Stylistic peculiarities in self-translation

Abstract

The paper deals with stylistic peculiarities which are characteristic of V. Nabokov’s self-translation of “Lolita”, his most famous novel. We analyze how the writer translates phraseological units that, on the one hand, are widely used in the source text and, on the other hand, present a real challenge for translators. The research identifies the reasons that caused the writer to translate his novel himself and studies the translation techniques employed by V. Nabokov. Reproducing “Lolita” in the Russian language the writer creates a new text targeting at the Russian reader. He overcomes the asymmetry of the positions in artistic freedom and creative independence of an author and a professional translator. His auto-translation represents “ideal” translation since the author is in a better position than any ordinary translator because he knows his creation as nobody else and has the authority to allow himself shifts in the translation which might not have been ‘allowed’ by another translator. The results of V. Nabokov’s self-translation can be regarded as certain “gold standards” for others to make use of.