The challenges of translating the English term ’empowerment’: Suggestions for the Hungarian translation

Abstract

This paper describes the research process that led to my choice of the Hungarian translation for the English term ’empowerment’. Empowerment is a process during which a person or a community becomes able to recognize their own power position and to induce change. In the paper I give an overview of the term’s morphosemantic structure, historical background, possible definitions, theoretical frame, applications, synonyms, and the approach behind the concept. I analysed not only the existing Hungarian translations but also the original English term itself, and found a contradiction. The approach of empowerment builds on the premise that every human being inherently possesses the power to affect change, and empowerment is not based on power given from an outer source. All the existing Hungarian translations, as “képessé tétel”, “felhatalmazás“, and “hatalommal felruházás”, reflect the concept of “power given by someone”. Having ruled out the existing alternatives, I chose to create my own terms in Hungarian: “öntudatosodás “ and “öntudatosítás “.