Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Eva Ryndová IN/VISIBILITY OF THE TRANSLATOR AND QUESTIONS OF COPYRIGHT (Synchronic & Diachronic View)
Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Simona Mazáčová 2008 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature
2 Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Simona Mazáčová for her valuable advice, help and patience. I would also like to thank all the people who were so kind and helped me with this little research concerning the recent situation of translators’ status.
3 Table of Contents
Introduction ...... 5
Part One ...... 8
1.1 History of Translation ...... 8
1.2 Bibliographies, Citations ...... 11
1.3 Copyright ...... 11
Part Two ...... 14
2.1 Methodology ...... 14
2.2 Types of Translations ...... 15
2.2.1 Literary Translations ...... 16
2.2.2 Magazine Articles ...... 19
2.2.3 Specialized Translations ...... 24
2.2.4 Audio-visual Translations ...... 26
2.3 Reviews of Translated Works ...... 30
2.4 Internet ...... 34
2.4.1 Wikipedia ...... 35
2.4.2 Articles ...... 36
2.4.3 Pirate Translations ...... 37
2.4.4 On-line Bookshops ...... 39
2.5 Public’s Awareness of the Names of the Translators ...... 41
Conclusion ...... 43
Works Cited ...... 47
Appendix ...... 50
4 Introduction
Translations are inseparable parts of our everyday lives. We read books written by foreign
authors in our mother tongue, we read and listen to world news on TV or in radio and we
read articles in magazines that are published in many countries of the world. Our
politicians speak with foreign countries’ politicians at EU and NATO meetings,
international corporations offer us their goods and their management and marketing
departments try to attract our attention with catching advertisements. We use electrical
appliances according to their manuals and instructions and we prepare Mexican cuisine in
accordance with original recipes. We watch American and Thai movies with Czech
dubbing or subtitles. We sign contracts with foreign companies and we travel for business
or just for fun and we need to communicate in countries that we visit for any of these
reasons.
This list is not complete, but it gives us a notion of the importance of translations. In
theory, this should mean that the authors of translations, too, are appreciated and
respected. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
“A good translation” must be fluent, idiomatic and natural. As Lawrence Venuti
expresses the paradox of translators’ invisibility: “The more fluent the translation, the
more invisible the translator, and, presumably, the more visible the writer or meaning of
the foreign text” (Venuti 2). Thus, the better and the more conscientious the translator, the
less visible his person and consequently his name are.
A starting point to give translators the credit for their work could be to recognize their
authorship and to appreciate their work at least by publishing their names in books and
other publications they translate and to mention them also in the respective reviews of the
books translated by them. Morena Nannetti agrees on this point and feels sorry that it is
5 not always the reality:
[T]he question of writing the name of the translator in a published book
remains essential. To name the translator is a form of remuneration and
acknowledgment. The translator lends his voice to an author, allowing
him to reach an audience who speaks a different language. The translator
is himself the “author” of the translated book and indeed he keeps certain
rights on his translation ... Also a translated article appearing in a
newspaper should quote the name of the translator, but again this is not
always the case. (Nannetti)
Another translator and theorist speaking on this topic is Beatriz Zeller who wrote an essay
On Translation and Authorship. She offers this view:
So entrenched is the perception of translators as agents of a writer’s work
in another language and so widely accepted the notion of the translator as
mere conduit of a work into another language, one risks being ridiculed
when suggesting that the translator’s name be placed on the cover of the
book alongside that of the writer of the original. (Zeller)
This thesis compares the rules and the laws in this area with the actual situation. In the
first part of this work, mostly theoretical investigations of this field are addressed. The
first part describes the importance that the law and other rules give to the translators’
profession. The first subchapter deals with the history of translation and with the changes
in attitude towards translations and translators throughout time. The second subchapter
investigates the rules of citing translated publications, and the styles of writing
bibliographies. It discusses the issue whether we cite and put in bibliographies only the
authors of the original texts or whether we mention also the translators. The MLA, APA
and ASA editorial styles and a Czech one ČSN ISO 690 are examined as well. The third
6 subchapter analyzes in detail what the law says on this matter and, consequently, it looks
at the copyright law as well.
The second part discusses the potential discrepancy between practice and the actual
situation. A methodology of this investigation, a collection of data and various types of
sources are described in the first subchapter. The second subchapter provides a list of
several kinds of translations and examples in each of them with regard to the fact whether
a name of a translator is published there or not. The third subchapter contains a research in
various kinds of magazines and finds out whether reviews of translated books provide
their readers with names of the translators. The fourth subchapter deals with authorship in
a connection to the recent and ongoing phenomenon of internet. The last subchapter of
this part of the thesis is a research of people’s awareness of a name of a translator who
translated books they have read.
The conclusion sums up all the information acquired throughout all respective parts of
the paper and provides a final comparison of the theory and the practice.
In cases where any of the Czech sources of information are cited, I provided my own
translations or summaries of the Czech text in English.
7 Part One
1.1 History of Translation
Translating has a long and very chequered history. Alex Gross charts a time line of
changing needs that motivated contemporary translators and interpreters at their work:
from the “marriage brokers” and “peace seekers” in pre historical times to modern times
of globalisation (Gross, “Outline for the NYU Seminar, A Practical View of Translation
History”). This very shortened and brief history of translation shows the motives of
translators and it also describes and proves the importance of this profession.
Consequently, a perception of an authorship has been significantly changing in time as
well. There were periods of time when translators were praised for their work; other
epochs when they cooperated and the authorship was of little importance; and times when
it was dangerous to admit authorship of certain translations, mostly religious and political
publications (Bassnett).
Susan Bassnett describes the history of translation in her work History of Translation
Theory . She focuses mainly on the approach that translators have taken to their work but
she also mentions the way translator’s work has been perceived since the Romans till the
20 th century. The Romans translated predominantly Greek authors. In this period though,
it was very common to be bilingual and so the translations could have been easily
compared to originals. Roman translators wanted not only to spread the knowledge and
the art their main aim was to enrich their own language. Translations were thus assessed
according to the translator’s creativity, and the translator’s authorship was relevant to the
reader when he enjoyed the particular “imitation” of the original.
8 Translation of the Bible and religious texts has gone through very inconstant
development. “A religion as text based as Christianity presented the translator with a
mission that encompassed both aesthetic and evangelistic criteria” (Bassnett 45). John
Wycliffe, for example, proclaimed that the text of such an importance should be
accessible to everyone in everyone’s vernacular. Despite the fact that this statement was
attacked as heretical, his work found its devotees and Wycliffe’s followers carried on in
his effort. The translation of religious texts was usually a collaborative task and “in an age
when the choice of the bad pronoun could mean the difference between life or
condemnation to death as a heretic” (Bassnett 49) it was not very safe to admit being an
author of such a text.
King Alfred “who translated (or caused to be translated) a number of Latin texts”
(Bassnett 50) realised the importance of translations in forming the vernacular damaged
after Danish invasions in the 9 th century England. Translators were, logically, important
figures in the development of national literatures. Sometimes, it was hard to say who the
author of an original work is as the printing press was yet to be invented and the originals
were expensive and hard to get in those days. Flora Ross Amos devotes her work Early
Theories of Translation to translators’ notes, prefaces and introductions in their
translations, especially with regard to the pre 1476 England. In the pre Caxton era, notes
often included information about the origin of the work (more or less exhausting): “The
translator who explained "I found it written in old hand" was probably giving as adequate
an account of his source as truth would permit” (Ross Amos 11).
