EXPRESSIVENESS OF YOUTH MEDIA LANGUAGE IN THE CONTEXT OF TRANSLATION

Ryabova M. E.

Moscow City Pedagogical University
Russia, Moscow
e-mail: ryabovame@mail.ru

Introduction

Expression and emotional states play a crucial role in the communication of the younger generation, who freely express their feelings in the modern media space. The category of expressiveness is one of the most complex in linguistics, the study of which has a long history. Even in ancient times, thinkers understood the emotions experienced by people under the influence of various factors and noted their significant influence on the expressiveness of communicative behavior. Aristotle, one of the first ancient philosophers, described emotions as "everything under the influence of which people change their decisions" [1, p. 137]. This position is consistent with the assertion of W. Humboldt that "feeling accompanies even the most educated person everywhere" [3, p. 301].

Currently, linguistics and psychology are once again turning to direct "live communication," based on the idea that it is closely linked to emotions and realizes the many expressive intentions of the linguistic personality. The communicative needs of young people gravitate toward expressive vocabulary, and the most pressing social issues are reflected in youth language, richly stylistically colored. "Every generation <…> "causes some kind of shift in it (language), which, however, often escapes observation," emphasizes V. f. Humboldt [Ibid., p. 84]. This issue is perceived especially acutely in the electronic reality of the growing transformations in the field of communication. The Internet space and its potential for creative opportunities, including all kinds of chats, social networks, instant messengers and other media tools, have changed human thinking, expanding linguistic variability, including the methods and forms of realizing expressiveness. Psychological factors in the problem of youth language, conditioned by new key socio-cultural trends, actualize the need to rethink approaches to the study of expressiveness in the discourse of modern realities. The dynamics of psychological changes in language in the media space presents certain difficulties in terms of conveying expressiveness. The aim of the study is to identify the characteristic expressive features inherent in the mobile media language of youth, and the specifics of its translation.

 

Emotionality and expressiveness of youth language in modern media discourse

Youth language as a phenomenon has existed throughout history. Certainly, specific youth language is historically mediated and acts as an age-specific product of a particular cultural development. Nevertheless, it can be argued that youth vocabulary is an integral part of the lives of all categories of people, regardless of age or social status, which allows it to be described as a fascinating linguistic universal. Many of its features constitute a kind of "stylistic break" (in the terminology of Yu. M. Lotman), allowing for the transition from a distinct micro-group to the common property of the many.

According to H. Henne, youth language is a special way of expressing oneself, through which young people profile their language and find their identity. H. Henne describes it as a structure with certain characteristics, which include greetings, partner names, catchy names, proverbs, animated statements, stereotypical phrases, metaphorical and generally hyperbolic ways of speaking, remarks expressing admiration and curses, language games, sound reduction, sound attenuation, as well as active processes of word formation and expansion of word meaning [9, p. 36].

The youth language layer is often considered a violation of the norms of standard language. The concept of "youth language" is based on the opposition between the main part of the language (literary, codified), the so-called standard language, and the substandard. This is the inherent opposition between the conceptual sphere of "youth language" and its linguistic representations.

Scholars' attempts to define youth vocabulary have led to significant differences of opinion. Some linguists, when discussing youth language as a distinct subsystem of language, use the terms "slang" and "jargon." The distinction between these and other synonymous terms is clearly debatable, and it is therefore important to state the author's position that "youth vocabulary" is used as the working term in this article, as this is not the purpose of studying this layer of language. The study is limited to emotionally expressive vocabulary, influenced by modern media, popular among German youth and, due to their dynamic mobility, potentially challenging to translate into Russian.

