SlavFile Summer 2015 Vol. 24, No. 3 NEWSLETTER OF THE SLAVIC LANGUAGES DIVISION www.ata-divisions.org/SLD/slavfile.htm AN INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR ANDREY REZNIKOV ON HIS SPECIALITY: RUSSIAN ANTI-PROVERBS Interviewed by Lydia Stone From the interviewer: Having been introduced to the topic of anti-proverbs and finding out that there have been major studies devoted to Russian ones, I ordered and read the studies and requested an interview with their author. Following this interview is the taxonomy Professor Reznikov uses to classify Russian proverbs, with his examples and some English analogues intro- duced for purposes of comparison. LS: Could you tell readers something about yourself? AR: I am Professor of English and Linguistics at Black Hills State University, in Spearfish, SD. I have been teaching at the college level for 37 years now. I received all my degrees from Saint Petersburg University, Russia. My first specialty is English philol- ogy (language and literature, with an emphasis on lin- In this issue: guistics), and my second specialty is translation. SLD 2015 Administrator Candidates .............................. 5 My research interests lie in two areas: function- al grammar and sociolinguistics. I have authored or CONFERENCE REVIEWS edited several textbooks for college students, and Martha Kosir over 50 research papers and books. The most signifi- On Stone’s Poetry Presentation ..................................…. 7 cant among them, in my own opinion, is my book on Jen Guernsey George Orwell as a linguist (George Orwell’s Theory Demonstratives in Four Slavic Languages ................... 11 of Language), in which I analyze the writer’s views on the interaction between language and society, using Liv Bliss his books, essays, diaries, radio commentaries, letters, Yahoo Group Discussion on CAT Tools .......................... 12 etc. This book was published both in the USA and in Svetlana Beloshapkina / Newcomer Column .............. 15 Russia. Shelley Fairweather-Vega ......................................... 15 In addition to teaching and research, I spent over Eugenia Sokolskaya .................................................. 17 20 years as Principal Translator and Interpreter Susan Welsh / SlavFilms: Hockey ................................. 18 for programs of the Russian American Rule of Law SlavFile Lite .................................................................... 21 Consortium (RAROLC), non-profit rule of law ex- change programs partnering ten US states with ten Marijana Tropin sister-regions of the Russian Federation. I have also Translator Conference in Zagreb ................................... 23 translated several college textbooks from English into Marijana Tropin Russian. English-Croatian Medical Glossary ............................... 25 Continued on page 2 SLD Banquet in Miami (yum) ........................................ 29 Andrey Reznikov LS: How did you choose the very SLAVIC LANGUAGES DIVISION interesting topic of anti-proverbs as OFFICERS your research focus? Administrator: Lucy Gunderson AR: The topic was suggested to me by my [email protected] esteemed colleague and dear friend, Professor Assistant Administrator: Fred Grasso Wolfgang Mieder (University of Vermont). I [email protected] will have more to say about this in my next SlavFile is published four times yearly. answer. Articles of interest to Slavic translators and interpreters are invited. LS: Would you tell us briefly how anti-proverbs are defined and what Designation of Slavic Languages Division membership on ATA membership application linguists hope to learn from studying them? or renewal form AR: The term anti-proverbs was introduced into paremiolo- provides full membership. gy (the collection and study of proverbs) by Professor Wolfgang Write to ATA, 225 Reinekers Lane Mieder of the University of Vermont. He is the founding father of Alexandria, VA 22314 this field of study, and as his research was based on the analysis of Submissions become the property of SlavFile German anti-proverbs, he originally coined this term in German: and are subject to editing. Antisprichwort. Professor Mieder has defined anti-proverbs as Opinions expressed are those of the authors deliberate proverb innovations. Today this term is universally ac- and do not necessarily represent cepted by proverb scholars all over the world. the views of the Editor or of the Division. I would like to add that the term itself may be somewhat mis- Editor: Lydia Razran Stone leading, in the sense that these new coinages are not against [email protected] (anti-) traditional proverbs; they are new versions of those tradi- Associate Editor: Liv Bliss tional proverbs, where either the form or the meaning (or both) is [email protected] adjusted to new realities via certain language mechanisms — Associate Editor: Nora Favorov [email protected] phonetic, morphological, semantic, etc. Associate Editor: Galina Raff (Russian, Layout) LS: In your books you talk about this as being a socio- [email protected] linguistic research topic. What kind of sociological