Translator’s false friends and his true enemies in the practice of Bulgarian-Polish artistic translation Cover Image

Fałszywi przyjaciele tłumacza i jego wierni wrogowie w praktyce bułgarsko-polskich tłumaczeń literackich
Translator’s false friends and his true enemies in the practice of Bulgarian-Polish artistic translation

Author(s): Hanna Karpińska
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Polish language; Bulgarian language; closely related languages; artistic translation; interlinguistic homonymy; phraseological unit; linguistic competence

Summary/Abstract: Issues presented in the title are considered from the perspective of a practicing translator and illustrated with examples from the Polish translations of Bulgarian fiction. It is pointed out that for a professional translator the proximity of two languages, is more of an obstacle than a convenience. Different types of lexical interlinguistic homonyms (translator’s false friends) are viewed in comparison with corresponding translation solutions. The role of context and textual distribution of lexical units is highlighted. The specifics of phraseology as the object of translation is analyzed. A peculiar group of difficulties is generated by the so-called by the author „translator’s true enemies”, which include: problems caused by differences in the grammatical system of the two languages (distribution of prepositions; desemanticization of prepositions; the semantic load of double object, the specificity of the imperceptive mood, the abundance of pronominal forms) and subjective factors associated with creative behavior of the translator (lack of necessary pedantism; moments of inattention or fatigue, inadequate linguistic and extra-linguistic competence). In the end of the paper the possibility of translations and translators contributing in the development of Bulgarian-Polish lexicography is emphasized.

  • Issue Year: 5/2014
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 257-271
  • Page Count: 15