The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
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FEATURES Naked chef abroad Jamie Oliver's colloquial style has been a recipe for success, says Nick Tanner. But have the translations of his cookbooks reproduced this vital ingredient? amie Oliver's cookbooks, and the TV programmes that inspired them, are hugely popular in the UK. According to BBC Radio 4's Food Programme, he was the biggest selling author in any category here in 2011. He also has a strong following in Germany, where dubbed versions of the TV shows have been broadcast and virtually all of his cookbooks appear in translation. In August 2012, a translation of Jamie's 30-Minute Meals (2010) was number 1 in the list of bestselling general-purpose cookbooks on the German Amazon website, and he had three further books in the German Top 20. Jamie focuses on fresh ingredients and a practical balance between indulgence and healthy living, but his success in the UK seems to rest as much on personality, communicated by his trademark manner of delivery – his Essex accent, his slang-laden speech and his highly colloquial writing style. This contrasts sharply with the tone of previous generations of TV cooks and it seems likely that his easy, egalitarian, unconventional and irreverent manner is an important factor in his popularity. His success in Germany raises the question: how are the stylistic elements of Jamie Oliver's language handled in translation? If they are an important component of his identity at home, what happens when his work is transferred to another culture? First of all, it's important to establish how different Jamie's writing is from other successful English-language cooks. Delia Smith is, in many ways, a prototype of the TV chefs that immediately preceded Jamie, and has become a classic of British cookery writing. She is the standard which, while still contemporary, throws Jamie's writing into sharp relief. J 12 The Linguist JUNE/JULY Statistical analysis of a sample of recipes by both cooks shows that Jamie actually conforms broadly to the major conventions of the recipe genre. He uses, on the whole, a conventional structure – a recipe name, an itemised list of ingredients (occasionally but not frequently omitted) and a set of instructions. In terms of adherence to syntactic conventions, too, there is little difference between the two. In view of this, it is perhaps not surprising to find that the German translations of his work also comply, on the whole, with German structural and syntactic genre conventions. It is in the nature of their discourse that Jamie Oliver and Delia Smith differ most strongly. Delia, along with TV cook forerunners such as Zena Skinner and Marguerite Patten, has been described as offering 'straightforward instruction in domestic skills', with a style of presentation 'somewhat akin to that of a POPULARITY Jamie at a book signing in 2010 domestic science teacher'.1 Her recipe books are educative; instructions come thick and fast, quantities and timings are precise, utensils are specified and few explanations are offered. The recipes contain instructions but not, on the whole, advice or recommendations. Little is left to chance or choice. And, like a traditional teacher, her language rarely ventures beyond mild colloquialism. Ingredients are 'placed' or 'put' in a pan and then 'transferred' to the oven – the language of the classroom, not the pub or playground. Delia might be your mentor, guide or tutor but she is certainly not your mate. Jamie's writing, on the other hand, tends to portray him as an 'expert friend' to the reader rather than the more conventional 'authoritative teacher'. This is perhaps most www.iol.org.uk