An Analysis of Indirect Literary Translation: a Case study of S. Zhunusov’s Novel «Zamanai men Amanai»

Abstract

The study analyzes the use of stylometry in assessing the translation quality of literary texts in the context of indirect literary translation. The study examines the novel Zamanai men Amanai by the prominent Kazakh writer S. Zhunusov and its Russian and English translations as a case. The research employs a mixed-methods approach, combining computational stylometry in Python with qualitative linguistic analysis to compare the original text with its direct Russian and indirect English translations. Focusing on the concept of idiostyle rigidity, implying the stability of an author’s individual stylistic features, the authors investigate rhythmic patterns, syntactic structures, and the frequency of key lexical items across three strategically selected text extracts. Findings indicate that while the direct Russian translation more consistently preserves the author’s complex syntactic rhythms and culturally specific concepts, the indirect English translation exhibits greater syntactic simplification and occasionally omits culturally marked terms, thereby shifting narrative emphasis. The study concludes that stylometry provides a statistically grounded framework for identifying translatorial fingerprints and evaluating the degree to which an author's rigid idiostyle is maintained or reduced across translation chains, offering a valuable tool for the objective assessment of translation quality in mediated literary transfer.