фэнтези

The article analyzes the most significant foreign studies of sci-fi and fantasy in order to define the place of linguistics in this sphere of research, to highlight relevant linguistic problems that require further research. Two main development directions of linguistic studies are emphasized, and the necessity of the further specifically linguistic study of certain problems is established.

The research focuses on fantasy literature peculiarities and points out the difficulties of translating the texts of such genre. The comparative analysis of folklore and mythical names translation is implemented as illustrated by two variants of translation of the literary work.

Based on myths, epic, romance and adventure literature, classical fantasy books often depicted their heroes as warriors physically fighting evil. Nowadays the British writer Joe Abercrombie, whose works belong to the so-called grimdarkfantasy, depicts wars questioning the value of violent heroic deeds and the concept of a ‘hero’ itself.

The article focuses on the special features of fantasy literature and points out the difficulties of translating the texts of such genre. The comparative analysis of people’s names’ translation is implemented on the example of two variants of translation of one literary work. The article also introduces the frequency statistics of translation strategies, techniques and transformations used to transfer the author’s magic worldview into its translation counterpart.

The article contains the analysis of German children’s and young adult fantasy authors sharing a common interest to books as an important plot device. The focus of interest is on a considerable number of common themes, problems, character types and values that appear in the works of all the three authors, which allows to offer for these works such catch-all terms as ‘book text’ and ‘books about books’, and consider them as parts of a unique trend in German fantasy literature.