Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. Vol. 2. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Albert Vermes: Proper names in translation: a case study

We find that while, for instance, personal names are mostly transferred and geographical names characteristically substituted or transferred, institutional names are predominantly translated. These findings are easily explicable on the basis of what has been described above. The reason is that personal names in most cases lack any logical content and are therefore transferred, geographical names are either without an identifiable or relevant logical content and are transferred or have established translations in the TL and are thus substituted, whereas institutional names characteristically contain elements with some logical information relating to the function of the institution or organisation and are consequently translated. Titles are mostly translated, obviously, because a title is normally descriptive of its referent and must therefore carry logical information. Brand names are of two major types: either they are fanciful names with no relevant logical content or they are in some way descriptive of the product they stand for; in the former case they would be transferred, in the latter, translated. (We must note here, however, that in 'real life' this picture may be complicated by several other factors like assonance, cultural dominance, etc.) Nationalities have their established names in every culture, so these names are normally substituted. The same is true with major events, temporal units or festivals, abstract ideas and species. The other names group includes names of objects (the Iron Maiden of Nuremburg), a style (Georgian) and a vocal quartet (The Febs). They either contain some descriptive information in the logical entry, in which case they are translated or build on associated assumptions contained in the encyclopaedic entry, not present in the TL, in which case they get modified. The two animal names are transferred in this book because neither the logical nor the encyclopaedic entries contain any relevant information. Table 3 shows the same data arranged under each operation in descending order of the percentages relating to the frequency of use of the operation with the given type of name. It must be noted that while the statistical data are characteristic of this particular translation, they may be substantially different with others, and our explanations of individual cases above hold only as far as they seem to be systematic and consistent throughout this translation. 174