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FEATURES 'esse-re'). There was a concern here that the translation would resemble the language of electronic communication too much, so common substitutions in present-day texting, such as 'k' for 'ch', were not used. REPLICATING WORDPLAY It was important not to lose the poetic aspect of Riddleyspeak; without it, the target text would have lost part of its charm. I employed various strategies to deal with the wordplay: compensation, functional translation and transference. Many of the language-related jokes play on word-level modifications which do not have Italian equivalents that would cause the same effect on readers. For instance, the word segmentation 'be twean' (for 'between') cannot be replicated in the target text, as the Italian preposition is tra. I compensated by carrying out the same modification – a morphological split – on other Italian words instead. Guaire ('to yelp') became guai re, where guai means 'trouble' and re is 'king', while scivoloso ('slippery') became sci voloso, sci and volo meaning 'ski' and 'flight'). Where possible, wordplays have been translated in Italian prioritising their function over word-for-word equivalence. The ones related to the government, for example, are meant to be ironic. Riddley speaks of 'plomercy', which merges 'diplomacy' with 'mercy', and 'Ardship', which associates the Archbishop with 'hardship'. My solution was to combine diplomazia ('diplomacy') with grazia ('pardon') to create diplograzia, and Arcivescovo ('Archbishop') with scovolino 'pipecleaner' to form Arciscovo. The target audience will not be able to understand puns hidden in the names of locations and characters, which have not been translated. My decision to maintain the original names adds a foreign flavour to the target text, increasing the alienation of the reader, which was one of the aims of this translation. Overall, the chosen approach can be considered to be successful: the decision to modify standard Italian by using characteristics of italiano popolare created a language that is convincing as an orally transmitted language but also recalls contemporary electronic messaging. The functional translation in Italian of neosemes, wordplays and puns, and the use of a compensating approach where this was not possible, gives the translation the evocativeness that is so important in the source text. Riddley's reality is crude, primal and confusing, but there is also wonder, respect and strength. Hoban's novel unravels slowly and has to be read attentively in order to be decoded in all its layers, and so, in my opinion, it should remain. Notes 1 VanDerWerff, T (2010) 'Riddley Walker Author Russell Hoban', AVClub, 30/4/2010; bit.ly/AVClubco 2 Mullen, RD (2000) 'Dialect, Grapholect, and Story: Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker as science fiction'. In Science Fiction Studies. 27(3), 391-417 3 De Villiers, JG and PA (1978) Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Harvard 4 Reiss, K, Chesterman, A (trans.) (1977) 'Text Types, Translation Types and Translation Assessment'. In A Chesterman (ed.) (1989) Readings in Translation Theory. Helsinki: Oy Finn Lectura Ab. 105-115 5 Wolff, P and Holmes, KJ (2010) 'Linguistic Relativity'. In WIREs Cognitive Science, 27/10/10; bit.ly/wireswiley 6 D'Achille, P (2010) 'Italiano popolare'. In Enciclopedia dell'Italiano; bit.ly/treccanidotit Websites accessed February 2019. © SHUTTERSTOCK