the novel “Dream in the Red Chamber” by Cao Xueqin from Chinese into Russian. As a result, it has been revealed that the analysis of the euphemism “death” in the translation of the novel “The Dream in the Red Chamber” helps better understand mentality and culture of China in the middle of the XVIII century. Novelty of the research is in a comprehensive and holistic comparative analysis of the euphemistic vocabulary in the novel “Dream in the Red Chamber” by Cao Xueqin in Chinese and Russian. The absolute novelty is the enrichment and expansion of the conceptual concept of “euphemism” by introducing untranslated scientific works of Chinese linguists into scientific circulation.Research implications. The significance of the research lies in the possibility of applying its results in further research of Chinese-Russian literary translations comparison, as well as in the educational process at philological faculties of universities, in particular, in teaching theory and practice of trans­lation, sociolinguistics, lexicology, stylistics, psycholinguistics, etc. The classification of Russian and Chinese euphemisms proposed in this paper can be of use in some related sciences (intercultural communication, cultural studies, philosophy, political science, etc.).

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