Inverse translation: the more challenging direction

• Authors: Mraček David
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Despite being common practice in most of the world, translating from the translator’s mother tongue (inverse translation) remains a relatively uncharted territory. In an attempt to contribute to an increased awareness of inverse translation, the present paper aims to discuss the difficulties involved in this activity. Drawing on questionnaires administered to translator trainees and professional translators, the paper first explores the respondents’ views on the difficulty of this direction. Since inverse translation was considered the more difficult of the two directions by most of the respondents, an analysis was conducted of their English translations of a promotional text written in Czech. The analysis covers five segments reported as difficult to translate by most of the respondents; their solutions are commented on and contrasted with those proposed by the two native speakers of English who assessed the translations, seeking to identify the most frequent challenges specific to inverse translation from Czech into English.

Keywords

EN

directionality in translation; direct translation; inverse translation; native speakers; foreign language

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Arts, Czech Republic
• Journal: Linguistica Pragensia
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 202-221

Contributors

author

Mraček David

• Institute of Translation Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University