Ieteikumi latviešu deminutīvu konotāciju pārnesei tulkojumos angļu valodā: tulkošanas jomas ekspertu loma ieteikumu izstrādē

This paper reflects one stage of the research within the doctoral thesis dedicated to studying the ways of transferring into English the functions and connotations of the diminutive used in Latvian prose texts. The morphologically derived Latvian diminutives are a challenge for translators, therefore, during this research, the linguistic means for expressing the diminutivity in English and translation solutions at the disposal of translators were summarised, thus developing Guidelines for transferring connotations of the Latvian source text diminutives into English (hereinafter – the Guidelines). The purpose of this Paper is to provide an insight into the final stage of the development of the Guidelines, reflecting the contribution of experts in the field of translation – translator trainers and practitioners – to their improvement. A questionnaire was used to find out the opinions of the translation experts, and the questionnaire questions were based on the feedback received from students who participated in the translation experiment piloting the Guidelines in the previous research phase. The translator trainers provided their feedback on the Guidelines after reading them, while the practising translators additionally participated in a translation experiment, translating the same texts that were translated by students during the piloting experiment. The questionnaire was placed on Google’s online survey tool to provide for obtaining aggregated data while maintaining the anonymity of respondents. The analysis of the feedback provided by the translation experts helped revising the initial wording of several recommendations and adding more diverse examples. Thanks to the suggestions of experts, the Guidelines were restructured as a two-tier table, leaving the initial version as a basis and adding links to more detailed explanations and examples excerpted from published English translations of Latvian prose texts. The positive assessment and interest of experts encouraged to seek for solutions how to make these Guidelines accessible to a wider audience by placing them online.