13. Conclusion
In my thesis, I have examined the translation of proper names and fantastic neologisms, a specific aspect of Tamás Boldizsár Tóth’s Harry Potter translation to enumerate the various translating methods that he used, and examined whether he managed to stay visible as a translator.
I have provided an overview of Lawrence Venuti’s (1995; 2008) theory of the binary nature of the translation process along with the views of some of his critics (Oittinen, 2000; 2006 and Myskja, 2013). I have aimed to refute Venuti by establishing a typology consisting of six translation methods, based on McDonough (2004) and Coillie (2006), and by representing how Tóth has used these methods when translating proper names. I can conclude that the complexity of the name corpus in the Harry Potter series required a similarly complex combination of the different translating methods, of which domestication and foreignization are equally important elements. I have also analysed the translation of proper names and fantastic neologisms with utilizing examples by Farkas and Slíz (2013), Hertelendy (2011), and Minier (2004), examining the role of domestication and foreignization in their translation. With this, I have also tried to prove that Tóth managed to create a balance in his translation with preserving the source culture’s values and bringing the text closer to the target audience.
To defend Tóth’s translating choices from criticism by members of online fan communities, who were judging the arbitrariness of the translation, and to illustrate the complexity of Tóth’s work, I have compared the official Hungarian translation to two pirate translations of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which is an innovative approach in this field. By this, I have also aimed to prove that the Hungarian language further increased the difficulty of the translation process, and that in spite of this, most of the translator’s choices are inventive and consistent.
In summary, I can conclude that the ingenuity of Tóth’s translation lies in retaining the Britishness of the Harry Potter series, but, while doing so, not being overly faithful to the original; thus he preserved his visibility as a translator and refuted Venuti’s simplistic concept of mutually exclusive translation strategies.
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