TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 1 INTRODUCTION 6 2 THE DEFINITION OF THE GENRE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 7 2.1 Definition of the Genre, Its Characteristic Features, Its Outset and Bases 7 2.2 The Comics in Development, Its Forms and Transformations 9 2.2.1 The Predecessors of the Comic genre 10 2.2.2 Types of Comics 11 2.2.3 The Development of Comics in the United States and in Europe 14 2.2.3.1 Comic Strips Over the Ocean 14 2.2.3.2 European comics 21 2.2.3.2.1 Czech Comics 27 3 TRANSLATION PROBLEMS 35 3.1 Translation Categories 37 3.1.1 Linguistic Features in Translation Theory 37 3.1.2 Cultural Features in Translation Theory 40 3.1.3 Technical Aspects of Comic Translation 44 4 TRANSLATION ANALYSIS 45 4.1 Linguistic Items in Analysis 46 4.1.1 Degrees of Formality 48 4.1.1.1 Lower Degree of Formality 48 4.1.1.2 Higher Degree of Formality 60 4.1.2 Stylistically Active Devices 65 4.1.3 The Outcome of the Linguistic Analysis 78 4.2 Cultural Items in Analysis 79 4.2.1 Analysing Characters’ Names 79 4.2.2 Analysing Geographical and Topographical Names 82 4.2.3 Analysing Cultural References 85 4.2.4 The Outcome of Cultural Analysis 90 4.3 Technical Aspects in Analysis 91 4.3.1 The Outcome of Technical Analysis 95
4 5 CONCLUSION 95 6 WORKS CITED 99
7 APPENDIX 103
5 1 INTRODUCTION
The focus of this M.A. thesis lies in the translation of comic literature with the aim of disclosing its specific features by means of analysing Czech versions of comic books.
The actual analysis will be preceeded by an introduction to the genre itself, to its definition and characteristics as well as on its development. The general development will be succeeded by the progress in particular countries which represent the leading comic books producers: The United States, France and Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy and
Great Britain. A separate subchapter will be devoted to history of Czech comics for that simple reason that my work is concerned with translation from English into Czech which makes an insight into the genre in two different cultures a proper thing.
After the introduction into the topic, the attention will switch to providing some background for the analytical passage of the thesis. Both theoretical and practical translation procedures will get debated within this chapter, the first being based on Jiří Levý’s
Introduction to the Theory of Translation and The Art of Translation Peter Newmark’s A
Textbook of Translation while the latter draws on interviews conducted with Czech comic translators Richard Podaný and Viktor Janiš.
Now that the topic has been presented and the building material for the analysis accorded, it will be possible to move on to the actual analytical process. This will be done in three steps according to categories of translation problems. Their order will be as follows: linguistic, cultural and technical. With each, the actual translation methods used will be listed, their percentual share in the whole category stated and a conclusion on the overall translation strategy will be drawn. Consequently, an attempt will be made to detect the especial moments of comic translation.
The concluding chapter of the thesis will sum up briefly the contents and the findings made in the search of specifics of comic translation.
6 2 THE DEFINITION OF THE GENRE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT
The following section of my thesis provides the general literary and cultural definition of the genre and its characteristic features, including its rise and origins. The subsequent subdivision of the genre will also be debated. It will be followed by brief documentation of its development all over the world, with the main focus laid on the United States of America and
Great Britain. A separate section will be devoted to the history of the genre in the Czech environment.
2.1 Definition of the Genre, Its Characteristic Features, Its Outset and Bases
The term “comics”, shortened from “comic strips”, employed to designate a series of comical pictures, refers to a syncretic genre which combines graphic, literary, dramatic, and film art. However, it is not identical with any of these forms (based on Pavera and Všetička
2002). On the contrary, as Urbanová and Kotrla (1996) notice, it appears so specific that the term “semantics of comics” was coined, covering its basic characteristics. The term comprises the following basic features of the genre:
i) closeness to literary sources – as a rule, comics must tell a story.
ii) the artistic components as an autonomous area with its own rules and patterns.
The artistic components include the speech ballons as the basic element of the
semantics of the genre.
iii) the dramatic character of the genre, produced by dramatic situations, conflicts
and dialogues, realized in the characters’ speech.
iv) the film features employed in comics and its composition which is based on
shots similar to those taken by camera (based on Urbanová and Kotrla 1996).
The basis of the comic genre is formed by chaining visual elements and action, employing the methods of film editing and montage. The techniques are accompanied by
7 (usually) undemanding drawing representing the plot, followed by the necessary text in the form of speech ballons (based on Pavera and Všetička 2002). On some occassions, Vlašín
(1984) mentions, the pictures are accompanied by an explanatory text beneath. Similarly,
Urbanová and Kotrla (1996) distinguish between two types of text in comic genre: “free text”
(13), occurring outside the picture and supplying the narrator’s task – introduction to the story, to a new situation or, contrariwise, the closure of the story. This kind of text may also include small commentary remarks. On the other hand, the so called “embodied text” (13) stands for the direct speech, being connected to the characters’ utterance or feelings. A great variability exists in the shape and the colour of the speech ballons, and thus in their meaning: if including a dialogue, the text is placed into a speech ballon connected to the speaking character. Serving as an expression for the characters’ ideas, it takes the shape of cloudlet
(based on Urbanová and Kotrla 1996).
According to Pavera and Všetička (2002), other features typical of the genre include action, visuality, sequentionality, elipsis, dialogic character, schematism (resulting from figural character), and linearity. Originally, comic stories were written as continued stories which provided for the feature of serialization.
As Urbanová and Kotrla (1996) reveal, the genre has gradually developed series of conventions and codes which contributed to better understanding of the story. The codes concerned especially the external graphic signs characterizing the heroes, their physical appearance, their features, reactions and relationships to other characters. To provide an example of conventionalized forms of expressing various reactions of the characters, let me mention raised eyebrows or eyes wide open as a sign of surprise. Other examples include the reappearance of the types of characters results in schematism which has become popular subject of parody or the victory of the good hero and the final defeat of the bad guy.
8 Since the rise of comics, a number of protests concerning use of violence in the genre arose whose supporters claimed that its employment has serious impact on children psyche.
The United States of the 50s have put it into direct connection with the increase in crime rate.
Such a negative claim has led to the employment of censorship in the name of democracy and humanity. The U.S. publishing house Premium has come with its own ten censorial rules concerning the most important forbidden premise: non punishable breaking the law, the prohibition of children’s incitement to crime, avoidance of torture scenes, etc., primarily when engaging children in the plot. The majority of American comic literature continues on following these rules, with the exception of comics targeted at adult readership.
All in all, comics results from combination of visual and verbal code – the picture and the word – which represent the most important elements of the genre. Typical of comics is disproportion of drawings and text as it is the drawing which usually dominates the comics.
The dominance of the visual code over the verbal increases the attractivity of the genre for the reader who sees it as a source of entertainment and relaxation. This makes clear that the two elements cooperate and do not contradict each other (cf. Alánová 2005).
The preceding chapter has provided the definition of the comic genre and drawn your attention to its basic features and also the rules governing the comic creative effort. Besides, the conventions that have gradually developed throughout the history of the genre have also been commented on. The following chapter will elaborate on the history of comics.
2.2 The Comics in Development, Its Forms and Transformations
The historical development of the comic genre over the world will be subjected to study in the subsequent part of my thesis. Its predecessors and pioneers as well as an abundance of types will be discussed. Attention will be paid to its rise and evolution in the
United States and Great Britain in particular since the two locations gave rise to the most
9 important representatives of comics and to the appearance of new comic forms. The development of comic literature in the Czech environment will also be summed up in a separate chapter.
2.2.1 The Predecessors of the Comic genre
Generally, it is assumed that comics came to being at the turn of the 19 th and 20 th centuries. However, the form appears to have much longer history: as Clair and Tichý (1967) state, comics represents a relatively old atristic form as it is based on a natural human need of communicativeness which first took the shape of of storytelling by means of pictures.
Therefore, our ancestors’ mural paintings can be considered the first example of comic art.
Further, its precursors include antique monuments, such as the ancient Rome’s columns telling stories of wars (e.g. Trayanus’s Column), the Bayeux tapestry, and Christian art, e.g. the temple window in Chartres, the Bible of the poor in the form of pictures, frescos or columns (based on Clair and Tichý 1967).
Unlike the comics, these predecessor forms did not include any supporting text, let alone the use of speech ballons. This can be easily accounted for if you realize that it was only in the 1440s that the print was discovered. However, the absence of text does not necessarily mean a weak impact of the pictures on the reader. Their function lay in supporting people’s imagination which enabled them to absorb the story, to expose themselves to its strength.
Moreover, the stories were usually very well known which made the accompanying text unnecessary. An important exception to the rule can be found on the above mentioned Bayeux tapestry or in The Egyptian Book of the Dead . Thus these sights have contributed dramatically to the rise of comics. Gradually, strips with text were incorporated into the drawings (based on Alánová 2005).
10 However, as Clair and Tichý (1967) mention, a substantial element was missing in these predecessor forms – humor and irony. It is their absence that distinguished the ancient sights from the real comics. Such techniques were first employed by satirists and caricaturists who are thus considered the predecessors of comic writers including the following authors: T.
Rowlandson, W. Hogarth, H. Daumier, G. Braun and F. Schneider.
According to Clair and Tichý (1967), the “real” comics begins with the literary efforst of two authors: a Dutch writer Christophe and German artist Wilhelm Busch. By the end of the 19 th century the genre acquires its definite character including the use of the speech ballon which, as mentioned in Vlašín (1984), was first used by American writer F.R. Foucalt in his story Hogan’s Alley (1895).
Brief overview of the general history of comics stood in focus of this chapter. Its aim was the acquintance with its roots and predecessors as well as the first of its representatives.
More detailed description of the genre, concerning the existing types, will be given in the following chapter.
2.2.2 Types of Comics
The subsequent passage deals with the subdivision of the comic genre into a number of types together with the criteria of the subdivision. Three sets of criteria undermining the specification of the genre into types will be referred to: i) artistic criterion, ii) thematic criterion, and – last but not least – iii) the criterion of length and continuity.
As far as the artistic criteria are concerned, Pavera and Všetička (2002) state the following:
o colouring (comics can be black and white, coloured or partially coloured)
o painter’s and drawing technique (e.g. plastic, realistic or allusive drawing)
11 The authors have also set the criteria for thematic subdivision of the genre. In their list they mention the existence of humorous, adventurous, criminal, horror, and even pornographic comics. Apart from these, Kannenberg (2006) lists animal, historical, erotic, sci fi, underground, war, western, political and caricatural comics. Štochl (2005) includes also the detective and fairy tale comics as well as comics noir. “Crossovers” (Štochl 2005) came to existence as a result of the process of combining discrete kinds of comics. According to
Mikušťáková (1995), all the types mentioned above fall into the category labeled “content qualified comics.” (7) The author adds two more categories, the “historically qualified comics” (7), a form limited to a certain historical period (e.g. secession comics), and the
“author’s attitude toward reality qualified comics” (7), a category including e.g. humorous or satirical comics.
Other classifications of the comic genre can still be found. Drawing on Pavera and
Všetička (2002) again, one can notice their category labeled “the manner of material form” which identifies the publication of comics in the book, in part issues, or other forms. Roughly, their classification corresponds to the distinction suggested by Mocná and Peterka in the
Encyklopedie literárních žánrů (Encyclopedia of Literary Genres , 2004) . The authors have come with the following scheme:
o strip – this type encompases one episode only. Typically, it is reduced to 3
to 5 pictures and is noted for accentuated punch line. Strips get mainly
published by newspapers. To name at least a few, Garfield or Peanuts can
be included in this category.
o comic series – related to one another through one character. Usually,
individual issue is being published. The best known international figures of
this kind include Disney’s Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse .
12 o graphic novel – which transfers a novel to the shape of comics. As a novel,
it is a concluded story, based on its inclusion of a beginning and an end.
The controversial story Maus , created by Art Spiegelman, can serve as an
example.
Further, Pavera and Všetička (2002) distinguish comics according to the type of the main character and the manner of creation. Kannenberg (2006) mentions the (super)hero as well as the (super)villain and notes the presence of Jews, black people and (super)women characters (e.g the WonderWoman). The way of creation concerns whether it was inspired by a libretto, a drawing, etc.
In connection to the differences between the existing types of comics, variance appears in their functions which has become the focus of Tibor Žilka’s study Poetika komiksu
(Poetics of Comics , 1991). Žilka considers the aesthetic function to be the primary function of comics. In many cases, nonetheless, it represents only one of its function. Other functions fulfilled by comics include the entertainment oriented, educational, informative or tendentious function. The entertaining function is characteristic of the majority of comics while it aims mainly at entertaining the readers and serves as a source of relaxation. The strips published by daily newspapers as well as a number of discrete comics are the best example of such comics.
The educational function has spread recently since it is employed in educational and school books. The classic works of literature have been adapted to comic form, e.g. Jan Amos
Comenius’ Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart or the Bible . Recently,
Richard Appignanesi’s Freud which aims at providing the reader substantial information on
Freud’s life, studies and the rise of psychoanalysis, was released. Dagmar Mocná (2004) notes about the tendentious or propagandistic comics that they are typical of less literate countries.
Mocná mentions the 1975 comics version of The Communist Manifesto (1848) or the 1980s
Saddam Hussein’s biography. Anyway, Žilka (1991) points out that the aesthetic function is
13 indispensable in comics and is not diminished by the remaining functions (based on Alánová
2005).
According to this chapter, the comic genre can be subdivided into a number of types with the subdivision based on three sets of criteria (artistic, thematic and that of length and continuity) and on the function. The overview of the history of comics in the United States and in Europe (including Czech republic) will demonstrate their application in practice.
2.2.3 The Development of Comics in the United States and in Europe
2.2.3.1 Comic Strips Over the Ocean
According to Rosenschein (2006), American comic strips first appeared in the Sunday supplement of the newspapers at the end of the 19 th century. As such, they were originally aimed at the adult audience. Only later did it become read by the children audience as well. Its simplicity, unpretentiousness and the absence of text (which was quite frequent for a number of comics) together with the wave of strong criticism that the rise of comics brought are responsible for the fact that comics has been regarded intentional children’s literature (based on Alánová 2005).
Preceding the release of the first real American comics, Outcalt’s Yellow Kid , was an illustrated book entitled The Brownies: Their Book which is considered to be the first internationally successful North American comics. The release of Yellow Kid started the so called Platinum Age, limited by the year 1938, which included the following authors and their works listed below. Rudolph Dirks entered the history as the first author who consistently employed a sequence of panels in his stories. The pioneering strips, e.g. Opper’s Happy
Hooligan (1899), Schultze’s Foxy Grandpa (1900), Outcalt’s Buster Brown (1902) or
Swinnerton’s Little Jimmy (1905) have employed not only his invention but also came with the appearance of regular characters and the use of speech ballons. Among magazines that
14 published comic strips, Rosenschein (2006) mentions Harper’s, Judge , Life or Truth . The first known full colour comic book, The Blackberries , is dated to 1901. The comic production at the time was shaped by cooperation between syndicates and newspapers: the first successful daily strip, Mutt and Heft (1907), came to being in this way. Apart from Buster Brown , the most influential comic strips include Peanuts or Garfield . The first monthly comic book, released under the title Comics Monthly , came out in 1922. Other attempts followed: Dell
Publishing’s The Funnies (1929) or Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse with the earliest published in 1930 1931 (based on Roberts 2006).
Halegua (2006) mentions as the main feature of comics in its infancy was humor.
Deviation from the “rule” came with the release of Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in
Slumberland (1905 1911 in the New York Herold ) and In the Land of Wonderful Dreams ,
(1911 1914 in Journal America ). His line was adopted by Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs (1924).
With these, adventure strip came to being. The most famous representatives of the form, stated by Rosenschein (2006), include Harold Foster’s Tarzan (1929), Gould’s Dick Tracy
(1931) or Raymond’s Flash Gordon (1934). The new genre reached its peak in Foster’s
Prince Valiant (1937). Afterwards, science fiction seized the ground, with Buck Rogers in the
25 th Century A.D. (1929). The rise of the new forms was a reaction to the Depression when literature served as a means of escaping from the daily life.
In 1993, within the Eastern Color Press’s attempt to make use of the printing equipment as much as possible, first comic advertisement entitled Gulf Comic Weekly was published. Soon afterwards, Maxwell Gaines came up with the idea of a comic book of a more convenient size for reading. The first specimen, called Funnies on Parade , appeared in
1933. A year later the company released its second comic book Famous Funnies: a Carnival of Comics . The decision to sell comics through chain stores turned out to be worth giving it a thought, thus other publishers went in its track. National Periodics were the first publisher to
15 do so with their New Fun Comics at the beginning of 1935. Another title published by the company, the New Comics , appeared in 1935. One of the first comic books, Trade Paper
Back, was released. New comic magazines entered the market, e.g. Popular Comics (1936),
King Comics (1948), which eventually gave rise to Standard Publishing, or the Comics
Magazine (1936 1940) that introduced the work Siegel and Shuster, the to be authors of
Superman . The magazine was then owned by Centaur Comics, the first company to publish stories centred around a single topic – Detective Picture Stories , Western Picture Stories and
Funny Picture Stories , all published in 1936. In March 1937, the first true DC (i.e. detective comics) comic book was released by the DC company that still exists today (based on Roberts
(2006).
The 1930s have brought about a new phenomenon in the comic genre that changed it forever: the figure of superhero. Up to that time, the comics was targeted at the adult readership. Now it showed that comics aimed at children could also be profitable. The Golden
Age of comics (1938 1956) began with the release of the first issue of Action Comics which introduced the famous figure of Superman , the first comic character with superhuman powers.
Only a year after his first appearance, a whole comic book was devoted to Superman which was quite unusual since the comic books at the time included a number of characters. A number of heroic characters entered the market, including Batman (1939), Wonderman in the
1939 issue of Wonder Comics , The Shield (1940), Captain America , Captain Marvel (1940) or Robin the Boy Wonder (1940). In 1939, the first title published by Marvel Comics was introduced to the comic market: the book Motion Pictures Funnies Weekly . The comics introduced a numer of famous heroes, e.g. The Human Torch , The Angel , Ka Zar or The
Masked Raider . The winter of 1940 brought about the first superhero team, composed of The
Flash, The Green Lantern , The Spectre , The Hawkman , Dr. Fate , The Hour Man , The
Sandman , Atom and Johny Thunder . The readers’ response was very positive, so the teams of
16 superheroes are still commonly performing in comics today. The first famous superheroine,
WonderWoman , was first noticed in 1941 in All Star Comics .
The WW2 brought about the decline in popularity of heroic comics and other genres took its place; however, usually for a few years only. With the outset of the 1940s an important figure emerged whose doings had a considerable impact on the situation of comics:
Dr. Fredric Wertham, a psychologist who aimed at censorship in comic books, claiming that they were harmful to children’s psychology. The popularity of Superman had its drawbacks too which took the form of media attacks. These attacks led the comic publishers like DC to found their own editorial boards in 1941 to oppose the claim that comics do not represent worthy and unobjectionable entertainment for children. Only a few years later, Dr. Wertham incited another attack at comic books with his study of comic books’ effects on children which eventually led to mass burning of comic books. The same year saw the foundation of the Association of Comic Magazine Publishers (ACMP) that attempted to produce guidelines for the publication of comics. Since some of the comic publishers set up their own approval boards and thus refused to join the ACPM because of the disagreements over the guidelines, the Association soon ended its activities.
