On the translation of The Thunderstorm by Vladimir Nabokov

The diploma thesis offers an analysis of a unique set of texts. The analysis explores the language devices used in the composition of the texts. The set of texts includes a short story Groza by Vladimir Nabokov and its translations. The short story was originally written in Russian, and then translated by the author into English. There exist two Czech translations, one from Russian, one from English. The thesis presents a theoretical framework for the analysis. It is composed of two parts. The first one summarizes the most frequent translation related changes in meaning. The second one compares Nabokov's theory and practice of translation. The theoretical framework is applied to the comparison of the target-language texts with the source-language texts, as well as to the comparison of the two translations from different source-language texts. Comparison of the results of the analysis with the hypotheses stated in the Introduction affirms the movement of the meaning towards stylistic neutrality and shows the influence of the source-language upon the target-language. On the other hand it rejects the statement that Nabokov as a self-translator wanted to preserve the literary qualities of the text, being ready to sacrifice its language qualities. Keywords: comparative analysis, language devices,..