The invention of the printing press meant a significant turn in publishing and all
spheres connected with it. “"Ordering" an English version of a foreign book became no
uncommon thing for those who owned manuscripts and could afford such commodities as
translations” (Ross Amos 10). Medieval period praised so much the “ imitatio ” that “the
9 point at which a writer considered himself to be a translator of another text, as opposed to
the use he might make of translated material plagiarized from other texts, is rarely clear”
(Bassnett 53). Medieval public considered translators to be very important. Sad evidences
of this claim are several cases of condemnations to death for their work.
The era of the Renaissance brought with it a perception of the need of translations for
intellectual life of the period. Translators were seen “almost as a revolutionary activist
rather than the servant of an original author or text” (Bassnett 58). In the seventeenth
century, the position of translators’ profession evolved yet again, as Bassnett briefly
summarizes: “Denham argues for a concept of translation that sees translator and original
writer as equals but operating in clearly differentiated social and temporal contexts”
(Bassnett 59).
Gradually, however, the status of translators slowly began to decrease. In the period of
Romanticism, two influential theories of translation appeared. One of them sees the
translator as “a creative genius in his own right...enriching the literature and language into
which he is translating”; and the other one sees translation “in terms of the more
mechanical function of “making known” a text or author” (Bassnett 65). In the nineteenth
century, “the growth of pride in a national culture, French, English or German translators
[...] no longer saw translation as a prime means of enriching their own culture” (Bassnett
69). Victorian period then “invented” the archaizing style of translating that narrowed the
readership of translations to an elite minority. The twentieth century then saw translators,
according to George Steiner, as shadowy existences and according to Larbaud as “a
beggar at the church door” (quoted in Bassnett 75).
As this section shows, translator’s status has undergone many changes “for the
attitudes towards translation [...] belong to the age that produces them, and to the socio
economic factors that shape and determine that age” (Bassnett 75).
10 1.2 Bibliographies, Citations
Every writer has a right to be identified as the author of his/her text that has been cited. In
case the translator’s work is quoted and his name omitted, this constitutes an act of
plagiarism. The following subchapter deals with this legal aspect in detail. The style and
the way of citing differ according to the editorial style used in a certain text. Apart from
other things, these styles set rules for writing citations and bibliographies. This subchapter
investigates writing of bibliographies in the case of translated books in the most often
used styles in English speaking countries and the most common one in the Czech
Republic.
For the purposes of this thesis, I searched the instructions of APA, ASA, MLA and
ČSN ISO 690 styles and compared them. The first and most immediate fact from this
research is that these instructions do not differ markedly. For example, in text citations in
all editorial styles include just the name of the author of the original work and do not in
fact claim that they are citations of translated works. The bibliographic information about
translated works does always include the name of a translator without any regard to the
kind of editorial style that has been used.
1.3 Copyright
It can be stated that in general, copyright law protects the rights of an author of an art
work (although it can be transmitted to another “person in charge”) and gives a term
authorship legal and economic aspects. These rights include the right to copy the work,
issuing copies to the public, renting or lending copies to the public, performing, showing
11 or playing the work in public, broadcasting the work or other communication to the public
by electronic transmission and making an adaptation of the work, such as by translating a
literary or dramatic work, transcribing a musical work and converting a computer program
into a different computer language or code. Infringement of copyright is the act breaking
any of these rights (Karidian).
This law, as mentioned above, protects the rights of authors – the problem is, however,
who the author, according to this law, is. In Venuti’s view, “The translator is ...
subordinated to the author, who decisively controls the publication of the translation
during term of the copyright for the “original” text...” (8). The act of translating a book “is
classed as making an adaptation and you will need to seek permission of the author to do
so” (Karidian). The American Literary Translators Association in its publication
“Breaking into Print” (available on line) states that:
Publishing a translation involves two distinct but interdependent rights:
• the rights to the source work, usually controlled by the author or his or her publisher,
including the right to allow other people to publish translations of the work;
• the rights to the English version of the source work, which are controlled by the
translator.
Ivo Telec, a university professor teaching at the faculty of law at the Masaryk University,
also confirms that a need of an author’s approval is essential when you want to make an
adaptation (and the translation is the adaptation from this point of view) of an original
work in case it is made for a purpose of public using of this adaptation. It usually means
its publishing (Telec).
On the other hand, a translator who carries out the first translation in a particular
language becomes an owner of copyright. He has to be asked when some other translator
wants to translate the same book into the same language. This law considerably increases
12 a status of the translator and gives him rights to his work and tools to control them. But
the translators can (and very often do) give up their rights or part of them in favour of the
publishers. Their contracts usually contain a clause transferring a right to publish their
works to publishers. The transfer of this right is usually for a single edition. The publisher
and the translator then have to sign another contract before the next edition (Reichel).
13 Part Two
2.1 Methodology
The second part of this paper focuses on a practical research. It describes the actual
situation of publishing names of translators in different types of translations. Each type of
the translation is covered in a single subchapter. The research is based on an analysis of a
set of representative texts in all categories. Sources of these texts are chosen in order to be
varied. Magazines (in subchapters dealing with magazine articles and reviews of
translated works) range from literary and sophisticated ones to lifestyle magazines. This
choice helps to cover a wide offer of magazines on the market and to make a comparison
of different types of them. The complete list of used magazines can be found in an
appendix to the thesis.
A subchapter dealing with literary translations contains also statements of Czech
publishers. The three publishers that answered my questions rank amongst the most
famous publishers in the Czech Republic (the only publisher that did not cooperate from
those ones that I contacted was Albatros). These publishers are: Argo and Nakladatelství
Host publishing mainly literary works; and Grada – publishing mainly specialized
publications.
Audio visual translations are the main topic of the following subchapter. The survey in
this subchapter compared final credits of programmes on three television channels with
the largest number of spectators in the Czech Republic – Česká televize, Nova and Prima
– and two cable channels – documentary channel Viasat and movie channel HBO.
Contributions of dubbing agencies on this topic are included in this chapter as well.
14 Internet is a topic of another subchapter. The practical research in this subchapter
investigates web pages of several bookshops and compares them: this thesis intends to
find out how many of these web sites publish the names of translators in paragraphs
providing information about translated books and how many of them do not publish this
information.
A subchapter called Public Awareness of the Names of the Translators is based on a
part of a questionnaire conducted by Jana Luňáková and published in her Diploma Thesis
“Translation and Translators Viewed by the Public [rukopis]: (based on a special opinion
survey).”. She formulated numerous questions investigating the public’s attitude toward
translated works, translators and the profession of translating. Her research is based on
one hundred of respondents (various age groups, levels of education and levels of
language capability).
2.2 Types of Translations
The first part of this section states the basic rules in the field of publishing the names of
translators in translated works. The second part shows the reality and also points out the
fact that translators do not always translate only literary texts such as novels and poems.
In fact, most translators translate texts in some specialized field. Because of this, it is very
important to differentiate the type of a translated text when we speak about the rights of
the translators to have their names published with their works. Peter Newmark connects
the right for translators’ names to be published with the question of translators’
responsibility for their work: “In the translation of laws, treaties and official documents,
translators have to remain anonymous, since they cannot bear the responsibility for their
15 final versions; in other cases, they should be identified, as they have that responsibility”
(Newmark, “Some Afterthoughts”, Paragraphs on Translation 175).
