COGNITIVE CONSONANCE AS A FACTOR OF COGNITIVE EQUIVALENCE OF CHRONOLOGICALLY DISTANT RETRANSLATIONS

Abstract

The present research substantiates the concept of cognitive consonance as a factor of cognitive equivalence of chronologically distant retranslations from the standpoint of the theory and practice of translation. The material of the research is William Shakespeare’s tragedy “King Lear” (1605), which is chronologically distant original, and its three different Ukrainian retranslations performed by P. Kulish (1880), M. Rylsky (1941) and W. Barka (1969). The article determines the phenomenon of diachronic plurality in retranslations of a chronologically distant original as a problem of translation studies. Different socio-historical contexts and literary styles in which the analyzed diachronic retranslations are performed are characterized. The article considers the consonance and dissonance correlation as categories of harmony in music theory. The research explains the cognitive consonance specifics in the theory and practice of translation and the factors that determine the degree of convergence with the original. Cognitive equivalence is understood as a result of the harmonious identity of the mental processes of the author and the translator, which is the basis of functional-communicative coincidence and pragmatic equivalence of the original text and its retranslations. The parameters of cognitive equivalence of the original units and translation units, which is established in terms of cognitive consonance, are defined in the article. The cognitive equivalence of the author’s and translators’ mental processes is realized in two forms: complete cognitive equivalence (complete identity of the form and content) and partial cognitive equivalence (form of original units and translation units is violated, but content identity is preserved).