Genusmarkering av återgivet tal: Förutsägbarhet av förändringar vid litterär översättning från svenska till japanska

Författare

Axel Theorin

Summary, in English

This thesis endavours to examine whether differences between original and translation in literary translation are systematic and predictable by studying a Swedish detective novel and its Japanese translation. The domain of the novel chosen for analysis is the reported speech (i.e. dialog).

Translation Studies suggests that knowledge of the literary norms of the Target Language of the translation and of the status of translations in the Target Language's literary system, enables one to predict if and what differences between original and translation will appear.

A survey of the scholarly literature concerning literary norms in the Japanese system and the status of translation within said system was performed and the following hypotheses were postulated: 1. Given sufficient knowledge of the norms of the Target Language's literary system and the status of translations within said system, the nature of differences between original and translation can be predicted. 2. In the case of literary translation from Swedish to Japanese the main locus of difference will be gender marking of reported speech (going from not marked for gender to strongly marked).

This work also analyses how these differencs affect the reading or interpretation of the various characters of the story.

Both hypotheses were confirmed by the study. The observed differences in gender marking of reported speech served to constrict the many latent interpretations of the characters through dialog, and forced a focus on aspects of their character pertaining to gender.

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