wstęp

Čefur’s identity in translation of Goran Vojnovic’s novel entitled Čefurji raus!

Goran Vojnovic’s novel Čefurji raus! in Tomasz Łukaszewicz’s Polish translation is undoubt­edly an opportunity to commune with cultural otherness, and, simultaneously, it touches upon the issue of seeking one’s identity in the face of multiculturalism. The translator undertook a very difficult and ambitious task. In the translation of the novel, which deals with the issue of multi­culturalism and subculture, the difficulties the translator is confronted with are being multiplied. The comparative analysis of the original and the translation of the novel reveals that Čefur’s identity in the translation has gained more universal frames than in the original. It is mainly because of the cultural barrier which, for the translator, is a strong differentiation between main characters’ language in terms of their nationality. It is a means of conveying vital information as well as a source of characters’ identification which in the original is reduced. Unfortunately the translator did not make an attempt to individualize the characters’ speech using, for example, different language registers or elements of slang, humour, or vulgarity. At the same time, some of the translator’s choices either sharpen the opposition friend-stranger on the basis of which the characters define their attitude to the surroundings and shape their own identity or enhance the familiar character of the relations which take place within Čefurian community. At the stylistic level, the main characters’ language is more crude and limited in comic elements. And thus, in the Polish context, Čefur appears to be more obscene and less sensitive. These displacements give evidence to the translator’s inefficient rhetorical and pragmatic abilities. Despite the fact that, as a consequence of semantic losses the universal features of the main character’s identity are clearer, the novel may become attractive to secondary readers because of the possibility of identification with the analysed issue.

Key words: cultural barrier in the translation, identity in the translation, Goran Vojnović, polish translations of the Slovenian literature, Tomasz Łukaszewicz.

A few remarks on Czech translation of Dorota Masłowska’s Paw królowej

Barbora Gregorová, translator of Dorota Masłowska’s books to Czech language, presented to Czech readers a novel very complicated to translate — Paw królowej (Czech title: Královni­na šavle). If we compare the text of original with the translation, we can find many groups of problems, which are present in Czech text, among them: unexpected strong rhythmization and vulgarization of the text, incorrect use of contemporary Czech language (obecná čeština), redun­dancy in translation or mistakes, which are the result of wrong understanding of original text by the translator. These problems do not disqualify Czech translation, because they do not dominate inventive, daring translating ideas of Bára Gregorová.

Key words: vulgarization of the text, redundancy in translation, translating mistake, cultur trans­fer.

Transculturality of the original in its translation (based on the Meša Selimović’s novel Derviš i smrt)

The article discusses the problem of transculturality that appears in the prototype (that is, the original work), but which partly or completely disappears in its translation. It occurs when a text is translated from a transcultural area (i.e. Bosnia and Herzegovina) into a monocultural area (i.e. Poland).

Transculturality of Meša Selimović’s novel Derviš i smrt appears mostly in the language that is characterized by borrowings from Arabic, Persian and Turkish. The borrowings can be divided into 3 categories: words with cultural features, words connected with Islam and words connected with the place (Bosnia and Herzegovina). Since every language comprises the history and culture of the nation, the Serbian language is marked with the 500-year-long Ottoman occupation. It is impossible to find equivalents for those borrowings in the Polish language as there are no words with such emotional and historical features. The translator can use either reduction or amplifica­tion in these situations, but it will definitely distort the understanding of the novel as the primary and secondary receivers have different cognitive structures and some words will trigger different idealized cognitive models in their minds.

In conclusion, the transculturality makes the novel difficult to translate because of the im­possibility to find equivalents and because of the differences in the primary and secondary re­ceivers’ cognitive structures.

Key words: Bosnia and Herzegovina, cognitive structures, idealized cognitive models, Meša Selimović, transculturality.

Cultural barriers in a literary translation on the basis of the Slovenian translation of Pan Tadeusz by Rozka Stefan

On the one hand, the overview of the Slovene reception of Pan Tadeusz reveals typical cul­tural barriers which have marked the comprehension of the Polish Romantic Epic by the Slovene public, while on the other hand it also reveals that the tendency of Mickiewicz to distance him­self from the style of High Romanticism brought the original, on its very publication, closer to the Slovene cultural tradition. The evaluation of the poem by Matija Čop, Slovene scholar and theoretician, has eliminated the barriers experienced by readers of the original and outlined a framework for the Slovene reception of Polish Romanticism, as well as creating a basis for the formation of a Slovene version of the Polish Romantic literary canon.

