“Tha’ Sounds Like Me Arse!”: A Comparison of the Translation of Expletives in Two German Translations of Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments Susanne Ghassempur Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Dublin City University School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies Supervisor: Prof. Jenny Williams June 2009 Declaration I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of PhD is entirely my own work, that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge breach any law of copyright, and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. Signed: _____________________________________ ID No.: 52158284 Date: _______________________________________ ii Acknowledgments My thanks go to everyone who has supported me during the writing of this thesis and made the last four years a dream (you know who you are!). In particular, I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Jenny Williams for her constant encouragement and expert advice, without which this thesis could not have been completed. I would also like to thank the School of Applied Language & Intercultural Studies for their generous financial support and the members of the Centre for Translation & Textual Studies for their academic advice. Many thanks also to Dr. Annette Schiller for proofreading this thesis. My special thanks go to my parents for their constant support and love. iii Table of Contents Introduction..............................................................................................1 1 The Commitments .............................................................................5 1.1 Introduction....................................................................................................5 1.2 Biography of Roddy Doyle.............................................................................6 1.3 The Commitments...........................................................................................7 1.3.1 A New Concept of Irish Identity .......................................................... 10 1.3.2 The Language of The Commitments .................................................... 13 1.3.3 Reception of The Commitments in Ireland and Abroad......................... 15 1.4 Die Commitments .........................................................................................18 1.5 Concluding Remarks ....................................................................................19 2 Literature Review............................................................................20 2.1 Swearing as a Linguistic Phenomenon..........................................................20 2.1.1 Defining Swearing............................................................................... 24 2.1.2 What Makes Language Taboo?............................................................ 29 2.1.3 Degrees of Offensiveness..................................................................... 34 2.2 Swearing and its Functions...........................................................................35 2.2.1 Cathartic Swearing............................................................................... 37 2.2.2 Abusive Swearing................................................................................ 38 2.2.3 Social Swearing................................................................................... 38 2.3 Swearing in the Irish Context .......................................................................40 2.4 Swearing in Translation................................................................................42 2.4.1 Issues of Non-Standard Language and Slang........................................ 42 2.4.2 Previous Case Studies on the Translation of Swearing ......................... 46 2.5 Concluding Remarks and Contribution of the Present Study.........................51 3 Methodology ....................................................................................52 3.1 Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS): A Short History...............................52 3.1.1 Gideon Toury and DTS........................................................................ 53 3.1.2 Toury’s Translation Norms.................................................................. 55 3.1.3 Laws and Universals of Translation ..................................................... 56 3.2 Description vs. Explanation..........................................................................58 3.2.1 Generalisations as Explanations........................................................... 59 iv 3.2.2 Unification and Multiple Explanations................................................. 61 3.3 Research Questions ......................................................................................63 3.4 Methodological Framework..........................................................................64 3.4.1 Corpus Compilation............................................................................. 65 3.4.2 Identifying Instances of Swearing in the Present Study ........................ 65 3.4.3 Obtaining and Categorising the Data.................................................... 66 3.5 Concluding Remarks ....................................................................................67 4 Quantitative Analysis ......................................................................69 4.1 The Distribution and Frequency of Swearwords in the Original and the Two Translations..................................................................................................69 4.2 A Quantitative Comparison of the Two Translations ....................................72 4.3 Concluding Remarks ....................................................................................73 5 Cathartic Swearing..........................................................................75 5.1 Introduction..................................................................................................75 5.2 Translational Patterns ...................................................................................76 5.2.1 Pattern A: Both Translators Tend to Choose Obsolete Expletives......... 77 5.2.2 Pattern B: Huzly Zero-Translates fuck.................................................. 87 5.2.3 Pattern C: Both Translators Omit Swearing.......................................... 89 5.3 Concluding Remarks ....................................................................................95 6 Abusive Swearing ............................................................................97 6.1 Introduction..................................................................................................97 6.2 Translational Patterns ...................................................................................98 6.2.1 Pattern A: Huzly Chooses Artificial Expletives.................................... 99 6.2.2 Pattern B: Huzly Zero-Translates fuck................................................ 104 6.2.3 Pattern C: Both Translators Omit Swearing........................................ 106 6.2.4 Pattern D: Orth-Guttmann Omits Swearing........................................ 113 6.3 Concluding Remarks ..................................................................................119 7 Social Swearing..............................................................................120 7.1 Introduction................................................................................................120 7.2 Translational Patterns .................................................................................120 7.2.1 Pattern A: Both Translators Insert Insults........................................... 121 7.2.2 Pattern B: Huzly Intensifies Swearing................................................ 128 7.2.3 Pattern C: Omission of Swearing in Both Translations....................... 132 7.3 Concluding Remarks ..................................................................................143 8 A Comparison of Quantitative and Qualitative Results..............145 8.1 Intensification of Swearing.........................................................................145 8.2 Two Distinctive Translation Approaches ....................................................146 v 8.3 Concluding Remarks ..................................................................................147 9 Towards an Explanation of the Observed Patterns.....................148 9.1 The Patterns at a Glance .............................................................................148 9.2 Multiple Causality......................................................................................149 9.3 The Risk Issue............................................................................................151 9.4 Possible Causes for the Patterns..................................................................152 9.5 Cathartic Swearing .....................................................................................152 9.5.1 Pattern A: Both Translators Tend to Choose Obsolete Expletives....... 152 9.5.2 Pattern B: Huzly Zero-Translates fuck................................................ 153 9.5.3 Pattern C: Both Translators Omit Swearing........................................ 153 9.6 Abusive Swearing ......................................................................................153