Standard practice of publishing the translators’ names differs according to the kind of
translation in question. Literary translation is the field with the most fixed rules. The
authorship in the sphere of specialized translations is attracting much less attention and
that is why it is so important to focus the attention to translators whose work is not
recognized and often overlooked. The subchapter Literary Translations is thus a brief
summary of the laws and rules. The other subchapters are based mainly on the practical
field research because of a lack of theoretical base and the need to map the actual
situation.
2.2.1 Literary Translations
A translation of literary works is the most transparent field concerning the problem of
publishing the names of the translators along with their work. Most of the sources and
articles mentioned in the first part of this thesis dealt with the area of translating literary
texts. Both the Copyright subchapter and the Bibliographies, Citations subchapter are
basically built on the rules, laws and rights relevant to translations that are determined for
publication.
Due to this reason there is no need to conduct any deep research in this area by
collecting a large set of books and finding similarities and differences in this manner.
Rather, I decided to contact three Czech publishers and asked them about the rules they
obey in the sphere of publishing the names of translators in translated books. Here are
their answers:
16 Argo
“Every issue of the publication should contain the copyright supplement: Translation c a
name, a year of the first edition. In addition to this, we also write “Translated by XY” on
the copyright page and the name of the translator is also in an imprint” (Gelnarová).
Grada
“Of course we publish the names of the translators in our publications – on the copyright
page. As for the citations, we usually write only a name of an author” (Břenková)
Nakladatelství Host
“As an example, I send a sample of a standard translation contract. Names of the
translators are published in imprints of books” (Reichel)
This little survey proves that there is no marked difference in the way of announcing the
names of translators by various publishers. A reason for this is probably the fact that the
law is clear here.
For comparison, I visited web pages of these publishers and looked at their offer of
translated books in their on line shops. None of the publishers writes the names of
translators on a page with a list of books for sale. Argo provides information about the
author of a book, its price, date of publishing, number of pages and a short annotation.
Grada gives more space to the description of content. So does Host, but it leaves out all
other information – except the name of the author. On pages with further information
about particular translated books, the content is described in more detail and some further
information concerning an edition are provided in all cases. Publishers Argo and
Nakladatelství Host mention there also a name of a translator. Grada does not do this.
17 No matter how we think this way of giving the credit for the professional work is
sufficient, literary translators enjoy certainly one of the best positions among the
translators with various specializations. Peter Newmark’s attitude towards this is clear
from an article he wrote: “Book jackets, so lavish with the praise and biographies of
authors, should always include at least a note about their translators.” (Newmark, “Blurbs
for Translators”, Paragraphs on Translation 23). He points at a fact that whilst authors of a
book get all the credit even in the translation of their book, translators can be grateful for a
mere note of their name.
Following the development of the publishing of their names in the twentieth century,
translators can be happy for this situation. Based on the long time experience in
translating, Peter Newmark says that their situation has improved quite a lot: “forty years
ago the name of the translator of a book was often omitted”. Then he continues with the
statement that it is not a commonplace either today: “even now say Garzanti (of all
publishers) puts it in tiny letters on the back of the title page (my protest, about my own
book has received no reply)” (Newmark, “Revisers”, Paragraphs on Translation 15).
Morena Nannetti, a freelance translator from English, French and German into Italian,
conducted a small research on the web site www.proz.com. She posted the following
question on a forum of this web site and collected answers and contributions from several
translators from all over the world: “Is it mandatory for a publisher to write the name of
the translator in a book or a newspaper article?” She looked at the accumulated data and
found out that: “... in France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal,
Turkey and the UK the name of the translator is always printed in the translated book. If
the translation is commissioned through a translation agency, both the name of the agency
and that of the translator are present” (Nannetti). But later on in the same article, she also
says that the rules and the praxis can be different. She herself had a bad experience with
18 one of the German publishers who did not publish her name in a book she had translated
and that led her to conduct this survey.
In the Czech Republic, the area of literary translations is very well dealt with and the
only controversial part of it is the publishing of the names of translators on the web pages
of publishers and the possibility of placing the translators’ names on dust covers of
publications (being a question of an “extent of the appreciation” of translators’ work).
2.2.2 Magazine Articles
A new, quicker rhythm of people’s lives does not allow them to spend much time reading
long novels and lots of busy people prefer to read shorter texts such as magazine articles.
The future of reading in free time may thus lie in hands of magazines and people will be
probably more influenced by them than by books. This increasing status of magazines
raises also a position of authors of texts published in them. The system and the style of
publishing of names of the authors of articles in magazines vary from publisher to
publisher. Some magazines publish the name of the author of every single article. Other
publishers have different philosophy. For example, a weekly paper The Economist has a
longtime tradition that is unique. They do not publish the names of authors at all. A basis
of this philosophy lies in a system of authors cooperating on each article. Therefore, it
would be hard to say who the actual author is.
Similar question (who is an author of an original/a translation?) should occur also
when there are some translated articles. Is there any compulsory rule to obey in this
situation? According to my research, there is no such rule. I looked at several Czech
magazines of different types and compared their styles in this area. Some of these were
19 lifestyle magazines (Elle, Cosmopolitan), tabloid newspapers (Aha!, Blesk, Spy), science
and nature magazines (Koktejl, National Geographic Česko, 100+1 Zajímavosti z celého
světa), a film magazine (Premiere) and a news and economic weekly magazine (Respekt).
I found out more information about the two of them 100+1 Zajímavosti z celého světa
and Respekt. The former caught my attention due to the fact that it is no more publishing
translations (in the communist era, it was one of a very few magazines that published
translations of foreign articles) and the latter started to publish translations just a year ago,
but its way of publishing the names of translators has gone through an interesting
development.
The magazines Elle and Cosmopolitan do neither put the names of translators in an
imprint nor do they publish them in articles. Elle publishes a name of an author of an
original text. Cosmopolitan does not either admit that an interview with a foreign celebrity
actually is a translation.
To continue with, Czech tabloids mostly deal with the Czech celebrities’ scene so
there is not such a big need of translations. But there are some fields where there is.
Sections of world famous celebrities and their lives and styles are often borrowed from
foreign paparazzi and tabloids. The journalists look up and read several articles in the
foreign press and then (inspired by them) write their own articles (magazine Aha!, Blesk,
Spy). In other cases, they do not admit publishing the translations. The case of the
interview with foreign celebrity omitting the name of the translator (as appeared in
Cosmopolitan) occurs even in tabloids (Spy, Aha!) – and this can hardly be just inspired.
Koktejl does not publish the names of the translators either in the imprint or in the
articles but it at least provides its readers with information about the source of the
translated text. In the issue from November 2003, for example, on pages 120 121, there
are articles borrowed from the New Scientist.
20 National Geographic Česko is an exception in the list of the magazines I searched in.
This magazine is a mutation of an American magazine National Geographic. It keeps the
same layout, form and style of its American prototype. Its imprint provides the readership
with names of a team of translators. In an actual text, however, there is no other reference
to them – the magazine publishes just the names of authors of the source articles.
100+1 Zajímavosti z celého světa is a magazine that has an interesting history of
publishing translated articles. This magazine has been published since 1964. It was a
collection of interesting articles from various foreign magazines that were translated and
published in Czechoslovakia. The magazine 100+1 Zahraniční zajímavost (as it was called
till the end of a year 2006) never forgot to mention the sources of its articles and it
admitted publishing the translations even during the 70s and 80s. Its policy, however,
changed substantially in 2005. There has never been published any translation since the
issue 14/2005 (Krystýnková 20). There has been no change in the style of publishing the
names of Czech articles: there has always been an imprint that provided its readers with
information about editors, publishers and so on, but no list of translators has ever been
published there and neither the actual articles have mentioned their translators (or authors
– since 2005, when just original articles started to be published there).
