Romanian Translation Research Articles

The Romanian Translation and Cultural Adaptation of the Early Arthritis for Psoriatic Patients (EARP) Questionnaire, Psoriasis Epidemiology Screening Tool (PEST), and Toronto Psoriatic Arthritis Screen 2 (ToPAS 2).

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory condition mediated by the immune system with various manifestations. The increased prevalence of subclinical joint involvement has led to the development of early diagnostic methods for psoriatic arthritis, including several instruments that have been validated and used in clinical practice. The aim of this study was to perform the Romanian translation, cultural adaptation, and validation of three assessment tools: the Early Arthritis for Psoriatic Patients (EARP) Questionnaire, Psoriasis Epidemiology Screening Tool (PEST), and Toronto Psoriatic Arthritis Screen 2 (TOPAS 2), which are designed to evaluate early-stage arthritis in patients with psoriasis. All the activities were carried out in accordance with the internationally recognized methodology recommended by the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcome Research (ISPOR), the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding the translation process and the validation of instruments, and data from the international literature. These three questionnaires were administered to 29 patients with psoriasis diagnosed by biopsy. A descriptive study was conducted and the data were analyzed with appropriate statistical tests using the PSPP program. A reliability test was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The obtained values were significant for the first two questionnaires, with a value of 0.89 for the EARP and 0.63 for the PEST, but the value was not as significant for ToPAS2, at 0.40. This pilot study revealed that the Romanian and original versions of the three questionnaires are similar.

“And They Joined Him in Elphegor”: on the Relationship Between the Romanian Translation of the Palaea Historica and Its Slavonic Model

The Palaea Historica, a Byzantine apocryphal text from the 9th century, was translated into Romanian between the late 16th century and the early 17th century via a Slavonic intermediary. Although the Romanian text was edited and published in full in 2001, recent developments in the academic discussion around the Slavonic version of the Palaea Historica have led to the publication of an edition of the second Slavonic translation in the year 2016, thereby raising the question of whether the Romanian text was solely influenced by the first redaction or not. This study is a continuation of the author’s previous research on the Romanian version’s relationship with the two Slavonic redactions, with more focus being given to grammatical peculiarities and loci obscuri that were highlighted by the editors of the Romanian manuscripts as having been stemmed from the Slavonic text’s influence. These passages are analyzed in comparison with the two Slavonic translations and the Greek original, allowing for a better perspective on how dependent the Romanian grammatical constructions were on their Slavonic model. Finally, this study refers to an onomastic confusion between Abraham’s brother and Abraham’s father, which is avoided or possibly Romanian version.

The Translation of Nature Terminology in Literary Texts: A Case Study

This paper investigates the way nature-related terms are rendered in literary texts, highlighting possible explanations for the translation decisions. The discussion will be illustrated with examples of terms related to wetland and to the vegetation specific for this area, extracted from the novel Where the crawdads sing (2018) by Delia Owens and its Romanian translation. The conclusions show that there are several reasons why the translator may opt for a less accurate rendering of nature terminology, including the translator’s perception of the aim of the target text, e.g. entertainment rather than information, or the translator’s (limited) knowledge of the field.

Romanian Translation and Cultural Adaptation of the Seizure Severity Questionnaire.

Four translators were involved in obtaining conceptual analogies and the cultural importance of the translated notions. The final version was obtained for the Romanian population, with the same appearance as the original instrument. Sixty-seven patients with epilepsy completed the SSQ and the Patient-Weighted Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory-QOLIE-31-P. Females had a lower mean SSQ total score (TS) and perceived seizures less seriously than men. Patients with epilepsy with aura had a higher mean SSQ TS, with a more severe seizure perception, compared to those without aura. According to the frequency of seizures, patients with epilepsy with rare seizures had the lowest mean SSQ total score (TS) compared to those with frequent seizures. Patients who were on monotherapy had a less severe perception of epileptic seizures compared to those who were treated with two or more antiepileptic drugs. All QOLIE-31-P domains and TS correlated statistically significantly with the SSQ TS. This study explored SSQ translation, evaluated preliminary results, and showed the correlation between seizure frequency and severity, clinical factors, and quality of life. This tool could be useful for measuring seizure severity in Romanian patients with epilepsy and conducting comparative studies.

The Romanian translation and validation of the Extended Prostate Cancer Index Composite in patients undergoing radical prostatectomy.

