How can culturally infused Portuguese words be translated into Polish/English?

Jakub Jankowski

Uniwersytet Warszawski

Resumen

How to translate culturally infused words is indeed the question that becomes more complicated as the cultural turn in Translation Studies (TS) takes place. The task for translators has become not only to make a linguistic transfer but a cultural one as well. In this essay I shall discuss how to deal with some Portuguese words that may be regarded as crucial to defining Portuguese culture. I will focus on words and terms that ask for an understanding and reception mainly at the cultural level. One should keep in mind that knowledge is the key here, as it will be necessary to know something about both source and target culture to find out not only the best solution in translation for these words, but to understand them as well. I will study the process of translation as a process of making certain decisions. I will try to show not only that direct translation is complex, but also that the way we translate those words also differs between a historical book and a comedy film, between a poem translation and a juvenile book translation, etc. As a methodology I shall study this cultureoriented translatological phenomenon under the dominant in translations (as defined by Anna Bednarczyk), the elements that determine translation (loosely based on Werner Koller’s ideas), and the great classic Jiří Levý and his vision of translation as a process of making decisions. I will present different paradigms in order to work out the possible solutions.

Palabras clave:

Translation Studies, translative dominant, translator dominant, Fado, Estado Novo, Portugal, culture