The U.S. Federal Government also took part in the happenings when asking a U.S.
Senate Committee to investigate the connection between reading comic books and juvenile delinquency. The advise given to the comic publishers read “A competent job of self policing within the industry will achieve much” ( Roberts 2006). However, Dr. Wertham with his book
Seduction of the Innocent (1954) claimed that the comics books were the main cause of juvenile delinquency. The comic companies reacted by founding the Comic Magazine
Association of America (CMAA) and by establishing the Comic Code Authority (CCA) in
1954. 1 Although it was approved of by the Senate, a warning was given to the publishers
1 If interested, go to http://www.collectortimes.com/~comichistory/cca.html to see the guidelines.
17 saying that should the self policing fail to work, the issue will be looked into again. A stamp issued by the CCA was required on every comic book to show it was approved. Today, its approval is no longer important and necessary for the publication of a comic book.
In the 1950s an attempt was made to bring back the superhero. Sadly, Marvel’s first attempt to do so was a failure. It was DC that succeeded in returning the superhero into comic books. This success started so called Silver Age of comics the beginning of which came with appearance of The Flash . Its success made the other publishers to return their superheroes into the market, e.g. Detective Comics’s J’onn J’onzz (1955) who later turned into Martian
Manhunter , the most famous DC heroic figure. The 1958 appearance of Strange Worlds , the first comic book produced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, started the “Marvel Age” (Roberts
2006).
The period began in 1961 with Marvel Comics’ introduction of its own superheroes, including e.g. Dr. Droom , Flash and, most importantly, The Spider Man . The publishers came also with superhero teams, with the Fantastic Four to be the most famous one. Others include Lee and Kirby’s Avengers or The X Men . New features were brought into comics by it: the marriage and the parental role of the heroes. The Marvel Age brought back onto the stage some of the Marvel Comics Golden Age heroes or gave them a facelift. This includes
Namor the Sub Mariner, Captain America or Ka Zar . Marvel Comics brought a black superhero to the story for the first time, the Black Panther in 1966 Fantastic Four , followed by a number of other black heroes, e.g. The Falcon , DC’s Black Lightning or Image’s Spawn .
With the 1969 Dr. Droom ’s first own title, a new kind of character entered the comics, that of supervillain. Besides Marvel’s Super Villain Team Up comics, DC has created its own villain,
The Joker .
A change in the style, in the characters depicted and the stories told by comics came in the 1970. The Bronze Age of comics started that brought about the magic inspired stories. The
18 DC released Jack Kirby’s book called New Gods . The 1970 saw the appeareance of a new
Marvel character, Conan the Barbarian . In 1971 Marvel Comics published a story unapproved by the CCA, a story centred around drugs. Since Marvel Comics won the public support in this case, some of the CCA rules have been moderated which enabled the reappearance of some horror comic books, including DC’s Swamp Thing and Marvel’s Ghost
Rider and Son of Satan , later known under the title Hellstorm . Marvel’s 1970s also brought a new kind of hero – an anti hero, the two most popular representatives of the new kind of hero being Wolverine and The Punisher . Independent publishers entered the comic field with Dave
Slim’s 1977 Cerebus as first such title.
Another change in style came in the 1980s with the rise of Frank Miller’s “grim and gritty” (Roberts 2006) style which gave the name to the whole period of comics – the Grim and Gritty Age. The difference and popularity of the stories lay in their realism and honesty.
During the 1980s it entered the mainstream comic production. The titles following the new standard included Pacific Comics’s Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers (both released in 1981), Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1984) and DC’s 1985 Crisis of the Infinite Earth Series. The second half of the 1980s came with the realistic superhero stories, represented by Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns or by DC’s The
Watchmen . Its realism lay in the superpowers being given to real people.
With selling the Marvel Comics to a businessman Ron Perelman in 1986, a new period in the history of comics began: the Gimmick Age. Its name derived from aggressive campaign, publication devices (such as several cover versions of the same book, collecting cards etc.) and unexpected twists in the story employed to increase its sale. The technique was adopted by other publishers. In 1988 the Batman story was given a new volume, A Death in the Family , which told the story of Robin’s death. 1989 introduced Neil Gaiman’s first issue of The Sandman . In Alpha Flight #106 the Marvel Comics came with the first gay superhero,
19 Northstar , and later – in The Incredible Hulk – with a HIV positive hero. Regrettably, after these two stories the Marvel Comics abandoned socially controversial issues. During the period the CCA has further relaxed its guidelines, with the 1989 version being the latest one.
The 1980s brought another change: in the target audience which moved from children to adults. This aroused the adults’ interest in collecting comic stories.
The contemporary period, the Image Age, started in 1992 with the formation of Image
Comics by the dissatisfied artists and writers from Marvel Comics. The new company came with high quality artwork, enhanced by the use of computer technology of color separation and by printing on high quality paper. The group of authors from Marvel included Todd
McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino, Whilce Portacio, and Marc
Silvestri. While some of them have left, new authors have joined the group. The new company entered the market by Rob Liefield’s Youngblood #1 . Todd McFarlane’s 1992 title,
Spawn , has become the best selling independent comics. In 1993 two other comic companies set up their own superhero comic lined, Malibu and Dark Horse Comics. A scandal was caused by Marvel Comics in 1994 1996 when the company made Spider Men’s true identity, the ordinary man Peter Parker, his clone. The readers responded with anger and by stopping to buy Marvel’s comic books. This made the publisher come back with Parker as the true wall crawler. 1994 DC’s mini series, Zero Hour , continued the story of the Crisis of the Infinite
Earths . In 1996 an important crossover was done by the two companies: they released stories in which the main characters of the two companies fight to defeat each other. Stories featuring mergers of the characters of both companies were released by them, e.g. Spider Boy (a combination of Spider Man and Superboy) or Supersoldier , created from Superman and
Captain America (based on Roberts 2006).
The chapter devoted to the history of American comics has debated the original form of the genre, its changes and first representatives. Its development has been divided into seven
20 periods which have brought about changes in the conditions, styles as well as typical features.
In connection with this new representatives emerged. Radical changes in the comic industry and newly introduced features have also been commented on. Attention has also been paid to the impact of historical climate, of important personalities and to the limitations imposed on the genre.
The history of American comic industry from its beginnings to today is to be followed by the development of comics on the European continent.
2.2.3.2 European comics
According to Wikipedia (2006), the term “Europan comics” refers to the comic production of Continental Europe since the British comic market is separated from the rest of
Europe and also under the influence of American comic industry. Since my thesis is focused on translation of English language comics, I intend to include British comic history in the following passage on European comic history.
Apart from The United Kingdom, the important contribution to the development of the genre comes from the following countries: France and Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. The history of comics in the given countries will be dealt with briefly in the subsequent paragraphs. I will include a separate chapter on the history of Czech comics since
I consider the difference in history and perception of the genre in Czech republic relevant for the translation analysis.
The earliest comic book known today, The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck , was produced in Europe in several European languages in 1837, with the British version published in 1841 and the American version in 1842.
The cartoon, as the ancestor of comic strip, was first published by the Brits, William
Hogarth and Thomas Rowlandson’s cartoons. Further, the Swiss author Rudolph Töpffer has
21 also come out with his comic strips. First European comic story, Alain Saint Ogan’s Zig et
Puce , appeared only in 1925. The late 19 th century brought the strips of Christophe. The
German author Wilhelm Busch was the first one to introduce a regular cast of characters in his Max und Moritz (1865). The English authors followed the line with Charles Ross and
Marie Duval’s Ally Sloper (1867 – 1876) and Tom Browne’s Weary Willie and Tired Tim which came out in 1890s.
The rise of purely European comics was delayed by the publication of American comic strips in Europe. One of the first daily comic strips that could be noticed in Britain appeared in 1921. Published under the title “Pop”, it was targeted at adult readership and created by John Millar Watt (based on Rosenschein 2006 and Wikipedia 2006).
Franco Belgian comics was among those dominating the evolution of European comics. Originating in Belgium of the 1920s, it was soon adopted in France. Franco Belgian comics is refered to by “bande dessineé” (Wikipedia 2006) in French and by “Stripverhalen”
(Wikipedia 2006) in Dutch. Belgian comic books were originally written in Dutch, but under the Franco Belgian influence turned to French as means of expression. Holding a different position in Francophone culture as the “ninth art” (Wikipedia 2006), comics appears somehow peripheral to the rest of culture. At its beginings the Catholic Church also participated in the comic market by issuing “healthy and correct” (Wikipedia 2006) magazines for children. As in America, the debate on the impact of comics on teenagers in terms of criminality affected Franco Belgian comics: the censorship brought the genre nearer to fairy tales and away from the adult audience since it lost lifelikeness. The result was the division of comics into children and adults’s comic stories. The impact of American comics on its European counterpart comes also through 1960s pop art movement, with Roy
Liechtenstein as its main representative, which increased its popularity and enabled its acceptance as an art – the idea which was first advertised by Gilbert Selders in his work The
22 Seven Lively Arts . Recently, there has been a strong foreign impact on the Franco Belgian comics which took the form of adaptation of foreign comics, especially those of European provenance, of the employment of foreign comic writers and the impact of Japanese manga which gained considerable popularity since 2000. A Franco Belgian event of international importance in the world of comics is the annual Angoulême International Comics Festival which was first held in an eponymous French town in 1974.
The first proper Belgian comics, Hergé’s Tintin , appeared in 1929 and has become the most important 20 th century French language comic strip. The most important magazines include Spirou , Tintin and Pilote magazine. The 1959 Goscinny and Uderzo’s figure of the brave Gallic warrior Asterix who is certainly the most famous character can be given as an example of the comics aimed both at adult and children’s audience. With Selders’s work the era of postmodern comics started, bringing the rise adult targeted underground or erotic comics and the “graphic novel” (Rosenschein 2006). The new type of comics continued to flourish in the USA during the 1980s and the 1990s saw reapperance of the graphic novel with the release of Art Spigelman’s Maus , a novel from the Holocaust which tells the story of
Polish Jew in a concentration camp.
Dutch comics employs two terms in the place of the English “comic strip”: the “strip” refers to the whole art form while “comic” designates the (usually) soft cover American format comic books, focused on translated U.S. superhero stories. The formation of the Dutch comics was influenced by the langauge shared with a part of Belgium which was the cause of importance of the Franco Belgian comics in the Netherlands. The history of the Dutch comics began with the adaptation of Töppfer’s Monsieur Cryptogame under the title Mijnheer
Prikkebeen by J.J.A. Gouverneur in 1858. It was the newspapers that first brought comic series, the first being Yorbje en Achmed in 1919. Only with the German occupation in 1940 did the Dutch comic writers start creating original characters since the import of Anglo
23 American characters was forbidden by the Germans. The liberation was followed by the comic boom, dominated by the picture novel while the 1940s saw the counter movement during which hardly any newspaper comics appeared. The truly Dutch comics came to existence in the 1950s during which the Dutch version of Donald Duck was created. The
1960s brought the comic magazines and the first American superheroes onto the scene. In the next decade the magazines started to decline which continued throughout the 80s and 90s. The contemporary market can be described as fragmented, including anything from imports and reprints to small press circuit, the online comics and Donald Duck and any other children targeted comics. The great names still participate in the creation of comics.
The German comics includes not only the comics originating in Germany but also comics produced by German speaking authors of Austrian and Swiss origin. The pioneers of
German comics are recognized as the predecessors of comics in general, preceding even the birth of American comic strip. The most notable names include the 19 th century authors
Rudolph Töppfer and Wilhelm Busch. The substantial part of the 20 th century was dominated by translated imports, including Tintin , Asterix or Donald Duck . The end of the century saw the influence of manga, superheroes and the presence of Calvin and Hobbes . Nonetheless, original German comics did come to being during this period. One of the most popular
German comic strips ever was Erich Ohser’s Vater und Sohn ( Father and Son , 1934 and
1947).
Italian comics, locally known as “fumetto” (Wikipedia 2006) which refers to the speech ballon, originated in 19 th century children’s magazines and satirical publication. The first children’s periodicals appeared in 1834 while the first satirical magazine can be noticed in 1848. Anyway, the first real Italian comics appeared in 1904 when Il Corriere dei Piccoli , the first Italian comic magazine, was published. In 1945, the so called venetian school of comics, with Hugo Pratt as its most important representative, was founded. The group came
24 with one of the most original comic magazines of the period, L’asso di Picche . First Franco
Belgian comic appeared in 1955 with the adaptation of Tintin . The most significant event of that period was the appearance of comic books which gave birth a number of Italian characters, with Bonelli and Galeppini’s Tex Willer as undoubtedly the most popular one.
As far as the British comics is concerned, the genre was primarily aimed at working class and later on at children although today comic stories targeted at teenagers and adults are also published. The first British comic magazines appeared in the 19 th century – Ally Sloper’s
Half Holiday , which is recognized as the first British comic, Comic Cuts and Illustrated Chips owned by Amalgamated Press. Over the next thirty years the comic production was aimed at children. In between the two world wars annuals started to be published by Amalgamated
Press and in the late 1930s DC Thompson introduced The Dandy (the world’s longest running comics) and The Beano (the second longest running comics) which are published till today.
The most popular comic magazine of the 1950s and 1960s aimed at older boys was called The
Eagle and published by Hulton Press. Its success led to a number of magazines designed in a similar fashion, e,g, TV Century 21 , Look & Learn and TV Comic . The boys’ adventure remained popular and so new titles and heroes appeared, including Roy of the Rovers . The field of the adventure comics was dominated by Odhams Press. The 1960s and 1970s in
Britain saw the appearance of the underground comics which inspired two new comics, Oz and Nasty Tales . The 1970s also brought the action oriented comics, the 1974 Warlord published by DC Thompson being the first of this kind. Inspired, the IPC Magazines Ltd. produced Battle Picture Weekly , Action (which was eventually united with the former) and
2000 AD (1977). Financial considerations at the time made British comic industry to emply the Spanish artists of which Carlos Ezquerra has created the character of Judge Dredd for
2000 AD . In 1972 Marvel started its branch in Britain while publishing mixtures of licensed and new material (e.g. Captain Britain ). Still, the reprinted material became more popular.
25 The 1980s saw the relaunching of The Eagle in 1982 and the first appearance of Dez Skinn’s
Warrior which features Alan Moore’s Marvelman and V for Vendetta strips. Moore created an adult comics which continued in psst! and the Escape Magazine . During the 1980s and 1990s the interest in comics decreased which resulted in merging most of the existing titles into each other. The new titles did not win particular popularity. The comics from this era that are worth mentioning include Viz, Deadline featuring the famous Tank Girl , Toxic! , Crisis and
Revolver. All represented comics aimed at adult readers. The Millenium did not bring any big growth in interest and any new mainstream titles. On the other hand, the production of small press and fanzine titles did increase, including the titles such as Solar Wind or FutureQuake .
British new talents e.g. Al Ewing, Henry Flint or Simon Spurrier emerge right from the opposition of mainstream publishers.
One more note that I would like to make concerning British comics: although the
British readers showed interest in American comic production, the supplies of the books were just not available. The lack was compensated by reprinting the American sources or by releasing them under different titles.
All in all, the history of European comics can be summed up by saying that it was dominated by three forces: America, Franco Belgian comics and contemporary British comic scene, with Alan Moore as probably the most influential author with The Hell or V for
Vendetta that have been filmed recently (based on Wikipedia 2006).
The overview of the European history of comics has included its development in the
United Kingdom, France and Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy commenting on the conditions of origin, on the beginnings, on the terminology, on foreign influences and impact of historical events, on important representatives and the contribution to the genre in general in individual countries. First European comic book and the first representatives have also been mentioned.
26 Since Czech republic cannot be denied its status in Europe and since the thesis is focused on comic translation from English into Czech, the history of Czech comics cannot be ignored. Therefore, it will be debated in the subsequent chapter.
2.2.3.2.1 Czech Comics
Unlike in the United States, Czech comics came into being as a literary genre targeted at children. Its roots lie in strip cartoons, produced by Josef Lada, Ondřej Sekora and Artur
Scheiner. At first, their work originated in illustrations of poems and nursery rhymes, then the authors proceeded to strip cartoons without any speech ballons. These predecesors of real
Czech comics were mostly published in children’s magazines, including e.g. Malý čtenář
(Junior Reader), Kašpárkovy noviny (Merry Andrew’s Papers) or Punťa (Punťa the Dog).
Josef Lada has come with Švejkovy osudy (Švejk’s Stories) , which appeared in Sunday tabloid of České slovo (Czech Word) in the years 1923 – 1924, while Sekora has created the character of Kuře Napipi (Chicken Napipi), of Voříšek and Missinka (Mut and Missy), or – for the magazine Pestrý týden (Motley Week) Kapitán Animuk (Captain Mum’s the Word) . His artistic contributions can also be found in Mateřídouška (Wild thyme) or Dikobraz
(Porcupine) magazines. Sekora’s most famous character, Ferda Mravenec (Ferda the Ant), first appeared in the years 1935 – 1941 in Lidové noviny (The National Newspapers). In creating him Sekora was inspired by Wilhelm Busch and Walt Disney. The predecessors of
Czech comics include also caricatures made by František Kupka and Zdeněk Kratochvíl.
The first Czech comics is attributed to Jaroslav Foglar and his Rychlé šípy (Winged
Arrows) which date from the 1930s. The comics was originally published in Mladý hlasatel
(Young Herald) in 1938 – 1941, later in the magazines Vpřed (Ahead, 1946 – 1948) and Skaut
– Junák (Scout, 1968). Finaly, in 1970 – 1971, it appeared in a magazine of its own. Not only did the comics acquire great popularity, but it was also made into film and dramatized (based
27 on Alánová 2005). As Pavlica (2003) puts it, Foglar has thus become the pioneer of the genre.
The characters were first drawn by the caricaturist Jan Fischer who was later replaced by
Václav Junek, Bohumír Čermák and Marko Čermák. The last one mentioned has also adapted
Foglar’s titles Záhada hlavolamu (The Mystery of the Conundrum) and Stínadla se bouří (The
Shades in Turmoil). According to Adamcová (2005), its popularity has roots in the attractivity of the urban environment and the schematism of good and evil (based on Pavlica 2003 and
Adamcová 2005).