The Premiere magazine does not put names of translators in an imprint or in an article.
It just admits that it was actually written by a foreign author and publishes his or her name
and a source magazine.
Respekt is a Czech magazine that has an exclusive contract with the magazine The
Economist. It has been publishing its articles since April 2007. As mentioned above, The
Economist has an interesting style of (non)publishing the names of writers. The magazine
Respekt is then in a situation where it has to decide what attitude it will adopt. Martin M.
Šimečka, the editor in chief of the Respekt, wrote in a mail addressed to me that they do
21 not publish the names of translators because magazine articles are not literary texts (“In
such case, it could have had some significance,” he said). In any case, the articles are
translated by the Babylonia agency and there are more authors who sometimes cooperate
in translating a single article.
The short history of publishing the names of translators in this magazine is more
complicated. I looked at all issues that have been published since an issue 14/2007. This
issue introduced a new era of the magazine. A title: “Respekt is getting thicker” was on a
cover of this issue. New sections started to be published then (a literary section, essays by
foreign authors and articles from The Economist magazine). All of these sections are
connected with translations. The literary section contains reviews of translated works,
essays by foreign authors need translating and so do articles from The Economist. The
style of publishing the names of translators has changed during the past year (that is how
long this magazine publishes the foreign authors’ works). It has never published the
names of translators of the essays. In the reviews, the names of translators who carried out
the translations have always been published there (this information is included also in the
subchapter about reviews). The articles from The Economist have always been marked
with the name of this magazine, but the names of translators have never been published
along with it. The change was introduced in an issue 30/2007. The names of the
translators of articles from The Economist appeared in an imprint. Since this issue, the
imprint has always contained their names. Names of the translators of the essays,
however, remain unmentioned.
22 The following table sums up the collected information:
Title of the magazine Names of the Names of the
translators in an translators in articles
imprint
Elle
Cosmopolitan
Spy
Aha!
Blesk
Koktejl
National Geographic +
Česko
100+1 Zajímavosti
z celého světa
Premiere
Respekt + (translators of articles
from The Economist)/
(translators of essays)
The rules in this field are not clear and the practice is not united either as it is apparent
from the table.
23 2.2.3 Specialized Translations
Specialized translations gain more and more public attention and awareness as the need of
it rises. Everyone can see that globalisation is a process that cannot be stopped and it
affects all spheres of people’s lives. Consequently, there is a significant need of translators
specialized in various fields (advertising, business communication, but also recipes,
instruction manuals and others).
According to UNESCO, translators have the right for their name to be published “it
should appear in a prominent place on all published copies of the translation”; translation
is described as:
transposition of a literary or scientific work, including technical work,
from one language into another language, whether or not the initial work,
or the translation, is intended for publication in book, magazine,
periodical, or other form, or for performance in the theatre, in a film, on
radio or television, or in any other media. (“Recommendation on the
Legal Protection of Translators and Translations and the Practical Means
to improve the Status of Translators”)
I conducted a survey in various kinds of specialized translations. The question I wanted to
answer by this research was whether appreciation of translators in a form of publishing
their names actually appears in manuals, advertisements, business materials and so on.
The first field I looked at is the sphere of instruction manuals included in packages of
various appliances. In none of them was there a name of the author or a translator
published (a complete list of them can be found in an appendix).
The next area of specialized translation is advertising. The advertisements are either
translations or original products. As the time goes by and our market is more and more
24 filled with foreign brands and companies, a need of translations in marketing and
advertising increases every moment. However, appreciation of authors of them is very
low. Their names are never mentioned in any single kind of advertisement.
Business correspondence, which is vital for the performance of any enterprise, is
sometimes in a language that people in charge do not understand. A translation is then
even much more important, but there is evidently no importance ascribed to the names of
the authors of this correspondence. Consequently, there is no need to publish the name of
translators either.
The “World Congress on Specialized Translation 2008: Languages and Intercultural
Dialogue in a Globalizing World” that will be held in December 2008 in Havana, Cuba
hopes that it will: “Emphasize the fundamental role played by the specialized translator in
the creation of a culturally diverse world, in which individuals can express themselves
freely in their own languages to communicate with one another and obtain information”
(“World Congress on Specialized Translation 2008”). It could help the specialized
translators to get acknowledgment for their work in different ways than by publishing
their names, but this is not a topic of this thesis.
The only way the specialized translation can be provided with the name of the
translator is to publish it. I searched in various kinds of specializations (recipes, manuals,
guidebooks their list can be found in the appendix). Their imprints always contained
information about authors of translations as they rank among publications and the rules
are given by the law here.
The area of translating research papers is another issue. Members of World
Association of Medical Editors posted a question concerning a position of translators in
research papers in a forum. Scientists, as well as translators got involved in the discussion
and shared their experience (“Position of Translators in the Editorial Process”). This little
25 research shows that names of translators are usually published in Acknowledgements
(unless they were involved in writing of an original version). Many scientists expressed
their thanks to translators by suggesting that their names should be among authors’ names.
Most of the translators are satisfied with publishing their names in acknowledgements.
They also mention a possible reason for omitting translators’ names – “embarrassment of
having to admit to the world that they needed a translator” (Karen Shashok, “Position of
Translators in the Editorial Process”).
Specialized translation is a term that covers many fields of various importances. None
of us would search for a name of a translator in a manual, but, as it has been shown, even
scientists think that translators of their research papers should be given the credit for their
work and their name should appear there. The practice is not united, because there are no
clear rules (apart from the field of published works).
2.2.4 Audio-visual Translations
Since the times of the silent movies, there has been a great development achieved in film
industry. It started at the turn of 19 th and 20 th centuries with a period of motion pictures
without voice. The development continued through voiceless scenes with intertitles that
accompanied them. Voices and sounds in the movies were the next step in this evolution.
This is also the point where a problem of understanding the movie in different countries
began. Till that moment, movies were perfectly and universally understandable across the
whole world. This started a need to produce films in the countries’ own languages or to
translate the words and transfer them somehow to foreign spectators. There are two ways
of dealing with this task. The first one is to provide the movie in an original version with
26 subtitles in another language. The second possibility is to lend the actors someone else’s
voices speaking in another language.
This survey tries to find out whether there is a name of a translator who carried out a
translation was published in final credits. It looks at original versions of subtitles and
dubbings the ones that were ordered, carried out professionally and later paid for
properly (in the ideal case). I will deal with illegal translations of subtitles later in a
subchapter called Internet (Pirate Translations). The basis of the survey was created by
credits of programs on television channels Nova, Prima, Česká televize and two cable
channels – documentary channel Viasat and movie channel HBO. A list of programs
contained movies, series and documents (the complete list of them can be found in the
appendix) and I wanted to trace the differences not only among these channels but also
among these kinds of programs.
The primary aim of this subchapter is to compare the channels. Nova and Prima seem
to have very similar style of publishing the names of translators in the credits. Nova
mentioned the translator in 35 out of 39 programs and Prima in 21 out of 24 programs.
Česká televize published the names of translators only in 17 out of 35 programs. Other
programs announced a group of people cooperating on preparing the particular program or
a name of a dubbing agency, but it was never clear who did the translation. Final credits
on HBO contained translators’ names in 22 out of 31 cases and only in two cases 2 out of
20 on VIASAT. The comparison of cable channels with traditional television channels did
not prove to be relevant. VIASAT showed the lowest number of final credits with names
of translators, but this can be caused by the fact, that it broadcasts only documents
(programmes with the lowest number of “hits” generally).
