Analysis of a Small Extract from the Novel "The last of the Mohicans" by James Cooper

The original text under discussion is an extract from the novel “The last of the Mohicans” by James Fenimore Cooper. The source language of the novel is English. The purpose of this novel is to entertain the readers and to provide an insight in the life and nature of the Indians on the American continent. The translator tried to keep close to the source text, however he has introduced some changes in the target text, but the style of the source text was preserved by the translator.

Before starting to analyse this extract, I would like to say that this extract seems to me neither difficult nor easy to translate. I think that there are some places in this extract that can be difficult to translate without omitting some information from the source text. For example, the translator omitted half of the sentence about a young woman. In the source text it was said that “ the tresses of this lady were shining and black, like the plumage of the raven”. However, in the target text the translator preserved only the simile, where he compared this woman’s hair with the plumage of the raven. “Волосы этой девушки были цвета воронова крыла”, because it sounds very beautiful and tender even without indicating that her tresses were also shining. …