The article is devoted to the problems and difficulties that arise in the process
of translating Ukrainian folk tales into English. Particular attention is paid to
the translation of spatio-temporal categories, as they are an integral part of the
linguistic picture of the world of each nation, which is reflected in their folklore.
The problem of interpretation of the philosophical categories “space” and “time”
has a long history. Different researchers have interpreted them differently, building their theories in philosophy, physics, mathematics, linguistics. This problem
is not solved today in any of these areas of knowledge, so it is relevant and needs
further study. In addition, the transfer of national identity of the original text is
still not a simple but interesting task for translators, because the question of the
nature, types of realities and methods of their translation remain to be open. Every translator must be able to apply the full range of linguistic and extralinguistic
knowledge to translate the national color of the original during translation.
The aim of the work is to analyze translation tactics and operations in English translations of Ukrainian folk tales.
The research was carried out on the material of Ukrainian folk tales “The
brother, the sister and the Devil Dragon”, “Ivanko, Tsar of the beasts”, “The
poor man and his sons”, “Ivan-not-a-stitch-on and his brother”, “Ivan the
dragon killer”, “The seven brothers — seven ravens and their sister”, “Ivan the
bohatyr”, “Ivan the peasant’s son”, and their translation by Irina Zheleznova.
We divided each of the selected fairy tales into three parts (in order to simplify the analysis of the text): initial, medial and final. In each of these parts,
topographic and chronological formulas were identified. Then, by a comparative
analysis, we determined the tactics and translation operations, which the translator used during her translation into English.
On translating the all fairy tales into English, the translator used the strategy of communicatively equivalent translation. For this, the translator used the
tactics of transferring relevant information, the tactics of pragmatic adaptation of
the text, the tactics of reproducing the stylistic textual characteristics, the tactics
of correct information formatting and the tactics of reproducing the formal-structural textual characteristics.
More often, fairy tales were translated by using an equivalent match search.
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