27 The following table shows a ratio of programs mentioning translators in their credits:
Channels: Česká Nova Prima HBO VIASAT
televize
Translators 49% (17 90% (35 88% 71% (22 10% (2
in credits: out of 35) out of 39) (21 out out of out of 20)
of 24) 31)
Even more interesting can be a comparison of different kinds of programs. Most of
them were dubbed – but the fact whether a program is dubbed or it has subtitles did not
appear to be relevant in my research, so I left this information out and did not include it in
a table that follows this paragraph. A basis for my research consists of 73 movies (ČT –
13, Nova – 24, Prima – 8, HBO 28), 38 series (ČT – 9, Nova – 14, Prima – 14, HBO 1)
and 36 documents (ČT – 13, Nova – 1, Prima – 1, HBO – 2, VIASAT 19). This research
showed that the smallest difference is in publishing the names of translators in final
credits of movies. Nova and Prima publish them in all cases. HBO and Česká televize do
this in most of the cases too. VIASAT does not broadcast movies and series. Series and
documents were more differentiated. Series mentioned the names of translators in credits
in 74% of cases. Documents published the names of translators only in 17% of cases. This
ratio, however, does not represent all the channels equally. Nova, Prima and HBO
broadcast documents only marginally in comparison with Česká televize or VIASAT.
28 This table shows the results of my research:
Česká Nova Prima HBO VIASAT Total
televize
Movies 77% 100% 100% 71% 85%
(10 out (24 (8 out (20 (62
of 13) out of of 8) out out of
24) of 73)
28)
Series 56% (5 71% 86% 100% 74%
out of (10 (12 (1 (28
9) out of out of out out of
14) 14) of 1) 38)
Documents 15% (2 100% 0% (0 50% 11% (2 17%
out of (1 out out of (1 out of (6 out
13) of 1) 1) out 19) of 36)
of 2)
As a part of the research in this field, I contacted several dubbing agencies and I got
replies from two of them (Digitální svět s.r.o. and AudioTech, s.r.o.). They both
confirmed that there is no rule or law concerning this problem. Ivan Kadeřávek from
AudioTech said that they publish the names of translators in final credits because they feel
it as a moral duty. They omit it only when there is little space in the final credits (in cases
of short subtitles). They also do not allow translators to use pseudonyms (Kadeřávek).
Martin Kučera from Digitální svět said that it depends more or less on customers
publishers or distributors – whether there is or is not a name of a translator published in
29 final credits (Kučera).
The audio visual translations in relation to publishing names of translators seem to be
one of the most complicated, differentiated and in need of some firmly stated unifying
rules.
2.3 Reviews of Translated Works
There is a number of ways of finding out information about literary news. Some people
regularly visit bookshops or go to libraries to check the newest literary works. Plenty of
magazines provide their readers with a page (or more) of reviews of the most recent
books, movies, theatre plays or computer games. This subchapter deals with reviews in
the magazines because it is nowadays probably the way of mentioning translators that
addresses the largest audience.
The wideness of an offer of reviews depends on a type of magazines or newspapers we
look at. Its scope and focus (kind of new works it refers to) then also depends on the focus
of the magazine itself. In literary magazines, we usually do not find reviews of computer
games and vice versa. This subchapter deals with the literary reviews. Differences are also
found in the content of bibliographic information. This research looks at this feature in
several magazines and newspapers and tries to compare styles of providing bibliographic
data in their specific sections. Several literary newspapers and magazines (Host –
měsíčník pro literaturu a čtenáře, Plav – měsíčník pro světovou literaturu, Souvislosti
revue pro literaturu a kulturu, Svět literatury – časopis pro novodobé literatury, Literární
noviny), lifestyle magazines (Elle, Cosmopolitan, Květy, Vlasta, Žena a život), a tabloid
newspaper (Story), a science and nature magazine (Lidé a země) and news, economic and
30 culture weekly magazines (Respekt, Reflex) have been chosen for this survey.
In the Host magazine, there is a translator’s name published at the end of all interviews
with foreign authors. The name of the translator of a particular book is also written below
a sample text of the book being reviewed.
The Plav magazine publishes names of translators right after names of authors and
titles of publications. An interesting and a very infrequent feature is an occurrence of an
article full of information about a life and work of an author and also of a translator of a
translated book.
The literary magazine called Souvislosti mentions names of translators in a content of
every magazine’s issue. In each translated book’s review, there is the name of the author
of a translation written at the beginning, followed by a summary of the publication and a
paragraph about a life and work of an author of an original text. There are no translators’
names published in a section where a list of author’s books, years of publications and
names of publishers is.
Svět literatury publishes a name of a translator in all reviews and also in citations in its
articles. When there are more translations of one book, Svět literatury provides its readers
with names of both (or more) translators.
Literární noviny is a special literary newspaper. It provides publishers with the place
where they can accomplish their duty to inform libraries about the new books. This
service is for free and publishers do not have to send the libraries the copies of these
books. A section called Nové knihy contains the list of all new books with their
bibliographic information and a short review. Literární noviny prints out all information
given by the publishers. These should include also the name of the translator but there are
some exceptions. Kamila Marková (who is the person responsible for the section Nové
knihy) sent me an e mail where she answered my questions about this problem:
31 “Basically, it depends on the arrangement we make, the libraries and publishers, whether
we will publish also the name of the translator which has to be published in the
publication. ...Since the issue 09 of Literární noviny, there has been the name of the
translator published unless the publisher did not forget to state it.” This situation has been
developing during the long period since 1948 and a name of a translator has always
(unless publishers themselves omitted this information) been published since the issue 09
of this year, as Marková informed me later in the same e mail: “After interviews in
several libraries, we decided to publish a name of a translator systematically in an
assigned part of an annotation. It makes work of librarians easier and it is also useful
information for readers.”
There is no name of a translator published in any review in the lifestyle magazines
Elle, Cosmopolitan, Květy, Vlasta and Žena a život. They write down only a name of an
author and a brief summary of content. The tabloid newspaper Story has the same
informative function about reviewed books. There is never a name of a translator in their
reviews. Neither the magazine Lidé a země publishes a name of a translator in its articles
about new books. The magazine Respekt informs its readers about a name of a translator
right behind an author’s name and is followed by a name of a publisher and a number of
pages of the book. Reflex mentions only a name of a writer of a publication and leaves out
all other bibliographic information.
32 The following table sums up the collected information:
Title of the magazine Names of the translators in reviews
Host +
Plav +
Souvislosti +
Svět literatury +
Literární noviny +
Elle
Cosmopolitan
Květy
Vlasta
Žena a život
Story
Lidé a země
Respekt +
Reflex
The importance of translators’ work is yet to be appreciated by reviewers in most of
the magazines. There are no compulsory rules to obey and that is why various magazines
prefer various attitudes.
33 2.4 Internet
In the past 30 years, internet has developed into the largest database of information. It has
also become the most often used source of information, although its reliability is
questionable. The problem of credibility of the internet is connected with a fact that
sometimes it is very difficult to verify an author of a web site.
Authorship of articles, essays and all other various texts on the internet is a specific
phenomenon. Jiří Rambousek wrote a paper on this very interesting and up to date topic.
