The Specificity of Literary Proper Names: Harry Potter in Translation Into Polish and Russian
The Specificity of Literary Proper Names: Harry Potter in Translation Into Polish and Russian

Summary/Abstract: In the paper the author investigates the specificity of literary proper names and its implications on their translation. He focuses on the discursive process of projecting the descriptions of the elements of the literary setting onto their respective names. The main postulate is that literary proper names, apart from triggering various linguistic and extralinguistic connotations, primarily form a complex image of their signifieds in the minds of the readers in cooperation with the literary text itself. Accordingly, in the face of this cognitive potential that literary proper names have, the translator is forced to retain only its key aspects. This process of decision-making is grounded in knowledge, perception and the view of the world of each individual. The aforementioned assumptions are verified by means of comparing the way in which proper names and descriptions of their bearers function in the original text of the Harry Potter series with its Polish and Russian translations. Ultimately, the analysis leads to a conclusion that the process of translating literary proper names boils down not only to linguistic and cultural differences, but also to the personality of the translator and his or her conscious decisions.

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