Reviewed by Taras Shmiher, Ivan Franko National University, Ukraine

A theoretical consideration of the characteristics and distinguishing features of translations into a nonmother tongue is the focus of this volume by Nike Pokorn. Here, P explores the advantages and disadvantages of translators who are native—or nonnative—speakers of the target language.

Ch. 1, ‘Open definitions of the terms “native speaker” and “mother tongue”’, explains the subjective nature of these terms, which are often interpreted according to the needs of the specific research. P explores the vague origin, competence, function, and identification criteria used to define a mother tongue. Nativity, age of acquisition, lingual creativity, fluent and spontaneous discourse, and intuitive correctness prove to be similarly imprecise criteria to establish a native speaker.

In ‘Translation into a non-mother tongue in translation theory: Challenging the traditional’, P opposes the traditional axiom that translators should translate only into their mother tongue. Although some translation theoreticians have suggested that a translator should be either a native speaker or a perfect bilingual speaker, P argues that bilingualism is an unclear term that may incorporate bi- or even multicultural aptitudes. Meanwhile, team translation may include a native source language speaker and a target language stylist.

Analytical prerequisites and tools are presented in ‘Method and corpus for analysis’. P introduces Slovene as an example of a language with limited diffusion. In an exploration of immigrants’ shift from first language monolingualism to bilingualism to second language monolingualism, P assesses the criteria for nativeness in translators of Slovene and English. His study examines fourteen translators from different lingual backgrounds who provided English translations of the prominent Slovene writer Ivan Cankar’s texts.

The next three chapters contain an analysis of the texts, their translations, and the translators. P discusses three of Cankar’s more commonly translated texts in the ‘Presentation of the selected originals’: The ward of our lady of mercy, A cup of coffee, and Children and old people. ‘Presentation of the selected translations’ describes the macrostructural characteristics of seven of the translations. P focuses on shifts in meaning, stylistic features, and cultural elements that may constitute problems for a nonnative speaker of a source or target language. In ‘Conclusion of the analysis: The visibility of nativeness and non-nativeness in translations’, P does not support any stereotypical assumptions of directionality in translation because almost all of the translators created source-oriented or a mixture of source- and target-oriented translations.

In ‘Native speaker intuitions’, P demonstrates that it is not always possible to distinguish between a native and nonnative translator, nor is it possible to infer the number of translators involved on the basis of a translated text only.

The conclusion summarizes the reasons direct translations are not superior to inverse translations. Two appendices, ‘Questionnaire’ and ‘Responses in the questionnaire’, explain the data collection procedure and may serve as a foundation for further research with other languages.