To evaluate the quality of life in patients treated for prostate cancer in detail, an accessible, extensive, and easy-to-administer questionnaire is needed. The self-administered 50-item "Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite" (EPIC) is an instrument used for this purpose, but it is not officially translated into Romanian. The aim of the study was to translate and validate the Romanian version of the EPIC. We translated and culturally adapted the EPIC into Romanian. For validation, we included a retrospective analysis of 112 patients who underwent robotic radical prostatectomy and a prospective study including 120 consecutive patients hospitalized before surgical treatment. Baseline and follow-up assessments took place before and at six months, two, and five years post-surgery, between January 2014 and December 2015. We performed cross-sectional correlations between the EPIC, AUASI, and SF-12 at baseline, factor analysis, and calculated the internal consistency. For most EPIC domains and subscales, our a priori-defined criteria for reliability were fulfilled (Cronbach's alpha 0.7-0.9). Cross-sectional correlations between EPIC scales and AUASI domain ranged from 0.23-0.69, and SF-12 domains ranged from 0.21-0.53 and 0.22-0.61, respectively. The retrospective analysis showed a medium acceptability and understanding of the EPIC questionnaire. In the prospective study, the revised EPIC draft showed an overall higher acceptability with a responding rate of 66% at a 5-year follow-up. All domains exhibited good internal consistency except for the hormonal section (Cronbach's α = 0.67) at the 6-month follow-up. The Romanian version of the EPIC is reliable, responsive and valid for measuring HRQL in prostate cancer patients. The EPIC questionnaire proved to be an exhaustive and reproducible instrument for evaluating the quality of life in Romanian prostate cancer patients.

Season of birth and schizotypy in a sample of undergraduate students.

In line with the psychotic continuum theory, the study of psychometric schizotypy in non-clinical samples has been proposed as a convenient yet powerful method for studying the etiology of psychosis. Based on this paradigm, several studies explored the association between season of birth (SoB) and schizotypy but led to inconsistent results. Building on the analysis of the previous studies, in the present study, we aimed to advance our understanding by improving the methodology (using a homogeneous group, eliminating unreliable respondents, taking into account potential confounders) and the reporting. Subjects were recruited among undergraduate students from 3 Romanian Universities. To limit the potential influence of invalid response, we applied methods for detecting unreliable and/or biased questionnaires and excluded subjects with unreliable/ biased answers from the analyses. Schizotypal dimensions were measured using the Romanian translation of the 22-items Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief (SPQ-B). The association between schizotypy scores and season of birth was explored using linear regression. In a sample of 484 undergraduate students from Romania, we found that being born in late winter/early spring (February and March) was associated to higher total schizotypy score and disorganization. Furthermore, we found that restricting the sample to subjects born in an urban environment increased the strength of the association. This study is consistent with an association between SoB and the risk of psychotic disorders.

Translation and validation of a Romanian version of the Breast Appreciation Scale (BrAS)

The 9-item Breast Appreciation Scale (BrAS; Swami et al., 2022) is a recently developed instrument that assesses a woman’s positive breasted experiences. To date, however, the psychometric properties of the BrAS have only been investigated in English-speaking women. Here, we report on the translation and validation of a novel, Romanian version of the BrAS. A total of 555 cisgender women from Romania completed a Romanian translation of the BrAS along with additional measures of body image and psychological well-being. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis identified a stable unidimensional model of the BrAS, with all nine items retained. Additionally, the Romanian BrAS evidenced complete invariance (i.e., through to latent mean invariance) across mothers and non-mothers, though mothers had higher observed scores than non-mothers. Evidence of convergent, concurrent, and incremental validity was very strong when based on observed BrAS scores, but slightly weaker when based on latent BrAS scores. In particular, greater latent breast appreciation was significantly associated with higher body appreciation, lower breast size dissatisfaction, and higher self-esteem. Overall, these results suggest that the psychometric properties of the Romanian BrAS are robust and that the instrument can be effectively deployed in this linguistic context.

Ms. rom. 4648 al Bibliotecii Academiei Române: predicile lui Ioanichie Haleatovski din coligatul ieromonahului Ștefan de la Mănăstirea Bistrița

This paper presents a detailed description of the Romanian Manuscript 4648, found in the Library of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest, which contains some of the Ioanykiy Halyatovsky’s homillies written in The Key to Understanding (Ключ розуміння). The manuscript we are describing contains a printed copy of the Romanian translation Cheia înțelesului (Bucharest, 1678) and a manuscript version of other Halyatovsky’s homillies. We explain how this colligate was composed and we reveal its connection with the original printed work.