As Alánová (2005) mentions, during the war and German invasion the genre has lost the previously acquired position, the reasons being not only political but also economic
(mainly the limited amount of the exported paper). The period was not favourable to comics – even Foglar’s attempt to follow with Rychlé šípy with a new comics Svorní gambusíni
(Harmonious Fellows) failed. After the end of the war, Foglar started contributing to Junák and Vpřed . The genre slowly gained ground again: comics were published in some daily papers and adult magazines. However, foreign production prevailed, with American in the first place. This has had a great impact on the fate of comics in Czechoslovakia – after the revolution in 1948 comics was put on the index as a product of western ideology. The origins of comics in strips were forgotten during the communist era and any kind of strip cartoon children’s, adventurous or fantastic was included under the title of “comics”. At the turn of the 50s and 60s comics almost reached its end. The magazines Junák and Vpřed were abolished. The change came only in the second half of the 1950s when new children and youth’s magazines appeared which meant the rise of the system distinguished periodically and by the readership’s age. Apart from Mateřídouška , the oldest magazine, Pionýrské noviny
(The Pioneer Newspapers), Ohníček (Smudge), Pionýr (Pioneer), ABC mladých techniků a přírodovědců and Mladý svět (The Youth’s World). Mladý technik (The Young Technician) changed its title to Věda a technika mládeži (Juvenile Science and Technology). Pionýr
28 published Tajemství přístavu (The Mystery of the Port) drawn by Karel Franta while ABC magazine in 1957 released Prázdniny v podzemí (The Underground Holiday) by Mirek Liďák and Slávek Jílek and Jindra Kovařík’s Šestka z hradební (The Six from the Mural Street).
Unfortunately, what followed was a few year’ period of pondering on the forms and topics that would satisfy the existence of comics for its critics. Mladá fronta publishing house attempted to deal with the situation by organizing a seminar in the 1960s which gave space both to its critics and authors. It resulted in a certain degrese of peace and tolerance, appropriate to the political situation then (based on Toman 2006). Alánová (2005) mentions the appearance of adaptations of classic works of literature, e.g. of Vinnetou. The sci fi also started to be published, including Vlastislav Toman’s První výprava do ztraceného světa (The
First Expedition the Lost World) a Dobrodružství Johna Cartera (John Carter’s Adventures).
The situation of the 1970s largely reminded that of the 50s and 60s since the position of comics within literature was again subjected to a debate, however, with a different result this time. Due to a certain degree of liberalization at the political scene comics acquired independent position as a literary genre. The 1960s and the following period gave rise to real
Czech comics. The number of children and youth’s magazines increased and daily papers started following their line and published their own comics – e.g. Mladý svět , Svobodné slovo ,
Mladá fronta (The Youth’s Front), Sluníčko (Shine) or Sedmička (Seven). Purely comic magazines came into existence, with Čtyrlístek (Quarterfoil) and Mateřídouška being certainly the most famous ones. The first mentioned came out in 1971 and is published until today (cf. Toman 2006). As Alánová (2005) reminds us, since the Communist party’s publishing house Panorama was in charge of its publishing, Čtyrlístek had a big advantage.
Published only irregularly, the magazine was not perceived as a periodical and thus it escaped the control of the Department of Culture. Due to the fact, no characteristics of the era are reflected in the life of the four animal characters, drawn by Jaroslav Němeček. Along with
29 Rychlé šípy , Čtyrlístek represents the most popular Czech comics. Both of them build upon fair play, decency and peacefulness which make them attractive for younger readers. Jaroslav
Foglar came out with Kulišáci (The Foxy, in ABC 1963 – 1966). The young readers also appreciated Toman’s Strážci (The Watchers), Marko Čermák and Jiří Hromádka’s Modrá pětka (The Blue Five) that were serialized in Pionýrská stezka (The Pioneer Trail).
Mladý svět gained reputation for publishing Kája Saudek’s work, including the parody Lips
Tullian and others. On a long term basis Cour a Courek (Drabble and Drabblie) in Sluníčko ,
Barbánek (Barbanek the Dog) in Ohníček or the adaptations of J.M. Troska’s work were issued. ABC mladých techniku a přírodovědců dominated the market since it printed two full page comics and a shorter one, adopted from French magazine Pif. Occasionally, it published other foreign or Czech comic stories (based on Toman 2006). The two sci fi series that ABC published during the 1970s, Vzpoura mozků (The Minds’ Revolt, 1977 – 1979) and the trilogy
Pod paprsky zářícího (Under the Beams of the Shining one, 1973 – 1976), became extremely popular.
Comics of the 1980s was marked by the creative efforts of Kája Saudek who worked for the magazine Mladý svět and whose style approached that of American comics but was at the same time unmistakable. It was in Mladý svět and Student magazines where Saudek started his career. There he published his first comic work, Agent Nr. 00 – WC (1966) and first part of his most famous title, Muriel a andělé (Muriel and Angels, 1969). Its continuation was prohibited and the complete work appeared only in 1991. Its second volume, Muriel and oranžová smrt (Muriel and the Orange Death), has never come into existence. Saudek’s stories of Major Zeman could be published only in the years 1977 and 1978 since the author’s irony and western comics influenced style were unacceptable for the communist regime.
Since the beginning of the 1980s Saudek’s work could only be published semilegally, in peripheral publications. Later in his career, Saudek took up erotic drawings and thus erotic
30 comics: in addition to Erotické pověsti české (Czech Erotic Tales ), he contributed to the
“Playboy” magazine. The 80s also gave rise to Saudek’s cooperation with Jaroslav Foglar in the trilogy focused on adventures in caves, including the titles Modrá rokle (The Blue Gulley,
1984), Ztracený kamarád (A Lost Friend, 1987) and the final part of the trilogy, Jeskyně
Saturn (The Cave of Saturn, 1991). All in all, Saudek can be given the credit for 50 comic titles (based on Pavlica 2003 , Adamcová 2005 and Alánová 2005). As Toman (2006) in his article points out, an important impetus to the development of comics in the years 1985 and
1986 was the publication of the ABC special edition in the volume of nearly hundred pages and in a large format. Since 1988 to 1990 it was published twice a year.
After the Velvet revolution the frontiers were opened and the comic boom started, largely influenced by western comics production. Original Czech comics entered the market, published e.g. in the magazines Kometa (Comet) or Aréna (Arena). The best known representative of Czech comics of 1970s, Čtyřlístek , remained popular at the time.
Unfortunately, Czech children and youth’s comic magazines soon ceased to exit since the
Czech publishers made an effort to draw on to the foreign comics as much as possible. Not only did they use foreign language titles but they also produced Czech versions of foreign magazines. Thus the originality of Czech original production that won so much appreciation throughout the world was lost. On one hand the comic market was swept by an increasing number of titles which was responsible for the loss of the readers’ interest. Comics has become an everyday phenomenon, has lost its exceptionality. On the other hand, the disintegration of Czech comic publications caused a great decrease of the authors and drawers’ possibilities to publish.
The unfavourable state changed with the turn of the century when new publishing houses and magazines appeared, focused on comics production. Above all, their main interest lies in the quality of published work. First critical commentaries on comics, both original and
31 translations, were published, together with reviews and the information on the new publications or the titles that were to be released. Nowadays, a few publishing houses with a focus on quality, operate in the market: BB Art, Crew, Calibre, Egmont, DC, Mot, Datel and
Netopejr. Some of these focus primarily on comics while others give space to other literary genres too. BB art publishing house has founded an edition called Comics while Egmont has won popularity through the publication of Asterix . Crew can be given as an example of the one focused mainly on comics. The house publishes an eponymous magazine which provides both comic series and theoretical passages on the genre. Other magazines have entered our comic market: Aargh! which somehow opposes Crew2 as it concentrates mainly on comics of
Czech provenience or Živel (The Element) which focuses on cyberculture. A large number of comic magazines started to be published during the 1990s, however, most of them failed to survive a few issues. The boom has also affected newspapers and magazines many of which have included comics as a regular section. Political comics dominates in this respect. To give at least a few examples, one should certainly mention the Reflex magazine with its Zelený
Raoul (The Green Raoul, since 1995), Lidové noviny with Dlouhý nos (A Snoot) or Vladimír
Jiránek’s strips in MF Dnes (The Youth’s Front Today). Besides the political, a great variety of strips exist: e.g. Hana a Hana (Hana and Hana, Reflex ), Dilbert ( MF Dnes ), Garfield or
Peanuts that were both published in Právo (Justice) (based on Alánová 2005, Toman 2006).
Currently, a large number of original Czech comics are being published, e.g. Jaroslav
Rudiš and Jaromír 99’s Bílý potok (The White Stream, 2003) which was translated into
English in 2005 by Anna Lordan, Jaroslav Rudiš’s Hlavní Nádraží (The Main Station, 2004),
Džian Baban’s Sloni v Marienbadu (The Elephants in Marienbad, 2004) or Štěpán Kopřiva’s
Nitro těžkne glycerínem (Nitro Gets Heavy With Glycerol, 2006) to name just a few. The most outstanding contemporary authors, as mentioned by Adamovič (2006), include also
Honza Bažant, Matěj Němeček, Miloš Mazal, Wladimir 518, Dan Černý, Štěpán Mareš
32 (Reflex ), Lukáš Fibrich ( ABC ) or the students of universities of fine arts. According to Toman
(2006), complete editions of popular comic series have appeared recently in four volumes of so called Big books of comics , for example Foglar’s Rychlé šípy , Svorní gambusíni and
Dobrodružství s Bobří stopou (The Beaver’s Footprint Adventure) or the comics production of ABC mladých techniků a přírodovědců , of Pionýr (later renamed Větrník , i.e. Pinwheel) and Ohníček , Modrá pětka (published in Albatros) and Gustav Krum’s series (in BB art). In
2004 the publishing house MOT released under the title Inseminátor (The Inseminator), an anthology of the work of Czech authors from the turn of the century. The book includes comics by Tomáš Prokůpek and Tomáš Kučerovský who work for the magazine Aargh! , Jiří
Grus’s Princip nepravděpodobnosti (The Improbability Principle) and Jakub Němeček and
Karel Jerie’s Maso (The Meat). Another almanach of Czech comic production, O (ne)mrtvých jen dobré ( No Hard Feelings About the (Un)dead), was published by BB art in the same year
(cf. www.iliteratura.cz). The anthology introduces sixteen versions of a script by sixteen different authors, including e.g. Jan Jiříček, Tomáš Profant, Tomáš Jirků or Petr Včela.
Adamovič (2006) mentions another anthology, Czekomiks , which was published last year and is composed mainly of stories about the contemporary situation of comics in our country. The internet also has a considerable impact on the genre as it provides space to both professional and amateur authors, to amateur translators as well as to parodies on various existing comics, both foreign and Czech. Let me draw your attention to Ganja Garfield
(www.ganjfield.czechweb.cz) or Čtyrlístek (www.strach.cz/4x/4x.htm). If interested in draughtsmen’s webpages, search the www.comics.cz webpage.
In the chapter on the types of comics I have mentioned the existence of educational comics. This kind of use of the genre can be illustrated by Czech publications too: since 2000 the Czech series of the magazine Pionýr has – under the title Ahoj, Evropo (Say “Hi” to
Europe) been publishing series on the history of the European Union and its members
33 (based on Pavlica 2003). Adamovič (2006) mentions the adaptation of K.J. Erben’s Kytice
(The Garland), published by Garamond, as another example.
According to Adamovič (2006), considerable differences exist between Czech and foreign comics which I would like to sum up briefly. The community of the authors and readers stands outside the official culture, although it has infiltrated a number of mass media due to its enormous activity. The readers are said to be spoilt by the choice of the works published since the ‘cream’ of the world comic production is what is given the attention of publishing houses, especially Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore’s titles. The publication of comics in our country is – in comparison to the countries with long comics tradition – unprofitable business, being rather a hobby. While foreign publishers start with cheap comic series and eventually move to a book, ours focus on complete books straightaway which requires considerably higher expenses. Further, the topical setting is quite limited which results in a lower number of readers. However, even titles targeted at wider public have not received much appreciation although they have been awarded a number of prizes – e.g. Chris Ware’s
Jimmy Corrigan . Also the authors’ situation is quite different: hardly any of them has created a comic book or at least a comic series. To be considered a member of Czech comics elite corresponds to a sort of mastering of the drawing technique and publication of a couple of two or three page stories in the hardly accessible and rarely published magazines ( Aargh! etc).
Besides, the drawers suffer from a lack of scriptwriters and publishers which results in writing their own scripts and publication at one’s own expense. Contemporary postmodern authors ignore the importance of good class story and focus on the essence of the genre itself. Thus anti comics, comics on comics or experimental publications, such as the anthology O
(ne)mrtvých jen dobré, appear. The authors of the 1980s and 90s have ceased writing and original Czech comics has been overcome by translated foreign production. As a result, the genre has not become a part of the mass culture and original Czech production finds its place
34 in small publications of special interest. All in all, the genre is dominated by solitary individuals and enthusiasts.
The passage dealing with the history of Czech comics has started with its origins and predecessors, then moved on to first representative of the genre. Attention was paid to its development throughout and after WW2, during the communist era and after the Revolution while mentioning the essential comic magazines and titles. The debate on the contemporary production followed. Last but not least, the specific features that distinguish Czech comics from the rest of the world were taken into account.
3 TRANSLATION PROBLEMS
The subsequent chapter of my thesis represents the transition from comic theory to comic translation practice. Therefore the translation problems in focus will be mentioned and accompanied by both general translation theory and practical advice provided by Jiří Levý in his studies Introduction to the Theory of Translation and The Art of Translation and by Peter
Newmark in A Textbook of Translation and by interviewing BB art publishing house translators Viktor Janiš and Richard Podaný.
Before moving on to the summary of the categories that will be subjected to analysis, let me say a few words on the data acquired from the Czech translators. As for Mr. Podaný, I have interviewed him myself while with Mr. Janiš I draw on an interview published on the internet by Jiří Pavlovský in 2004. Mr. Janiš has also answered some of my questions regarding the translation of quotations occuring in The Sandman . If interested, you will find the full versions of both the interviews as well as the questions and the answers to them in the appendix.
35 The questionnaire sent to Mr. Podaný was divided into three areas: linguistic, technical and cultural translation issues. A brief summary of the translation problems which were included in my questionnaire follows:
linguistic – the use of colloquial language, expressivity, vulgarisms, interjections,
third language expressions, idioms, metaphors, personification, diminutives,
comparisons, neologisms, archaism, synonyms, rhymes, use of terminology, puns,
poetisms, onomatopoeic words, jokes, up dated phrases, sayings etc. My focus was
on the search of equivalents, especially if such don’t exist in the target culture, on
the references to ideas and concepts unknown to the target culture (localization)
and on the preserving or changing the degree of expressivity, vulgarity, poetism,
colloquiality or the archaic expressing.
cultural – historical and cultural references, names of characters, geographical and
topographical names, environment bound expressions (e.g. food, housing,
organizations, concepts, customs etc.) and time bound expressions. An important
part is played by a number of allusions (to book titles, songs, historical figures)
and quotes from works of literature or songs etc. (both existent and non existent).
The main focus lay on the employment of localization or the use of explanation
while preserving the term in question. With names and surnames the main question
was the adapation of Czech forms, not only in spelling but mainly with the endings
of female surnames.
technical – the limited space of the speech ballons which made me ask about the
change of the shape or size of the ballons, about the change of the text size or the
type font and about the narrator’s talk overstretching the allotted frame or even
being placed outside it.
36 It is necessary to emphasize my appeal to the interviewer to focus on the categories for which their translation approach differs from translation in general, i.e. that is specific to comic translation. Therefore, not all the categories mentioned above have been discussed by
Mr.Podaný in his answer.
3.1 Translation Categories
The chapter focused on translation categories will, apart from listing the categories and elaborating on them, accompany them by the translation options offered by the general translation theory and by the comic translators themselves. Let me point out that I am aware that some of the items can be classed in more than one category and may thus recur throughout the analysis. So please take note of the fact that the division into categories is only a working version and that the items have been classed in the way that I have considered the best. The distinction of translation problems into three categories made in the preceding chapter will be preserved here, only the actual subcategories will be made more specific and probably more limited due to the fact that they already draw on the actual corpus which is based on the three comic titles mentioned above
3.1.1 Linguistic Features in Translation Theory
As far as the linguistic items are concerned, the following have been located in the translations: first and foremost different stylistic layers, colloquial and formal language as well as expressive speech, including the use of interjections, vulgarisms, diminutives or characteristic word order, appeared on a large scale. The rich, vivid and playful language of comic books shows itself in a number of idioms, figurative expressions (including metaphors), comparisons, sayings, neologisms, puns and up dated phrases. This feature of comic language is further reinforced by the employment of participles, archaisms, poetisms,
37 synonyms, rhymes, speech disorders (e.g. stuttering, lisping, hissing etc.), alliteration and types of accent, dialects or vernaculars. Further, third language expressions and the use of terminology were not rare.
The following passage sums up the general translation strategies. That various stylistic layers (e.g. colloquial, formal, expressive, scientific etc.) should be preserved is approved unanimously by both theoreticians and practitioners. Thus, the features which contribute to such styles, such as interjections, vulgarisms, diminutives, idioms, figurative expressions, comparisons, sayings, puns, neologisms, up dated phrases, archaisms, poetisms, rhymes, types of accent, dialects or vernaculars must also be reflected in the target text. However, preservation is not the only means. Apart from substitution by a target language/domestic equivalent (to wit semantic equivalent, unless it is stated else), formal preservation would be employed with interjections . As for vulgarisms , the employment of euphemisms may be requested since the usage differs in English and Czech. This can be understood as using the target language equivalent which might be milder that the original expression. Even if the theoreticians and translators agree in this case, one must realize the fact that a comic translator is limited in his choices also by a restricted space of speech ballons. Apart from target language equivalent, general translation theory suggests the use of literal translation for diminutives since it serves to convert grammatical constructions from one language to another – and diminutives may also be considered grammatical items. Free translation may be made use of with idioms in case the context appears more important than the form.
Figurative expressions are, if possible, to be substituted by a domestic equivalent. In case no target language equivalent exists, a neutral target language analogy may be employed for idioms as well as figurative expressions . Comparisons and sayings may – apart from translation by their target language equivalents also be explained or substituted by a neutral target language analogy. According to general translation theory, puns are to be compensated
38 for. Farther category – neologisms – should certainly be recreated in fiction. If this appears impossible, functional equivalent or descriptive term should be employed. Up dated phrases should be substituted or recreated in the target language – the updating should be preserved.
The same approach is suggested by Janiš and Podaný. Archaisms are to be substituted. The general translation theory comes with two more strategies for the translation of poetic expressions : compensation or the use of neutral target language equivalent. Last but not lest, types of accents, dialects and vernaculars represent specific forms, as such they should be replaced by domestic equivalents (this time functional). This recommendation applies also to comic translation practice.
What follows are the items that contribute to the richness and vividness of expression rather than among the items of stylistic layers. The synonyms located in the corpus are to be substituted by domestic equivalents or replaced by neutral target language analogies. In this case general translation theory agrees on the topic with the practice. Speech disorders as specific forms with specific meaning should, in general, be transliterated. To make it clear, what I have in mind is the transliteration of the specifics of spelling, e.g. recurrent letters or spelling mistakes. Should the result be unnatural though, the substitution should be employed.
Alliteration should certainly be preserved, while employing target language sources. The translators would go for for preservation too.
