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Thesis Rests with Its Author University of Bath PHD Frank O'Connor's short stories in German: A study in translation criticism. Cassells, Linda Award date: 1984 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 04. Oct. 2021 Frank O'Connor's Short Stories in German A Study in Translation Criticism submitted by Linda Cassells for the degree of Ph.D. \ of the University of Bath 1984 Copyright Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with its author. This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is under­ stood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. This thesis may be made available for consultation within the University Library and may be photocopied or lent to other libraries for the purposes of consultation. ProQuest Number: U339386 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest U339386 Published by ProQuest LLC(2015). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 UN!VEnS!n' OF BATH 1w 3DEC:%.1 Summary The primary aim of the present study is to assess the quality of Elisabeth Schnack's German translations of Frank O'Connor's short stories. O'Connor's stories pose particular problems for the translator, partly because of his distinc­ tive personal style, which characteristically combines the colloquial, dialectal and poetic registers, but also because the stories, by virtue of their geographical location, are so deeply rooted in Irish culture and the Irish way of life. The study takes the form of a linguistic and stylistic inves­ tigation which, in addition to evaluating the translations, aims to establish the translator's priorities and translation strategies. One further aim of the study is to determine any differences between the literary contexts of the originals and translations by considering the extent to which the SL and TL audiences parallel one another. As a theoretical basis for the study, five existing models for translation criticism (PopoviS, Wilss, Roller, ReiB, House) have been compared and evaluated. The assess­ ment itself is divided into chapters on cognitive equivalence (where omissions, additions and mistakes are examined), connotative equivalence (which deals primarily with the treatment of O'Connor's style) and textual equivalence (which investigates cohesive devices and text-immanent features). By means of specific exemplification it is hoped to illustrate general difficulties posed in translating Anglo- Irish literature into German, and to discover how such diffi­ culties may or may not be overcome. Thus, a study of this Ill nature should not only heighten awareness and encourage discussion of the problems of literary translation, but it should also help to raise the standard of future literary translations into German. Table of Contents Chapter I Introduction: Preliminary Considerations (1) Problems and Aims (2) Frank O'Connor (3) Elisabeth Schnack (4) Material Chapter II Theories of Translation Criticism and Proposed Method of Assessment 9 Five Models for Translation Criticism 10 (1) Popovid (1973) 11 (2) Wilss (1974) 13 (3) Roller (1974) 17 (4) Rei& (1971) 25 C5) House (1977) 32 Practical Relevance of Translation- Criticism Theory 4 3 Proposed Method of Assessment 48 Chapter III Cognitive Equivalence 54 (1) Omissions 58 (2) Additions 78 (3) Mistakes 95 Chapter IV Connotative Equivalence 118 O'Connor and Style 119 (1) Descriptive Prose 123 (2) Narrative Prose 142 V (3) Direct Speech 149 (4) Irish English Dialectal Features 157 (5) Features Specific to Country and Culture in the Source Text 168 Chapter V Textual Equivalence 186 (1) Lexical Items and Phrases 188 (2) Clauses and Sentences 197 (3) Paragraphs 204 (4) Sections 208 (5) Titles of Stories 210 (6) Titles of Collections 226 Chapter VI Conclusion 233 Bibliography 239 List of Abbreviations The following abbreviations have been used throughout the thesis to refer to the various collections and publi­ cations of the stories: Source texts BC Bones of Contention (1938) CAJ Crab Apple Jelly (1944) CC The Common Chord (1947) C2 Collection Two (1966) DD Day Dreams (1973) DR Domestic Relations (1957) FF Fish for Friday (1971) GN Guests of the Nation (1979) HD The Holy Door (1973) LO A Life of your Own (1972) MISS Modern Irish Short Stories (1957) ML The Mad Lomasneys (1970) MP Masculine Protest (1972) MS More Stories by Frank O'Connor (1954) SS Selected Stories (1946) TS Traveller's Samples (1951) Translation texts GE I Gesammelte Erzahlungen I (1975) GE II Gesammelte Erzahlungen II (1976) GE III Gesammelte Erzahlungen III (1976) GE IV Gesammelte Erzahlungen IV (1976) GE V Gesammelte Erzahlungen V (1976) vil GE VI Gesammelte Erzahlungen VI (1976) L&K Literatur und Kunst (1950) MB Magazin Berlin (1966) Full publishing details of these works are provided in the bibliography. This thesis was written under the supervision of t>r. J. B * Smith, whom I would like to thank for his guidance. I would also like to thank Mag. Susanne Costa, Ms. Joy Griffiths and Dr. Elisabeth Wieser for their useful comments and invaluable help, and my mother, Mrs Eleanor Cassells, for her support. Chapter I Introduction; Preliminary Considerations (1) Problems and Aims This thesis sets out to provide an evaluation of the quality of the published German translations of Frank O'Connor's short stories. "Quality" is not, however, an absolute term which can be applied without clarification to translation, and clearly some general outline is re­ quired of the yardsticks which will be used to assess the quality of these particular translations. Central to the approach used in this study is the re­ jection of the notion of "the perfect translation" as a criterion against which the necessarily less perfect pub­ lished translations can be measured. Translation is here viewed in terms of linguistic choices made with the aim of achieving optimal semantic-pragmatic equivalence. Thus, a concomitant aim of this thesis is to establish the trans­ lator's priorities and translation strategies. The intrinsic link which O'Connor's stories have with Ireland is the source of a number of translation problems. On the semantic level, for example, specific references to Irish institutions may be treated in a variety of ways. Should the translator decide to provide an overt translation, then the translation choice made in dealing with such items will, to a large extent, depend on the TL audience's expected knowledge of the source culture.^ The stories' rootedness in Ireland is, on the pragmatic level, also manifest in the occurrence of dialect, and, more commonly, in the striking use of expressions and formulations typical of the sort of English spoken in Ireland, The prob­ lems which this poses for the translator are much more in­ tricate, SL dialect may be matched by TL dialect; the trans­ lator may attempt to compensate in other ways for the effect which these registers achieve in the original. No matter what translation strategy is adopted, it is virtually impos­ sible for the translator to achieve equivalence of effect, O'Connor's style is characterized by the creative coalescence of the colloquial and the lyrical; translation problems of this nature are thus problems in rendering style. The study also seeks to determine, as far as is pos­ sible, whether the source and translation texts appeal to the same types of audience. O'Connor has selected for his stories themes with which his readers can easily identify. These are presented in a simple and natural manner which does not diminish, but rather enhances, the stories' literary and artistic yalue, O'Connor's audience thus comprises a wide range of types of reader; G. Brenner, in his thesis, also draws attention to the scope of O'Connor's appeal; The terms "overt translation" and "covert translation" used in this thesis are drawn from House (1977), An overt translation is one which may be recognised as a translation by virtue of references to the country and culture of the source language. In a covert translation, on the other hand, what House terms a "cultural filter" is placed between the source and translation texts so that a cultural transfer is made, ensuring that the translation reads like an original. His /O'Connor's/ technique relies upon discovering concrete experiences which contain sufficient meaning in themselves.
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