MASARYK UNIVERSITY Faculty of Education Department of English Language and Literature Translation and Analysis of The Commitments by Roddy Doyle Bachelor Thesis Brno 2009 Supervised by Written by Mgr. Martin Němec Zuzana Pilátová Declaration I hereby declare that this bachelor thesis is my own work and that the information I used has been acknowledged in the text and included in the reference list. I agree with putting the thesis on public display at Masaryk University for study purposes. Prohlášení Prohlašuji, ţe jsem tuto bakalářskou práci zpracovala samostatně a ţe informace, které jsem při vypracování pouţívala, řádně cituji s uvedením úplného odkazu na příslušný zdroj. Dávám svolení k tomu, aby byla tato bakalářská práce zpřístupněna na Masarykově univerzitě ke studijním účelům. ………………………………… Zuzana Pilátová - 2 - Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Mgr. Martin Němec for his constant encouragement, expert advice and insightful comments on the text as well as recommending literature. - 3 - Annotation This bachelor thesis is concerned with the translation and subsequent analysis of an extract from the comic novel The Commitments by a leading Irish author Roddy Doyle. Its main goal is to suggest contemporary Czech lexical equivalents to predominantly colloquial expressions typical of the slang of Northside in Dublin in order to preserve Doyle‟s authentic and imaginative dialogue. The work consists of two parts. The first is practical, containing the translation itself. The second, theoretical part analyses the style of the original text as well as the author‟s application of basic translation principles to various translation difficulties. Anotace Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá překladem a následnou analýzou úryvku z humorného románu ‚The Commitments„ předního irského autora Roddyho Doyla. Hlavním cílem práce je navrhnout současné české ekvivalenty k převáţně hovorovým výrazům typickým pro slang severního Dublinu a zachovat Doylův autentický a nápaditý dialog. Práce zahrnuje dvě části. Praktická obsahuje samotný překlad. Teoretická analyzuje styl původního textu a také autorčino vyuţití základních překladatelských principů při překonávání překladatelských těţkostí. Key Words The Commitments, Roddy Doyle, translation, translation analysis, equivalence Klíčová slova The Commitments, Roddy Doyle, překlad, analýza překladu, ekvivalence - 4 - Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 6 1.1. Thrill of Translation ...................................................................................... 6 1.2. Motives and Intentions .................................................................................. 6 1.3. Outline of the Thesis ..................................................................................... 7 2. RODDY DOYLE ......................................................................................................... 8 3. THE COMMITMENTS ............................................................................................. 10 4. PRACTICAL PART .................................................................................................. 11 5. THEORETICAL PART ............................................................................................. 51 5.1. Process of Translation ................................................................................. 51 5.1.1. Understanding ............................................................................... 51 5.1.2 Interpretation .................................................................................. 52 5.1.2.1. Language........................................................................ 52 5.1.2.2. Personal and Geographical Names ................................ 53 5.1.2.3. Music Matters ................................................................ 54 5.1.2.4. Polysemous Words ........................................................ 55 5.1.2.5. Title ................................................................................ 56 5.1.3. Rewriting ...................................................................................... 58 5.2. Equivalence in Practice ............................................................................... 59 5.2.1. Stylistic Differences ...................................................................... 60 5.2.1.1. Reporting Verbs ............................................................. 60 5.2.1.2 Emotive Expressions ...................................................... 62 5.2.1.3. Collocations ................................................................... 62 5.2.1.4. Cohesion ........................................................................ 64 5.2.2. Pragmatic Differences .................................................................. 65 5.2.3. Grammatical Differences .............................................................. 69 5.2.4. Compensation ............................................................................... 72 6. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 75 7. BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... 76 8. INTERNET SOURCES ............................................................................................. 77 - 5 - 1. INTRODUCTION Thrill of Translation This bachelor thesis deals with the translation and subsequent analysis of an extract from the short novel The Commitments. The reason why I have chosen practical translation and analysis as a topic of my work were the translation seminars which I was attending and thoroughly enjoying. There I discovered that translation is like a rollercoaster ride, so thrilling and sensational. It brings not only boundless joy, excitement and satisfaction, but also frustration, gloom and despair. Undoubtedly, translators experience the first when their own text and the original merge into one, when they are like soul mates operating on the same wavelength. However, translators sometimes get stuck in an often apparently uncomplicated expression or phrase. Then the latter comes. Overcoming the problem certainly takes some time. Once you solve it, you are raring to get into a car, fasten your seatbelt and take another breathtaking round. Motives and Intentions The book I have chosen for the translation is one by a contemporary Irish author Roddy Doyle which has not been translated into the Czech language so far. I came across this book in the early 1990s after having seen a feature film by Alan Parker that was based on it. I was overwhelmed with its life and energy. Truly, it filled me with a desire to be one of the heroes and the next logical step was to reach for the book since I was eager to learn more about each character. Finding out it was not on the market at bookshops at that time, my disappointment was vast. Luckily, I obtained an English version of the book and it has been one of my favourites since. Reading it for the first time, I struggled with a transcription of Irish slang. To be frank, it took me a long time to wade through. Neverthless I have returned many times and finally appreciated the humour, style, mood and even rhythm of the speech which the book offers. The novel seems to be extremely challenging for translators all over the world because at least half of the book is “the eccentrically rendered dialogue, full of constant profanity and raucous, - 6 - repetitive slang of North Dublin speech, and therefore it contains many delightful Irish turns of English phrases.” (Peach 131). In my own translation, I try to do my best to preserve all the features (including the graphic arrangement of the novel) which make the book so specific and easily recognisable. An idea has struck my mind that the expressions significant for North Dublin slang could be translated by Brno slang phrases while transferring all the colloquial speech into Czech could be done by the means of using word endings of the variety about which a linguist Naughton (2005 2) writes: People may refer to this variety as hovorová čeština „colloquial Czech‟; the term has sometimes been used for a slightly relaxed version of the standard language, avoiding more literary or „bookish‟ features, but still more or less standard in phonetics and grammar. Outline of the Thesis The following pages of the thesis will be devoted to Roddy Doyle, the author of the book, as well as to the novel itself. Then the practical part will follow, the content of which is my own solution to the translation. Finally, in the theoretical part I will fix my attention to the theoretical principles of translation and their application in the previous part. There will be a section based predominantly on Levý‟s publication Umění překladu where I will try to indicate how the process of translation itself developed from the very basics to the final version taking into account the majority of Levý‟s recommendations he sets down. Another part dedicated to the examination of equivalence will be relied on Knittlová‟s work K teorii i praxi překladu. Basically, its aim is to provide examples whereby it is possible to demonstrate that the theory applies to the translation. - 7 - 2. RODDY DOYLE Martin Wallace (1999: 109) in his collection of brief biographies of the great men and women of Ireland writes that Roddy Doyle, who was born on 8 May 1958, worked as an English