A similar discord has developed in linguistics regarding the category of expressivity, which is closely intertwined with the concept of emotionality. Most scholars view them as independent, mutually complementary phenomena. While agreeing with this position, it should be emphasized that the distinction between emotionality and expressiveness is linked to the subjective views of the linguistic personality, which exist in their consciousness. L.M. Zainullina points out that emotions are "a natural reaction to a stimulus" [5, p. 488]. Continuing the author's thought, it should be emphasized that the subjective reaction to the perception of the world is the transmission of a personal emotional state or attitude toward a situation, the expressive expression of which enhances the achievement of a perlocutionary effect. The interdependence of emotionality and expressiveness constitutes a dialectical unity, where the cognitive activity of the individual acquires a particularly subjective aspect. Thus, if we accept the fact that emotionality stimulates the expressiveness of language, it is precisely the subjectivity of human consciousness and its value-based attitude toward reality that motivates the choice of one or another linguistic means.

The expressiveness of youth language is most clearly manifested in media vocabulary, or more precisely, in the vocabulary of media language. The widespread use of digital technologies in communications has influenced the emergence of new means of expressiveness in media discourse, leading to a blending of lexical layers, making it difficult to differentiate between the layers of jargon, slang, professionalisms, and other linguistic subsystems that border on youth language. However, these difficulties demonstrate that language is dynamic, and that active movement occurs between the various layers.

There's no doubt that the expressive vocabulary of youth media discourse is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. The expressive qualities of youth language are characterized by a unique expressive quality. Primarily, this is utmost conciseness, a striving for brevity, and a minimum of standardization.

Online publications and virtual platforms (StayFriends, StudiVZ, Facebook, MySpace, Lokalisten.de, Twitter) are primarily spaces for communicative interaction between young people, where the specific nature of youth speech is reflected. According to an analysis by the creative agency "We Are Social" and the SMM platform Hootsuite, the overwhelming majority of the German population (90%) aged 18 to 30 are registered on more than one social network, while among the advanced age population (50 and older), this figure is 43 % [10].

The study also showed that newspapers and magazines continue to be influential among young people. This is particularly true for the online editions of German magazines "Freundin," "Prinz," "Young Miss," and "Glamour.".

Characteristic features of youth vocabulary

Let's examine the characteristic features of youth vocabulary, as the method of translating German youth vocabulary directly depends on its specific characteristics. The richness of this area of language is so diverse that the relevance of its study is only growing. Of greatest interest in the context of the article's subject matter are not all existing features of youth language, but rather the most common ones in modern reality. Researchers note that the specificity of youth language "is based on two factors: the appeal to specialized cultural resources disseminated by the media, and the creation of new connections" [6, p. 52].

An analysis of the scientific and theoretical understanding of youth language by foreign (Henne H., Ehmann H., Fleischer W., Neuland E., Schlobinski P. u.a.) and domestic (Goncharova Yu. A., Stepanova M. D., Chernysheva I. I., and others) linguists has shown that the methods of replenishing the youth vocabulary regularly vary, replacing one language capability with another. Thus, in 1996, the most productive method of word formation was derivation, and in 2019 – compounding [8, pp. 267, 271].

An analysis of German-language magazines "Fluter.de, Bravo, Spiesser" over the past two years (2020-2022) revealed that the dominant method of word formation is verbalization. Müsst ihr eigentlich immer zoffen? – Do you always have to argue? Verb zoffen (argue c by someone) derived from a noun der Zoff.

The verbalization of English borrowings also actively expands the vocabulary of young people. For example, translating Anglicisms and Americanisms related to computers or technical devices is not difficult. For example, words like googeln, facebooken, wikipedia, are clear enough for translation. But in German there are some Anglicisms or borrowings that require translation their expressiveness is lost. For example, Die tighte Trends der Stars bei den Grammy (the adjective tighte is synonymous with super, cool); adjective tight in English it means "tightly stretched, narrow", and in German it is synonymous with the word cool, i.e. cool, awesome.

