MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English language and literature Translation and Analysis of Stephen King’s short story The End of the Whole Mess Bachelor thesis Brno 2015 Supervisor: Written by: Mgr. Martin Němec Ondřej Kazda 1 Prohlášení: Prohlašuji, ţe jsem bakalářskou práci vypracoval samostatně, a ţe jsem pouţil pouze uvedené zdroje. Souhlasím s uloţení mé práce na Masarykově univerzitě v Brně v knihovně pedagogické fakulty a s jejím zpřístupněním ke studijním účelům. Brno, 25th March 2015 Ondřej Kazda Declaration: I declare that I have worked on my thesis independently and that I have used only listed sources. I agree with the deposition of my thesis at Masaryk University, Brno, at the library of Faculty of Education and with making it accessible for study purposes. Brno, 25th March 2015 Ondřej Kazda 2 Acknowledgments I would like to thank to my supervisor Mgr. Martin Němec for his kind and valuable advice and the guidance that he provided during my work on the thesis. 3 Bibliography Kazda, Ondřej. Translation and Analysis of Stephen King short story „The End of the Whole Mess―: bachelor thesis. Brno: Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, Department of English and literature.2015.93 pages. The supervisor of the bachelor thesis: Mgr. Martin Němec Abstract The focus of this bachelor thesis is a short story by Stephen King called „The End of the Whole Mess― and its translation into Czech language. The practical part of the thesis consists of my own translation of the short story. The theoretical part of the thesis focuses on Stephen King and his life and work and on the analysis of my translation in accordance with linguistic theories by Jiří Levý and Dagmar Knittlová, and its comparison to the official translation by Ivan Němeček from 2004. Key words Stephen King, short story, translation, analysis, comparison, The End of the Whole Mess 4 Bibliografický záznam KAZDA, Ondřej. Translation and Analysis of Stephen King short story „The End of the Whole Mess―: bakalářská práce. Brno: Masarykova Univerzita, Pedagogická fakulta, Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury. 2015.93 stran. Vedoucí bakalářské práce: Mgr. Martin Němec Anotace Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá povídkou od Stephena Kinga nazvanou „Konec všech problémů― a jejím překladem do českého jazyka. Praktická část práce je tvořena mým vlastním překladem povídky. Teoretická část se soustředí na ţivot a dílo Stephena Kinga, na analýzu překladu dle teorií Jiřího Levého a Dagmar Knittlové a na jeho porovnání s oficiálním překladem od Jiřího Němečka z roku 2004. Klíčová slova Stephen King, povídka, překlad, analýza, porovnání, Konec všech problémů 5 Table of contents 1. Introduction – A translator’s work ....................................................................................... 8 1.2. About the short story ..................................................................................................... 9 2. Stephen King ...................................................................................................................... 12 2.1. Introduction of the author ........................................................................................... 12 2.2. Early Life .................................................................................................................... 12 2.3. Writing career ............................................................................................................. 13 2.4 Literary awards ............................................................................................................ 15 3. The End of the Whole Mess – my translation .................................................................... 16 4. The comparison of my translation and Ivan Němeček´s translation .................................. 71 4.1 CPA .............................................................................................................................. 71 4.2. On the verge of destroying human intellect ................................................................ 72 4.3. American Flyer ........................................................................................................... 73 4.4. Whooping .................................................................................................................... 73 4.5. The Philippines incident.............................................................................................. 74 4.6. Someone better ............................................................................................................ 75 4.7. The whole mess, my back teeth are floating ............................................................... 76 4.8. Art forgery .................................................................................................................. 77 4.9. The farmer and the pig ................................................................................................ 78 4.10 The police officers in La Plata ................................................................................... 79 4.11. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 80 5.The analysis of my own translation .................................................................................... 81 5.1. Proper names, geographical names ............................................................................. 81 5.1.1. The White Mountains, Valley Forge .................................................................... 81 5.1.2. Carrigan’s Hill, DC, Grant Park ........................................................................... 82 5.1.3. Bow-Wow ............................................................................................................ 83 5.1.4. Moho .................................................................................................................... 84 6 5.1.5. Duke Rogers ......................................................................................................... 84 5.2. Measures ..................................................................................................................... 85 5.2.1. Examples .............................................................................................................. 85 5.3. Currency ...................................................................................................................... 86 5.4. School grades .............................................................................................................. 87 5.5. Explanatory words ...................................................................................................... 88 5.5.1. Drew, Phi Beta Kappa .......................................................................................... 88 5.5.2. Zenith, WBOB ..................................................................................................... 89 5.5.3. Charlie Brown and the football ............................................................................ 89 5.4. Substitution of an analogy........................................................................................... 90 6. Summary ............................................................................................................................ 91 7. Bibliography ...................................................................................................................... 92 7.1. Printed sources ............................................................................................................ 92 7.2. Electronic sources ....................................................................................................... 92 7 1. Introduction – A translator’s work Lately I have been often wondering how many people think about the translator’s work when they read a book which was not originally written in their mother language. How many people think about the various difficulties the translator had to overcome in order to finish the translation. About the compromises and concessions they had to make, about the numerous untraslatable idioms and puns they had to deal with, about the distictions and differences between English and Czech syntax. How many people do that? Not that many, I would venture. I think that the reason, why people try not to think about translator too much, is because it reminds them that they are not reading an original text. They are not reading the actual words their favourite writer put on paper. What they do, in fact, is they read the work of a middleman. If I may exxaggerate a bit, the translator is in many ways a shadowy figure in the background that most people do not think about. His or her name may be printed in a small text in the back of the book, but the majority of the readers will never read it. And yet, without their hard work, there would not even be a book in the first place. Obviously there are exceptions. Martin Hilský, who is probably the most famous translator in the Czech Republik; Jan Kantůrek and his fantastic translation of Terry Prattchett’s Discworld series. The recently deceased Pavel Medek, who, in his translation of the Harry Potter series, came up with many great neologisms, and whose brilliance only really shows, when we compare his masterpiece to the – rather dull – Slovak translation. But those are just the exceptions. The majority of Czech translators remain in anonymity, and I do not see that changing in recent future. The job