Neologisms in Thurber's selected works as translated by Radoslav Nenadál

• Thesis title in Czech: Neologismy ve vybraných dílech J.Thurbera v překladech Radoslava Nenadála
• Thesis title in English: Neologisms in Thurber's selected works as translated by Radoslav Nenadál
• Key words: James Thurber; Radoslav Nenadál; neologismus; fonetická, morfologická a lexikální rovina
• English key words: James Thurber; Radoslav Nenadal; neologism; phonetic, morfological, and lexical levels
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2011/2012
• Thesis type: Bachelor's thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: PhDr. Zdeněk Beran, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 06.03.2013
• Date of assignment: 06.03.2013
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 14.03.2013
• Date and time of defence: 04.02.2014 09:00
• Date of electronic submission: 24.08.2013
• Date of proceeded defence: 04.02.2014
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: doc. PhDr. Markéta Malá, Ph.D.

Guidelines

The aim of my bachelor thesis will be to offer a typologization of the neologisms found in both the original and the translated text. I also intend to include the borderline cases, which are either expressed by a neologism in the original but translated by a combination of regularly used word (like „zickering“/“zvuk svištivého letu“), or vice versa (e.g.“Listen“/“Nastražušák“). The typology I wish to offer here is based on the „bouba/kiki“ test, which shows generally shared synesthetic relations between shape and sound. When we reverse this test and ask people to create new names for, say, a picture consisting of two simple dots positioned next to each other, they can either say something like „two-eyes“ („dvouočko“ in Czech) or „titi“ (a Czech equivalent is irrelevant here). I am relating this here to illustrate my point that human brain, when asked to make up a new word, makes associations in several possible ways: by analogy on a phonological, morphological, or lexical level.
The first category would be lexical words slightly altered to create the intended aesthetic effect. I intend to focus on the means used (mostly morphological) in the original and the target language. I wish to offer examples of what would happen if the translator had followed the same word-formation pattern as the author, and discuss the advantages and pitfalls of various possible strategies, as well as the the effect the word might be intended to have on the reader, and the means used to achieve it.
The second type of neologisms would be words and phrases that have been made up on the basis of phonology and the associations certain sound clusters and combinations evoke in a reader. My focus here will be the accordance between sounds and shapes, and the allusions made by parts of newly formed words that make up their imagined (but generally shared) meaning. I wish to offer a typology of these phoneme clusters and introduce several possible approaches concerning the associative process in both languages. These include both the syntactic level (expressed by morphological means) and the phonetic properties of the sounds. Using the reconstructed word-formation strategies I would like to offer an alternative translation wherever possible.
The final type (morphological means and associations) will probably contain no separate words, but examples from this category will be interwoven between the rest. For the basis of a neologism is either a lexical unit or a combination of sounds generally connected with a certain set of qualities (although, of course, this changes from language to language, which is why a translation is necessary; even such a universally shared sound like that of scissors is expressed differently in various parts of the world). These are then held together, or reformulated, by morphological means, which are usually the same, or rather for which purpose different means are used – those typical of each of the languages – so that the meaning is preserved.
The aim of my thesis will be to offer a definition of these types of word-formation and apply this typology onto several works by James Thurber, and compare the results with the corresponding expressions in Radoslav Nenadál's translations. In the cases which use different means of word-formation I will attempt to give an explanation as to why that is, and illustrate what would happen if the translator had tried to remain too true to the original. I will offer an alternative translation wherever possible, to illustrate my points.

References

Levý, Jiří. Umění překladu. Praha: Československý spisovatel, 1963.
Kuba, Ludvík. Základní jazykovědné pojmy I (skripta). Ústí nad Labem: Pedagogická fakulta, 1986.
de Saussure, Ferdinand. Kurz obecné lingvistiky. Praha: Academia, 1996.
Kufnerová, Zlata, et al. Překládání a čeština. Jinočany: H & H Vyšehradská, s.r.o., 2003.
Vachek, Josef. Lingvistický slovník Pražské školy. Praha: Karolinum, 2005.
Daneš, František, et al. Tvoření slov v češtině 2. Praha: Academia, 1967.
Dokulil, Miloš. Tvoření slov v češtině 1: Teorie odvozování slov. Praha: Nakladatelství Československé Akademie Věd, 1962.
Lakoff, George. Ženy, oheň a nebezpečné věci (Co kategorie vypovídají o naší mysli). Praha: Triáda, 2006.
Hofstadter, Douglas. Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golde Braid. London: Penguin Books, 2000.
Barfield, Owen. Poetic diction (A Study in Meaning). Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1973.
Lakoff, George, and Johnson, Mark. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Jakobson, Roman, and Halle, Morris. Fundamentals of Language. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2002.
Kufnerová, Zlata. Čtení o překládání. Jinočany: H&H Vyšehradská, s.r.o., 2009.
Catford, J.C. A Linguistic Theory of Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Toury, Gideon. Descriptive Translation Studies – and Beyond. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1995.