EPITHETS AND SIMILES AS COGNITIVE-DISCURSIVE MODELS OF IMAGERY AND OBJECTS OF TRANSLATION RECONSTRUCTION (THE CASE-STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH-LANGUAGE NOVELS)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/folium/2026.8.29Keywords:
epithet, simile, cognitive-discursive model, imagery, translation, Englishlanguage prose of the 20th–21st centuriesAbstract
The article is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of epithets and similes as cognitive-discursive models of imagery in contemporary English-language novels of the 20th–21st centuries (The Goldfinch by D. Tartt, The Book Thief by M. Zucca, and Behind the Scenes at the Museum by K. The starting point is the thesis that these tropes function not only as stylistic embellishments, but also as mechanisms for conceptualising experience, profiling characteristics, and forming evaluative meanings in the structure of a literary text. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is the integration of the provisions of cognitive linguistics, linguostylistics, discourse theory of modern literary studies and translation studies. The article clarifies the cognitive status of epithets and comparisons as means of conceptual structuring of reality, outlines their role in modelling the interpretative space of artistic discourse, and defines the criteria for distinguishing between conventional and authorial figurative constructions. Their textforming, evaluative, and characterological functions in the organisation of the artistic world of a work, in particular in the formation of an individual author’s picture of the world, are analysed. It is argued that to adequately reproduce the individual author’s style, the translation of these tropes requires the reconstruction of the conceptual model of the image, and not just the formal reproduction of its lexical and grammatical structure. Based on contemporary English-language novels, the main strategies for translating epithets and comparisons have been systematised: preservation of the trope with maximum transfer of imagery; transformation with partial change of cognitive domains; replacement with another figurative means; omission in cases of stylistic overload; retropeisation as a compensatory mechanism for restoring imagery in another fragment of the text. It has been established that the complexity of translating authorial tropes stems from their significant cognitive, pragmatic, and text-forming load, since it is they that shape the emotional and aesthetic effect and ensure the integrity of artistic perception. It has been proven that the adequacy of translation is determined by the ability to reproduce the conceptual and evaluative potential of the image and ensure a functionally equivalent impact on the recipient of the translation.
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