Minority in English literary translation: the case of Slovak culturebound items

Abstract

The paper homes in on the analysis of culture-bound items in the English translation of the Slovak novel Rivers of Babylon (1991) which contains unique lexis symptomatic of the (post)-communist linguistic scene. By its focus on the transplantation of the Slovak culturally-marked lexis into English, the study is sensitively responsive to Cronin's appeal (2006) that in order to stand out in the globalized world it is necessary to start to pay heed to the local. The paper draws on the premise that when dealing with cultural asymmetries between languages cultural transplantation is inevitable, which supports the interpretation of translation as an essentially cultural practice (see Hermans, 2007). Ongoing research has shown that intercultural competence and awareness, arising from experience of cultures, are far more complex phenomena than they may seem to the translator. So far, less attention has been paid to the Central European context with focus on the Slovak culture transfer. The paper aims to investigate the character of the translation techniques used for the transfer of Slovak culture-bound items based on Pym's cutting-edge model of translation solutions (2016). The study also attempts to research the extent to which the local colour of the Slovak start text has been preserved in the English literary translation. Based on the corpus analysis, it may be argued that the translator tends to the reduction of the cultural expressiveness by domestication of culture-bound items in the target culture. The research findings are part of cultural translation and are instrumental in shedding fresh light on how Slovak culture may be reported to English culture.

The Impact of Ideologies on the Translator’s Work: A Conceptual Reflection and Application

“…Table 5. Source: own elaboration 5 A methodological manual for the analysis of culture-bound items in literary translation, which reflect ideology, may also be found in Bednárová-Gibová (2017). Building upon Pym's model of translation solutions ( 2016), the study explores to what extent the local ideological colour of the Slovak 'start text' has been kept in the English literary translation.…”

Students’ Challenges in Translating Poetry

“…Those challenges are mostly caused by the dynamic of poetry translation that involves many aspects in its process. The dynamics of poetry translation are described by Newmark, (1988) as follows: (Newmark, 1988) Furthermore, many translation experts (Baker, 2012;Bassnett, 2013;Carter, 2005;Larson, 1984;Newmark, 1988), state that a translator of literary works needs to have the Poetry translation has long been seen as an important issue among scholars and researchers (Awabdeh, 2014;Bednarova-Gibova, 2017;Burnshaw, S., Fitts, D. & Peyre, 1995;Fedyuchenko, 2018;Harto & Handayani, 2018;Rutherford, 2009;Saleh & Weda, 2018;Zarandona, 2002) who discussed the challenge of translating poetry. These studies have enhanced our understanding of the problems in translating poetry or literary works.…”