Imola Zaymus: Literary Title Translations from English to Hungarian

Article

DOI 10.51313/alumni-2020-1

Abstract: This paper examines titles, as metatexts, from a linguistic aspect. The title is an integral part of a text, especially of a literary piece. More particularly, it focuses on translation strategies and how they are applied by translators in the context of translating titles of American novels to Hungarian. This study differentiates five groups of translation strategies based on notable linguists’ works, such as Kinga Klaudy and Eugene Nida, supplementing them with an original one, and specifying them with several subgroups. The main categories are the following: Direct Translation, Specification, Generalization, Omission, and Total Transformation. Each category is introduced with specific examples. Based on the collected material, this paper argues that when translating titles of American novels to Hungarian, priority is attributed to the source language text as faithfully as possible, not only in its content but also in its form.

Keywords: translation, titles, Eugene Nida, dynamic equivalence, specification, generalization, omission, total transformation