Rendering Contemporary Hungarian Drama into Romanian. A Case Study on Tibor Zalán’s Katonák [Soldiers]

Abstract

Abstract The study focuses on the peculiar challenges raised by rendering one of Tibor Zalán’s plays into Romanian. We shall take into account the linguistic, aesthetic, and conceptual differences that might emerge in the Romanian translation as compared to its original. The theoretical part of the research is built upon the idea that translation implies “rewriting” (Lefevere 1992) under certain constraints. Being “refracted” texts, translations naturally include not only a change of the language but also a change of the socio-cultural context, a change of the ideology (i.e. the “world view”), and a change of the poetics of the original (Lefevere 1984: 192). Thus, the comparative analysis aims at the major changes operated by the Romanian translator while conveying certain culture-bound meanings.