This article presents a select survey of the rendering of personal names in translation into English from European languages with different scripts from the turn of the twentieth century to the early ...twenty-first century. Works of prose fiction were chosen from Czech and Icelandic, which use characters that are not part of the English alphabet. Their original publication dates are from the middle of the nineteenth to the late twentieth century, with translations trailing by years or even decades. The authors of the original works were very well known and in some cases Nobel Prize laureates. This gives assurance that their works attracted good translators and, in some cases, multiple translators. The hypothesis was that over the course of more than a century, there has been a growing tendency to respect the original spellings of personal names in translations – that is, to employ the source language’s script, even when the literary works belong to relatively peripheral European cultures. The explanations for this include increased cultural contacts, the expansion of what has traditionally been called world literature, and internet resources.
V prispevku je predstavljen izbrani pregled prevajanja osebnih imen v angleščino iz evropskih jezikov z različnimi pisavami od preloma dvajsetega do začetka enaindvajsetega stoletja. Izbrana so bila prozna dela v češčini in islandščini, ki uporabljata črke, ki niso del angleške abecede. Dela so bila izvirno objavljena od sredine devetnajstega do konca dvajsetega stoletja, prevodi pa so zaostali nekaj let ali celo desetletij. Avtorji izvirnih del so bili zelo znani in v nekaterih primerih tudi Nobelovi nagrajenci, kar zagotavlja, da so njihova dela pritegnila dobre prevajalce in v nekaterih primerih tudi več prevajalcev. Hipoteza je bila, da je bila skozi več kot sto let vse bolj prisotna težnja po spoštovanju izvirne pisave osebnih imen v prevodih – kar pomeni, da se uporablja pisava izvirnega jezika, tudi če literarna dela pripadajo razmeroma perifernim evropskim kulturam. Razlogi za to so med drugim okrepljeni kulturni stiki, širjenje tako imenovane svetovne književnosti in spletni viri.
This study reports the results of surveys of Slovene and English speakers’ responses to the sounds of fictional characters’ names. Responses were measured with two kinds of surveys – implicit and ...explicit – that gauged how readers reacted to the names of characters in Slovene rural novellas of the 19th and 20th centuries. The focus was on the initial sounds of names. The hypothesis was that certain sounds correlate with positive and negative names and that Slovene and English speakers would respond similarly to names of positive and negative fictional characters. If supported, the hypothesis justifies the practice of preserving personal names in translation. Evidence from the surveys showed that Slovene and English speakers’ responses to personal names were similar to a high degree.
V razpravi so predstavljeni odzivi slovenskih in angleških govorcev na zvočno podobo imen literarnih likov. Odzive smo ugotavljali s pomočjo dveh vrst anket - implicitno in eksplicitno -, pri čemer nas je zanimalo, kako se bralci odzivajo na imena likov oz. književnih oseb v slovenski kmečki povesti oz. romanu 19. in 20. stoletja. Poudarek je bil na začetnih glasovih imen. Predvidevali smo, da bodo določene glasove oz. zvoke imen povezali s pozitivnimi oz. negativnimi imeni ter da se bodo slovenski in angleški govorci na imena pozitivnih in negativnih književnih likov podobno odzvali. Če bo hipoteza potrjena, bo upravičila prakso ohranjanja osebnih imen v prevodih. Rezultati anket so tudi pokazali, da so si odzivi slovenskih in angleških govorcev na osebna imena precej podobni.
Slovensko-ameriški časopis Prosveta (od 1908 do 1916 kot Glasilo Slovenske narodne podporne jednote) velja za največji časopis v slovenščini v ZDA. Objavljal je literarne in esejistične prispevke, ki ...so jih spremljale novice iz raznih delov ZDA. Leta 1999 je časopis prešel na digitalni način produkcije, na voljo pa je bil v obeh, tj. v digitalni in tiskani obliki. Od 2001 je v tiskani obliki izhajal najprej tedensko, nato na štirinajst dni in nazadnje enkrat na mesec. Prispevek preučuje, kako sta digitalni način produkcije in distribucije vplivala na vsebinski vidik časopisnih prispevkov v zadnjih petnajstih letih in kakšni so učinki tega na distribucijo časopisa v zadnjih petih letih. Podana bo tudi primerjava z drugimi podobnimi časopisi v ZDA.
Sound symbolism in translation Pogacar, Ruth; Peterlin, Agnes Pisanski; Pokorn, Nike K. ...
Translation and interpreting studies,
01/2017, Letnik:
12, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Abstract
Readers may infer that literary characters are sympathetic or unsympathetic based on the perceived phonetics of character names. Drawing on brand name literature in marketing, we investigate ...whether Slovene and English speakers can identify sympathetic and unsympathetic characters in Charles Dickens’s
Oliver Twist
based solely on their names, despite being unfamiliar with the novel. Both Slovene and English speakers can make this distinction, suggesting that sound symbolism may help communicate Dickens’s intended characterizations. Dickens’s documented focus on creating meaningful names suggests the sound symbolism in his characters’ names is likely intentional. These findings are relevant to the translating convention of preserving proper names, which leaves spelling intact (given similar alphabets). Preserving the original names in translation may be justified for readers fluent enough to perceive the original name sounds. However, not altering character names in translation may sometimes lead to different phonetic perceptions, which alter the sound symbolic meaning.
This article applies Hayden White's theory of tropes as presented Metahistory: the historiological imagination in nineteenth-century Europe (1973) to select major works of Slovene literary history in ...order to elucidate their ideological stance. White's theory is an obvious if underutilized tool for clarifying the ideological implications of historical writing, which have received increased scrutiny in this decade. Based upon the arrangement of materials in the example of Zgodovina slovenskega slovstva (1968-1970) by Jože Pogačnik and Franc Zadravec, the article proposes that the work has a conservative outlook (i.e. telological view favoring the status quo) that is seemingly shared with other prominent histories of Slovene literature.
Readers may infer that literary characters are sympathetic or unsympathetic based on the perceived phonetics of character names. Drawing on brand name literature in marketing, we investigate whether ...Slovene and English speakers can identify sympathetic and unsympathetic characters in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist based solely on their names, despite being unfamiliar with the novel. Both Slovene and English speakers can make this distinction, suggesting that sound symbolism may help communicate Dickens's intended characterizations. Dickens's documented focus on creating meaningful names suggests the sound symbolism in his characters' names is likely intentional. These findings are relevant to the translating convention of preserving proper names, which leaves spelling intact (given similar alphabets). Preserving the original names in translation may be justified for readers fluent enough to perceive the original name sounds. However, not altering character names in translation may sometimes lead to different phonetic perceptions, which alter the sound symbolic meaning.
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