Realia and Untranslatability in István Örkény's One Minute Stories

Abstract

In my thesis I intend to deal with some peculiar aspects of the theory and practice of translation. In the center of my research there are realia, or in other terms cultural words, or culturally untranslatable items. Terminology itself results in discussing two crucial issues, namely the concept of culture in translation, and the evergreen debate on translatability versus untranslatability. Is it possible to render words and expressions so tightly connected with the source language culture into the target language, out of which they are missing? If we answer in the affirmative, we have to respond to the automatically appearing ‘why’-s and ‘how’-s as well.