From english into polish, from polish into english: On errors in students’ literary translations

Abstract

The present chapter focuses on the analysis of students’ translations of literary texts (novels and short stories) from the point of view of the errors that they contain. The analysis is based on the collection of literary translations done by students of translation programmes at the University of Silesia. The first part of the article is devoted to a brief description of literary translation classes. The errors are then divided into two main classes: translation and linguistic ones (as described by Pym 1992; Kussmaul 1995; Kozłowska 2001). Both types are discussed at some length and plentiful examples, taken from students’ translations, are provided. Moreover, the errors are also described from the point of view of their frequency in students’ work. The second part of the article focuses on presenting short exercises, mostly connected with subtle differences between English and Polish in the area of lexis, which can safely be used during translation classes, e.g. as warm-up activities. It is hoped that exercises of this type will make students (more) aware of distinctions between English and Polish, and, consequently, the overall quality of their translations will be improved.