He sums up his essay with a few features common to all different kinds of text sharing on
the internet. He says that an authorship of texts and their translations and understanding to
these terms is changing. Collective authorship is more and more common, the boundaries
between private texts and texts meant to be published are getting undefined (various
weblogs that are something between private diaries and literary works) and very often
there are articles and texts that do not even admit being translations (Rambousek 6).
Main topics of following subchapters are concrete examples of this interesting
phenomenon. One of them speaks about Wikipedia, its philosophy and a way of solving a
question of authorship and creating new articles. The next one deals with articles on the
internet. It finds out whether they are or they are not translations and if they admit this
fact. The third subchapter writes about the problem of pirate translations. It is included in
the chapter Internet because it has been recently spreading so fast mainly thanks to the
internet. The fourth subchapter describes a new possibility of buying books. This paper
focuses on an amount and quality of information we can get on line about a book (a
presence or absence of a name of a translator of this book).
34 2.4.1 Wikipedia
This paragraph that can be found on a website http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/clark
d1.html summarizes and explains content of the term Wikipedia:
There are a lot of bad things said about Wikipedia , the ninth most visited
destination on the internet. An encyclopedia that anyone can edit, critics
argue, is one that is vulnerable to endless mistakes ... Despite the critics,
Wikipedia has grown to include 8.2 million articles in 253 different
languages ... Wikipedia is the single largest encyclopedia ever
assembled... (Clark)
Articles on Wikipedia are either originals or translations of original articles. Their
authors are not signed anywhere and making contributions is based on voluntary
effort of its registered users, readers and contributors. They have given up all their
rights connecting authorship as it is seen and perceived more as collective
authorship. There was neither any kind of list where the articles would have been
divided according to their origin (being originals or translations).
This situation changed on April 13, 2008 when a new project was founded. Its
main aims are to guarantee better translations, to provide lists of articles
recommended for translating, to mark translated articles and to award the best ones
(“Wikipedie:WikiProjekt Překlad”). The names of translators, however, still stay
unmentioned. Wikipedia is a very interesting project where authors (regardless
whether they are authors of original or of translated articles) voluntarily publish
their works without any claims to have their name published along with them.
Wikipedia is thus a very typical example of internet space showing all its signs
according to Rambousek’s essay (mentioned in the previous chapter). The names of
35 translators are not published there. Contrary to some other fields of translation, in this case
translators are voluntarily giving up their right to have the names published.
2.4.2 Articles
There are plenty of various articles filling lifestyle sections of various web sites that are
translations, but do not even admit being translations. Their style and form, however,
reveals the truth about their origin. Authors of these probably quick translations do not
even change a word order and the text is not very idiomatic and does not sound natural.
Sometimes, it even resembles a machine translation.
The authors and translators of these articles are not usually signed there. To what
extent it influences a quality of the translation is not an easy question. It is obvious though
that the translator feels less responsible for his work when nobody knows that it actually is
his work – despite the fact that this is an interesting question, I will not deal with it as it
would need much deeper analysis.
A survey conducted in this paper covers the three most favourite Czech web portals
publishing articles on various topics: Atlas.cz, Magazin.cz and Novinky.cz. The aim of
this paper is to find out whether these portals admit their articles being translations and
whether they publish names of translators.
The web site Atlas.cz publishes always publishes a name of an author below an article.
Sometimes it is very hard to tell the articles apart according to the fact whether they are
original articles or translations that were not admitted, but when there is an interview with
a foreign celebrity, we can be sure that it is a translation. In this case, Atlas.cz uses the
signature: “The Editors” (e.g. “Ashton Kutcher: Svou Demi miluji nadevše!”).
36 Magazin.cz publishes for example results of foreign lifestyle surveys and uses
translated quotations in its articles. These articles are signed by various nicknames and
never admit being translations (e.g. “Bez mobilu ani krok. Nová fóbie!”, “Jared Leto
skončil kvůli roli na vozíku.”).
Novinky.cz has another style of providing its readers with sources of their articles. At
the beginning of an article, there is a city of its origin (for example: Berlin in an article
“Lidé dávají přednost drbům před pravdou”). Instead of an author and/or a translator,
there is written: “Famous,Novinky”. The Famous is a news agency supplying the Novinky
portal with the news from the world of celebrities and lifestyle topics. It is usual that these
portals do not admit that they publish translations. Signatures vary according to the style
that the particular web portal uses.
2.4.3 Pirate Translations
All the aforementioned features of the internet offer ideal space for illegal translations
the translations that do not respect copyright and that are conducted voluntarily without
being ordered and paid for. It is very hard to find culprits and if they do not want to
impose the economic rights and publish their translations, it is very hard to find even the
actual crime. There are various types of pirate translations (as this kind of a “crime” is
called). We can find here translations of the whole novels and dramas, web sites or parts
of the web sites and pirate subtitles to all types of movies, series and documents.
The case of the pirate translation of a novel Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is
very famous. The authors of it were fans of Harry Potter series (according to their claims,
there were more translators who cooperated) and did not put their names under their work.
37 The official Czech publisher Albatros expressed its opinion officially and published it on
its web sites (www.albatros.cz). They, as well as the author J. K. Rowling, did not feel any
losses and damages caused by this pirate translation in this case, because it had no
commercial use and could not have been downloaded from web sites of its authors. It is
important to say that this translation was quite good and even an official translator Pavel
Medek recognized this fact in a TV interview with Jan Kraus called Uvolněte se, prosím
broadcasted on September, 14 2007 on ČT 1. On the other hand, Albatros and Pavel
Medek himself did not forget to point out that despite the fact that their interests had not
been harmed; this translation broke the copyright law.
The largest portion of pirate translations belongs to pirate translations of subtitles due
to the fact that pirate downloading of series and movies from the internet became a
common way of getting new movies without the necessity of paying for original DVDs or
cinema tickets. There are many internet portals that offer downloading of subtitles.
Usually, there is a note about authors of these translations. This can be some kind of a
symbol or a signature. It is scarcely an actual name of the author; it is more often in a
form of some kind of a nickname. I downloaded ten subtitles from a portal Titulky.com
(“České a slovenské titulky”) and the true name of a translator was not published in any of
them. An e mail address was published in credits along with the nickname of the author in
seven out of the ten subtitles. A complete list of movies and series I downloaded the
subtitles for is in the appendix. These nicknames are usually known in a certain circle of
people. This can satisfy possible translators’ need of appreciation it gives them a
possibility to identify their work and to be identified. An interesting feature that cannot be
found in original subtitles is that three of them included also an apology for possible
mistakes in a translation or Czech spelling. Four subtitles also mentioned the nickname of
a proofreader.
38 I also posted a question on a forum on the portal Titulky.cz. The question was what
motivates “pirate translators” in their work and what kind of signature they use.
Translators usually replied that they started to translate subtitles because they did not want
to wait for an official translation on DVD or on television. Their motivation is mainly the
public’s reaction and feedback. This is also the main reason for signing their translations
by nicknames registered on Titulky.cz. Everyone can look up the registered user and
contact him/her on his/her email address. Some of the respondents have already tried also
professional translating of subtitles. They prefer the pirate translating though: “There is a
close relationship between translators and his audience ...You can choose what you want
to translate ... working hours and the deadline are up to you ...” (Black cloud, “Fórum –
Autorství”).
The sphere of pirate translations grew quickly with an increasing number of internet
users. The attitude towards the authorship has been loosened but it has not disappeared
yet. The need of “signing” the work is still very apparent in the frequent use of nicknames.