As far as the comic translators’ suggestions are concerned, only those different from general translation theory will be mentioned. A different option is given for the translation of interjections : their extirpation and replacement in a different way. Further, the comic translators warned me that the preservation of an idiom in Czech may sometimes be blocked by the illustration which may prevent the use of a Czech counterpart even if such exist. As with idioms, prospective limitations are imposed on the translation of figurative expressions by the graphic component which may play a role in the translation of this category.
39 Comparisons and sayings may also be omitted if dependant on the graphic form and lacking any Czech counterpart which would be coordinate with the drawing. The comic translators agree with general translation theory on the recreation of neologisms and add that this pays especially if they are important for a character. The request to preserve archaisms is accompanied by the warning not to be too wasting about archaisms and by the advice to consult older publications for inspiration and vocabulary. As for rhymes , the demand for substitution is with the translators accompanied by special emphasis put on the nuances such as rhyme types which should not be ignored (e.g. assonances should be translated by assonances, rich rhymes aby rich rhymes etc.). With puns , the comic translators suggest either extirpation and replacement by a brand new expression or recommend judging them on case by case basis. According to the translators, compensation somewhere else in the text is not possible here since the translator must adhere to the graphic form. It must be followed regardless of getting away from the artwork. There are cases when a pun must be simply left out, e.g. when the drawing reflects a reference different from a Czech one – a proverb, saying or a concrete English word. As far as alliteration is concerned, Viktor Janiš marks that this translation problem is not influenced only by the target language available means but also by the plot (and the characters’ nature) and the graphic component (based on Levý 1958, 1983,
Newmark 1988, Podaný 2006 and Pavlovský 2004). Apart from the translation techniques mentioned above, I intend to explore the employment of compensation in for colloquiality, expressivity and formality.
3.1.2 Cultural Features in Translation Tudory
The category of the cultural issues includes names of characters (together with surnames, nicknames and titles), geographical and topographical names (encompassing cities, towns and their parts, states, rivers, islands etc.), culture bound expressions (e.g. food,
40 housing, organizations, concepts, customs etc.) and time bound expressions. Historical and cultural references, including allusions to books, songs, historical figures and other comic characters as well as numerous quotes from books and songs, also play an important part in the comic genre.
For this category an extensive number of possible treatments was provided by general translation theory. A specific term dependant on language, period or national setting is to be substituted by a domestic equivalent. Transliteration also suggests itself if the meaning of the form is absent. The substitution may lead to impoverishment which may be compensated elsewhere if the opportunity arises.
The form may be preserved with terms with original historical setting (such terms as rikshaw etc. for example), with terms denoting national and contemporary particularity, i.e. forms of names and ways of addressing. This strategy, known as transference, which gives rise to a loan word, applies also geographical and topographical names as well as to names of periodicals and newpapers .
The meanings for which no target language equivalents exist and which do not invoke the original setting can be substituted by neutral target language analogy. If the original setting cannot be represented, the translator should at least aim at the avoidance of a conflict with it.
The so called inserted explanatory notes are employed when a difficulty arises in translating references unknown to the target culture (e.g. historical references – newspaper titles, etc.). Explanatory items may also be added when translating ecological terms or unfindable words (e.g. proper names). Additional information, notes or glosses may also be supplemented with cultural, linguistic or technical terms . So called classifiers may accompany the translation of unknown geographical or medical terms .
41 In case when the temporal and territorial distance makes the impact of the original setting on a distinct society incomprehensible, explanation or suggestion supply translation. If the reader fails to get an idea expressed in the source text and accessible to the original readership, the explanation takes the lead. The suggestion gains ground when an idea cannot be fully expressed since the language itself has taken the place of the artistic means. Where the mother tongue lacks the counterpart of a foreign particular term, especially in the case of characteristic national terms , the way out of the problem lies in using a hyperonym, perhaps narrowed with a qualifying adjective. Generalization is sometimes unavoidable with local expressions which need to be substituted with the nation wide term. Moreover, so as to bridge the gap among the word stock of distinct languages, translators resort to the usage of stylistic commonplaces which show the impact of the original phrases.
Other strategies include free translation which means translating the content and ignoring the form or semantic translation which denotes the translation of less important cultural words by culturally neutral third or functional term. The so called functional equivalent may also be employed in the translation of semi cultural words , i.e. words dependant on a period, country or person – a category including ecology, material and social culture, organisations, customs, activities, procedures, concepts as well as gestures and habits. For recognized titles of international organizations through translation may be the right method. The strategy is also employed with titles of untranslated literary works and films, of private companies and institutions, public and nationalized institutions, of streets and addresses. The above mentioned transference may, together with conversion, applied to weights and measures, currencies and quantities . A descriptive term may stand for acronyms and also for personal and brand names eponyms . The last named category may be dealt with by means of a denotative term. The translation of new brand/trade names and not very well known geographical eponyms may be achieved through the use of a generic term. Last but not least,
42 neutralization (i.e. the use of functional or descriptive equivalent) may be applied to translation of cultural categories and use of standard equivalents may prove useful for translation of acronyms (based on Levý 1958, 1983 and Newmark 1988).
The following strategies can be derived from interviewing the translators: in case of cultural and historical references , a replacement by a better known in the target culture is recommended when one deals with an uknown reference. Unfortunately, the comic genre makes this practice more difficult as it is bound to the illustrations. One has to conform to what is in the picture. On the other hand, names should be preserved while taking Czech grammar rules into account when translating female surnames and titles: female surnames should adopt Czech endings. If a character’s name includes a degree , Czech degrees should be used. Nicknames should be translated if a reasonable translation is possible and if not translating them made a non speaker of the source language lose a certain sense. Quotations from other books which have not been translated into Czech become the domain of the translator’s skills and imaginations. The same holds if a song made up by the author appears in the text. Anything – from the exact quotation over translation to replacement by a target culture own song, poem tec. as long as it seems reasonable and functional. It is the effect which takes precedence.
An extremely important characteristic of the comic genre, mentioned by Mr.Podaný, is intertextuality which can be accounted for by the conditions in the USA in the 1930s. At that time the publishing houses stood as a master to the comic writers and could – due to the
American copyright law – move the comic characters and stories freely from one author to another. This has evolved into a practice of sharing comic characters and motives which has an impact on translating too. A translator can run across characters, motives, plots or the characters’ relationships that appeared in another comics translated into Czech. Such a situation requires respect of other translators’ work and solutions. The lookup of textual
43 fragments is a time consuming task, today considerably simplified by the internet. Still, it is often impossible to get to the original texts and the translator must rely on the amount of information available.
3.1.3 Technical Aspects of Comic Translation
The technical aspects revolve around the size, shape and colour of the speech ballons and frames, the size and type of font and their changes, the prospect of changing these characteristics and the possibility of overstretching their space or moving elsewhere. Changes such as shifting over words, expressions or sentences, omitting these or adding spaces are also taken into account. The comic writers are not very thrifty as far as lettering in the background is concerned which is something that can be classed within this category. I assume that the cases when the drawing conditions affect the actual translation or increase its lucidity are also a matter of the technical side of things.
The most important strategies concerning the technical aspect of comic translation are as follows: if the limited space of speech ballons appears to small for the conveying the thoughts expressed in the target language, manipulation with the ballon itself should be avoided as it is a part of the author’s intention. Due to the limited space of speech ballons the translator must pursue as concise an expression as possible since Czech translation are about 10 to 20% longer than the English originals.
With the existence of computer composition, no big difficulties arise in working with the text. Still, changes of the font size and spacing are preferred to that of the text. It it possible – with a text not fundamental for the meaning of the work – to fill the half empty ballon by expanding the idea or, vice versa, to abridge the text in a full up ballon. However, this should not be presumed on. With the text itself, it is the size only that can be subjected to changes.
Changing the the font size or the spaces between words and lines, however, this does not
44 produce enough space for inserting explanatory notes for unknown references. Any font devised by the comic writer must – as part of the artistic intention – be preserved. Of course, if the available graphic equipment enables this. The narrator’s voice which traditionally appears in a frame below the pictures should not exceed the allotted space or appear outside it if this means not following the original. The translator should avoid adding any explanatory text or comments at the bottom of the pages. The use of foot notes is not acceptable in translation of comics (based on Podaný 2006 and Pavlovský 2004).
In this chapter the information on the theoretical background was provided and my proceedings in conducting the interview with Mr. Podaný described. Drawing on these materials, three categories of translation problems were set up, the items included in them mentioned and the strategies suitable for dealing with them, which were suggested both by translation theoreticians and comic translators, were specified. The list of categories and strategies will serve as the basis for the analysis which follows in the subsequent chapters.
4 TRANSLATION ANALYSIS
The chapter to come will be practical since the analysis will finaly be conducted within its frame. The corpus is derived from three comic titles and their Czech translations:
Batman:The Dark Knight Returns , Garfield Gains Weight and The Sandman: Preludes &
Nocturnes . The publications include 224, 96 and 240 pages respectively. They will be subjected to thorough examination with the actual translation problems divided into three categories – linguistic, cultural and technical. The procedure will be as follows: the categories will come one at a time in a separate chapter, the items included specified, the employment of the strategies suggested in general translation theory and the strategies based on translation practice will be explored. Subsequently, some examples from the corpus will be provided and
45 an attempt at interpretation and conclusion made: whether the actual solutions correspond either to general translation theory or to the practical advice, what percentage of the solutions agrees with the general translation theory, what percentage departs from it and, consequently, what are the specific features of comic translation. It must be stressed out since we are dealing with comic translation – that the graphic aspect will also be taken into account.
Having done this with all the categories separately, the overall rating will be done, stating how many of the items debated conform to the general translation theory and what is the total percentage of comic translation specific solutions. In the end, the disclosed specific features of comic translation will be listed.
Let me note that some samples of the corpus will be for inspection in the appendix.
4.1 Linguistic Items in Analysis
The focus of the linguistic part of the analysis will be on two main scopes: the means of expressing the degree of formality, including both higher and lower (i.e. colloquial) degree, and stylistically active devices. It seems essential to note that the items classified within these two layers often overlap which accounts for the overlap of the layers as well.
The items contributing to the locution of a lower degree of formality include primarily expressions that are certainly not neutral – mostly nouns (e.g. “folks”, “fellow”, “chick”,
“stuff“, “things”, “piece” etc.), the ways of addressing (e.g. “man”, “buddy” or diminutive first names ended in –ie such as “Ralphie”) and word forms (“oughta”, “ain’t”, “kinda” etc.) including the use of incorrect verb forms which do not conform to the person (e.g. “don’t” for the third person, the omission of s ending in third person singular). Talking about the verbs, they are often completely omitted in sentences (as in “Just a movie”) or the omission is restricted to the auxiliary verbs such as to do, to be, to have or will. Frequently, subjects also get omitted, especially as far as “I” and “it” are concerned. This tendency is reinforced by
46 combining the omission of the subject with that of the verb. The colloquial speech gets also reflected in spelling which, in some cases, is based on the pronunciation (e.g. “wif”, “painin”,
“lookit” etc.). The same means serve to record accents or dialects. A very important part in colloquial speech is played by vulgarisms items that are also closely connected to stylistically active means of expression. Therefore it is hard to decide sometimes whether their use indicates colloquiality or expressive speech, often it is an overlap. The same pays for idioms and neologisms, therefore they will be debated within the passage on stylistically active devices. A word class that cannot go unnoticed in both colloquial and expressive speech is that of interjections. Another overlap to the category of stylistically marked is represented by specific word order or by diminutives.
Some of the items included also in higher degree of formality have already been mentioned in the previous paragraph: idioms, neologisms and specific word order. Typical of it is further the employment of third language expressions and terms as a part of technical language. Abundant in the formal passages are participles (often in the initial position), archaic and bookish expressions as well as the passive voice (e.g. “shall” or “thee”). The topic in focus affects the choice of words which tend to be less usual and stylistically higher.
The stylistically active means of expression also share some features with the preceding styles: ungrammatical forms, the omission of subjects and verbs , vulgarisms, idioms, neologisms (including compounds), interjections, diminutives and specific word order. Out of these neologisms and idioms will be debated within this chapter. Still, much more extensive enumeration is to follow. Among others, my corpus includes figurative expressions, sayings and comparisons and poetisms. Further up dated phrases were located in the corpus. Quite a number of characters could be distinguished by speech pecularities, e.g. stammering, slips of the tongue, wrong pronunciation, hissing or baby talk. Elongating or enumerating vowels with exclamations or singing have also appeared. Quite specific was also a sentence produced in
47 one breath. All of these were reflected in spelling. Alliteration and puns could also be spotted.
Forms certainly worth preserving are poems and separate rhymes. Another feature contributing to expressivity is accumulation of similar grammatical constructions, adjectives etc. and pairs of synonyms. A marked feature represents also a kind of childish talk that appeared in The Sandman and included a number of diminutives.
One more features was found which does not implicitly fall within the stylistic layers but does fall into linguistic point of view: the preservation of a certain number of characters .
This specific request emerged in Garfield in a scene where Jon is doing a crossword. At one moment he asks Garfield to help him with “a six letter word for pain”. In order to help him the cat bangs Jon which makes him cry out “Arrrgh!”. What follows is enquiring about the number of R’s. In the Czech version, the outcry goes “Auuuvá!” and the letter in question is
U. The reason why I am mentioning this here is the choice of the reccurrent letters in the target language since I gather that it would be more natural to use A’s instead of R’s.
4.1.1 Degrees of Formality
The following subchapter will be aimed at commenting on the means which affect the degrees of formality and on the translation methods adapted to them. Starting with the lower degree of formality and moving to its higher level, the approach toward the means will be debated and an interpretation made in terms of the comic translation strategy.
4.1.1.1 Lower Degree of Formality
As for the actual means of less formal ways of expression, these include mainly nouns
(e.g. “folks”, “man”, “guy” or “stuff”etc.), verbs (“chill”), adjectives and adverbs (“billy”,
“sure”, “good” etc.). In the majority of these colloquial expressions , colloquiality has been preserved in all three translations. To give an example, the expression “man” which has
48 remained colloquial in thirty three cases (translated as “vole”, “chlape” or “čéče”). In eleven instances a more neutral expression “pane” has been used while the expression has been omitted six times. If the degrese of informality appears lower when translating such expressions, it is either compensated elsewhere in the sentence (e.g. “The other guys have given up on you” is translated by “ostatní nad váma zlomili hůl”) or is justified by the situation (when some gang members in the Batman are trying to engage a man in a game of cards, they call him “pane” in Czech instead of the English “man” but since the man is not an acquaintance and their equal it is quite acceptable). Still, there are cases in which the chosen target language expressions do not quite fit in the tone of the text and I cannot say what led the translator to such a choice. When the Mutants in Batman ’s story – whose informal way of expressions goes through the whole narrative – employ the expression “kids” in the sentence
“They think we just noisy kids” (the verb is really missing here), the translation comes with
“Myslí si, že jsme jenom hlučná mládež”, a more formal result where this could be avoided. I provide the examples from the Batman as it is in Miller’s work where this happens most often. Generally, it can be said that the translators have gone for preservation of the degree of informality.
Another feature contributing to lower degrese of formality is the application of incorrect verbs forms : twenty three such forms have been indicated in the corpus. The overwheming majority has been corrected. Thus, “What you asks” has been made into “Co chceš”. In two examples the verb has been left out in the translation, for instance “(he) say” has been replaced by “prej”. In connection to the corrections made, alternate sources of colloquiality must have been found. As a result, in twelve cases the following means of compensation have been utilized: incorrect adverb and adjective forms (“prej” or “drsnej”), the insertion of the infix –ej in verbs (e.g. in “nejni”), the use of initial v in pronouns (“vona”) and adverbs
(“vocaď”), the addition of colloquial suffix to verbs (as in “přišels”), the addition of adverbs
49 (when the sentence “Leader peg Batman” has been made into “Ještě si Batmana podá”) and nouns in sentences (as in “My mon bats don’t shiv” translated by means of “Kecy, Batman nejni srab”), and – last but not least – the employment of more colloquial or stronger expressions (e.g. “don’t shiv” translated by “nemá nachcáno” as an example of the former or the use of “v životě” for “never” to illustrate the latter). The translators have adopted the same approach to the translation of such forms: the correction which has made the forms in question into natural shape in the target language. This was not the end of the things since the above mentioned means of compensation have been employed which resulted in the retention of the degree of informality.
The instance of totally omitted verbs have reached the number of thirty four. In twenty four of such sentences a verb has been added in the translation. Thus into the sentence
“Robbery in progress” the verb “probíhá” has been added, producing the result “Právě probíhá loupež”. Ten of the sentences have been left verbless, e.g. in “We mutants!” (“My mutanti”) or in “All cool here” (“Všechno v klídku”). In four of the sentences into which a verb has been added – and in ten sentences altogether – means compensating colloquial speech have been employed. In order to provide an example, let me quote the sentence “We behind quota” which has been translated as “Sme pozadu za kvótou”. It is the colloquial form of the verb “sme” where the initial j has been left out which serves as the means here.
The omission of auxiliary verbs has reached a considerably higher figure – that of ninety seven. In majority of the examples, the verb has been either supplemented or a neutral target language form has been adopted or else a correct tense has been filled in. These techniques have been employed in eighty six cases. The filling in of a correct tense has been made use of in the sentence “I be callin” which has been substituted by “Zavolám”. Nine times the verb has been omitted completely, e.g. in “you long gone” translated as “vy dávno pryč” or in “feeling all sorry for yourself” which has come out as “celej obolavělej” in the
50 target language. In one case a mere infinitive has been employed in Czech – when “Co takhle zajít na tenis?” stood for “Fancy a game of tennis?”. A complete omission of the sentence could be encountered with “We takin a ride”. The degree of colloquiality resulting from the omissions of auxiliary verbs had to be made up for by different means in Czech. The following means have been adopted for this aim: colloquial verb endings where the final –e is omitted (e.g. in “utečem”), colloquial adjective ending –ej (“dobrej”), the insertion of the infix
–ej in pronouns (“svejch”), the insertion of v at the beginning of verbs or adverbs
(“vopruzuješ” or “vocaď”) and the increase of the degree of colloquiality in verbs, nouns and vulgarisms (in translating “face” as “ksicht”, “play ball” as začutat” or “shit” as “kurva”).
As far as the omitted subjects are concerned, one hundred and fourty eight such instances have been found in the corpus. In fifteen of the cases the subject has been supplemented, either by adding a general “it” (e.g. when translating “Should be” as “Mělo by to”), by putting another word in the given sentence into the position of subject (this was done with “heart” in the sentence “Breaks your heart”, resulting in “Srdce z toho puká”) or by deciphering the subject from the context (“Sure kept the hospitals busy” has been put as “V nemocnicích byli kvůli němu doktoři v jednom kole”). One hundred and eighteen of subjectless sentences have been kept subjectless; however, one must not fail to notice the difference between English and Czech subjectless sentences the latter of which are unmarked.
Thus – as before – compensation must have been employed here to convey colloquiality.