In the Slovene environment, the awareness of barriers in the translation of Polish Romantic poetry has been focused mainly on the questions of metrics and versification. In her transla­tion of the poem (1974), R. Štefan applied the principle of the substitution of thirteen-syllable verse with the syllabotonic iambic structure (with deviations in caesura and sound figures). Pan Tadeusz also constitutes a barrier on the levels of lexis and style; „Old Poland virtue” equiva­lents are manifest in the use of personal names, rhetorical figures, and in the naming of realia. For the most part, the translator preserved the original names, which, being anthroponyms, are functional but of a limited denotative value (Podkomornik, Vojski, Vozni). In selecting lexical equivalents, one observes in the translation a noticeable tendency towards lowering the status pertaining to the rural-country environment typical of the Slovene rural community. The princi­ple of preserving the specifics of the original is respected to the extent permitted by the lexical and structural features of the Slovene language. The Polish name forms of the central characters acquire distinctive Slovene phonetic features (Tadej, Zosja, Matej, Gervazij), while the names of minor characters retain their original form (Rymsza). As a characteristic translation strategy, neutralisation is adopted in historical expressions related to the cultural model of Sarmatian nobility, having no translation equivalents in the target language. The translator aimed to resolve the cultural barriers in three ways: lexeme replace­ment, neutralisation of stylistically marked expressions, and preservation of original expressions.

Key words: Rozka Štefan, Pan Tadeusz in the Slovenian translation, Adam Mickiewicz, cultural barrier in the translation, metrics and versification in the translation.

Between politics and aesthetic — about the reception and translation of Brešan’s Predstava “Hamleta” u selu Mrduša Donja

Predstava “Hamleta” u selu Mrduša Donja is the most popular Croatian and former Yu­goslav drama and play in Poland. The Polish translation of Predstva… was published in the magazine Dialog (nr. 1/1975) and then in 1988 in the book Antologia współczesnego dramatu jugosłowiańskiego. The first play was realised in Zielona Góra in 1975, the last one in Krakow in 2009. In total, Brešan’s text was played in 16 Polish theatres. The subject of the analisys is the reception and translation which oscillates between two opposite poles: universal interpeta­tion which emphasises human, timeless meaning of the drama and political interpretation which emphasises political and social context presented in the drama.

Key words: Ivo Brešan, Predstava “Hamleta” u selu Mrduša Donja, reception, translation, politics, aesthetic.

Translation process and function of axiological discourse in the source text

The aim of presented discussion is an attempt to identify the function of discourse about values and its distribution in translated texts with an indication of the difficulties that accompany this process. Translation of axiological discourse hidden and explicit purpose of author’s evalua­tive reality — emotions, and their features make it functional in the secondary text. Translation is not absolute, even if the values are absolute. The discourse analyzed in the text and (re)presented in translation is a reflection of socially constructed network of meanings, perceptions and ways of narration, contributing to the “Balkan” social relations. On the basis of examples author shows how the implementation process takes place with the use of emotionally-moving language, which serve axiological valuation category and makes the practice of translation difficult.

Key words: axiological discourse, translation, network of meanings, emotionally-moving language, categorization.

Czech humour in Polish

So-called Czech humour is very popular in Poland. This contribution analyzes short sections of Hašek’s novel about Švejk and a play by the Jára Cimrman Theatre in order to explore how hu­mour is translated. The chosen texts represent two different types of humour that Czechs identify with to such an extent that some expressions actually seep into everyday language. The analysis of the novel about Švejk suggests significant differences between the first and final (in fact third) translation into Polish. While the first translation replaces a number of originally neutral expres­sions with stylistically marked ones to denote emotional experiences, the third one reflects the original’s stylistic marks. Yet, it is the gradual use of these marks that brings about a comic ef­fect through the gradual confrontation of disparate elements. The analysis of the play by the Jára Cimrman Theatre shows that humour that mainly involves Czech identity can be interpreted but not translated. Both examples suggest two basic cultural barriers in translation: the language barrier and the barrier of tradition.

Key words: Czech sense of humour, Czech literature, Švejk, Cimrman, translation.

