„Pisać sobą cudzy tekst”: od biografii do teoretycznej refleksji tłumacza. O działalności tłumaczeniowej Maryli Laurent

Abstract

The author identifies interrelations between certain elements of Maryla Laurent’s biography and her professional activities, paying special attention to her views of translation. The starting point is the perception of the translator as an entity able to be reflexive about his or her translation choices. At the current stage of translation research, the translator’s status as a subjective element in the translation process does not need any additional recognition. The previous theories have sought to maximise the objectivity of the evaluation of the translator’s decisions by describing them in terms of linguistics or translation reception. This presumed ‘neutrality’ fails to account for the reasons behind translation decisions. Their completion is only guaranteed by viewing the translator from a humanistic perspective: not as an abstract conceptual category, but as an individual personality. Various factors (life experience, acquired knowledge) help build up the translator’s linguistic and cultural sensitivity. Consequently, they shape the translator’s interpretation of the original and the way in which they themselves write a foreign text in the act of translation.