Lost in Translation: Challenges of Translating the African American Vernacular into the Czech Space

• Thesis title in Czech: Ztraceno v překladu: Problematika překladu afroamerického dialektu do češtiny
• Thesis title in English: Lost in Translation: Challenges of Translating the African American Vernacular into the Czech Space
• Key words: Afroamerický dialekt|překlad|jazyk|Toni Morrison|Nejmodřejší oči|Alice Walker|Barva nachu|Zora Neale Hurston|Jejich oči sledovaly Boha
• English key words: African American vernacular|translation|language|Toni Morrison|The Bluest Eye|Alice Walker|The Colour Purple|Zora Neale Hurston|Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2020/2021
• Thesis type: diploma thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Mariana Machová, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 18.12.2020
• Date of assignment: 04.01.2021
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 12.02.2021
• Date and time of defence: 09.09.2021 00:00
• Date of electronic submission: 15.08.2021
• Date of proceeded defence: 09.09.2021
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: PhDr. Hana Ulmanová, Ph.D.

Guidelines

This thesis aims to analyse the possibilities and challenges of translation of novels written by African American authors into Czech. The specificities of African American vernacular and expression are to be examined on the sample of three novels written by three different authors; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and The Color Purple by Alice Walker. The selected novels have been canonised in the space of Anglophone literature, and they have been subjected to analyses of the African American vernacular. The African American expression and vernacular’s unique features, however, prove to be an obstacle and a challenge in terms of translation into Czech, as the Czech literary space lacks means of expression that would correlate with the experience of African Americans in the United States. The missing parallels connecting American history with its Czech counterpart present an obstacle when navigating the translation of texts dealing with the topics of slavery and racial issues. The aim of this thesis is then, first, to introduce the context of African American writing and the most prominent features of the use of African American vernacular and expression in the three selected novels. Next, this thesis will analyse the most prominent obstacles to authentic translation and transfer of the African American vernacular into the Czech literary sphere and explore the possible challenges for the Czech readers. This analysis will be conducted based on the existing Czech translations of the novels The Blues Eye and Colour Purple. As of today, there has not been published a Czech translation of Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, and this thesis will try to propose possible solutions of a translation of this novel in correlation with the Czech tradition of translation. This thesis aims to present an overview of the use of the African American vernacular in belles-lettres and to analyse the obstacles in the translation of this complex structure into Czech.

References

Primary sources:
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1990.
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Rosetta Books, 2004.
Morrison, Toni. Nejmodřejší oči. Translated by Michael Žantovský. Praha: Odeon, 1983.
Morrison, Toni. Velmi modré oči. Translated by Michael Žantovský. Hynek, 1995.
Walker, Alice. Color Purple. New York: Pocket Books, 1982.
Walker, Alice. Barva nachu. Translated by Jiří Hrubý. Praha: Argo, 2001.

Secondary sources:
Baker Jr., Houston A. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Bayerman, Keith. Remembering the Past in Contemporary African American Fiction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
Berman, Antoine.
Butler-Evans, Elliott. Race, Gender, and Desire: Narrative Strategies in the Fiction of Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989.
Croft, Robert W. A Zora Neale Hurston Companion. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002.
D’hulst, Lieven and Yves Gambier. A History of Modern Translation Knowledge. Philadelphia: John Benjamin’s Publishing Company, 2018.
Early, Gerald Lyn. Lure and Loathing: Essays on Race, Identity, and the Ambivalence of Assimilation. New York: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1993.
Fludernik, Monika. An Introduction to Narratology. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Gillespie, Carmen. A Critical Companion to Toni Morrison: Literary Reference to Her Life and Work. New York: Facts on File, Inc, 2008.
Graham, Maryemma. The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Harris, Trudier. Afro-American Writers from the Harlem Renaissance to 1940. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Holloway. Karla E.C. The Character of the Word: The Texts of Zora Neale Hurston. Westport: Greenwood, 1987.
Hurston, Zora Neale. How It Feels to Be Colored Me. Carlisle: Applewood Books, 2015.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Ich oči vyzeraly Boha. Translated by Mária Rafajová. Živena: 1937.
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Lefevre, André a Susan Bassnett, ed. Translation, history and culture. London: Pinter, 1990
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Li, Stephanie. Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in American History. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2020.
Mitchell, Angelyn, and Danille K. Taylor. The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
English, Parker. What we say, who we are: Leopold Senghor, Zora Neale Hurston, and the philosophy of language. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010.
Peterson, Nancy J. Toni Morrison: Critical and Theoretical Approaches. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Rainwater, Catherine and William J. Scheick. Contemporary American Women Writers: Narrative Strategies. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985.
Štícha, František. O věrnosti překladu. Praha: Academia, 2019.
Tally, Justine. The Cambridge Companion to Toni Morrison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routlege, 1995. 2^nd revised edition 2008.
Venuti, Lawrence, ed. Translation and minority. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 1998. The Translator. Special issue.
Williams, Jenny. Theories of Translation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.