Expressiveness is also associated with the use of colloquial expressions by young people, which, while conveying the meaning of the statement when translated, often compensate for one method of word formation in the source language with another in the target language. For example: Deine Mom bewacht die Tür wie ein bissiger Hund, deshalb glaube ich nothing, dass ich die nächsten zehn Jahre zu dir reinkann. — Thowl Ma guards the door like a mad dog, so I don't think I'll be able to come to you for the next ten years. The noun "Mum" is colloquial and commonly used. In the original text, this name illustrates the German youth's love of Anglicisms, while the translated text uses the youth slang term for parents, equivalent to "ma." The following sentence, however, can only be translated with a different emotional context: Deine nette große Schwester, die du so (überhaupt nothing) liebst, hat sich bereit erklärt, dir day Brief hier zu bringen. - Surprisingly, yours older sister, which you love so much (I'm kidding!) agreed to give you my note. The emotional tone of the translated sentence is more familiar, which is justified by the prevalence of familiar, lower-sounding stylistic colorings in youth vocabulary, from ironic and mocking to playful, expressing sympathy. For example: Als blonde junge Frau ist man ja heute das Doofchen. – Today, everyone associates young blondes with puffed-up fools.

It should be noted that although there are a large number of lexemes that belong to expressive vocabulary, I would like to draw attention to the fact that M. Bakhtin emphasized that even a neutral word in a certain contact with reality can acquire an expressive coloring. «Every word exists <…> in three aspects: as a neutral and unowned word of the language, as someone else's the word of other people, full of echoes of other people's statements, and, finally, how my »word, because, since I deal with it in a certain situation, with a certain speech intention, it is already imbued with my expression” [2, p. 283]. Modern linguists (Dobrovolsky D.O.) also adhere to the opinion that any word in a certain context and under certain factors can acquire an expressive coloring [4].

Translation techniques for conveying expressive vocabulary

An analysis of expressive vocabulary revealed dominant translation techniques characteristic of their transmission. The primary technique used in translating expressive youth vocabulary is lexical substitution, which comes in several varieties.

1. Replacing a word used in colloquial language with a word used in standard, literary language, but offsetting its expressiveness through metaphorical comparison, which gives the statement a certain poetic quality, although it softens the emotionality. For example: An einen furchtbar Sauren Alex. – Evil as hell, To Alex.
2. Replacing a word from colloquial vocabulary with a word from stylistically neutral vocabulary. For example: Sie ist kuschlig and warm. - She nice and warm.
3. Using the compensation technique. For example: Du bist ja sooo blöd. Ich passe nämlich grade auf, was die Lehrerin erzählt. — Leave me alone, я I'm listening ours Suzanne. Offer "«Du bist ja sooo blöd»" translates literally as "«You such silly». It conveys irritation and indignation towards the interlocutor. German word blöd refers to stylistically reduced vocabulary and in combination with the unusual spelling of the previous word (sooo -such) gives an idea of the degree of irritation. This repetition of the vowel gives the whole sentence a more vivid expressive coloring. The translated sentence uses the word leave me alone, which, although it does not repeat the stylistic coloring of the word blöd, but also refers to stylistically reduced vocabulary. The translated text itself turned out to be shorter due to the omission of part of the sentence, which was compensated for by the introduction of the word leave me alone. The acceptance of compensation is also applied when instead of transferring a profession teacher The name of a specific person belonging to this profession appears. It should be noted that the translated text does not always adhere to the formal structure of the source text, as can be seen in the example given.

Of course, these aren't the only methods used when translating expressive vocabulary. Other frequently used translation techniques include modulation, compensation, concretization, and generalization.

The main factor influencing the translation decision is the choice of lexical units that are close to conveying not expression, but simply vocabulary close to the colloquial style.

Quite often, a euphemistic technique is used, which involves reducing the degree of expression of the original words, which is explained by the translation strategy, that is, the emotional background is either deliberately reduced or intensified.

And there is one more point that I would like to dwell on in a little more detail.

Expressiveness of creolized texts in the translation aspect

The language of youth media discourse is represented predominantly by creolized texts, that is, texts structured by iconic and verbal components. Their combination creates an original expression. However, the role of each component can vary, allowing creolized texts to be divided into two subgroups. The first subgroup consists of creolized texts in which expression is primarily expressed through the verbal component, while the second subgroup consists of creolized texts in which expression is realized through a combination of verbal and nonverbal components.

