Pavol Štubňa: Artistic Translation from Italian. Dramatic Genres. Bratislava: Univerzita Komenského. 108 pp. ISBN 978-80-223-5729-6.
This university textbook is the second volume in a series on artistic translation from Italian to Slovak and is simultaneously an output of the VEGA scientific grant entitled Slovak-Italian Interliterary Relations after 1989 in the Context of Overcoming Reception Tradition and the Emergence of New Reception Models. The author of the publication works at the Faculty of Arts of Univerzita Komenského and devotes himself to the issue of artistic translation not only on a theoretical but also on a practical level – as an experienced translator with many years of practice. For his translational work, he has received the Matej Bell Prize and the Prize of the Ministry of Culture of the Italian Republic.
The textbook loosely follows the monograph Artistic Translation from Italian. Prose Genres and at the same time precedes another volume of the series entitled Artistic Translations of Italian Poetry. For this reason, the author primarily focuses on those aspects of artistic translation that were not analyzed in the first volume of the aforementioned series (e.g., translation of phraseologisms, proper names, historicisms, dialect, etc.) nor in the last one (metric-rhythmic, rhyme, verse, and strophic aspects of poetic text). Štubňa's translation guide thus preferentially focuses on the translation of non-verse theatrical plays, while the author considers as the distinguishing criterion for selecting the optimal translation strategy whether the (future) translated work is intended for stage representation (staging) or for reader reception. He considers the application of this criterion crucial also in the translation of other dramatic genres (puppet play, radio or television play, melodrama, opera, operetta, musical), and therefore considers the analysis of the material he has chosen to be sufficiently representative for demonstrating fundamental translation principles and strategies also for other types of (non-verse) dramatic text.
The author pays special attention to the so-called translation concept as a targeted selection of translation principles and procedures applied in the translation of a specific (literary) work. Beginning translators in particular do not usually attach sufficient importance to the preparatory analysis of thematic and linguistic means occurring in the structure of the original literary work, and subsequently commit many errors in the translation process, which can be summarized as a repeated violation of the principle of functional equivalence, which presupposes that the translation will produce the same (or comparable) impression on the target reader as the original produces on a reader coming from the source culture. In the case of errors, these mainly involve undesirable distortion of the text of the original foreign-language work through supplementation or reduction. In translatology, the first mentioned phenomenon is called overinterpretation (i.e., adding such properties to the text that are not justified in its structure) and the second underinterpretation (i.e., omitting those properties of the text that are evidently present in its structure). Another frequently overlooked translation concept that Štubňa specifically draws attention to is the principle of intertextuality. This is usually understood as a general property of literary texts to relate to other texts (including non-literary ones). In a narrower sense, this term denotes the relationship of a specific literary text to another (older) text, which manifests itself directly in the specific work and participates in its meaning structure (Jambor, 2014). In the translation of dramatic texts, we encounter this phenomenon relatively often, and the author of the textbook clearly illustrates the translation pitfalls associated with it on specific examples.
In his translatological publications, Štubňa also repeatedly emphasizes that the profession of a translator of artistic texts presupposes not only an excellent knowledge of the source language, a broad socio-cultural outlook, and expert knowledge in the field of literary theory and history, but also a high personal culture of the word in the target language, which must be constantly and purposefully developed (e.g., Štubňa, 2024: 292).
The individual chapters of the publication (apart from the aforementioned translation concept) progressively deal with the general characteristics of the (original) dramatic text and its analysis from a translatological perspective (here the author specifically distinguishes translation intended for staging and translation intended for publication in print), further with general principles of translating dramatic works, and finally with frequent errors that beginners make when translating drama.
The reviewed translation guide is also characterized by one linguistic peculiarity. After the explanation in Slovak, a condensed version in Italian follows, which is intended for Italian Slovakists who do not speak Slovak, as well as for Slovak translation students who can thus familiarize themselves with the specialized Italian language used in the field of translatology.
Methodologically, Štubňa applies in his publication the so-called communicative-pragmatic approach to translation, because „translatological theory has in recent years emphasized precisely the study of social, cultural, and pragmatic aspects influencing the translation process itself as well as the resulting translation“ (p. 6). In this context, the author specifically draws attention to the fact that in the context of translating dramatic texts, their (implicitly present) interdisciplinary character is particularly pronounced.
The university textbook Artistic Translation from Italian. Dramatic Genres is intended primarily for beginning professional translators and students of translation and interpreting in combination with Italian language. However, due to its current topic and general focus, it may also interest the professional public or laypersons with an interest in this translatological field.
Bibliography
JAMBOR, Ján. Intertextuality. In: Hyperlexikon. Bratislava: Ústav svetovej literatúry Slovenskej akadémie vied, 2014, [online]. [cited 2022-9-24]. URL: http://hyperlexikon.sav.sk/sk/pojem/zobrazit/terminus/a/intertextualita
SEHNAL, Roman – ŠTUBŇA, Pavol. Artistic Translation from Italian. Prose Genres. Bratislava: Univerzita Komenského, 2024. 278 pp. ISBN 978-80-223-5801-9.
ŠAVELOVÁ, Monika. Artistic Translations of Italian Poetry. Prešov: Vydavateľstvo Prešovskej univerzity, 2024. 134 pp. ISBN 978-80-555-3448-0.
ŠTUBŇA, Pavol. The Translation of Dramatic Text (Didactic Implications). In: Specialized Languages in Diachronic and Synchronic Perspective III. Wydawnictwo naukowe: Kraków, 2024, pp. 275–294. ISBN 978-83-68260-20-5.