Reliability and Factorial Validity of the Core Self-Evaluations Scale

Abstract: The Core Self-Evaluations Scale (CSES) measures a broad personality trait reflecting individuals’ self-appraisals of their worth, capabilities, and control of their lives. Although the CSES was designed to capture a single trait, factor analytic studies often found more complex measurement structures. These either referred to different content facets or methodological artifacts due to the item wording. The present random-effects meta-analysis summarized correlation matrices from 53 samples including 31,843 respondents. After accounting for acquiescent responding, meta-analytic confirmatory factor analyses revealed a single common factor for all items. The factor was highly reliable (ω = .87) and demonstrated partial metric measurement invariance across English, German, and Spanish language versions as well as cultural tendencies of individualism and flexibility. However, Chinese and Romanian translations exhibited substantially lower factor loadings. These results corroborate the use of the CSES as a unidimensional measure, albeit systematic investigations of measurement invariance are recommended before its use in cross-cultural research.

Rereading “Danube” After Thirty Years. Bucharest in Claudio Magris’ Book

The article marks the anniversary, in 2024, of thirty years since the publication of the Romanian translation of the famous Danube (Milan, Garzanti, 1986) by Claudio Magris, which had immediately earned him the Bagutta Prize 1987, consecrating him among the highest contemporary Italian writers. The Romanian version was released in 1994 at the Univers publishing house in Bucharest in the “Spectrum” series, with the translation of the historian Adrian Niculescu, who was exiled to Italy in the 1980s. The proposed analysis is based on the presentation of the material concerning Romania within the literary work, as a premise of the speech on the Mitteleuropa versus the Europe of the South-East. Among the four historic Romanian regions, three can be identified as the main topics of the volume: Banat, Transylvania and Wallachia (Moldova is missing, as it does not concern the Danubian journey), with the mention that Banat and Transylvania are treated in a distinct chapter entitled Nonna Anka, while the other part of the Romanian territory, Wallachia, appears in the Matoas chapter. Claudio Magris’ literary image of Bucharest manages to configure the urban identity in its peculiarities deriving from the overlap of three different layers with paradigmatic value, corresponding to the main stages of its historical development.

Proper Names and Register in Poetry Translation. The Effects of Transplantation in Eliot’s “The Naming of Cats”

In literary translation, cultural adaptation or transplantation is a method that offers the readers of the target-text linguistical and cultural ease in their interaction with the text. Still, it could also prevent them from absorbing foreign cultural elements. (Re)translation could change the status of a text in that it could offer fresh perspectives that have never been offered before. In this study, we will analyse two Romanian (re)translations of T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Naming of Cats”, focusing on the translation of proper names and on the differences in register and style that arise from different translation choices, to argue in favour of the idea that the transplantation of cultural elements can be just as valuable for the readers as preserving the foreign elements.

DIMITRIE CANTEMIR ŞI CHIRURGIA

One of the most important works left by Dimitrie Cantemir, among his rich writings, was "INCREMENTORVM ET DECREMENTORVM AVLAE OTHOMANICAE SIVE ALIOTHMANICAE HISTORIAE A PRIMA GENTIS ORIGINE AD NOSTRA VSQVE TEMPORA DEDVCTATE LIBRI TRES", translated nowadays under the title "HISTORY OF THE INCREASE AND THE DECAY OF THE OTTHMAN OR ALIOTHMAN COURT (FROM THE BEGINNINGS OF THE NATION TO OUR TIME), IN THREE BOOKS". Among other information, it also contains a description of the land and the city of Avlonia - i.e. Vlora (dominated then by the Sublime Porta), as well as the Albanians from that region who had several qualities: fierce fighters, builders of aqueducts (without formal education) and healers of hernia by surgical operation. The surgery part has a special significance. In 1734 ”Incrementorum...” was translated into English by pastor Tindal, historian and translator. He used a manuscript in Latin given to him by Antioch Cantemir, son of Dimitrie Cantemir. The English text was translated into French by Fr. de Joncquieres. In 1745, a German translation appeared in the city of Hamburg, also using the English edition. In 1876, the Romanian Academy, published Iosif Hodoş first Romanian translation of the German edition. Fragments adapted from this edition were then used by Romanian researchers, including historians of medicine, such as Pompei Samarian, Dr. Vasile Sârbu. The original Latin manuscript of Dimitrie Cantemir's text was to be found not earlier than 1984 by Virgil Cândea at the Houghton Library in the USA. The Latinist Dan Sluşanschi published the manuscript and made its first translation from Latin into Romanian. The surgeon Dr. A. E. Nicolau published fragments of this translation, namely the passage regarding the surgical cure. În 2015, years after Dan Sluşanschi passing, the Romanian Academy published the text of the transcribed Latin manuscript and a translation version. In parallel, another academic and surgeon, Mircea Beuran, highlighted Cantemir's text, in a different form, exposing in the Floreasca Hospital on large, colorful, how inguinal hernia was operated in the 17th-18th centuries.