2.4.4 On-line Bookshops
Shopping on the internet becomes more and more frequent way of doing shopping. Books,
movies with dubbing or subtitles and other published works are also on an inexhaustible
list of things we can buy here. This subchapter examines web sites of the most often
visited internet bookshops and finds out whether they provide their customers also with
information about authors of translations.
It can be said that, in general, their attitudes are different. Some of them do not write
names of translators anywhere on their web sites (seven out of ten publishers). A few of
39 them (two out of ten publishers) publish it at least in a detail of a book that we choose to
find out more about. There was only one publisher who provided its customers with the
name of the translator already in its offer of books and also in the detail of every single
book.
The following table shows details of this enquiry:
Web site of the on-line Name of the translator in the bibliography:
bookshop In the list of books In the detail of the book
www.bbart.cz + +
www.eobchodnidum.cz/knizky
www.grada.cz
www.knihy.abz.cz +
www.knihy.cpress.cz
www.knizniweb.cz
www.kosmas.cz +
www.levneknihy.cz
www.online knihy.cz
www1.vltava.cz
I looked also on web sites with offers of movies on DVDs with dubbing or subtitles
(www.dvdedice.cz, www.primadvd.cz, www.filmopolis.cz, www.dvd svet.cz,
www.dvdfilmy.cz). Without exceptions, there is never the name of the author of the
translation.
It is voluntary for on line bookshops to publish any information concerning the books.
Thus there is no rule of publishing the names of translators.
40 2.5 Public’s Awareness of the Names of the Translators
Writer’s popularity is measured by the number of sold issues of his publications and
public’s awareness of these works. Translator’s popularity cannot be measured by a
number of sold issues – this feature measures the popularity of the author of an original,
not the translator’s one. The remaining method of measuring the translators’ popularity is
to take into consideration the public’s awareness. Jana Luňáková conducted a research
(which was a core of her diploma thesis) that aimed at finding out the public awareness of
the author of the translation when reading a translated book.
This research showed considerable indifference of readers towards the name of the
translator of the book they read despite the fact that they appreciate their work. It states
that only 7% of respondents always look up the name of the translator. This information
almost never influences their choice of the books they read. To continue with, most of the
people admitted that they were encouraged to find a name of a translator in a case they
read a very good or on the other hand a very bad translation. Their belief in translators’
ability to influence the work is considerable: “About 79 % of the respondents believe that
a translator is capable of spoiling the book by the translation” (Luňáková 29). Luňáková
states later on: “Fewer people (46%) believe, on the other hand, that the translator can
improve a bad book.”
According to this research, the translators can make themselves more visible by
various ways. Their translation has to be noticeably good or bad. Another way is to print a
name of a translator visibly on a book jacket. Luňáková gives an example of a book
Robinson and a name of J. V. Pleva on a cover and The Raven with a name of Vítězslav
Nezval. Many people knew these names and admitted that it was because they were
printed on the covers of these books. A political career of Jaroslava Moserová brought
41 attention to her profession as a translator. The worldwide popularity of a Harry Potter
series by J. K. Rowling affected also the careers and the fact that the names Pavel and
Vladimír Medeks, the translators of it, are among the general knowledge of the most of
the contemporary readership.
42 Conclusion
In conclusion, I want to summarize the conducted research and to present a picture of the
translator’s status. As opposed to literary translations, other types of translations do not
have that clearly stated rules about publishing the names of translators. None of the
magazines publishing translated articles provide their readers with the names of translators
in the text; be it at the beginning or at the end of articles. The information about
translators in an imprint differs in various magazines.
Specialized translation is clearly divided into works intended to be published
(published books with specialized topics) these always mention authors of translations
and publications such as manuals, business translations and translations of advertisements
that are not signed by their authors (neither authors of originals, nor translators).
The audio visual translations appears to belong among the most complicated and
unheeded areas of translating. There are no clear rules and it is more or less voluntary for
the publishers to mention a name of a translator in final credits.
The reviews of the translated books vary in the amount of information according to the
type of the magazine they are in. Literary magazines always state the names of translators.
The translator’s name is never, or at least never in the cases analyzed in the thesis,
published in the reviews in lifestyle magazines. There is only one magazine that publishes
it in the area of news, economic and culture weekly magazines. Ronald Christ describes
the practice: “many newspapers, such as The Los Angeles Times , do not even list the
translators in headnotes to reviews, reviewers often fail to mention that a book is a
translation (while quoting from the text as though it were written in English), and
publishers almost uniformly exclude translators from book covers and advertisements”
(quoted in Venuti 8).
43 The internet is very specific in publishing of the names of translators. Its attitude
towards this problem seems to be more liberal. Most of the kinds of translations in the
environment of the internet (articles, e mails, Wikipedia, pirate translations of books or
subtitles ...) tend to loose the feature of the authorship. In fact, the boundary between the
translation and the original text is blurred and translation is taken as a collective task and
its authorship looses its significance as long as it is not connected with the publication.
The information about the translator of translated works is not compulsory in on line
bookshops or other internet shops offering for example DVDs with movies with subtitles.
Most readers probably agree that all published literary works should be provided with
names of all authors (both authors of original and translated works). On the other hand, we
all think that a name of an author or a translator is purposeless in the case of legal
documents. But where exactly lies the boundary between these two types of translations?
Where should the translator get the credit for work well done and where he/she should
not? Are published manuals for knitting so different from instructions enclosed in
packages of new DVD players? This line is obviously very unclear and this survey
confirms it. Yet, it also proves that the situation in the Czech Republic – as far as
published works are concerned is quite positive. On the other hand, the thesis also points
out the fact that for example the area of audio visual translations needs its epoch of
enlightenment.
Peter Newmark sums up the extent of the translator’s invisibility in his Paragraphs
on Translation :
In principle, the translator should be invisible, and a translation should
not read like a translation, but should read as an independent text about
to start its own life. In fact, things are not so simple. To begin with,
translations should be published as such, with translator’s name and
44 details of the source language text. (Newmark, “The Invisibility of the
Translator” 78)
The way to get the translator’s profession a higher status is a long and rocky one. A
helpful start may be a responsible approach of translators themselves to their work, good
work in general and a pride of being a professional in this field. Morena Nannetti
highlights an importance of the translators’ behavior for the next development of the
public’s awareness of their occupation and respect for it:
[I]t seems that it is not entirely possible to prevent the “black sheep”
publishers to ignore the existing rule and it is often up to the translator
himself to refuse to work with people not willing to grant him one of his
basic rights. Unfortunately, for one translator who rejects a commission
under those circumstances (as it was my case) there is always another
ready to accept it, without asking himself how much damage he causes to
the whole category, that means in the long term also to himself.
(Nannetti)
The public’s knowledge of the names of translations’ authors should be better – there is no
dispute at this point. Luňáková offers several ways to get it better in the conclusion of her
study. The name of the translators should be present not only in little letters on a copyright
page where it has no importance at all because most of the readers just skip it, but it
should enjoy a pride of place on covers of the publications. Teachers at school should
point a pupils’ attention to translators of the books they are learning about. And the
journalists writing reviews of translated books should at least mention names of
translators – and in better case to criticize a style and a mode of the translation as well.
Without all these prerequisites, there is no hope that enough appreciation will ever be
granted to this profession. I think that Paul Auster described impressively the importance
45 of this profession and the way it fulfils kind of a mission in the world of communication:
“Translators are the shadow heroes of literature, the often forgotten instruments that make
it possible for different cultures to talk to one another, who have enabled us to understand
that we all, from every part of the world, live in one world” (Allen 7).
