Web Translation Projects/Approaches to Translating Dialect/Artificial variety

Full interlingual translation into a hypothetical TL dialect. This strategy, too, aims at transferring the full social deixis from the original, but in this case, the chances of introducing false intertextuality are higher. Though the employed variety is nonexistent, it is nevertheless based on some language(s), which may evoke in the TL reader some associations that the SL variety would not evoke in the SL reader[1]. Berezowski remarks on this threat thusly: "[t]he damage is only potential and difficult to assess, it seems, however, to be unavoidable."[2] The following example from a book previously discussed by Berezowski, but in translation by a different person, exemplifies the use of this strategy:

Original

A Clockwork Orange, A. Burgess

Translation

Mechaniczna pomarańcza (translation by R. Stiller)

"Oh, you've recovered consciousness." That was like a big rotful for malenky

ptitsa like her, and I tried to say so, but the slovos came out only like er... er... er.

She ittied off and left me on my oddy knocky, and I could viddy now that I

was in a malenky room of my own [...]

- Ooo! Więc odzyskaliśmy przytomność. Za wielki bałack w usto dla

malutkiej psiczki jak ona, to jej próbowałem powiedzieć, ale wyszło mi

tylko yczenie jakieś yy! y! i nic więcej. Wyszła i zostawszy ją sam na sam

gwałt i adzinoko dopiero zobaczyłem, że leżę w osobnym pokoiku [...].

Comments The original employs an artificial, Russian-influenced variety. It is supposed to

"menace and barbarism of the social group pointed to by the social deixis of

the original."[3] The artificial variety is marked mostly by vocabulary items, as:

- malenky 'small'

- slovos 'words'

- viddy 'see'

The translation employs lexical items and syntactic patterns

- bałach 'voice'

- usto 'mouth'

- psiczka 'girl'

- zostawszy ją sam na sam gwałt i adzinoko 'left me on my own'

- odzyskaliśmy przytomność 'we have regained consciousness'

which are not indicative of any existing Polish language community but are

invented forms, inspired by Russian and colloquial Polish.[3]

References edit

  1. Berezowski, Leszek. 1997. Dialect in Translation. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego
  2. Berezowski, Leszek. 1997. Dialect in Translation. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego
  3. 3.0 3.1 Berezowski, Leszek. 1997. Dialect in Translation. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego