The purpose and function of code-switching in Nabokov's Pnin and three of its Russian translations
Abstract
Due to the world globalization and as follows, the spread of multilingualism all over the world, scholarly interest in code-switching in general and in written code-switching in particular has never been so acute. This study is of interest, first of all, because of the combination of five languages in one novel and, secondly, because “there is still, on the whole, a lack of studies on code-switching in writing” (Jonsson, 2010, p.1297). Using Nabokov’s novel Pnin as the source of numerous instances of code-switching, this thesis investigates the purpose and function of CS in the novel. The novel is written predominantly in English including the examples of Russian, German, French and Latin languages. Furthermore, this thesis looks at how the three Russian translators render Russian in their translations and what is happening with the instances of other foreign languages. Additionally, the thesis explores what functions are lost and what functions are gained due to the way code-switching is translated.
After the thorough analysis of the examples of code-switching both in the source text and the target texts, some tendencies were spotted. As a result, this study suggests that some functions were used more frequently than others by one or another language. Moreover, the research has shown that the Russian instances of code-switching (which is the embedded language of the source text) are left in the target texts in the Russian language and thus most of the functions are lost. Most of German, French and Latin code-switching in the target texts are also left without changes (with minor exceptions). As follows, practically all the functions of the foreign instances (except Russian) given by Nabokov in the source text are also present in the target texts.