Essay On Proper Nouns

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When it comes to the translation of any kind of text, nouns are an inseparable part of every language. Nouns can be categorized into two basic groups of common and proper nouns. The first group of nouns, the common nouns denotes a group of entities (objects or concepts), whereas proper nouns denote particular referent (Zarei 2014).
Searle (1995: 134) states that proper names are non-descriptive. They do not describe objects and so a person knowing one’s name does not know anything more than that. However, that does not mean that that it is impossible to create a descriptive proper name. A singular common noun might be used in reference to a particular character. It is also possible to create a proper noun from a common noun by using a common …show more content…

Proper nouns or proper names, both of these terms can be used interchangeably, have been studied for over twenty-four hundred years and because of that many definitions of the term name were created. These definitions are often born from different notions of the discussed topic which cause them to be incompatible (Algeo 1973: 3).
Algeo (1973: 13) indicates the features of proper names in relation to morphosyntactic, referential and semantic categories. He states that proper names have only singular forms, they are used without articles and that they do not accept restrictive modifiers. He also adds that they refer only to single unique individuals and they do not attribute any qualities to the object which means they are meaningless. He says that proper names “have a distinctive form of definition that includes a citation of their expressions”. Zarei (2014) also adds that in terms of grammar proper names often behave in a similar fashion as common nouns. However, they should not be generalized as different proper nouns can act differently when it comes to grammatical …show more content…

2.3. Approach towards translation of proper names by P. Newmark
Newmark (2001: 70-73) in his work creates a distinction between proper names and cultural items and divides them into two groups. Both groups exist within one specific ethnic group and they both describe persons, objects and processes.
The first group refers primarily to singular cultural items whereas the second one refers to classes of entities which means that it is focused on a much broader group of cultural items.

A proper name should not be translated if it does not have any connotations in the text. This rule can be omitted in case of a name existing as a metaphor which has to be properly translated in order to convey a message. Certain names can be changed in linguistic terms when they become commonly used. Newmark states that certain names in fictions should be left as they are. When they have connotations through their meaning they should be explained in a

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