The grotesque character of Witold Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke translated by Katarina Šalamun-Biedrzycka

The grotesque is an aesthetic category, which undermines the conventional and acknowl­edged image of the world, illustrates the complexity of certain phenomena and their other sur­prising aspects. In Poland the term „grotesque”, being a calque from German, was first used at the threshold of the 19th-century. However, according to the Polish 20th-century literature and art researchers, grotesque becomes prominent in Polish literature on the verge of modernism. The assumption that modernist art had an almost entirely grotesque character cannot however be ruled out. Grotesque manifests itself in the novel Ferdydurke on each level of the work, including language. The grotesque character of the language is shown among other things through ne­ologisms and a mixture of pompous and colloquial style. Body parts (such as bottom and mug), having a symbolic meaning throughout the novel, play an important part in giving the figures their grotesque character. The language of the novel may undoubtedly constitute a problem for the translator, as the writer uses neologisms and disturbs the word order to achieve a grotesque character of events. The translator tried to deliver an identical image of the grotesque character in her translation. Frequently, the translator couldn’t however disturb the correctitude of the Slov­enian language. She preserves the sense of the original on the lexical and syntactic level through imitating the syntactic structures of the original or through replacing them with other grammati­cal categories. Each translator must recreate the model of the world embedded in the source text.

Key words: Witold Gombrowicz, Ferdydurke in the Slovenian translation, grotesque, character,translation.

Crossing the borders. Problems of curses and vulgarisms translation

In this article the problem of taboo words, defined as curses and vulgarisms, appearing and translating is analysed. The source of investigated taboo words is Vedrana Rudan’s novel titled Uho, grlo, nož and its Polish translation Ucho, gardło, nóż. It’s surprising and interesting that the investigated discourse is basically character’s idiolect — woman’s idiolect. The analysis de­scribes the types of taboo words and expressions and presents various methods of their transla­tion. It proves that vulgarisms occur in the Croatian text more frequently and in the Polish one they are in most cases euphemized or ignored.

Key words: vulgarism, taboo, translation, equivalence, Vedrana Rudan.

Children’s recipient in translations of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne into Polish and Slovak

The paper presents a comparison of Polish and Slovak translations of A.A. Milne’s book Winnie-the-Pooh, made by Irena Tuwim, Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, Margita Príbusová and Stanislav Dančiak. The main object is to show determinants of honorification in the children’s style in compared languages: behavitives, adressative forms, deminutives and hypocoristics. The author also focuses on problems connected with the translation of plays on words, short rhyme poems and children’s songs.

Key words: children’s recipient, honorification, deminutives, hypocoristics, behavitives

Cultural barriers in the slovak translation of Witold Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke

The article presents the problem of cultural barriers in Slovak translation of Witold Gom­browicz’s Ferdydurke which was published in a new translation horizon in 2004. The roman was translated by a very well known Slovak translator — Jozef Marušiak. The author of the article shows the translation strategies which were used by him to overcome cultural barriers and re­construct foreign mental mechanisms as part of different culture. The strategies exploited in the process of reinterpretation of the original meanings were the literal strategy combined with the strategy of neutralization of foreign cultural facts. The question is if it is possible to translate complicated prose of Witold Gombrowicz to Slovak and reinterpret implicated in the original text cultural facts and whether they constitute the cultural barrier in the process of translation.

Key words: Witold Gombrowicz, Ferdydurke, translation, polish literature in Slovak translations, cultural barriers in translation.

The proximity of culture and literary translation within Polish and Slovak

Translatological research generally focuses on problems of translation in the languages and cultures with the average distance between each other. For Poles the common perception is that the Slovak culture is close to the Polish one. According to the latest anthropological concept the culture is considered close when in the receiving area it is well-known and accepted and interest in it puts it in a central position in comparison with other strange cultures. Slovak culture in Poland is little-known, does not attract the interest, so it can only be described as a neighbourly. Such a position of Slovak culture in Poland is reflected in the number of published translations of Slovak literature and their reception. The belief that Slovak culture proximity to the Polish one is applied to the perceived similarity of languages which affects the qual­ity of translation. Differences and dissimilarities in culture are reflected in the language and cause various types of obstacles in the process of translation: in the translation of names, words-realities, collocations, social behaviors, conventions of text, literary trends and currents. Observation of these difficulties leads to the conclusion that contrary to popular belief about the proximity to the Polish and Slovak cultures translation within these literatures poses many problems caused by cultural differences. Solutions of these difficulties adopted by translators, demonstrate the fact that translators yield to the illusion of proximity of cultures. Translations do not perform their functions belonging to them in the Polish-Slovak intercultural dialogue. The belief in the cultural proximity is one of the most significant barriers in translation.