EDITORIAL BOARD truths can this study help reveal? Yuliya Baldwin AR: First of all, it reveals which of the traditional proverbs (TP) [email protected] are still used today. It is obvious that only those proverbs that are Svetlana Beloshapkina (Newcomers) still alive in the common consciousness of speakers will be used [email protected] as the basis of anti-proverbs (AP), as one of the standard require- Jennifer L. Guernsey ments for an AP is that the prototype TP be generally recogniz- [email protected] able. Also, from a purely scientific point of view, we can find out Ekaterina Howard which of the language mechanisms are used to create AP, and [email protected] which of them are used most often (or least often). Katarzyna Jankowski (Polish) [email protected] LS: I gather that research on anti-proverbs has been performed in various languages. Have any key differ- Martha Kosir (Poetry) [email protected] ences between language communities been found? What are the most striking idiosyncrasies of Russian Vladimir Kovner [email protected] anti-proverbs in particular? Paul Makinen (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian) AR: Yes indeed, there are collections of anti-proverbs in all [email protected] the main European languages —English, German, and French — Christina Sever as well as numerous studies of anti-proverbs. Those interested [email protected] in such publications can look them up in the Bibliography to my Olga Shostachuk (Ukrainian) book Old Wine in New Bottles. I have not seen any comparative [email protected] studies done yet; so it may be the topic for the next book! I would Lynn Visson expect the differences to be the same as those of traditional prov- [email protected] erbs: apart from those coming from common sources, they will Susan Welsh (Films) reflect the culture (and the society in general) of the language in [email protected] question. SlavFile Page 2 Summer 2015 LS: I have read both your books. The first, A saying (поговорка), on the other hand, does not Old Wine in New Bottles (2009), lists and have that moral element; it is simply a well-construct- analyzes more than 150 APs found in a ed phrase reflecting some aspect of life, society, peo- dictionary of Soviet political jargon, and ple, etc., without the attempt to teach how you should several dictionaries devoted to jokes, anti- live. For example, Пристал как банный лист [figura- proverbs and anti-aphorisms. The second, tively: “He stuck to me like a bur” – literally: “… like a Russian Anti-Proverbs of the 21st Century (birch) leaf in a bathhouse”]. For purposes of my re- (2012), does the same with 1,000 anti-prov- search, I use both of these types, since their anti-prov- erbs taken from newspapers and magazines erbs are created via the same mechanisms. In addi- with named authors and URL addresses. tion, I believe that for the purposes of my analysis, any The first book primarily consists of witty phrase that is alive in the common memory of Russian anti-proverbs expressing attitudes and pre- speakers can be used (and is indeed used) as the basis occupations one would assume are shared for an anti-proverb, be it a traditional classical prov- by a large number of Russian speakers, erb, a well-known quote from a book or a movie, or a ranging from responses to current eco- famous aphorism. nomic and political conditions to preoccu- LS: The audience for this interview will con- pations with getting drunk and having sex. sist primarily of translators into and out of The second book contains some of these, Slavic languages. What implications, if any, but the majority here seem to be punning can you draw from your work of particular APs referring to very particular situations relevance to this group? used especially by headline writers (e.g., Грипп свинье не товарищ; Flu and a swine AR: Since proverbs are a part of the idiomatic lexi- cannot be friends), which express no par- con (together with other set expressions, where the ticular wisdom even on shallow topics, but meaning of the whole cannot be deduced from the do show how prevalent the original creation meanings of the parts), they present a difficult task for of anti-proverbs is. Which of these types do any translator. Unless an idiom has international us- you find more interesting? age (e.g., those with origins in the Bible or Greek my- thology), they leave translators with only two choices: AR: It depends on what you call interesting. If you explain the meaning and lose the style or try to find an are looking from the point of view of the language equivalent idiom in the other language. Both of these mechanisms used in creating a new version, then yes, solutions have their problems, and I am sure your jokes are indeed much more interesting and witty readers, being professional translators, are well aware (otherwise they would not be jokes). What I argue, of them: using a Russian equivalent oftentimes will be however, is that those coinages are not, in the true inappropriate, as it will bring a Russian couleur locale sense of the word, proverbs, since a proverb by defini- into an English text.