Tu znajdują się fragmenty tekstów poświęconych problematyce przekładowej (ale nie tylko), które stanowią materiał ćwiczeń translatorskich.

1. Andrew Chesterman: On the idea of a theory (fragment)

The etymology of the word “theory” goes back to the Greek θεωρία: ‘theoria’, meaning ‘a way of looking at something’, in order to contemplate it and understand it better. In this broad sense, we can say that a theory is a helpful point of view. I take (better) understanding to be the general goal of any theory. A theory of translation is thus a view of translation – or some part or aspect of it – which helps us to understand it better.

2. Vladimir Nabokov: The Art of Translation (fragment)

Three grades of evil can be discerned in the queer world of verbal transmigration. The first, and lesser one, comprises obvious errors due to ignorance or misguided knowledge. This is mere human frailty and thus excusable. The next step to Hell is taken by the translator who intentionally skips words or passages that he does not bother to understand or that might seem obscure or obscene to vaguely imagined readers; he accepts the blank look that his dictionary gives him without any qualms; or subject scholarship to primness; he is as ready to know less than the author as he is to think that he knows better. The third, and worst, degree of turpitude is reached when a masterpiece is planished and patted into such a shape, vilely beautified in such a fashion as to conform to the notions and prejudices of a given public. This is a crime, to be punished by the stocks as plagiarists were in the shoebuckle days.

3. Ekfraza poetycka

Edward Hopper Study: Hotel Room

BY VICTORIA CHANG

While the man is away / telling his wife /about the red-corseted woman, / the woman waits /on the queen-sized bed. / You'd expect her quiet / in the fist of a copper / statue. Half her face, /a shade of golden meringue, / the other half, the dark / of cattails. Her mouth even— / too straight, as if she doubted / her made decision, the way / women do. In her hands, / a yellow letter creased, / like her hunched back. / Her dress limp on a green chair. / In front, a man's satchel / and briefcase. On a dresser, / a hat with a ceylon / feather. That is all / the artist left us with, / knowing we would turn / the woman's stone into ours, / a thirst for the self / in everything—even / in the sweet chinks / of mandarin.