Similarly to its employment above, colloquial adjective, adverb and verb endings have appeared (“máme tady dva tuhý”, “taky” or “miluju”), the infix –ej has been inserted into verbs (“bejt”) or nouns (“tejden”) and the suffix –s has been added to verb forms (as in
“zařídils”). Further, the shortening of vowels (e.g. in “nevidim”), the addition of adverbs in sentences (in the Czech version of “can’t believe” appears the adverb “pořád”) and the use of stronger expressions (e.g. putting “never” as “v životě” or “second” as “vteřinka”). Another
51 procedure here was the production of verbless sentences – fourteen of them have been encountered. A nice example could be found in Garfield where the sentence “Must be a porcupine” has been translated as “Zřejmě dikobraz”. Compensation has also played its part here, insisting mainly in the employment of more colloquial expressions when compared to the original (e.g. “Figure” has been changed into “Kór” or “Fakt”). In one case the subjectless sentence has been left out completely.
Apart from the omissions of these word classes, sentences have appeared in which both subject and verb have been unexpressed . In seventy five cases of the total one hundred and thirty three the verb has been supplemented or a natural target language form has been adopted or else a correct tense has been filled in while preserving the omission of the subject.
For example, the question “Promise?” has been transferred into target language “Slibuješ?”.
In mere thirty cases both the subject and verb have been filled in. As ane example the sentence “Nice to have you back” which has been substituted by “To je prima, že ses vrátil” can be given. The remaining twenty eight cases represent sentences which are either verbless
(twenty five) or which contain an infinitive (three) in the target langauge. The verbless sentence is represented e.g. by translating “Been a long time” as “Už hodně dlouho”, the use of the infinitive form by the sentence “Hard to tell” which has given rise to “Těžko říct” in
Czech. Again, the use of compensation showed itself unavoidable if the degree of colloquiality was to be preserved. This time the means included the use of colloquial adjective endings (as in “dost dobrý”) or the employment of stronger target expressions (e.g. when translating “lucky” as “klika” or “gone billy” as “totální magor”).
Except these categorie, dropped out prepositions, conjunctions and articles could be noticed. This has been ecountered four times with prepositions while they were supplemented in one case (“New Years’s Eve I blew” – “Na Novej rok jsem schrastil”), substituted by a correct form in the latter (“Hell with that” translated as “Kašli na ni”) and
52 compensated for on the remaining occassions when “half my class” has been made into
“půlka mojí třídy” and “course” replaced by “jasan”. In all three instances of omitted conjuctions these were supplemented (e.g. in “You do that too much” where “když” was added in the translation “Když to přeženeš”). Only once the colloquiality resulting from the omission has been compensated for: “Anything moves” has been put as “Esli se něco pohne” in which “esli” reflects the actual pronounciation in colloquial speech. Also with the omitted articles the degree of colloquialiy gets lost in five of six cases. Merely in the remaining one compensation gets employed when adding “ale” into the translation of “Deal is” by “Ale ty mi slib”).
All in all, the word classes omitted have generally been supplemented by which neutral target language forms have been produced – or rather would have been were it not for the employment of compensation devices mentioned in five preceding paragaraphs which resulted in the preservation of informality. The marked form has only been kept in fourty three cases. Although with the subjectless sentence one hundred and eighteen of them have been preserved, it has been explained above that Czech subjectless sentence are rather neutral.
The instance when the omitted items have not been preserved can be accounted for by the demand for naturalness in the target language.
Marked spelling as the means of conveying colloquiality could be noticed in one hundred and twenty three cases out of which ninety four instances have been neutralized.
With four omissions (two of which encompass an expression that is also neutralized) the count of twenty seven remains for which the marked spelling has been reflected. The translation of “I dunno” as “Nevim” or “Huntoon sez” as “Huntoon řek” can serve as nice examples. It is clear from the proportion that the spelling is not as functional a tool of colloquiality in Czech as in English which implies that different means must be employed.
Therefore, compensation takes the lead again, including the increase of the degree of
53 colloquiality in verbs, nouns, adjectives and vulgarisms (when translating “I’m telling you” as
“Nekecám”, “customuh” as “kunčoft”, “’E’s crazy” as “Pošuk” or “messin wif me” as “srát mě”), the insertion of adverbs (as in “fakt nevim”) and pronouns (e.g. in “Cože to uděláš?”), the use of inverted word order (“Bet” as “Bych se vsadil”) and the employment of foreign expressions (for example “Sorry” in the place of “ ’fraid”).
One hundred and eighty five instances of swear words and vulgarisms have been encountered in the corpus out of which some recur, including mainly “damn”, “bastard”,
“bitch” and “idiot”. In sixteen cases such expressions have even been intensified. A recurring example is the translation of “bastard” – which is rather a mild swear word as “hajzl” or
“sráč”. Another nice exempla could be found in Batman where the expression “you soft glob of snot” was translated as “ty holube zelenej uválenej”. Although in English “snot” is a familiar name for a snivel, Czech expression “holub” appears stronger. On the other hand, in fourteen cases euphemisms have been employed, with “damn” as a representative e.g. in the translation of“damn thing” as “vůbec nic” in which the element of vulgarity withers away.
Another example can be given by translating “son of a bitch” as “blbec”. Moreover, four instances of ommision have appeared in the translation of swear words and vulgarisms.
Altogether it is the use of target language equivalents (eighty three), as in “hell with that” which was translated as “kašli na ni” or in “those assholes” which was transferred as “ty kreténi”, or the employment of different expressions which, however, retain the degree of vulgarity or (at least) stylistic activity (thirty six). Such expressions, although they may seem less vulgar, still function quite well in the context. The translation of “That’s no damn good“ by “To je na pytel” seems a nice example to me.
Although the usage of vulgarisms differs in English and Czech in terms of acceptability and force, most such expressions have been preserved in the translations since their employment is quite characteristic of the comic genre. On the other hand milder expressions
54 have been employed for the reason of different attitude of the two cultures. The contrary, however, also holds when the target language items appear stronger than those in the source text. All in all, it can be said that the translators either hold on to the role played by vulgarisms or choose to retain the nature of the text by other means.
In all three comic books one thousand and twenty four interjections have been found and their translations examined. The majority of them – six hundred and fourty – have been substituted by a target language equivalent; e.g. “bang”, standing for the sound of a shoot, by
“prásk” or “oh”, signifying surprise, by “ó”. Three hundred and twenty seven of the total number of interjections have been preserved in the original form, including e.g. “hmmm”,
“ssskkkkreeeechch” or “ ehh”. Mere twenty five were extirpated and replaced in a different way, nice example represented by the translation of “eh” as “co říkáš” or of “yeah” by
“rozumím”. Finally, thirty two of the interjections were omitted in translations – mostly for the benefit of the fluency and naturalness of speech. Thus, the interjections as another characteristic feature of the comic genre (since they are connected to action – e.g. fights – which appears quite abundant in comic books) have mostly been retained.
Marked word order has been represented by eighty three instances of specific word sequences out of which for fourty the markedness has been preserved by means of word order that correspond to Czech usage. For instance, “And have I my umbrella?” has been substituted by “A mám já s sebou deštník?”. The markedness has also been kept in other five cases, although this has been achieved by insertion of other lexical items. Thus the sentence
“Me, I can’t look” has been nicely translated into “Jakmile se třeba podívám”. One one occassion the markedness has been conveyed by different means when in the translation of the sentence “If not for the boy” the accusative form has been employed with the noun
(“Kdyby nebylo toho chlapce ”). Whole of thirty seven items appear unmarked in their translation: for example, the sentence “Never again will I allow myself to get that fat” has
55 been watered down into “Už nikdy nedopustím, abych takhle ztloustnul”. The result that about a half of the examples functions as neutral in the target language follows from the varying degree os sensitivity to the changes in word order which is greater in English than in
Czech.
As for diminutives , they have reached fifty four in number. In three cases, the diminutives have been omitted in translation, in another even an augmentative has emerged
(when “granny” was replaced by “babka” – however, since the granny in question was not too nice a person, one cannot say that its employment was totally out of place). Seven of the diminutive items have been translated by neutral expressions (i.e. neutral in terms of diminutiveness) in the target language, e.g. “doggie” by “psí” or “doc” by “doktorko”. Six times it was the expression “little” combined with a noun (“paws”, “buddy”, “ol’ me”,
“brother”, “love” and “boy”) that served as the means conveying diminutiveness. With three of the examples a diminutive suffix has been added in translation (e.g. in “maličká” in place of “little ol’ me”), twice merely the noun has been translated (“kamaráde” instead of “little buddy” and “lásko” for “love”), this being included in the neutral solutions. The remaining example – “little boy” – has been left out on one occasion and substituted by neutral target language equivalent “kluk” on another. As with swear words and vulgarisms, the majority of diminutives (thirty one) have been substituted by a target language equivalent. In order to provide some examples, let me quote “my ducks”, translated as “zlatíčko”, “sweatheart” substituted by “drahoušku” or “dearie” replaced by “broučku”. The diminutive form has been applied also to sixteen of the characters’ first names out of which twelve have been preserved in the original form (e.g. “Ralphie”, “Morrie” or “Joannie”). All in all, the translation strategy favoured the employment of target language diminutives. In case this has not happened, this was either due to the differences between the languages (we have no “doc” equivalent in our language and what is “little” in English is not necessarily such in Czech) or it can be justified
56 by the consideration of the speaker (if the narrator in the Sandman refers to a “baby” it can be translated by “dítě” without raising any principal objections unlike when this should be done by a character noted for childish or affective ways of expressions).
Let me now say a few more words of the means of compensation for colloquiality .
Some have already been debated in relation to actual lexical items but – since more such strategies have been utilized – I would like to go into more detail. The above mentioned colloquial endings include also verb endings, e.g. ej (“vylepšej”), á (“kopá”), aj (“sykaj”), u (“potřebuju”) and ou (“zabijou”). Apart from verbs, the endings concern also nouns (e.g. ema as in “teploušema” or oj as in “doktoroj”) and pronouns (e.g. in “tvý velikosti”). Other kind of suffixes are so called empty suffixes, as ka (“dneska”), hle (“tohle”), ty (“tamty”) or
ky (“vždycky”). Further, colloquiality gets conveyed by elongation of vowels (e.g. “Jéžiši”) or by the employment of cases (for instance in the expression “kouska zdvořilosti”). In verbs the auxiliary verbs often get omitted: “já věděl” or “já hrál férově”. Shortening of vowels is another means – verbs such as “nevim” or “platim” could be noticed. A frequent means is also the employment of more colloquial lexical items (e.g “kilák”, “jenom” or “co” instead of
“který”). Further, more expressive words (e.g. “liquid” translated as “břečka”), more colloquial expressions (e.g. when “girlfriend” gets translated as “kočka”) and diminutives appear (“klídek” replaces “chill out” etc.). The preservation of a source language word
(e.g.“cool”) or the utilization of a different person (as in translation of “y’know” by “víme”) also contribute to colloquial style.
The issues relevant in the translation of lower degree of formality have been comprised by now, therefore we can proceed to subconclusion of this issue. After providing the percentage results of linguistic analysis, I intend to comment on the translation methods upon the whole: on the items preserved, on the features unreflected in translation and the
57 motivation behind the translation solutions.
The incorrect verb forms have been corrected in 91.3%; mere 8.7% have been left verbless. The omitted items have been supplemented, corrected or in other ways neutralized in 84.2%. The marked form has been preserved in mere 14.3%, mainly by means of retaining the forms containing omissions. Still, other sources of markedness have been utilized which have been commented on in the passage on omissions. Marked spelling has been reflected in mere 20.4%. While 3.2% have been omitted, the remaining 76.4% have been replaced by neutral target language forms. For vulgarisms , in 44.9% a target language equivalent has been employed. In 7.6% of cases an euphemism has been given the way while intensification represents 8.6% of the solutions. The preservation of the degree of colloquiality and stylistic activity achieved by the use of other vulgarisms or alternative means amounts to 36.2%. For marked word order the proportions of preservation and neutralization have been almost equal, with the marked form reaching slightly higher percentage of 48.2%. Another 44.6% is left for the unmarked form. With diminutives , 57.4% have been translated by means of a diminutive target language equivalent. In 13% the neutral target language analogy was the solution. 22.2% have been constituted by diminutive names which have been preserved in the original form. Specific requirements have been imposed on the translation of interjections ; however, they have been met in only 2.5% of the occurrences. Further, 62.5% have been substituted and 31.9% employed formal preservation.
The items generally preserved in the target texts include in particular isolated colloquial expressions, vulgarisms, interjections and diminutives. On the other hand, incorrect verb forms, omissions and marked spelling have been mostly substituted by neutral forms.
In case different translation methods have been adopted to the generally preserved items, this has been mostly justified by the differences between the languages: for instance, the use
58 of incorrect verbs forms or the employment of omissions is not too a common means of expressing lower degrees of formality. Thus, with these forms corrections have either been made, missing items supplemented or neutral forms employed. This pays also to marked spelling which appears much more common in English than in Czech and also possess more means to convey it. Other reasons include fluency and naturalness (with interjections), non existence of target language counterparts (with diminutives), the different position of the phenomenon in the target language (including e.g. different sensitivity to marked word order or vulgarisms with which euphemisms get often employed). The context also has impact on the process of translation, for instance in the translation of isolated colloquial expressions or diminutives where the person employing them affects the translation. It was mentioned above that sometimes the motive for the translation of the isolated expressions seemed rather unclear to me, however, since this happened in Batman only (and was not frequent), it has no great importance. One more important point must be made here, concerning the use of compensation in places where the resulting degree of formality differs from that of the source text. This hold above all for the colloquial expressions, instances of omission, marked spelling and vulgarisms. As for marked word order, it can be said to fall into both options, approximately half and half.
Out of the items that have usually not been preserved in the target text, some can be partly set apart since they have – on some occassions – been preserved. This applies to the verbless sentences, to the omission of auxiliary verbs and combined omission of subjects and verbs in case this is distinctively marked in the source text (as in the primitive speech of the
Mutants in Batman ’s story) or represents a common feature in the target language and its preservation does not have anglicizing effect, e.g. with preservation of verbless sentences on some occassions (as when the sentence “Must be a porcupine” gets translated by “Zřejmě dikobraz”), or with the omission of subjects which, however, does not stand for a marked
59 feature in Czech. The above mentioned marked spelling may also be preserved provided this is facilitated by the target language.
Two very specific features of comic translation have been encountered throughout the analysis by the author of the thesis: the translation of vulgarisms, swear words and interjections. The translation approach toward these items differs considerably from that of general translation theory on grounds of the special emphasis put on them in comic writing.
This stress leads to the high degree of preservartion of these items, not only by target language counterparts but also in their original form (pays exclusively for interjections). The reasons are numerous: the non existence of target language equivalents, their comprehensibility even if preserved in the original form or the communication of the cultural esprit. The roots may also lie in technical aspect as the preservation of the interjections that can be found in the background in the original form may save a lot of effort that has to be devoted to their replacement by domestic equivalent. The role played by swear words and vulgarisms in comic literature justifies also their intensification in translation which is something not very common in general literary translation.
The preceding subchapter has debated the features relevant for the lower degree of formality, the translation methods adopted to them and their resulting ratios. The conclusion renders commentary on the overall translation strategy and the specificity of comic translation in this respect.
4.1.1.2 Higher Degree of Formality
The following section will focus on the features conveying higher level of formality , the translation methods employed with them and their percentage results. Taking these into consideration, the overall translation approach will be given an account of.
60 Specific word order as one of the features has already been debated within the preceding paragraphs, other characteristics will be explored within the chapter on stylistically active devices. This applies to neologisms, idioms, puns, rhymes, accumulations and pairs of synonyms. Hence, I will not go into them repeatedly or ahead of schedule and my attention will be paid to third language expressions and terms, the use of stylistically higher expressions, archaic and bookish expressions, the employment of participles and of the passive voice.
With respect to third language expressions , seven have been encountered in the corpus. Three of them could, though, be also considered matter of terminology since they represent Latin names of phobias (e.g. “iatrophobia”). These will be included in the paragraph devoted to terminology. Thus we are left with four such expressions. In accordance with the recommended translation procedures, three of the three expressions have been preserved in the original form: “deja vu”, “encephalitis lethargica” and Latin term “strepens” which is in the original as well as in the target text accompanied by translation into the language in question. The remaining expression “nom de crime” has been replaced by target language equivalent “zločinecký pseudonym”. The preservation of such expressions is affected by their establishment in the languages: while “deja vu” appears quite often in both of them, the situation with “nom de crime” is different: the expression is not too common in English and rather rare in Czech.
The occurrence of terminology showed itself to be more abundant with one hundred and twenty five terminological items. The overwhelming majority (one hundred and twenty three) has been translated by target language equivalent. Let me note that with the Latin terms
Czech spelling has been adopted. Two of the terms have been explained, nice example being
“shell shock” that has been put as “nervové zhroucení po dělostřelecké palbě”. One of the chemical terms has been left out in translation. Generally, the degree of formality set by the
61 employment of terminology has been preserved by the translators. When a different procedure is adopted, it is required by the character and potentiality of Czech language.
Out of the one hundred and fourty eight stylistically higher expressions for one hundred and fourty five the higher level has been preserved – for instance “categorically” has been substituted by “pouze” or “being” by “bytost”. In mere three instances neutralization has taken place and the level has been lost. Thus the “beings” mentioned above have been made into “obyvatelé”.
Seven archaic or bookish expressions have entered the texts. Out of five archaisms mere two have been substituted by corresponding archaic forms in the target language: “o’er yon knoll” by “za oním pahorkem” and “may” by “nechť”. Two bookish expressions diversify the text, “steed” and “boon” with only the first one mentioned substituted by a bookish equivalent (“oř”). In this case, the properties of the target language impose limitations on the translation of such terms since no corresponding terms (within the scope of archaicity) for the expressions as “thou”, “shan’t” or “shall” can be found.
Participles play a very important role in formal style; however, since the usage and the degrees of naturalness and acceptance differ in English and Czech language, they have mostly been transfered into finite verb forms. This approach has been adopted in ninety eight out of one hundred and twenty two total occurrences. Thus e.g. “muttering and sighing” in the narrator’s sentence “She used to sleep, to shift in her dreams, muttering and sighing, locked in half remembered fantasies” has been replaced by “mumlala a vzdychala”. Only on one occassion the participle has been preserved. Apart from four omissions, nineteen cases of different translation solutions have occurred. To provide you with an example, let me mention
“hating” which has been transfered into “s nenávistí v srdci”. In case a participle appared in the initial sentence position, this has always been changed in the target language. It follows quite clearly from the translators’ solutions that participles are not anymore a common feature
62 of Czech language. Although they are very formal, they have mostly been replaced by diverse forms and other means have been employed for conveying the higher degrese of formality.
