Abstract: Translation procedures are unique and responsible processes of transferring direct word-for-word as well as imagining and creating pieces of art, resulting in relevant and understandable texts into the source language. Having in mind the interpretation of names – or more specifically proper names – translators are supposed to keep the cultural identity of the original text and make the readers fully aware of the authors’ ideas and symbolic choices they made when deciding on these particular markers of identity. Consequently, this paper appears to be an attempt to reveal the symbolism of proper names in Yordan Yovkov’s “Legends of Stara Planina’, translated from Bulgarian into English by John Burnip, presenting ways of transferring proper names – transcription, transliteration and semantic reconstruction, as well as, an analysis of the techniques John Burnip used in his translation. Did the translator manage to keep the original message, did he make it comprehensible for the recipients where exactly symbolism starts, or names just remain a part of the story with not much of a sense? We shall try to reach the answers to these questions on the basis of a close look into the mechanisms of name-rendering and the sounding of the names of Yovkov’s heroes in American context re-read against our native Bulgarian environment.
Keywords: proper names, transcription, transliteration, semantic reconstruction, symbolism
Rhetoric and Communications E-journal, Issue 4, April 2012, http://rhetoric.bg/, ISSN 1314-4464