“You are certainly my best friend” – Translating adverbs of evidential certainty in The Picture of Dorian Gray

Abstract The present article focuses on the analysis of how adverbs of evidential certainty are translated into Romanian in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Drawing on previous work, we argue that adverbs of certainty exhibit different interpretations function of their context of occurrence and their position in the clause. In this analysis, I am going to look at the different translation strategies employed in the ten Romanian translations of the book. We are interested in investigating the differences between the earliest translation and the most recent retranslations. We can safely assume that evidentiality is a universal semantic category that is coded differently in different languages. Therefore, it is going to be interesting to see how the rendering of evidential adverbs into Romanian differs from one translator to another across time. Adverbs of certainty express more often than not a degree of confidence on the part of the speaker alongside the speaker’s attitude toward the content of the sentence.

El arte de traducir un texto parenético: Ceasornicul domnilor, la traducción rumana del Relox de príncipes

This study proposes an analysis of the Romanian translation of Relox de príncipes. At the turn of the 17th century, the Moldavian scholar Nicolae Costin undertakes a major literary project and manages to complete it, despite all the conceptual and translation-related obstacles he most likely encountered. His text betrays, on the one hand, the influence of the Latin word order and, on the other hand, various calques and neologisms borrowed from Classical Latin. Although we find some glosses and interpolations in his translation, in most cases they are meant to increase the accessibility of the text for Romanian readers. Thus, we see a relationship of faithfulness between the source text and the target text in the case of Nicolae Costin’s literary creation, since the translation definitely maintains the spirit of Antonio de Guevara’s writing.

Explicitation and (In)directness in Literary Translations from Japanese into English and Romanian: A Contrastive Analysis

Abstract A complex process that necessarily goes beyond the surface level of words and phrases, (literary) translation is also a means to understand the cultures whose products the translated texts are. In this article, I look at the English and the Romanian translations of two Japanese novels in an attempt to identify those elements that prove that the texts carry the load of the specific type of culture that both the translators and the readers belong to. More specifically, I analyse the way in which the discourse is reconstructed in English and Romanian in light of Edward T. Hall’s high-context culture vs. low-context culture distinction. This article does not focus on the translation of culture-specific realities, as is the case with most studies that compare textual products belonging to different cultures, but on the way in which ordinary realities are rendered in English and Romanian. I look at the degree to which the context created by the Japanese authors is explicitly specified and the level of directness of the discourse in the two languages, as representative features of the high-context vs. low context cultures dichotomy. The examples analysed here suggest that the English translations tend to employ more strategies for an explicit specification of the context and to create a more direct discourse than the Romanian ones, which is consistent with the fact that English is a language considered typical of low-context culture spaces. Romanian translations are generally closer to the Japanese original, showing a more high-context culture perspective, confirming the existence of a continuum between the two extreme ends in Hall’s dichotomy.

Aspectualizers and their Complementation in English and Romanian

Abstract Aspectualizers as verbs indicating phases in the development of events are typically divided into ingressive (denoting beginning), continuative (denoting continuation) and egressive (denoting ending). These verbs require specific complementation with the lexical verbs which are paired with the aspectualizers. Their analysis starts from the features of such complementation in English (subordinate non-finite infinitival and participial clauses) and compares them with the features of their Romanian translation equivalents. This corpus-based research (with the examples from modern British novels) focuses on the structural characteristics of the complementation in the two languages, lexical aspect of the verbs in the complementation (activities, states, accomplishments, achievements), as well as similarities and differences between the two languages in that respect.

Validation of the Romanian Version of the Halitosis Associated Life-Quality Test (HALT) in a Cross-Sectional Study among Young Adults.