It is the equal proportion of preservation and replacement which pays more or less for the passive voice . In fifty two cases the passive has been substituted by Czech passive forms while the active form has taken the lead in sixty one cases. Twice the passive voice has been omitted completely. The alternate translation procedures which have also played their part here applied on eleven occassions (e.g. “is said” has been made into “údajně”). The passive voice can be said to play more active role as formal means than the participles when the number of the cases preserved is compared to that of participles. Still, slightly more often the active form replaces it in the translations, this being motivated by the target language itself and its naturalness (e.g. “to be born” will always be “narodit se” in Czech or the sentence “as this blood is shed” the natural translation is rather “jakož já prolévám tuto” than the passive
“je prolévána” as it is “policie nachází” for “are being found by the police”). The same reason pays for the use of translation alternatives.
Two more features which contribute to formality of expression could be noticed in the corpus: causal relations with omitted conjunctions and sometimes verbs and sentence with
“despite” in the initial positon , containing no verb. In the first case both the conjunction and the verb have been supplemented in the translation process. Such a construction as “…, a flaming coffin” has resulted in “…a stal se ohnivou rakví”. With the latter kind of sentence, the substitution by a verbal sentence has taken place.
Let me make one more remark concerning the features of formal style: characteristic of it are also the length of sentence, adjunction by the use of adjectives, synonyms and accumulation of lexical items, pauses and inserted sentence or clauses. The translations have usually gone for their preservation.
63 As far as the means by which the lack of participles, passives etc. gets compensated for in Czech, the following can be mentioned: the use of stylistically higher and formal lexical items such as pronouns (e.g. nichž”, jehož”, jež”, mne”, čímž” etc.), shortened forms of adjectives (“vítán” or “laskava”), nouns (šaty”), verbs (“zemřít” in place of “die” or “zřít” in place of “see”), adverbs (více”, příliš”, vskutku” or tedy”), conjunctions (e.g. “neboť”,
“vždyť” or “pročež”) and particles (“nechť”). The word order also asserts itself in numerals
(třiaosmdesát) or with the combination of nouns and adjectives (as in “hordy pekelné”).
Archaic expressions are also contributory, e.g. “jest” or “budiž”. Further, the use of –li in conditionals or the imperative forms of first person plural (as in “začněme”) reinforces formality. The endings in addressing people also appear useful, just take the expression
“smrtelníče”. The case forms – namely the instrumental – can also be taken into account (e.g. when saying that “svět je hezčím místem k žití”). The passive construction are often recompensated for by the impersonal constructions in third person singular (e.g. “má se za to” or “dává se to do souvislosti”). Last but not least, the replacement by more formal expressions gets employed as in the translation of “because” by “neboť” or of “I think” by “obávám se”.
Let me now present the percentage results and conclude the translator’ attitude toward the translation of formal language .
With third language expressions , the preservation has been chosen in 75%. The remnant encompasses target language equivalents. In overwhelming 98.4% of terms target language equivalent has been employed. 98% of the stylistically higher expressions have been substituted by corresponding target language equivalent. In the remnant 2% neutralization has taken the lead. Archaic and bookish expressions have been substituted in
42.8% of the cases; the rest being epresented by neutral target language analogy. Participles have mostly been replaced by different means in the translations, either by finite verb forms
64 (80.3%) or by other means such as nouns etc. (15.6%). The preservation of the form amounts to 0.8% which equates one occurrence. The passives have been preserved much more often, in 41.3%. The replacement by active forms occurred in 48.4%. Were it not for the percentage of solutions by other means such as adverbs (8.7%), the numbers would correspond even more.
If it was enabled by the target language (.i.e. the forms in question have been acceptable and associated with the given level of formality) and by the demands of naturalness of expression, formal features have been reflected in the target language. This pays above all to use of terminology, stylistically higher expressions and the passive voice. With less common forms or those that are lacking marked target language counterparts neutral target language equivalents have mostly been employed. Alternace sources of formal speech have been utilized where the posibility to employ the source language features did not arise. In this respect, the comic translation does not differ considerably from literary translation in general.
The subchapter focused on the degrees of formality dwelled on the features falling under the higher degree, the translation procedures employed with them while attempting to bring the percentual results and the evaluation of the translation strategies.
4.1.2 Stylistically Active Devices
As with the preceding category of formality, the features contributing to stylistic affect will be debated together with the translation approaches toward them and the overall translation strategy will be characterized while providing the percentage results.
The opening of the section on higher level of formality drew our attention to the features shared by it with the expressive speech: neologisms, idioms, puns, rhymes, accumulations and pairs of synonyms. At last the time has come to pay our attention to them. As was signalized
65 before, expressive speech shares some features with the colloquial ways of expression. These features, including the use of ungrammatical forms, the omission of subjects and verbs, vulgarisms, idioms, interjections, specific word order and diminutives, will not be repeated here.
Let me begin the analysis with neological compounds such as “prey stalking” or
“space floating”: thirteen such compounds have arisen in the corpus. One more has appeared with the expression “nowhere at all”. Unfortunately, Czech language cannot recreate such a kind of neologisms, therefore they must have been expressed in a different way while the neologicity gets lost. Seven times the neologism is replaced by a separate sentence – thus
“hunter throwing” is replaced by the sentence “a způsobí tak pád jezdce”. Four of the neologisms are translated by means of adjectives, e.g. “warm life destroying” by “ničící vše
živé”. Once an adverb gets employed – when the expression “horse mounted” is replaced by
“na koni”. The last instance, “life nurturing” is transfered into Czech by means of a noun
“semeniště života”. Functional equivalent can be said to be employed in translating “nowhere at all” as “Nemanice”. Apart from these, other seventeen neologisms have turned up in the corpus. The majority of the solutions agrees with translation theoreticians and practitioners since fourteen out of the total of seventeen are substituted by Czech neologisms. Let me give the following example: when Garfield replies to the postman’s remark that he knows karate by saying that he knows “fast and furious”, its Czech counterpart warns the postman that he knows “kočkate”. With “Batmobile” the original expression is in fact preserved since only the final e has been removed in Czech “Batmobil”. With one of the neologisms its character withers away: when the expression “eyuuh yourself” is translated into “dělej si jů na sebe”.
The remaining neologism has been left out. Neologisms as such get reflected in the target language by means of creating Czech neological counterparts. Nevertheless, the situation is very different with neological compunds for the expression of which there are hardly any
66 means available in Czech.
Fourty six instances of idioms have been found out in the corpus. With twenty nine of them, Czech idiom has been employed. Idioms for which Czech target equivalents are apparently existent include for example “keep your hands off” (“dáš ruce pryč”) or “to have a back door” (“nechat si zadní vrátka). Neutral target language analogy has also been utilized in fourteen cases when the meaning of the idiom has been explained without preserving idiomatic form. Thus “hot on the heels” has been translated as “bezprostředně”. One instance of literal translation appeared: the idiom “Cat got your tongue? ”, meaning why are you not speaking, has been put literally as “Sežrala ti kočka jazyk?” since it has no target language equivalent. Further, another such idiom with no Czech equivalent has been omitted: “right off the bat”.
As for figurative expressions , seven instances have been indicated in the corpus. In four cases figurative expressions have been substituted by target language figurative counterparts.
Nice examples can be provided by “He will have our heads” which has been replaced by
“Vychutná si nás” or by “a heartbeat from” which has been translated as “jen krůček od”.
With the remaining expressions neutral target language analogy has been utilized. Therefore, the expression “Smells are a hotline to memory”, which is hard to convey in Czech, has been translated as “Pachy tak rychle evokují vzpomínky” which waters the figurativeness down completely. Another example, wording “No hand were lost” has been replaced by “Žádné ztráty na životech”.
With both metaphors and figurative expressions, the translation strategy has been influenced by existence or non existence of such items in the target language. In most cases a similar expression could be found there and thus it was employed. Only once this potential has not been taken advantage of when “keep an on eye” has been made into “mít na starosti” which is a neutral expression in Czech.
67 What follows are sayings and comparisons . The first ones mentioned are rather scarce with only four representatives. On the top of that, with one of the sayings updatedness has been employed. The saying in question “The mouth is quicker than the hand” – is based on an existing saying “The hand is quicker than the eye”. The Czech translation also reminds an existing Czech saying, although more by the construction than by meaning: the translation goes “Tlama rychlejší ruky” which reminds one of “Ráno moudřejší večera”. Two have been substituted by a Czech counterpart, one of them translated as follows: “A watched pot never boils” by “Hlídané poupě nikdy nekvete”. For the remaining one (“it’s not my row to hoe”) no target language equivalent exists and the translator went for “S tímhle se musí poprat někdo jiný” – a solution that is not neutral and thus contributes to stylistical layer of expression. The comparisons have reached the amount of 56. Most of them – 49 – are comparisons used once, as such these were translated literally (e.g. “like a cranky old man” has been substituted by “jako mrzutý stařík”). Three of the comparisons have had their target language equivalents which have been employed. To provide an example let me quote “as white as sheet” the equivalent of which is “zblednout jako stěna”. Four more comparions found in the corpus have been replaced by neutral language analogy (e.g. when “like goodyear” has been transfered into “jako pneumatika”). In the last case, a more expressive item has been added in the process of translation: “Like they have all the time in the world” was intensified in the solution “Jako by měly moře času”. The stylistic contribution of sayings and comparisons has mostly been kept in the target language since this is a category that is quite well represented in it. If this shows impossible, it is either on grounds of comprehensibility or of the lack of target language counterpart. In such a case the translators either opt for neutral target language analogy or make up for the stylistically active elements by other means.
Strong poetic passages centred around the description of nature play its part in
Garfield ’s stories. Similarly to the previous category, no big problems arise here for the Czech
68 language. Therefore, all the instances of poetics are substituted in the target language
“Mother Nature” is preserved as “Matka Příroda”, so are the “soft spring zephyrs” (“jemný jarní vánek”) or “to paint the dawn” (“namalovat ten úsvit”). Moreover, the translator has taken advantage of the hidden potential of Czech language and also employs intensification of the poetics by translating “test their lifting voices” by “zkouší si své trylky” or “fledgling songbirds” by “ptáčci zpěváčci”.
The corpus includes two representatives of updatedness : one is a saying that was mentioned above, the other one is a paraphrase of the famous Armstrong’s sentence “A small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind”. Garfield the cat updates it when breaking a particularly awful vase and saying “ One small push for a cat, one giant leap for good taste”.
The updating has been preserved with the result “Malý krok pro kočku, velký skok pro dobrý vkus”. The translation strategy can be defined by preservation for this stylistic feature.
Let’s focus on speech pecularities now. Quite a number of them could be indicated in the texts, including stammering, baby talk, hissing and accumulation of sounds, slips of tongue and wrong pronounciation. It applies uniformly to all the deviations that they are either substituted by target language equivalents or compensated for elsewhere. Besides, the compensation applies also in places where no such abnormalities occur. The stammering has come up twenty three times out of which in twenty occurrences have been substituted in the target language (as in “wh..where” “kd..kde” or in “v very” “v velmi”) and two were normalized (e.g. “ter terrifying” has been made into “taková hrůza”). The baby talk made itself felt in Garfield , for example by means of the word “tat” instead of “cat” or “wooking” for “looking”. It has been substituted in Czech words “byš”, “mlíško” and “blbešku”. Eight instances of slips of tongue have turned up in The Sandman : four of them have been preserved by the same means (e.g. in “tuh take” which has been transfered into “vaz vezměte”) while the remaining four have been compensated for by use of stammering. Thus
69 the slip “ruh really” has been replaced by “je jenom”. The hissing is based on the accumulation of s and z sounds (ss, sz and sss) which gets reflected in Czech by accumulation of s , z and š sounds (sss, ššš, zzz). For instance, the sentence “Thisss amulet will makes ssafe from anysszingggs” has been substituted by “Noss tenhle amulet a budeššš v naprossstém bezzzpečí”. Apart from the accumulation of s sounds other sounds gather:
“bbb” as in “bbbut”, “mmm” as in “ triummmvirate”, “ vvv” as in “ovvv”, “zzz” as in
“nezzzer” and “szzz” as in “It’szzzz”. Out of these only “mmm” has been kept (e.g. in
“triummmvirát”), the remaining sounds being replaced by more natural target language equivalents: “jjj” (“jjjjediným”) and sss (“podsssvětí”). The above mentioned means of compensation used elsewhere in the text encompass “sss” (“sssměnil”), “ššš” (“chceššš”) and
“zzz” (“zzzpátky”). Finally, the wrong pronunciation follows from the use of “z” for “s”
(e.g. in “zhould”) and “th” (“zese”), “u” for “a” (“und”) and “o” (“uf”), “f ” for “v” (“haf ”) and “v” for “w” (“Volper”). Besides, the accumulation of m sound has turned up here, in the expression “blemmed” (meaning blamed). Out of these, only “z” for “s”, “f ” for “v” and “u” for “a” have been applied in Czech translation (e.g. in “zex”, “obfiňovat”, “fytěsňování” or
”und”). The means adopted in Czech in the place of the rest of the original sounds were “fj” for “v” (“fjénovat”), “f” for “w” (“Fólper”), “s” for “z” (“hrósna”) and the use of prolonged
“a” and “o” (“záse”, “Fólper”). Again, the potential for compensation has been put to use when “furt” has been added into the target language text. The lengthening and enumaration of wovels in exclamations and songs have been reflected in the translations, only that different sound were affected which was governed by naturalness. Thus, “Aaah” has been made into
“Aáách” or when the word ”dreeeeam” ”is sung in the original, the character in Czech sings
“snííííííííít”. A specific means appeared in the form of a sentence which was produced in one breath , this showing up in spelling by means of eliminating spaces between words. This specific feature has been preserved in the target text. A kind of dialect reflected in spelling
70 has come up only twice in The Sandman . No matter what the general and practical translation advice is, one has not been replaced by corresponding domestic equivalent as in this case no such equivalent exists due to the fact that it concerned the Cockney dialect. The sentence
“Hoh ’hits a jolly ’oliedye wiv yew, Mairee Pawpins!” has been replaced by “Na mou věru,
že si s vámi ty prázdniny užívám, Mary Poppinsová!” in which the insertion of “na mou věru” is the feature that at least partially compensates the loss. In the other case other means have been employed to convey the colloquiality, including the omission of the initial j (“sem”), shortening of vowels (“vim” or “myslim”), colloquial adjective endings (“posranýho”), wrong numerals (“dvě stá čtyrycet”) and the use of foreign lexical items (“járů” for “years”) The speech pecularities have but for three cases been substituted by target language devices with the equivalent function.
Alliteration – another characteristic feature of English – should not be ignored. Four occurrences could be noticed, all of them appearing in The Sandman . This feature has been preserved with two of them. A nice example is the following: “Names for gargoyles always begin with “G”. Like Gazpacho…or Gormagon..or Gladstone..or Ganymede”. The Czech version goes “Jména draků vždycky začínají na “D”. Jako třeba Daktyl, nebo Dugong, nebo
Disraeli, nebo Deimos”. Therefore, a dragon appearing in the comics is called “Goldie” in the original and “Drahoušek” in the translation. On two occassions, the alliteration has been preserved only partly: when dreaming of holidays, one of the characters envisions “sun… sea…sand…and surf”. His Czech counterpart then sees “slunce…moře…písek…příboj …a pak…” where the three occurrences of p sound in the initial position ensure at least partial preservation of the feature. The last instance of alliteration is related to the names of the
Endless (Sandman being one of them): Dream, Death, Despair, Destiny, Delirium, Desire and
Destruction. The Czech Endless bore the names Sen, Smrt, Zoufalství, Osud, Delirium, Touha and Zkáza. If interested in the translator’s grounds, you can learn more in the interview with
71 Viktor Janiš which will be provided in the appendix. The feature of alliteration is not scarce in
Czech language where it comes up mainly in poetry, therefore it will be functional if preserved in translation. This has most probably motivated the translators for its substitution by target language means wherever this appeared possible.
The following matter of interets is the use and translation of puns which have come up twelve times. The translators have succeeded in discovering a way to realize the puns in the target language. I consider a really nice example the following pun from Garfield : Jon says to his depressed cat that everybody sometimes passes through such bad moods which is called by psychologists “free floating anxiety” to which Garfield responses by throwing his food bowl at Jon while snapping out “free float this”. The Czech equivalent for the psychological term is “nekontrolované napětí” for which the selected translation “zkontroluj tohle” just suggest itself. On two occasions, the preservation of puns has been amplified by compensation. The pun “What do I call him? You don’t call him. They call you.” has been neatly intensified by saying “Jak mu mám říkat? Ten si nedá říkat dvakrát. A pak si to s tebou vyříká”. Before going into the other case of compensation, let me elucidate the setting. The scene is set in a restaurant where bad meal is served to the character who then complains of
“bad potato” which is translated as “zkažená”. The following sentence says “If that potato gives you any more trouble” the translation of which by “Kdyby vás ta brambora ještě sváděla” employs the sexual connotations which is not that explicit in the original. In short, the translators seek to preserve the existence of puns in the target language and do not dread their intensification if this is enabled by it.
Poems, rhymes and rhymed speech have entered the texts eleven times, with a poem representing only one of all the occurrences. All in all, the number of rhyme pairs has reached fifteen. Eleven of the instances are represented by full rhymes, to provide you with an example, let me quote the pairs “damnation” – “creation”, “door” and “whore” or “buddy” –
72 “muddy”. Three times the rhyme can be classified as rich (in which the stressed vowel and the preceding consonant base the rhyme) and once as consonant (“heart” – “night”). In the translation, five of the full rhymes get lost (e.g. “Blast from the past” is replaced by “No, je vidět, že stará láska nerezaví”) and three are translated by means of a rhyme that can be classified as less than full rhyme and as close to assonance (for instance the pair “toad” –
“road” by “plácku” – “placku”). This kind of rhyme is difficult to denote in English since it is non existent here. The rhyme pairs have remained full on one occasion only (with the pair
“door” – “more” which has been translated by “host” – “dost”). The remaining English full rhymes have been substituted by substandard rhymes: one by grammatical (“zatraceníi” –
“stvoření”), the other by not very precise full rhyme (“host” – “radost”). One of the rich rhymes also withers away in translation since “A real rave from the grave” has been in fact explained by the words “Tahle pamatuje hnědý uhlí”. The other “sway” – “away” has been replaced by a full rhyme “pomálu” – “kanálu”. The remaining rich rhyme has been translated by what can be described as “high degree of agreement close to rhyming” rhyme in which the base consonant does not correspond (in the place of the rhyme pair “custard” – “mustard” the translation brings “kakáči” – “fáči”, cf. Jiří Levy’s “postačující rým”). We find ourselves left with the consonant rhyme (“heart” – “night”) which has been replaced by assonance in the translation (“duši” – “poručí”).
Six times the use of rhymes in the original have been replaced by unrhymed expressions or sentences. The actual rhymes appearing in the corpus (rich, full and consonant) have been substituted by the corresponding form (e.g. rich rhyme by rich rhyme) in three of the pairs only; this being a request made by the comic translators. In the rest of the examples the rhyme pair have been replaced by a different kind of rhymes. The replacement by unrhymed constructions has occurred either with a kind of phrases that do not have a Czech equivalent (e.g. “oldie but goodie”) or in places where the preservation of rhymes have not
73 been that vital and also considerably difficult (for instance, when the Mutants in Batman say to themselves “slice and dice”).
