The translator's (in)visibility : Translating proper names and fantastic neologisms in the Harry Potter books to Hungarian

Jankovics, Nóra (2018) The translator's (in)visibility : Translating proper names and fantastic neologisms in the Harry Potter books to Hungarian. BA/Bsc, Szegedi Tudományegyetem.

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Abstract

My thesis aims to examine the challenges of translating J. K. Rowling’s YA fantasy series about Harry Potter’s adventures (published between 1997 and 2007) by focusing on Hungarian versions of proper names and fantastic neologisms. I shall provide a brief typology of names that appear in children’s literature and explore different techniques of translating the ones appearing in the Harry Potter series, then provide a representative analysis on how the Hungarian translator, Tamás Boldizsár Tóth used these methods in the translation process. I shall examine whether the combination of these methods helped him preserve his visibility as a translator, thus applying Lawrence Venuti’s term to Hungarianlanguage translations. I shall dispute Venuti’s one-sided views on domestication being condemnable and foreignization preferable and rather apply these terms on a localised level as equally important translating methods. In the light of this, I shall argue that Tóth has managed to retain a balance between visibility and invisibility as a translator with the proper combination of different translating methods. I shall point out some of his translation’s problematic aspects as well, with mentioning remarks by scholars and other readers/online fan communities; however, I shall demonstrate that some of the mistakes are inevitable, given the complexity of the translating process. By comparing Tóth’s translation of the sixth volume of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with two unauthorised translations of the same book, I wish to demonstrate how this complexity was further increased by the particularities of the Hungarian language, which allows for countless possible translations of a given name or neologism. I shall conclude that overall, Tóth managed to solve the translation of the sixth Harry Potter book more creatively than the creators of the unauthorised translations, mainly because he was more daring to differ from the original text, and his translation of the series refuted Venuti’s binary views about foreignization-domestication and visibility-invisibility.

Institution

Szegedi Tudományegyetem

Faculty

Faculty of Arts

Department

Angol Tanszék

Discipline

Humanities

Specialization

anglisztika

Supervisor(s)

Item Type:	Thesis (BA/Bsc)
Subjects:	06. Humanities
Depositing User:	szerkesztő BTK
Date Deposited:	2019. Apr. 26. 10:03
Last Modified:	2019. Apr. 26. 14:00
URI:	https://diploma.bibl.u-szeged.hu/id/eprint/74539

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