Examining Conscious Translation Choices Through the Hungarian Translation of Murata Sayaka’s Seimeishiki

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide insight into the process of translating a contemporary Japanese short story from Japanese to Hungarian. My starting point is my BA thesis, wherein I translated Murata Sayaka’s short story, Seimeishiki, from Japanese into Hungarian. During the translation process, I logged my conscious translation choices in a translation diary, based on the think-aloud protocol (TAP) method. I tackle 20 representative examples, during the analysis of which I will present my thoughts that came about throughout the translation process, whilst also examining my translation decisions by drawing on descriptive linguistics (e.g. Cseresnyési 2020) and translation studies – in the context of the latter, I will also classify the presented examples based on Klaudy’s (2007) system of translational operations.