Authors

Discussion

    Our presentation will deal with the Japanese and English translations of Chekhov's “The Lady with the Dog”. Chekhov's short story has been repeatedly translated into various languages, and there are numerous Japanese and English translations. This presentation will compare the Japanese and English translations and contrast them with the original Russian text, while considering the characteristics of the Russian, Japanese, and English languages from a linguistic perspective. By doing so, we will also clarify the characteristics of Chekhov's short stories, thereby presenting an important perspective in literary studies.

    The presentation will pay particular attention to the translation of sentences using быть, which expresses possession and existence, and will reveal how Russian sentences, which are considered a BE-language, are represented by Japanese and English. In Japanese, which is considered to be the same BE-language as Russian, aru or iru is mainly used. On the other hand, since English is a HAVE-language, the verb have is used in some parts of the translations, however, it is noteworthy that the construction “there is/are” is used extremely frequently. This clarifies the characteristics of sentences expressing existence and possession using быть in this short story

    It should also be noted that many of the beings represented by быть are non-physical and abstract. We will also discuss what this means in Chekhov's realism.