Web Translation Projects/Approaches to Translating Dialect/Pidginisation


This strategy is the first so far to employ a full non-standard TL variety - the previous ones only used selected elements. Pidginisation aims to fully transfer the original social deixis. Though a full non-standard variety is introduced, which normally would imply a high risk of introducing false intertextuality, Pidgin Polish may be assumed to convey the same social deixis as Pidgin English, so the risk is low in the case of this strategy[1].

Original

Moby Dick, H. Melville

Translation

Moby Dick, czyli biały wieloryb (translation by B. Zieliński)

"Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him?

Well, spose him one whale eye, well den!" And taking sharp aim at

it, he darted the iron right over old Bildad's broad rim. [...]

"Now," said Queequeg, quitly hauling in the line, "spose-ee him

whale-e eye; why dad whale dead."

- Kapitan, ty widzieć ta mała plama smoła na wodzie? Widzieć go,

no to on być oko wieloryba i proszę! - wycelowawszy dokładnie,

cisnął żelazo tuż nad szerokokresnym kapeluszem Bildada [...]

- No - rzekł Queequeg spokojnie, holując do siebie linkę harpuna -

gdyby on być oko wieloryby, to ta wieloryba być zabita.

Comments The non-standard English variety employed in the original contains

pronunciation and gramnar miastakes, which points to them not being

a fluent speaker of English

The translation introduces what Berezowski calls 'Pidgin Polish',

or Polish with visible grammar mistakes, usually lack of inflections

( lack of subject-verb concord, misassigned grammatical gender on

nouns, visible in wrong verb and determiner inflections, nouns not

inflected for case, which they normally are in Polish):

- Kapitan 'Captain' uninflected for vocative case

- ty widzieć 'do you see' lack of subject-verb concord

- ta wieloryba być zabita 'the whale has been killed' lack of subject-verb

concord and misuse of grammatical gender (feminine instead of masculine

for wieloryb 'whale').

References edit

  1. Berezowski, Leszek. 1997. Dialect in Translation. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego