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@Linguist_CIOL OCTOBER/NOVEMBER The Linguist 25 FEATURES have used the dialect when socialising with friends and family but not in formal situations. Such code switching would constitute a social usage, which could potentially be matched in the target language, for example through the use of High German at work and the use of regional dialects at home. 5 On the other hand, the deliberate use of the dialect may have carried a political undertone or message at the time of writing, such as a deliberate distancing from the central power or the expression of an allegiance to an extra-national power, religion, ideology or mythological past. In such a case, it might not be possible to identify an equivalent dialect in the target language. Interpreting Burns' message Robert Burns wrote most of his poems in a broad South Ayrshire dialect (sometimes referred to as Lallands), while the majority of his extant correspondence is in an English indistinguishable from that of an Englishman from the Home Counties. This circumstance puts the onus on the translator to interpret Burns' overall political, social or poetic 'message' in light of his choice of language. Moreover, it is worth bearing in mind that Burns' oeuvre represents the largest source for the existence of the Lallands dialect, so the dialect might even have started as a poetic construct peculiar to Burns. August Corrodi, who made various attempts to translate Burns' poems into both High German and Schwyzerdütsch (the Swiss variant of Alemannic), provides a useful case study. The most obvious primary constraints in Burns' I Hae a Wife o' My Ain (right) are the A, B, A, B rhyming pattern; incessant use of the word 'naebody' on the second and fourth lines of every stanza; regular pattern of two stresses per line; and lack of a regular syllable count. Even a cursory glance at Corrodi's translation into High German (right) reveals that he has been unable to honour all of these primary constraints. Corrodi succeeds in replicating the rhyming pattern in stanzas one and three but not in stanzas two and four. His pattern of stressed syllables is different to that of the original, but he does succeed in placing the word niemand in the same positions as Burns' 'naebody'. What is more difficult to assess is the degree to which Corrodi has met some of the secondary constraints. It would appear that Burns has not taken any poetic licence in respect of syntax, yet the word order in the second line of the first and fourth stanzas of Corrodi's translation is non-standard. This change has been introduced to allow the placement of the word niemand at the end of the line. In other words, Corrodi's translation includes the interpretative assumption that the repetition pattern of 'naebody' is a more important constraint than the need to stick closely to the rules of normal syntax. An interesting consideration is why Corrodi chose to translate this poem into High German. Translating a regional dialect of English into a dialect which has become the de facto standard throughout a vast swathe of the German-speaking world may be interpreted as a political statement to the effect that Lallands might also be deemed a national standard language. However, this does not reflect the position of Lallands within the UK or even within Scotland. Corrodi's choice of Schwyzerdütsch for his translation of I'm O'er Young to Mary Yet is equally problematic. Could it be that Corrodi believed that, as Burns was probably writing in his home dialect, he should do the same? On the other hand, Corrodi was interested in the apparent similarities between Scots English and Swiss German, and may have tried to illustrate these in his translation. The translation of a poem can always be analysed in terms of its adherence to the primary and secondary constraints of the original, whereby there are two distinct interpretative steps involved. The first step requires the formal analysis of the original poem; this necessarily involves an interpretation of the status of any apparent pattern discovered in the original. The decision as to whether the pattern is intentional (and, therefore, represents a formal aspect of the poem), or coincidental, accidental or merely fortuitous (and, therefore, should not be considered a formal aspect in the same sense), is a matter of interpretation. The second step involves the further interpretative decision of how important each of the recognised constraints is in relation to each other and in relation to the literal linguistic meaning of the poem. As the examples from both Campbell and Condor show, a third interpretative step might include an attempt to identify the essence of a given constraint: is the quintessential aspect of the syllable count, for example, the ontological fact of its existence or the exact number of syllables? As it is extremely unlikely that any translator could succeed in honouring all of the primary and secondary constraints of a given poem, all translators are forced to choose between which of them to honour and which to ignore. At best, this is likely to amount to an informed guess. Hence it is clear that a translation of a poem is always predicated on a central nexus of interpretation. Notes 1 Fish, SE (1980) Is There a Text in this Class?: The authority of interpretive communities, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2 Leech, GN (1969) A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry, Harlow: Longmans 3 Halliday, MAK (1967) Intonation and Grammar in British English, The Hague: Mouton, 61 4 Ager, DE (1970) Styles and Registers in Contemporary French: Passages for analysis, London: University of London Press 5 Gumperz, JJ (1970) Verbal Strategies in Multilingual Communication, University of California Language Behaviour Research Laboratory, 129-147 I Hae a Wife o' My Ain by Robert Burns I hae a wife o' my ain, I'll partake wi' naebody; I'll take cuckold frae nane, I'll gie cuckold to naebody. I hae a penny to spend – There – thanks to naebody; I hae naething to lend, I'll borrow frae naebody. I am naebody's lord, I'll be slave to naebody; I hae a gude braid sword, I'll tak dunts frae naebody. I'll be merry and free, I'll be sad for naebody; Naebody cares for me, I care for naebody. Ich hab' ein weib für mich allein Will theilen es mit niemand Von keinem will ich hahnrei sein Zum hahnrei mach ich niemand Hab' einen pfennig geld Nun ich verdank ihn niemand Ich habe nichts zu leihn Und borge auch von niemand Trag keinen herrenhut Bin sklave auch von niemand Breit ist mein schwert und gut Und schlagen soll mich niemand Frei will ich sein und froh Will kümmern mich um niemand Schert niemand sich um mich Scher' ich mich auch um niemand.