Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. Vol. 1. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 24)

Albert Vermes: On the translation of proper names

alleged to have been a success. In another case

3, however, failure to realize the unfavourable connotations of the original name in the TL culture did lead to financial loss. In the 70's, Chevrolet Nova was a successful car in the United States. It came as a surprise, therefore, that it did not sell nearly as well when it was introduced into the Mexican market. The reason was simple: 'va' is a form of the Spanish equivalent of the English word 'go', and thus 'no-va' would suggest that something does not go, which is not what is expected of a car. Another interesting situation is when a brandname is turned into a common name by means of a metonymic process, or when this same name further comes to be used as a verb by the process of conversion. This is the case in English with names like Hoover, Xerox or Kleenex. The problem is that in the TL, for reasons of cultural differences, the same process(es) may not have taken place. So, for instance, whereas it is possible to hoover the carpet in English, it is impossible to kihúverozni a szőnyeget in Hungarian. Many more examples could be listed, of course, but the few mentioned here will suffice to illustrate the vast range of potential problems with regard to the rendering of proper names into another language. The next section will give a short account of the strategies that the translator can employ in dealing with these problems. 4 Strategies for the translator In the footsteps of Elman, we will distinguish three different strategies for the rendering of proper names (although using a different terminology): the translator can choose to transfer

, translate or modify an SL name when rendering it into the TL. We have seen examples of all three, so let us just briefly summarize here what we mean by these terms. Transference

, as Newmark puts it, is "the process of transferring a SL word to a TL text as a translation procedure" (Newmark: 81). This is essentially the same as Catfords definition (see Catford: 43). This is the case when we decide to leave the SL proper name unchanged in the TL text. By translation we mean the "rendering (of) the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text" 3 For this example I am indebted to Don Mulder. 187