Some difficulties of translating Fyodor Dostoyevsky's works into English

The article deals with the problem of translating into English some features of the lexical structure of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s idiolect that cause certain difficulties in perception. The analysis of two different translations of Dostoyevsky’s novel The Idiot and a number of short stories revealed so-called atopons (incomprehensible or obscure text units), which are classified according to the language levels into three groups: lexico-grammatical (agnonyms or semantemes), cognitive (cognemes) and pragmatic (pragmemes). Each of the classes is illustrated by numerous examples and prevailing methods of translation. The research methodology included the comparative method, the method of contextual and component analysis, description and generalization, as well as the technique of a thorough text examination and selective commenting. Culture-specific items (both socio-political and onomastic), phraseological units, low-colloquial words (with reduced stylistic coloring), addresses, modal particles and other linguistic phenomena are subjected to careful scrutiny. The study of agnonyms is particularly focused on individual author’s formations - hapa-xes used by Dostoyevsky to create a game effect and convey an expressive function. It is concluded that various factors should be taken into account in order to create a proper translation that would evoke the right emotional and esthetic feelings and preserve the national identity of the text.