Key words: translation, cultural proximity, Polish, Slovak culture, literature, reception.

Polish idioms in Slovenian translations of Wislawa Szymborska poems

Idioms are often used in polish poetry. Due to their expressiveness and vulnerability for lin­guistic operations they are subject to different language games. Szymborska often uses transfor­mation of idioms such as: contamination, removing of element, substitution. In her poetry idioms and their modifications are carriers of irony and jokes, they allow to preserve the intellectual and emotional distance restraint. Translation of idioms is problematic because of their expressiveness, symbolic recognition of world and ambiguity. In idioms is hidden a linguistic picture of world, which requires discovery and interpretation by an translator. Vast majority of idioms and their transformations occurring in the poems of Wislawa Szymborska has its own equivalents. In the case they doesn’t have their own equivalents, translators uses following techniques: free combi­nation of words, tracing, amplification. These techniques causes changes in vocabulary and style, but they doesn’t affect the quality of translation. These changes are related to collision of Polish and Slovenian culture, which causes language and cultural Barriers. Language barriers relate to systemic differences between the languages, are especially noticeable in vocabulary and syntax. Cultural barriers are associated with different degree of influence of German and French culture into Poland and Slovenia, and the expression of irony. The role of the interpreter is to mediate between two cultures, and establish methods to overcome cultural and linguistic barriers.

Key words: idioms, poetry, translation, transformations of idioms, Wislawa Szymborska.

Dora Gabe i Anna Kamienska — poetic dialogues

In this article poetic dialogues between the women poets and translators are represented as a conversation about the mother who is an inspiration for their artistic creativity. From this point of view the translation practice of Dora Gabe is described as palimpsest, because it gives the op­portunity for the language to expand so there is place for another, foreign language in its bounda­ries. In the process of erasing of the Polish source-text, the Bulgarian target-text is being fulfilled with translators’ creative energies. This translation strategy disrupts the stereotypical reception model of Polish poetry in Bulgaria, popularized by Boian Penev. It overcomes its asymmetrical patterns. Svetla Gurova’s and Blaga Dimitrova’s translations are analyzed as continuation of the palimpsest translation model, introduces by Dora Gabe.

Key words: Bulgarian poetry, translation strategies, models of literary reception, women transla­tors, gender and translation.

Gombrowicz in Slovenia: interpretational frames of time and cultural space

The recontextualization of the prose by Gombrowicz occurred within three different interpretational frames in the translation into Slovene, time frames and space frames: in the 70., 90. and in 2000. They are appointed by the strategy of the translators, by the political situation, by the translations and the reception of foreign literature (above all western literature), by the global situation connected with culture and civilization and by the condition of the target literature of the translation. All of them are determined by the system of expectations of the audience and by the „life” of the translations.

In the translations of Gombrowicz have evolved cultural barriers and the degree of crossing them from the side of the source culture and also from the side of the target culture: beginning with the political actualization of Polish awareness through its rhetorical over-coding up to hybridization and mutual merging of times, space, cognitive and emotional attitudes.

The difficulty of following the intercultural literary dialogue in the Slovene prose is deepened by the fact that the translations of American literatures occurred more or less when the translations of Gombrowicz were done (particularly, beginning in the mid 80.).

Key words: prose, Gombrowicz, translation, culture, intercultural communication.

The Faces of Melancholy The Wardrobe by Olga Tokarczuk and its translation into Croatian

The aim of this article is to illustrate the phenomenon of melancholy, its sources, mechanisms and modes of existence. Basing on The Wardrobe by Olga Tokarczuk and its Croatian translation the author tries to demonstrate a relation between melancholy and language, she considers the art as a kind of fight against nothingness (and melancholy) and explores the textual manifestation of melancholic subjectivity. A psychoanalytic approach to melancholy aids to determine the condi­tion of text (the translated text in particular).

The image of melancholy reconstructed from The Wardrobe is a culture-independent phe­nomenon. The universalism of melancholy and the allegorical nature of Tokarczuk’s work remove barriers between original and translated text culture facilitating the act of translation. The main source of cultural barriers, in this case, are the linguistic (mainly grammatical) dif­ferences.

Key words: melancholy, subjectivity, psychoanalysis, translation, interpretation.

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