Roman Ličko

Do We Practise What We Preach? Translation into English as a Foreign Language in Slovakia

This conference paper deals with translation into English as a foreign language in Slovakia. Directionality, as an aspect of translation, has received relatively little attention in Western translation studies, and translation into a non-mother tongue – also known as inverse translation – has been traditionally viewed as unprofessional. The paper explores some traditional views on the subject and presents the analysis of a survey conducted among Slovak translators of English. It argues that in Slovakia, a country with one of the lesser-used national languages in Europe, translation into English as a foreign language is very common. All but a few English translators in the country work into English as a foreign language. They translate inversely almost as often as they do directly, and they rarely regard this practice as unprofessional.

Roman Ličko, Matej Bel University, Dept. of English and American Studies, Faculty of Arts