The nature of translating English phytocomponent idioms

Abstract

Idiomatic expressions with phytocomponents, formed based on a nation's culture, history, and everyday life, occupy a distinctive place in the phraseological system of any language. The article examines scholars' perspectives on the naming and classification of phraseological units in Kazakh, Russian, and English, as well as analyzes the translation of phytocomponent idioms from English. It is well known that conveying figurative fixed expressions with implicit meanings is one of the complex challenges in translation studies. This is since phytonyms included in idioms may carry symbolic meaning in one language while not being used in the same way in another. Such features require the use of various translation strategies such as literal translation or adaptation. For the purposes of this study, a set of idioms with phytonymic components was selected from authoritative lexicographic sources (Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, English–Russian Phraseological Dictionary by A. V. Kunin, Russian–English Dictionary of Idioms by S. Lubensky, English–Kazakh Dictionary of Idioms by U. Kenesbaeva, and the Phraseological Dictionary of Kazakh Language by I. Kenesbaev). The selection was guided by the following criteria: the presence of a phytonymic component as a core element of the idiom, frequency of occurrence in major English lexicographic sources, availability of recorded Russian and/or Kazakh equivalents, cultural or semantic significance for cross-linguistic comparison. During the research, translations of English phytocomponent idioms into Russian and Kazakh were compared, contrastive analyses were made, their translational equivalence was analyzed, and specific recommendations were provided. The importance of considering lexical, semantic, and cultural equivalence in the translation of phraseological units containing phytonyms was emphasized. The results of the research provide insights into the cultural connections and differences between languages.