Semantic-Functional Features of Non-Equivalent Lexis in Literary Translation

Abstract

The article investigates the problems of literary translation, focusing on non-equivalent lexis – the class of lexical units that possess no ready counterpart in the target language and that therefore expose, more sharply than any other category, the cultural and conceptual asymmetries between languages. Drawing on Uzbek and English material, the study examines culture-specific words, or realia, as cultural-linguistic units in which the national experience of a people is condensed, and it analyses the semantic and functional mechanisms through which such units resist or accommodate translation. Concrete examples are used to demonstrate the principal strategies – transliteration, retention with footnoting, and context-governed disambiguation – by which the translator preserves the meaning encoded in these units while re-creating the literary work within the norms of another language.