The accumulation includes that of grammatical construction, of adjectives, verbs and nouns as well as the repetition of words, expressions and whole sentences. Altogether, two hundred and thirty five cases of such cumulation and reccurrence have been disclosed in the texts. Sixty one of them were represented by grammatical constructions, thirty two by accumulated adjectives,verbs or nouns and one hundred and fourty two by reccurent items.
Let me note that some of the instances have reappeared in the corpus, either since they fall into more than one category or they have been both translated by the same word or expression and replaced by a different one – their number has reached twenty nine. As for the grammatical constructions, fourty nine have been preserved while twelve have been not reflected in the translations. To provide the example of the latter, let me quote the sentence
“It’s midnight. It’s time” which has been made into “Je půlnoc. Přišel čas”. The preserved accumulated items have reached the number of twenty eight, thus leaving four for those left out (e.g. “dead things, damn things” have been translated as “mrtvol a prokletých”). The highest number has been reached by reccurrence out of which the majority of repetitions (one hundred and fifteen) has been kept. The non reflected expressions have counted the total of twenty seven. Generally, it can be concluded that the accumulated items have been preserved in clusters, repeated or the recurrent grammatical forms reflected in the target language. Were it not to be so, it was motivated either by the potentials of target language grammatical system or by demand for naturalness (e.g. in “harder and harder” which has been replaced by “čím dál tím těžší”) and by the translators’ effort to make the text more vivid (for instance, when
“Listen” has been put as both “Poslouchej” and “Naslouchej”).
The category of accumulation could also incept the pairs of synonyms entering the corpus (only in seven cases more than two lexical items have accumulated). The total number
74 of such cumulations has climbed up to twenty seven. In twenty three cases this specific feature has been preserved (thus there is “rude and crude” “neslušné a hrubé” – or “moans and cries” “úpění a výkřiky”). For the rest, i.e. four items, the accumulation withers away – e.g. “hanker and die” is changed into “utrápit se touhou” or “her skin is flaking, infected and inflamed” is replaced by “podebraná zanícená kůže se jí loupe”. Yet, this happens in accordance with the target language system and naturalness of expression. Only with the pair
“I call you…I summon you” which has been replaced by mere “Volám tě” it can be said that the stylistic affect gets lost. Let me note one more thing here: the accumulation of such pairs is very characteristic of English while this does not hold for Czech that much. Still, the translators have opted for their preservation on most occasions although it did sound a little unnatural and anglicizing in some cases (e.g. a Czech person would not probably say that something is “crude and rude” but would confine to one of the words only). Mostly, the translations sounded quite natural in the target language which was strengthened by the adaptation to it where the preservation of the pairs would appear unnatural.
The childish talk in The Sandman is achieved mainly by the employment of diminutives (“darling”), expressions associated with talking to children (such as “naughty”) and the use of emotional expressions (e.g. “lovely”, “beloved”, “love” or “baby”). The same means have been adopted in Czech, thus the expressions “zlatíčko”, “zlobivej”, “roztomilá”,
“milánku“, “lásko moje” or “děťátko” have been utilized.
The means to compensate for stylistically active devices were in fact the degree of stylistic activity which often appears greater in translation than in the original. This pays almost for all word classes. Let me provide you with at least some examples in accordance with individual word classes: for nouns, a nice example can be given by “reaper” which was translated by “zubatá”. The adjective “busy” has been amplified as it has been made into
“plné ruce práce”. As for verbs, the expression “bail out” can be provided since it has been
75 replaced by “vytáhnout z bryndy”. The adverbs have also been affected, for instance “He’s out” has been translated as “Je fuč”. Another lexical category affected is that of vulgarisms
(for example “coward” becomes “posero” in Czech). The vulgarisms also play another part – they get inserted in the target text in places where no such expressions appear in the source text. Thus, the question “Why don’t you…?” gets translated by “Proč se ksakru…?”. Also inserted are adverbs as in the translation of “What is it?” by “Co to teda je?”. Further, the addition of diminutive and augmentative form is of use: e.g. “pig” gets replaced by “prasátko” or “brother” by “brácha”. Another translation procedure that applies here is the idiomatic translation which conveys the use of idiom in the target language where it is absent in the source text. The sentence “Whenever he gest a hot flash” represents a nice example as it has been replaced by “Když se jemu zapálí lýtka”.
With all the relevant issues explored it is possible to go to conlusion on the translation of stylistically active means. The progress will be as follows: first the percentual results will be stated, subsequently the overall translation approach toward the means in question will be characterized.
As for neologisms , in 46.6% have been recreated in the target language, the same number pays for neutral target language equivalents which were, however, neological compounds. 3.3% has been represented both by functional equivalents and by semantic preservation. Out of all idioms and figurative expressions 62.3% have been substituted by target language equivalent. The use of neutral target language analogy represents 32%. Mere
3.8% is left for literal translation. Sayings and comparisons have their turn now: 75% of the sayings have been translated by means of target language equivalent. The remaining 25% have been reserved for the translator’s creativity since no target language equivalent existed for it. The majority of comparisons were such that were used by a single application only and
76 that are not firmly embedded in the language system – 87.5%. Mere 5.3% have been represented by target language equivalent. Neutral target language analogy stands for 7.2%.
Poetisms, up dated phrases and chidlish talk have been substituted and recreated in all cases. The occurring speech pecularities have been substituted in 77.4% of instances. 7.5% are represented by transliteration while 11.3% include the use of compensation. Neutral target language analogy has occured in mere 3.8%. The instances of alliteration have been substituted completely by equivalent target language means in half of the cases. Another 50% mark its partial preservation. Accumulation has been reflected in the translations in 81.7% with the remaining 18.3% standing for the examples where it was not so. 85.1% of pairs of synonyms have been preserved in translation while for 11.1% natural Czech form has been adopted. The remaining 3.8% has been lost in translation. A particular case has been mentioned that is connected both to linguistic and technical problems of translation: the demand for a preservation of certain number of characters which has been met by the translator.
Specific requirements have been imposed on the translation of puns , all these items met the requirement of extirpation and replacement by brand new expressions. Another specific technique desired by the comic translators concerned rhymes for which the adherence to the original as far as rhyme types are concerned was required. This requirement has been met for
20% of the rhymes only. 40% of the original rhymes have been replaced by unrhymed forms, the remaining 40% having been replaced by other rhymed forms than those of the source text.
Preservation has been applied in full to updatedness, poetisms and speech pecularities.
The only feature that has been left out completely is accent. The remaining items have been – when possible – substituted by target language equivalent, neutralized or translated freely while stylistic activity has been kept. This applies to neologisms, idioms, figurative
77 expressions, sayings and comparisons, alliteration, accumulation, pairs of synonyms and rhymes. The preservation is based mainly on the existence of target language equivalents and means of equivalent function. With comparisons it follows from their establishment (or rather non establishment) in the target language which makes their literal translation possible. When enabled by the language system, the features are either intensified (e.g. with poetisms or puns) or added in places where the source text does not have them (for instance with speech pecularities). The other techniques are provided by non existence of target language counterparts, by lack of means by which such items could be conveyed in Czech, by the demand for naturalness and comprehensibility or by the translator’s press for vividness of language or individual motives (this can be said to govern the translation of rhymes in which the rhyme types are not reflected in the translations). In this respect, no fundamental diversity from general translation approach have been discovered.
Within the scope of the subchapter on stylistically active devices, the following issues have been discussed: the actual translation methods applied to the features, their percentual share in comic translation and resultant translation strategy.
4.1.3 The Outcome of the Linguistic Analysis
Drawing on the subconlusions on the translation strategies and the specifics of comic translation in terms of the linguistic features, a summary can be made that the strategies have been shaped by target language potential and resources as well as by the demands for naturalness and comprehensibility. A specific approach to translation has been disclosed for that of interjection and vulgarisms. These features – due to their significance in the comic genre – have not only been preserved as often as possible but also preserved in the original form and, in case of vulgarisms, even intensified as far as the degree of vulgarity is
78 concerned. The approach to translation of the remaining linguistic features which were debated in the preceding chapters harmonizes with general translation theory.
4.2 Cultural Items in Analysis
The features coming within the ambit of culture bound expressions are to be discussed in the course of the following chapter. The actual items that have been disclosed in the corpus will be listed and the actual translation procedures (out of those mentioned previously) and their share in the whole stated. Examples illustrating the translation procedures adopted will accompany their application. Finally, the percentage score for the translation procedures will arrive which will be followed by their summary.
The closer look at the corpus revealed the presence of the following culture bound items: names and surnames , including also titles, nicknames and diminutive forms, geographical and topographical names , encompassing states and their parts (e.g. peninsulas etc.), cities, towns, their parts and districts, streets, houses and buildings as well as natural elements (e.g. rivers, beaches, woods etc.). Further, numerous cultural or historical references have been encountered, for instance to books, newspapers, works of literature
(including quotations), music pieces and extracts, films and television programs. Apart from these, references to historical characters, artists, literary and other characters, various institutions and organizations, social groups, companies, brand names or meals have appeared. Examples of physical units have also been found, mostly of weight and distance.
The intertextuality mentioned by the comic translators also plays a part in all three comics analyzed.
4.2.1 Analysing Characters’ Names
Let me open the cultural analysis with translation of the characters’ names . All in all,
79 two hundred and seventy four names have been employed in the corpus, denoting both the performing ones as well as those mentioned only. The method of transference (or preservation) has been given precedence in one hundred and eighty one cases. To twenty four items Czech spelling has been applied (thus “Sarah” has become “Sára” or “Cain” has become “Kain”) – the number includes mostly such names for which Czech equivalents exist.
Also, every time a woman’s surname appeared, the Czech ending ová has been adopted.
Sixteen diminutive name forms have been indicated in the corpus, twelve of them being preserved in the original form. Mere eight names have been substituted by domestic equivalents; these are represented by the names of The Endless in The Sandman : “Death”,
“Destiny”, “Desire” and “Despair”. Their substitutes then are “Smrt”, “Osud”, “Touha” and
“Zoufalství”. With twelve names changes have been noticed, either minor (as when
“Maborym” has become “Moborym”) or total (e.g. when with the aim of preserving a pun the names of dragons in The Sandman have dropped the initial G and substituted it by D : thus,
“Gregory” is called “Derek” in the target text). As far as the titles are concerned, twelve out of thirteen have been substituted by domestic equivalents (e.g. “dr.” by “doktor”). With the last remaining name the original form has been preserved, however, for the title in question
(“Lord”) the target language term is identical. The corpus included fourty nine nicknames : fourty one have been translated into Czech (e.g. “The Raven Woman” into “Havraní žena”), four have been preserved in the original form (for instance, “Kai’ckul”) and with four of them some minor changes in spelling have been made (as in “Morpheus” which has been replaced by “Morfeus”).
Basically, it is preservation (approved of by the comic translators as well although on condition that female surnames will be provided with a suffix denoting females in Czech) that prevails here, having reached 66%. The shift toward Czech spelling has taken place in 8.7% of the cases. For 2.9% of the items, target language equivalent has been employed. Twelve
80 times the names have been changed which equates 4.8%. I tend to consider the items with spelling adapted to the target language to be nearer to preservation than to substitution, therefore I would like to include them in the total number of the preserved items which thus amounts to 75.7%. 17.7% of the names are represented by nicknames.
The results for the translation procedures required by the comic translators will be given space in the subsequent paragraph. As was mentioned before, the translators demanded for the employment of the Czech suffix –ová for the translation of female surnames. The analysis showed that this requirement has been met in almost 100% of cases when a female surname appeared, with two exceptions only when instead of addressing a woman by her surname (as was done in the source text), her first name has been given preference. Another demand made by the comic practitioners concerned the category of nicknames : these were to be translated if not doing so would mean the loss of meaning for the reader (and, of course, if the translation appeared possible). As before, this requirement was met although not at as high a rate. 83.7% of the nicknames that have been indicated in the corpus have been translated into Czech. As far as the degrees used are concerned, whole 92.3% have been substituted by a domestic equivalent. The remaining 7.7% which stand for one item only – are questionable though since they regard the title “Lord” which is acceptable in Czech in its preserved form too.
Taking the percentual outcome into account it can be said that preservation of the source language forms has been the prevailing translation method adopted for the category of names.
The principal motive for this seems quite clear: the maintenance of the original setting which is being done almost unanimously in literary translation as a whole. Following this is the non existence of the characters’ names and surnames in the target language which also governs their preservation. Other ground for preservation are the use of made up names or nicknames
81 which also cannot be found in the target language. On the top of that, what generally holds here is orderliness, meaning that this should be adhered to without exceptions. One more motive for retention could be noticed, the comprehensiblity of an original expression in the target text due to their correspondence (e.g. the above mentioned title “Lord”).
In case the preservation does not assert itself here, the reasons are the following: the existence of the first names and titles in the target language, the application of target language menas to convey feminine surnames, the utilization of Czech spelling if the possibility arises and the translators’ effort to enable the readership to comprehend the meaning (with titles and, above all, nicknames and names represented by existent lexical items as it was done with The
Endless in The Sandman ). Two more reasons for not reflecting the original name forms can be given, the first being the translator’s artistic licence related to some minor spelling changes
(which has appaeared only in The Sandman ), the latter represented by the changes made in the interest of alliteration for which the target language must adopt its own means. None of these can be, however, restrained exclusively to comic translation.
In a nutshell, the translation strategies employed in the translation of names, surnames and other related issues do not diverge from general translation theory (and practice).
The subchapter focused on translation of names and surnames has brought the compendium of methods applied to their translation while providing percentual share in the translation of this category. With each of the methods an example has been given. Taking the findings into account, the overall evaluation of the translation strategy has been performed and the reasons for the application of the actual translation procedures summed up.
4.2.2 Analysing Geographical and Topographical Names
The subsequent chapter will be focused on geographical and topographical terms the amount of which has reached fifty nined. The majority – twenty four of these terms has
82 been preserved (e.g. “Wych Cross” or “Pentagon”). Other three items can be considered to be preserved, with a small reservation that the spelling has changed (there is “Tokio” instead of
“Tokyo” in Garfield ) or a Czech suffix has been added to the term (e.g. in “westendský”).
Further, one case of preservation combined with the use of classifiers has appeared in the expression “gothamská čtvrť South Side”. Four times the target language equivalent has been employed which has resulted in the appearance of “Anglie” or “Londýn” in the translations.
Twenty one terms of this kind have been through translated, including e.g. “Twin Towers” as
“Dvojčata” or “The Royal Museum” made into “Královské muzeum”. Three times neutral target language analogy has been utilized as in translating “Chicago” as “Praha” and once a hyperonym has been the method chosen (where Garfield talks about “Miami” in the original, he mentions “Florida” in the target text). Taking one case of omission into account, one more geographical item is to be discussed. This one is represented by the reference to “Texas” which has been substituted by “Frankfurt”, probably with regard of the audience which may quite easily be better aware of the whereabouts of the latter.
Out of the whole of fifty nine items, 40.7% of the items have been preserved in the original form. Preservation with the employment of minor changes in spelling or of classifiers could be encountered in four more examples which gives 6.7% altogether. Another translation procedure employed has been represented by free translation by which the item has either been translated completely (e.g. “West River” has become “Západní řeka”) or only partially, preserving at least something of the original term (e.g. “Východní Croydon” or “Gothamská skládka”). The utilization of the procedure has reached 35.6%. Once a hyperonym has been given preference which amounts to 1.7%. Further, neutral target language analogy has appeared in 5% of the cases and target language equivalent in 6.8%. One instance of omission represents mere 1.7% as does the above mentioned replacement of “Texas” by “Frankfurt”.
All in all, 47.4% of all the items falling into this category have been preserved.
83 The preservation as predominant translation strategy is based above all on the fact that the geographical areas or points are well known to the audience in the source language form
(e.g. the above mentioned “Pentagon”). Oddly enough, just the opposite pays here as well since the names unknown to most people or such that have never been given any target language equivalent (this time insisting mainly in spelling as with “Londýn” etc.) are also preserved in the original form. As above, the principal grounds for this lie in the effort to communicate the original setting to the audience. Further, the source text form may be preserved while the spelling is adjusted to Czech, Czech suffix is added to the form or the expression is accompanied and made more comprehensible by supplementing it with a classifier. Unlike with the category of names, even if the appearing geographical and topographical terms would all have been turned into their target language equivalents, this would not have any considerable impact on preservation of the setting. Do this with names and you may as well end up with a story set in a purely Czech setting.
If the target language allows this, it is a target language equivalent that gets employed.
Another criterion asserted in the translation of geographical and topographical terms is that of comprehensibility. This may, primarily, lead to free translation of the items in which convey the meaning to the readers unfamiliar with the language. The result is dual, either the setting is invoked by preserving some part of the name (e.g. in “Gothamská skládka” or
“Eastbournské pláže”) or it withers away completely (such a place as “Ulička zločinu” could be situated almost anywhere). This criterion also justifies the use of hyperonyms (which the translator probably considered better known to the audience) and the relocation of geographical or topographical reference to another area with which the readership will be better acquinted with. A specific solution has occurred in Garfield : the employment of neutral target language analogy by which the setting is moved to our country and the situation is thus brought closer to the readership. It appears very important to note here that this comes about
84 only when the actual location does not play a vital role in the story, in other words in comic strips where the setting usually changes from one to another. In such a longish story as is
Batman or The Sandman this would not work without the loss of the setting. Thus we arrive at another specific feature of comic literature which has its impact on the translation practice too. The limited space of comic strips and the fact that the story unwinds and comes to close in a short period of time enables the comic translators looser manipulation with the text and with some of the culture bound items. Otherwise, the translation procedures asserted do not distinguish from general translation approaches.
The preceding subchapter has examined the translation procedures useful in translating geographical and topographical terms (providing examples), their actual percentual representation as well as the grounds for their utilisation or rejection.
4.2.3 Analysing Cultural References
Let’s move on to the cultural issues . Preservation has been opted for twenty times, e.g. with the reference to “Freud” or Led Zeppelin’s song “Stairway to Heaven”. Six times the terms have been preserved plus an explanatory note added (thus we have got “list Daily
Planet” or “společnost Landmark Films” etc. Once, a specific method has been adopted which partly preserves the source language term: when the city attacked by the Japanese if referred to as “Pearl” in the original, the translator adds the missing part and makes the characters talk about “Pearl Harbor”. Substitution by a domestic equivalent has been given way to in twenty eight cases. Thus “Snow White” becomes “Sněhurka” in the target text. Six times the translators have decided for the use of neutral target language analogy: in Garfield there is a reference to “Geronimo”, an apache chief who stood for the Indians’ values, especially courage. The translation solution “Za svobodu!” emphasizes the value of freedom – a value much appreciated by native Americans (cf. Wikipedia 2007). Transference together with
85 conversion has taken the lead in the translation of ten cultural items (e.g. Fahrenheit have been substituted by Celsius or miles by kilometers). Three times, miles have been preserved in the target text. Twice the currency mentioned – pences and cents – have been kept in the translation. Fifteen quotations – two from literary works, three from a film and the remaining ten from songs – pervade the corpus. One of the literary quotes comes from Lewis Carol’s
Through the Looking Glass while employing the existent Czech translation. With other four quotations from songs free translation has been utilized with the focus put on their content while rhymes were not reflected in translation of the songs. The ten remaining quotes shall be debated within the paragraph devoted to practical translation methods since these have been employed in their translation. With one cultural reference a footnote has been added below the frames – a solution strictly rejected by the comic translators in their comment on the technical problems of comic translation. This has come about when one of the characters in
The Sandman – John Constantine – refers to “the big green bloke” by whom is meant an existing comic character, The Swamp Thing. The target text mentions “toho velkýho zelenýho chlápka” and adds a footnote explaining the reference by saying that what the author has in mind are The Swamp Thing stories which have starred John Constantine for the first time.
