Explicitation, implicitation and literary translation excellence : a case study of A. Přidal's translations from English to Czech
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The paper is a case study of the use of explicitation and implicitation in the translation oeuvre by the important Czech translator Antonín Přidal (1929-2017). Taking a descriptive approach to the study of translator style, Kamenická (2007) showed that Přidal frequently uses both explicitations and implicitations and his implicitations frequently even outnumber explicitations, Přidal thus presenting an exception to the Explicitation Hypothesis. The above-mentioned research also demonstrated that the range of subtypes of explicitations and implicitations used by Přidal, himself also an author, and a translator with a writerly approach to translating, is wider than with other translators. Since Přidal is an excellent translator (fairly target-oriented but very efficiently resisting normalization/standardization), both observations make his translations of literary fiction, covering over a dozen authors, an ideal ground for exploring his strategic use of shifts in explicitness. While the previous research focused on the general features of Přidal’s deployment of shifts in explicitness, the present paper links his explicitation and implicitation strategies to dealing with intricacies of rendering authorial styles, across a range of authors. The sampling used is therefore not random but reflects the main challenges of varying authorial styles. The paper pays tribute to Jiří Levý by addressing the concepts of explicitation and implicitation which he identified as important translation procedures/strategies long before the formulation of the Explicitation Hypothesis as well as by pursuing the empirical approach to studying translation phenomena with a view to the pedagogical potential of this kind of study. |
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