Figure 1 shows a creolized text in which expression is expressed through a combination of verbal and non-verbal components.

Fig. 1. Creolized text 1.

The linguistic representation is based on an allusion to the well-known aphorism, "Knowledge is power." To ensure unambiguous interpretation of the meaning, the drawing is reinforced by the word "Wissen," and the image of a bent arm with a bicep automatically evokes familiar words and vividly characterizes the expressiveness of the text. The emotional effect would have been achieved with just one component, but the image of the ancient thinker, combined with the allusion to the aphorism, which has been known since ancient times, adds a compelling expressive dimension to the statement, forbidding any other interpretation.

Figure 2 shows a creolized text in which expression is realized through the equal interaction of verbal and nonverbal components. Expression is based on the meaning of the written word "streichen," which is not at all what the verbal context indicates.

Fig. 2. Creolized text 2.

At first glance at Figure 2, the verbal component of the creolized text can be interpreted as conveying the meaning that, following the doctor's advice, one should avoid beer. The expression is based on the contradictory meanings of the verb "“streichen”The dictionary indicates the following meanings:

1. mithilfe eines Pinsels o.ä. mit einem Anstrich versehen; anstreichen [7, p. 863] — to apply paint using a brush, etc..
2. (etwas Geschriebenes, Gedrucktes, Aufgezeichnetes) durch einen oder mehrere Striche ungültig machen, tilgen; ausstreichen [Ibidem] — (something. written, printed, recorded) to delete, cross out with one or more lines.

The doctor's words in the verbal component directly indicate the second meaning of the verb, but the visual component illustrates the first meaning, thereby creating an expressive contradiction. The substitution of one meaning for another (the blacked-out label) contains the subtext that the author does not give up beer, despite following the doctor's recommendations.

Conclusion

To summarize the above, it should be emphasized that expressive vocabulary in online youth communication is largely represented by creolized message components. This is easily explained by the general tendency of modern language, not just youth language, in online communication to strive for a compact form, where creolization succinctly combines traditional and new forms.

Regarding the translatability of expressive vocabulary, it's quite difficult to accurately convey its nuances. Each individual's subjective perception leads to their own interpretation of the meaning of a given expression. Therefore, when translating youth vocabulary, careful attention should be paid to factors such as the author's personality and the specific situation in which the phrase was used. Moreover, the primary factor influencing translation decisions is the choice of lexical units that convey not only expressiveness but also vocabulary reminiscent of colloquial style.

Literature

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2. Bakhtin M.M. Aesthetics of Verbal Creativity. Moscow: Art, 1986. 445 p.
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References

1. Aristotle. Ritorika. M.: AST, 2017. 352 p.
2. Bahtin MM. Aesthetics of Verbal Creation. Moscow: Art, 1986. 445 p.
3. Gumboldt V. Izbrannye trudy po jazykoznaniju. M.: Progress, 2000. 400 p.
4. Dobrovol'skij DO. National-cultural specificity in phraseology // Voprosy jazykoznanija. 1997. No. 6. P. 37-48.
5. Zajnullina LM. Some aspects of the study of emotions // Vestnik Bashkir. University, 2012. Vol. 17. Issue 1. P. 486-491.
6. Morozov EA. German youth language: history of development from the 18th century to the present day // International research journal. 2016. No. 6-4(48). P. 50-52. DOI 10.18454/IRJ.2016.48.078. EDN WBLVVN.
7. Duden. Das Bedeutungswörterbuch. 3. Aufl. Band 10. Mannheim-Leipzig-Wien-Zürich, 2002. Dudenverlag. 1103P.
8. Elsen H. Sonderlexik Jugend? // Jugendsprachen – Spiegel der Zeit / hrsg. v. E. Neuland. Wuppertal: Peter Lang, 2001. P. 262-275.
9. Henne H. Jugend und ihre Sprache. Darstellung, Materialien, Kritik. 2. Aufl. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2009. 385 p.
10. We Are Social [Electronic resource]. URL: https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2022-germany (data obrashhenija 30.07.2022)