THE TRANSLATOR’S INDIVIDUAL STYLE AND PARAMETERS FOR ITS ANALYSIS

Abstract

The article examines academic papers investigating the concept of individual translation style, the possibilities of its analysis and description. The relationship between the translator’s individual style and personality is analyzed. The ethical problem of ‘visibility’ and ‘invisibility’ is considered in the context of the defining features of translators' style. The article contains a critical review of definitions of individual style proposed by Ukrainian and foreign academics. Two approaches to understanding the nature of the translator’s individual style are distinguished with regard to the reproduction of the author’s style. Within the first approach, the individual translation style is understood as a set of means and techniques for solving specific translation problems of reproducing elements of the original work. Within the second approach, individual translation style is seen as a unique style of linguistic and translation behavior that does not correlate with the original, is not the result of differences between languages, and is recurrent in other works of the translator. The positive results and problems of both approaches are discussed. The article provides an overview of works focusing on the study of individual features of the translator’s style (regardless of the original style) as well as the individual working style of translators (global and local). The broader possibilities of the second approach to understanding individual translation style are substantiated, since a more complex methodology and extensive material used within this approach make it possible to potentially identify and analyze sources of motivation, cognitive mechanisms, and those extralinguistic factors that directly or indirectly influence the formation of individual translation style. The article contains a conclusion about the unresolved issues of both approaches, namely, lack of interest in the personal aspects of the formation of translation behavior (for the first approach), difficulties in distinguishing those translation habits that are inherent only to the translator and do not reflect the stylistics of the original, as well as confirmation of assumptions about sources of motivation and extralinguistic factors affecting individual style.