Let me provide you with the percentage rates as far as the translation of culture bound expressions is concerned. I intend to follow the same order as in the previous chapter, i.e. to mention the results that conform to general translation theory and then move on to those conformal to the translators’ practical advice.
In 21.9% of the cases out of the total of the one hundred and twenty eight items substitution by a domestic equivalent has occurred. Further, neutral target language analogy has been provided six times which corresponds to 4.7% while transference combined with conversion applied in 7.8%. For 3.13% of cultural items free translation, focused on the translation of the content, has been utilized. Once, a descriptive term has been employed in
86 the translation of an acronym which amounts to 0.78%. For cultural references preservation represents mere 15.6%. Some of the terms have also been preserved while explanatory notes have been added, this happening in 4.7% of the examples. Another term that has in fact been preserved while a part missing in the source text has been added in the target text (the above mentioned “Pearl Harbor”) represents 0.78%. Unlike with the previous two groups, here preservation has not been the prevailing solution: it has been comprehensibility that was preferred to the keeping of the source culture environment.
The specific translation procedures and requirements made by the comic translators will now be debated and their results brought in. First such requirement demanded the substitution of unknown references by better know target language equivalents which have been performed eight times. I have included these within target language equivalents out of which they represent 28.6%. A nice example can be found in Batman where “Swat Team” (U.S.
Special Weapons and Tactics team) has been replaced by Czech “Urna” which is a unit of prompt employment. This requirement could embrace also the replacement of a source text cultural allusion by a target language own song, poem etc. which has been done with a quote from the song “Spread a little happiness” which has been replaced by Czech song “Není nutno”. Also included here are is one more of the songs quoted. Another recommended translation method insisted in the employment of the translator’s flair and imagination, it was to be applied to translation of non translated books, made up songs etc. References to a non existent book , non existent film and a TV series and two non translated films have appeared, all have been left to the translator’s imagination and creative ability. This has also been done in the translation of five quoted songs – although they do exist, they have not been translated into Czech yet. With these songs the rhymes have been preserved in the target text.
Further, the method has been applied to the translation of two quotations from the musical
Mary Poppins and for one acronym (when “S.O.B.” which corresponds to “son of a bitch”
87 has been replaced by another acronym “S.B” the meaning of which was not quite clear to me).
A really interesting phrase the translation of which also depends on the translator’s abilities has been encountered in Garfield . When having put on weight on one of the numerous occasions, Garfield makes a promise that this won’t happen again. Right in the following sentence he says “And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you” which refers to the fact that the Brooklyn Bridge – although public property has actually been sold to some gullible
(based on Wikipedia 2007). Since no similar phrase exists in the target language, the translator has chosen to preserve it while replacing the bridge by a Czech historical building with the result “měl bych na prodej jeden Karlštejn” which I would say fulfills the function quite well. All in all, the reliance on the translator’s flair amounts to 11.7%. For twenty seven of the cultural references, mere translation which is also mentioned by the translators as a potential approach to the translation of cultural references has been employed. The overall amount of the items subjected simply to the translation has reached 21%. An example can be given by the nuclear weapon called “Coldbringer” which has been made into “Posel chladu”.
An issue of a considerable importance mentioned by the interviewees was that of intertextuality , that is the conformity to the translation solutions of expressions that have previously appeared in some comic title and thus have their fixed translation. Altogether, nine
(7%) instances of intertextuality have been disclosed in the corpus, out of which only one (i.e.
11.1%) has not conformed to the accustomed translation (in Garfield “caped avenger” refers to the “caped crusader” which appears in the Batman and gets translated by “křižák v pláštěnce” while the Czech version of Garfield talks about “temný mstitel”). The use of footnotes – so strongly rejected – shall not be left unnoticed although its one and only appearances acquires mere 0.78% of the total amount.
88 As was mentioned above, the situation with cultural references is quite different from culture bound names and geographical and topographical terms as far as preservation is concerned. This solution is chosen if the reference goes with an item known in the target language (e.g. with names of songs, well known characters etc.). The effort to communicate the original setting also holds here, namely when the currency or mileage appear in the corpus. Preservation shows particularly important when intertextual references pervade the text. Certain amount of the cultural references have been retained in the original form while concurrently accompanied by explanatory items (for instance with newspapers, names of companies and so on) or missing parts added (cf. “Pearl Harbor”).
Still, in the majority of cases, other approaches have been adopted, including target language equivalent, neutral target language analogy, free translation or translation only as well as the reliance on the translator’s flair and imagination. The first method mention gets employed when such an equivalent exists in the target language (this including references to titles of literary works that have been translated into the target language and quotes from such works). The fact that a reference is unknown may be responsible for the use of target language equivalents which fit better the actual situation (e.g. with songs, films etc.), of neutral target language analogy (for instance with unknown historical figures), of free translation (also when the object of reference is not vital in the story) and mere translation (e.g. with uknown songs or paraphrases). The last approach mentioned which depends on the translator’s gift and imginative talent.
In the previous chapter an important fact has been remarked about the translation of comic strips: that this type of comic literature does not bring the readers a coherent story and as such not that much attention must be paid to the preservation of the setting, what matters here is finding a functional solution. The same pays with cultural references. Although – unlike with geographical location of the story – the effect is what pays in the translation of
89 comic writing as a whole (and in fact of any writing), it is true that the employment of a target language equivalent will somehow confront the setting (provided this is preserved). Thus, it can be said that the translators of comic strips find themselves in an easier situation in this respect than the translators of other types of comic literature and than literary translators in general. In general terms, the translation strategy employed here does not – with the exception of the finding concerning translation of cultural references in comic strips differ from that suggested by general translation theory.
The issues commented on throughout the previous subchapter include the translation solutions utilized, accompanied by examples and the percentage rates of their representation.
Further, the conlusion has been drawn concerning the overall translation strategy and its motivating forces.
4.2.4 The Outcome of Cultural Analysis
The analysis performed with culture bound issues brings us the following finding related to the motivating forces behind the translation strategies: the actual translation procedures adopted with this category have been influenced by the effort to communicate the original setting to the readership, by target language potential (in terms of existence and non existence of equivalents for the items in question) and the linguistic requirements, by communication of meaning (rather than form, for example), by the knowledge shared by both source language and target language audience or its lack, existence or non existence of target language equivalents, by the demand for comprehensibility, by the appearance of intertextuality and, last but not least, by the significance of the items in the stories.
A specific outcome as far as comic translation is concerned has been revealed throughout the cultural analysis. The revelation made is related to the translation of culture bound expressions, including location and cultural allusions, in comic strips. This type of
90 comic genre is, among other things, characterized by the lack of a coherent story. In short, every strip can be read on its own, thus no necessity to read a whole book exists. As a result, even the setting does not have to be coherent which enables the translator looser manipulation with the expressions, allusions and references. Another specific feature of the comic genre which affects the translation process is that of intertextuality.
4.3 Technical Aspects in Analysis
Within the chapter targeted at technical characteristics of comic translation in practice I intend to focus on two main issues: first, in what respects are the demands made by the translators abided or defied in the corpus and where the grounds for doing this lie. Second, what are the methods employed in working with the space afforded in the corpus. The reasons for the actual practices will also be looked into.
With regard to the wants set by the translators, it can be said that they have basically been met, except for a few not that significant details. Above all, the size and shape of the speech ballons has been retained without reservation. The same holds to the characteristics of the frames used but for one change of the size which has been performed in The Sandman , being motivated by the distinctively greater amount of free space left in the frames after the translation. Generally, the space allotted by the use of speech ballons and frames has not been exceeded either. Still, an exception to the rule could be noted in Garfield where, on one occasion, the frame has been removed completely and the interjections placed in the background have thus gained more space. Not only that this was exceptional but it also occurred in comic strip book which is made specific by a feature non existent in proper comic books: by the use of blank spaces between the separate strips. Although such spaces are to be found in graphic novels, they usually are not left empty (commonly, they are hold for the narrator’s voice) and are a part of the artistic composition since they share the colouring with
91 the rest of the page. As a result, if a frame gets left out in comic strips, it is no big deal as the artistic side of things and the space of the story are not violated. Again, as with the translation of some culture bound expressions, the comic strip offers a little more freedom to the translator.
Let’s move on to the textual characteristics; I will discuss these for each of the books at a time. Starting with The Sandman , the various types of font – employed for the differentiation of the characters’ speech, for the interjections and graffitos placed in the background, for the names of buildings, bus stops and other topographical items, for the titles of books and chapters, for handwriting, for the names of television programs, for quotations and tunes as well as for exclamations and emphasis have usually been reflected in the translation. If need be, in case of non existence of the font in the target language, a similar one has been chosen (which holds for the whole corpus). Another feature preserved was diverse colouring of the font and also the speech ballons occurring in Sandman’s speech. The notable fact that the translation differs from the original in terms of colouring since this one has been published in colour while its Czech translation is only black and white has its impact also on the text. 2 Due to this diference cannot coloured ballons or font be reflected in the target text and must be shaped in black and white only. It is quite clear, though, that this is inevitable and cannot be blamed on the translator. Apart from this, the only features that have not been sustained rigorously are the utilization of capitals (with separate words) and the letters in bold. Most probably it has been motivated by the lack of space, still, I do consider this a significant failure since these graphic features denoted words considered relevant in the story. Let’s focus on Garfield now. Unlike with The Sandman , not only the font type but also the capitalization and the use of bold have been preserved here. On the other hand, it shares one feature with the Dream King’s stories: the publication in black and white (while the
2 If you want to learn more about the reasons, go to the chapter 2.2.3.2.1 which is devoted to Czech comics.
92 original was coloured). One more thing seems noticeable to me about Garfield , namely the layout of pages which was diverted from the original due to the different format of the book in the target culture. As far as Batman is concerned, it is mostly preservation of the font as well as the employed capital and bold lettering. Quite exceptionally, twice a distinct type of font has been used in the target text while no special reason existed for that. What pays with all the corpus is the slight divergence of the font from the original, which is due to the lack of the actual font in the target language, however, once the font is adopted, it gets employed throughout the whole text.
The subsequent paragraph will examine the methods employed to compensate for the limited space of the comic genre. First and foremost, the change of font size has come about: almost completely in The Sandman and Garfield and widely in Batman . Its use is related mainly to the translators’ effort to fit the ideas into the speech ballon or frame since at times the target language system may require the employment of a greater number of words, either of purely grammatical function or for the purpose of conveying the idea clearly enough.
Occasionally, this may lead to making size even smaller than the already smaller one that appears in the text. Second, greater number of lines has been fitted into the speech ballons and frames, for the reason of the length of the words and word forms used, of their amount and of the supplement of lexical items in Czech which is either due to the grammatical system or the artistic quality and artistic merit. The greater number of lines also rises from the reduction of spaces between paragraphs. Third, the distance of the text from the margins of the ballons and frames also plays an important part. Again, it results from the actual number of lexical items and their length. Fourth technique put to use is the omission of empty lines and spaces. The translation also brings about a different layout of the text on the lines compared to the original. Motivated by the length and amount of target text lexical items, this technique, as well as the preceding one, aims at balanced lay of the text in the space provided and at
93 elimination of abundant free space. The removal of the frame in Garfield has already been mentioned, so let me just note that it may also be included here. Further, the possibility arises to displace words or sentences between the speech ballons or frames if this helps solve the lack of space (in fact, this has only occurred five times in Batman ). Two more procedures have been detected that insist in manipulating with the text: omissions and the use of footnotes; however, they have been very rare. Moreover, the omissions usually concerned single words only, only exceptionally the omission involved larger chunks of text (such as phrases or sentences). In fact, I have encountered one instance of each only. The same pays to the use of footnote – it has appeared only once.
Quite surprisingly, contradictory tendencies have been disclosed in the approach toward the technical aspect of comic translation, including the following features: bigger type of font, smaller number of lines, bigger spaces among letters, words, lines and paragraphs, the insertion of empty lines, text centre, greater distance from the margins of the space provided as well as greater amount of lexical items. The ground for doing so are not dissimilar from those mentioned above. They encompass the number and length of lexical items, namely the use of less or shorter expressions in the target language (e.g. the English articles or imperatives are the source of the need of fewer words in Czech). One thing may not seem quite clear here, the employment of greater amount of lexical items, so let me explain this.
Usually this occurs in case the target language equivalents employed are considerably shorter than the original items which may lead the translator to use them repeatedly and more times than this happened in the source text.
In this chapter, a comment has been given on technical limitations and also sources and advantages of comic translation. Drawing on the information given, a conclusion will be made concerning the specifics of comic genre in this respect.
94 4.3.1 The Outcome of Technical Analysis
Taking into account what was said, it can be concluded that the comic genre does not only handicap the translator. Of course, difficulties may and do arise in translating concise expressions or unknown references and the graphic accompaniment may also impede the translator’s work. On the other hand, it enables the translator something that the translators of other literary genres never encounter: the freedom of working with the font size, the spacing and the text as a whole. In translating a standard book, once the font type and the spacing is set, no changes are allowed. Thus, no additional space is provided for the work with language.
Whereas in a comic book the text is not unbroken which makes the font and space changes less noticeable and disturbing. Also, as you could see, the Czech language is not only disadvantaged in this literary genre, there are moments where it allows for more concise expression without too much pressure. One more advantage of comic translation can be brought forward here, the possibility to remove the frame in translating comic strips which offers more space for loose text. Although this is generally not approved by the translators and should not be presumed on, the existence of the resource certainly cannot be denied.
5 CONCLUSION
My thesis has been targeted at translation of comic writing with the aim to disclose prospective specific features (compared to literary translation in general) as far as the translation of the genre is concerned.
With a view to achieving this I have considered some introduction to the topic necessary, therefore the opening chapter brings an insight into comic genre while attempting to define the genre together with its characteristics, commenting on its rise and development and on the types of comics that have gradually emerged. In order to provide other siginificant information on the genre, its historical develeopment over the world has been examined.
95 Since the thesis focuses in particular on translation, only the most prominent countries which participate in comic production have been taken into account. Thus, quite obviously, The
United States were considered, followed by European countries: France and Belgium, The
Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Great Britain. As the thesis is concerned with translation of comic writing from English into Czech, is seem quite understandable that Czech comics has also been subjected to study. Not only its history and development have been treated but also the particular and distinct position within culture and the features that distinguish it from the world's comic production.
The third chapter provides the foundation for the analytical part of my thesis as it focuses on translation problems arising in the corpus while offering advice presented by translator theoreticians Jiři Levý and Peter Newmark in their studies Introduction to the
Theory of Translation, The Art of Translation and A Textbook of Translation . Apart from the general translation approaches, valuable pieces of advice have been given by two prominent
Czech translators of the comic genre, Richard Podaný and Viktor Janiš. Based on these materials, prospective methods of translation are offered for the translation problems which have been located in the corpus. Three categories of translation problems have been encountered: linguistic, cultural and technical. They have been debated one after another and the division and their succession have been adhered to in the analytical passage of my thesis.
Within the analytical chapter, the issues falling into the above mentioned categories have been debated, the applied translation methods disclosed while providing percentual results for each of the actual translation procedures. Drawing on the results, the overal translation strategies for the categories as a whole have been evaluated and the motives behind them summed up. Finally, if any specific features regarding comic translation have appeared, they have been listed and elaborated on.
96 After having proceed in this way with all the categories, some unique characteristics have been noticed in comic translation which will now be listed. In terms of linguistic analysis the findings were related to translation of vulgarisms, swear words and interjection.
When compared to general translation approach, the specific feature arising in the translation of these items concerns higher degree of preservation than it is common in literary translation in general. However, this is not the only thing that can be said of the way the translators have dealt with these lexical items. Apart from being substituted by their target language equivalents, the vulgarisms and swear words have also been further intensified in the target text, i.e. even stronger swear words have been used in their place. As for the interjections, on a number of ocassions they have been preserved in the original form which is something one does not encounter in other literary genres. The main reason for this translation approach lies in the important role played by these lexical items: they mostly denote action which is hardly absent in most comic books. With interjections more motives can be given, including the lack of target language equivalents and preservation for the sake of communicating the original setting.
The analysis of culture bound expressions has left us with another specific feature which is, however, restricted to comic strips. While analysing Garfield, it has been revealed that the comic strips function as separate stories even if included within one book. Therefore, if topographical characteristics such as the location of the stories or the place referred to are not preserved or kept coherent in translation, no big difficulties arise since it is not the coherence that carries weight here but the comic effect. Contrastingly, if a setting is set in a graphic novel, it must be retained and no deviation is allowed. The same holds for comic strips when cultural references pervade the text. It is true that it is the substitution by better known target language equivalents which takes precedence in translating comic literature in general when such an allusion appears. Still, when such equivalents are incorporated in a
97 coherent story with a coherent setting, it certainly disrupts this coherence. Since no such coherence is vital in comic strips, translation solutions of this kind appear much less disruptive. Although comics is a demanding genre in terms of translation as far as the limited space and the need to conform to the artwork (which has not been encountered in my corpus, though), it can be said that with comic strips the translator’s finds himself in a better position by virtue of their once and for all character due to which he does not have to watch over not disrupting the context (or if he does disrupt it, it is not that striking). The feature of intertextuality which has been commented on also exerts influence upon comic translation as it requires the look up and acceptance of existing translation from other translators.
The prospective influence of the graphic component of the comics on the translation process must not be left out as it may occur that the illustration mirrors in some way what is being said in the speech ballons or frames. In case this regards features such as idioms, saying, comparison etc., difficulties may arise in discovering a Czech solution that conforms to the drawing. If this happens to be found impossible, confrontation with the graphic element must at least be avoided. Although no such case arose in the corpus, this feature certainly falls among the specifics of comic translation.
Finally, the technical disposition of the comic genre has its impact on the process of translation. On one hand the translators are held down by the limited space allotted, contrariwise, the prospects of manipulating with the text by means of changing font size, changing the number of lines in speech ballons and frames and the distance of text from the margins of speech ballons and frames arise. Further, the omission of empty lines and spaces, different layout of the text and the displacement of words or sentences between the speech ballons or frames also contribute to the translators’ freedom. The technical characteristics of comic literature represent a source of potentialities of treating the text that are completely lacking in traditional literary translation.
98 In a nutshell, the distinct features of comic translation flow from both literary and technical parameters. Besides, the cultural aspect and the graphic component also have impact on comic translation.
99 6 WORKS CITED
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