46 Works Cited
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Krystýnková, Olga. “Czech Mutations of New Scientist and National Geographic .” MA Thesis. Masaryk University, 2007. 47 Marková, Kamila. “Re: Jméno překladatele.” E mail to the author. 31 March 2008 Reichel, Tomáš. “Re: Překladatelská práva.” E mail to the author. 19 November 2007 Šimečka, Martin. “Re: Jméno překladatele.” E mail to the author. 3 March 2008 Telec, Ivo. “Re: Copyright law.” E mail to the author. 11 December 2007 Titulky.com České a slovenské titulky . May 2008. Secondary sources : Bassnett McGuire, Susan. History of Translation Theory . London, New York: Methuen. 1991. “Breaking into Print.” ALTA . December 2007. Clark, Dick. “What Is Wikipedia, and What Is It Good For?” LewRockwell.com . 5 September 2007. February 2008 Gross, Alex. “Outline for the NYU Seminar, A Practical View of Translation History.” ATA Chronical . January 2008 Nanneti, Morena. “Name of translator in publications (books or other).” ProZ.com Translation Article Knowledgebase . 21 November 2008. 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June 20, 2008. “World Congress on Specialized Translation 2008.” DTIL . April 2008. Zeller, Beatriz. “On Translation and Authorship.” Erudit . January 2008. 49 Appendix Magazines : 100+1 Zajímavosti ze zahraničí, Aha!, Blesk, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Host, Koktejl, Květy, Lidé a země, Literární noviny, National Geographic Česko, Plav, Premiere, Reflex, Respekt, Souvislosti, Spy, Svět Literatury, Story, Vlasta, Žena a život. Programs : Česká televize Documents : Abbey Road Live, Bobby McFerrin Portrét, City Folk – Kodaň, 2003, Evropa dnes, Kamera na cestách – Zapomenuté hlasy, Kritické okamžiky: Zkáza trajektu Samina, Objevování planety Oceán, Přidej se, Svět umění: Shirley MacLaineová, Svět zázraků – Voodoo, Třináct let, třináct minut, Zázračná planeta: Geneze člověka Movies : Ararat, Expres foto, Já a princ, Komik, Návštěvníci, Nekonečný příběh 2, Nelítostný souboj, Ohlédni se v hněvu, Polibek smrti, Posedlost, Smrtonosná past 3, V poslední chvíli, Zběsilost Series : Ajťáci, Cesta vzhůru, Garfield a přátelé, Jistě, pane premiére, Let 29, McLeodovy dcery, Okouzlení VIII, Řím, Simpsonovi HBO Documents : Před kamerou 24, Příběhy hvězd: Sadie Frostová Movies : Berete si za manžela..., Bláznivá olympiáda, Elektra, Hostel, Ideální partie, Jste zralí na lásku?, Království nebeské, Larry inspektor hygienické stanice, Legendy zeleného trávníku, Let Fénixe, Nový svět, Pan Muzika, Pekař, Půjčovna mozků, Robinsonovi, Rodinná dovolená a jiná neštěstí, Svatební den, Starý lišák, Šifra mistra Leonarda, To je náš hit!, Transakce století, Úsměv, V křesle režiséra, Vánoce bez 50 Santy, Základ rodiny, Zeptej se nejdřív dětí, Ztřeštěné léto, Život v překladu Series : Tráva III Nova Documents : S potápěči kolem světa Movies : Cliffhanger, Gejša, Gothika, Hlava rodiny, Hlava rodiny 2: Tatínek nebo dědeček?, Kruh 2, Letuška 1. třídy, Lovci dinosaurů, Mezi námi děvčaty, Můj táta hrdina, Nebezpečná posedlost, Nepohodlná žena, Orange County, Perfektní záskok, Poslední tanec, Přežít, Rukojmí, Rytíři ze Šanghaje, Řekni, že to tak není, Velký tlustý lhář, Z pekla, Zkáza lodi Estonia, Zpověď královny střední školy, Živá panenka Series : Dawsonův svět VI, Dva a půl chlapa, Hrnečku vař!: Kuchařský rok Garyho Rhodese, Kobra 11, Kriminálka Miami IV, Kutil Tim, Láska a moře, Lenssen & spol., Merlose Place, Odložené případy, Perry Mason, Veronica Mars, Zákon a pořádek, Ztraceni Prima Documents : Svět 2008 Movies : Beznaděj, Dokonalá vražda, El Condor, Já, mé druhé já a Irena, Peklo, Starosti pana starosty, Vybíjená, Zeťák Series : Chirurgové, Closer, Diagnóza vražda IV, Drzá Jordan, Helicops, Hercule Poirot, Hunter II, Nejúžasnější videa světa, Odpadlík, Přátelé, Sedmé nebe, Specialisté na vraždy III, Vraždy v Midsomeru, Zločiny ze sousedství Viasat Documents : Boží rotvajler?, Deníky královen, Harlem Globetrotters: Tým, který změnil svět, Matka všech grilovacích trucků, Mutace: Cesta k přežití, Můj deníčku..., Příběh o hradech a králích, Příběhy kostí, Putování za hranice možností, Romantici, Romero: Smrt arcibiskupa, S Wrightem přes Ameriku, Sedm divů světa techniky, Stalingrad, 51 Století, Technika inspirovaná přírodou, Válka kol, Vrah s deštníkem, Závody v tuningu Movies and series with pirate subtitles : Beowulf, Horton Hears a Who!, How I Met Your Mother, I Am a Legend, IT Crowd, No Country for Old Men, Schindler’s List, The Counterfeiters, The Grey Zone, Walk the Line Specialized translations : Recipes : D´Adamo, Peter J., and Catherine Whitney. Výživa a Krevní Skupiny. Trans. Radim Kaňa. California Fitness, 1998. Trans. of Eat Right for Your Type. G.P. Putman, 1998. Asala, Joanne. Keltská Lidová Kuchyně. Trans. Martina Káňová. Praha: Volvox Globator, 1999. Trans. of Celtic Folklore Cooking. St. Paul: Llewellyn, 1998. Gold, Rozanne. 1.2.3. a Vaříme! Trans. Karel Hejč. Praha: Eminent, 1997. Viking Penguin, 1996. Kushi, Michio, and Alex Jack. Makrobiotika. Preventivní Energetická Medicína Budoucnosti. Trans. Jarmila Průchová. Praha: Eminent, 1996. Trans. of The Cancer Prevention Diet. New York: St. Martin´s St., 1993. Manuals : Briscoe, Susan. Patchwork: 150 předloh na dětské prošívané přikrývky . Trans. Eva Fuková. Praha: Metafora, s.r.o., 2008. Tellington Jones, Linda. Výchova psa podle Lindy Tellington Jones . Trans. Renata Malá. Praha: Nakladatelství Brázda, s.r.o., 2008. 52 W. Sagman, Stephen. Jak si poradit s Windows XP v každé situaci . Trans. Pavel Hosa. Brno: Computer Press, 2004. Instructions for use : Canon A75, Emgeton E2 Cult, Motorola V360, MP3 Soledo, Nokia 6230i, Sony – Ericsson W800i Guidebooks : Wutscher, Rudolf. PINZGAU – Saalbach, Zell am See . Trans. Julie Hanzliková. Plzeň, Praha: Kletr, Freytag & Berndt, 1992. 53