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Pragmatic potential of Russian discursive units: a constructional approach

  • Dmitrij Dobrovol’skij EMAIL logo and Ludmila Pöppel
Published/Copyright: November 4, 2015
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Summary

Because different languages often lack semantic equivalents, translation may require looking for other cross-linguistic correlations on the level of the utterance. To find a functional equivalent that is adequate to the translation of a given context, the search should focus on pragmatic correspondences rather than semantic equivalents. The present article examines this phenomenon on the basis of the Russian near-synonymous discursive units with focus-sensitive semantics imenno (just/precisely) and kak raz (just/precisely). They are important elements of communication but have far not been fully described. Using relevant lexicographic information, text corpora, including parallel corpora, and works of fiction, we are going to show that synonymy of these discursive units is not as complete as it appears at first glance. We will analyze their semantic and pragmatic properties, usage peculiarities as well as systemic and translational equivalents in English, German and Swedish.

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on work supported by the RFFI under Grant 15-04-00507 and by the RGNF under Grant 15-04-12018.

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Published Online: 2015-11-4
Published in Print: 2015-11-1

© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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