Halitosis is a common condition with a significant impact on individuals' quality of life. The Halitosis Associated Life-Quality Test (HALT) is a reliable instrument for measuring this impact. This study aimed to introduce and validate the Romanian translation of the HALT questionnaire (R-HALT). We hypothesized that the R-HALT would demonstrate good reliability and validity in measuring the impact of halitosis on quality of life among Romanian teenagers and young adults. Our objectives were to translate and adapt the HALT, validate it among a cross-sectional group, and evaluate the extent of halitosis in this population. A multicentric cross-sectional design followed, which was approved by the Ethics Research Committee in Romania. The translation process involved independent translations, retro-translations, expert review, and pre-testing. The psychometric properties were evaluated among 150 patients (mean age 23.6 ± 1.8; 51% males) at dental clinics, including reliability, convergent, and discriminant validity, using accepted statistical measures such as Cronbach's alpha and Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC). The R-HALT revealed strong internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha values ranging from 0.93 to 0.96, and an ICC value of 0.87 (95% CI = 0.70-0.99), demonstrating excellent test-retest reliability. Mean scores of individual items ranged from 0.82 ± 0.94 (Q3) to 3.23 ± 1.15 (Q11). The corrected item-total correlation ranged from 0.30 (Q2) to 0.90 (Q19). Organoleptic test scores diagnosed 41% (62 patients) with a score of 2, with increasing severity in 9% (13 patients) with a score of 5. The R-HALT exhibited robust reliability and validity in assessing the impact of halitosis among Romanian teenagers and young adults. The questionnaire is a strong tool for understanding, diagnosing, and managing halitosis in Romania, ultimately aiming to improve the quality of life of affected individuals. Further studies with diverse populations could enhance the applicability of the R-HALT.

Collaborating with Shakespeare: Recent Rewritings of ROMEO AND JULIET on the Romanian Stage

The paper investigates the factors contributing to the recent surge in popularity of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet on the Romanian stage. One possible explanation lies in the play's adaptability and relevance to present-day concerns coupled with the opportunities for creative reimagining offered by its canonical Romanian translation. The article posits that directors and playwrights have engaged in a fruitful "collaboration with the dead" (Leitch 19), breathing new life into the classic text by means of different forms of rewriting. Specifically, the paper discusses two recent versions of Romeo and Juliet staged in Bucharest, at Teatrul Mic in 2018 and at Teatrul Odeon in 2021, and focuses on the process of rewriting Shakespeare’s text in the form of a theatre adaptation and of a radical appropriation.

Vittorio Alfieri e la lingua “classica” di Simeon Marcovici: alcune considerazioni metodologiche sulle traduzioni dell’Oreste e del Filippo

"The most representative Romanian translations of the 19th century can be the subject of an aesthetic-rhetorical study, which, usually, we would devote to an original literary work. Because of their experimental character, the translations are closely linked to the contemporary “language question”: thus, they offer a tool to observe the evolution of literary Romanian in those crucial decades. In other words, we can consider translations as a ground for the reception of Western models and the development of modern literary language. In this study, we propose overcoming the two most popular approaches to Romanian translations: the exclusively lexicographical one, which mainly focuses on the collection of data related to the neological lexicon: the exclusively historical-sociological one, which considers translations as historical-literary and socio-cultural documents without dwelling on the aesthetic-rhetorical values of the literary text. On the contrary, the value of such translations lies not only in their being (useful) witnesses to certain linguistic forms or certain sociological and historical contexts, but in the fact that they are autonomous literary texts. Composed exclusively of translations of literary works and technical texts, Marcovici’s output is a typical example of the extraordinary phenomenon of Romen translations in the first half of the nineteenth century. His prose translations of two of Alfieri’s tragedies, Oreste and Filippo, in a volume published in Bucharest in 1847, mark one of the high points of interest in Alfieri’s output in the Romanian nineteenth century. Such a late interest in an eighteenth-century author like Alfieri, who had played so much part in the Italian, Greek, and Romanian Enlightenment and Preromantic temperament, often cloaked in anti-Tyrannical nationalism, should not be surprising. Marcovici’s entire cultural activity shows a strong “anachronistic” inclination toward neoclassical themes, also motivated by his being professor of rhetoric at the College of St. Sava. For Marcovici, literature is not only to be considered in the same way as a “school of moralization”, but also a model for the correct use of literary language. It follows, therefore, that there should be a determined fidelity to the needs of popularization, to the “simple” style, to the naturalness of vocabulary and to the minimization of the needs of overdeveloped rhetorical language. The contribution will therefore go through some lexicographical, stylistic and rhetorical aspects of the two Alfierian translations, focusing on the “classicism” of Marcovici’s language."

"VEGETAL SYMBOLISM IN THE ROMANIAN TRANSLATIONS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET AND OTHELLO "

Since imagery and vegetal imagery (flowers, the effect of herbs, weeding, gardening, etc.) in particular play an important role in Shakespeare’s work, the paper examines two Romanian translations of the Bard’s Othello and Hamlet, paying special attention to the use of vegetal symbolism and how vegetal metaphors are rendered by the two Romanian translators. The two variants are compared in terms of effect on target reader, the manner in which cultural and historical elements are conveyed, and accuracy.