Degree Project Level: Bachelor’s Mori Ōgai and the translation of Henrik Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman Author: Gard R. Rise Supervisor: Hiroko Inose Examiner: Herbert Jonsson Subject/main field of study: Japanese Course code: GJP23Y Credits: 15 Date of examination: September 6, 2019 At Dalarna University it is possible to publish the student thesis in full text in DiVA. The publishing is open access, which means the work will be freely accessible to read and download on the internet. This will significantly increase the dissemination and visibility of the student thesis. Open access is becoming the standard route for spreading scientific and academic information on the internet. Dalarna University recommends that both researchers as well as students publish their work open access. I give my/we give our consent for full text publishing (freely accessible on the internet, open access): Yes ☒ No ☐ Dalarna University – SE-791 88 Falun – Phone +4623-77 80 00 Abstract: Mori Ōgai’s (1862-1922) 1909 translation and the subsequent theater production of Henrik Ibsen’s 1896 play John Gabriel Borkman was in many ways instrumental in the formation of Japanese Meiji-era shingeki theater. Through his career as a translator, Ōgai’s translation approach shifted from one of decreasingly relying on domestication techniques to staying more faithful to the source text through use of foreignization techniques and arguably towards what has been identified by Eugene Nida and Jin Di as dynamical equivalence or equivalent effect, respectively, in drama translation. In this project, Ōgai’s translation of John Gabriel Borkman is examined using a set of categories peculiar to drama translation, as proposed by Chinese scholars Xu and Cui (2011), again based on the theories of Nida and Di. The categories are intelligibility, brevity, characterization and actability. The results from the analysis are used to do a qualitative analysis of Ōgai’s approach to drama translation. Results from the study indicate that Ōgai put large emphasis on the intelligibility of the play, and perhaps over the aspects of brevity, characterization and actability. However, wherever the brevity aspect seems not to be in violation of any of the other aspects, Ōgai seems to have tried to adhere as close as possible to the source texts in terms of speaking length. Keywords: Ōgai Mori, Henrik Ibsen, John Gabriel Borkman, drama translation, dynamic equivalence, equivalent effect. 2 Table of contents: 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 4 1.1 Aim of study and research question ................................................................................................................................................... 5 2. Background ............................................................................................................................................................ 5 2.1 Mori Ōgai .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 5 2.2 Ōgai and Western ideas in Meiji Japan ............................................................................................................................................... 6 2.3 Henrik Ibsen .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 2.4 Themes of the play John Gabriel Borkman............................................................................................................................................ 7 2.5 Osanai Kaoru and shingeki theater ...................................................................................................................................................... 8 3. Relevant theory ..................................................................................................................................................... 9 3.1 Drama translation ............................................................................................................................................................................... 10 3.2 Skopos theory ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 10 3.3 Dynamic equivalence and equivalent effect ..................................................................................................................................... 11 3.4 Domestication and foreignization..................................................................................................................................................... 12 4. Previous research ................................................................................................................................................12 4.1 General overview ................................................................................................................................................................................ 12 4.2 Ōgai’s translations of Ibsen ............................................................................................................................................................... 13 4.3 Drama language translation ............................................................................................................................................................... 13 5. Method and Materials ........................................................................................................................................14 5.1 Methodology ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 14 5.1.1 Evaluation of drama translation .................................................................................................................................................... 14 5.1.2 Adaptation of method to current study ............................................................................................................................................ 15 5.2 Materials ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 16 5.2.1 Dano-Norwegian original (1896) and the German translation (1897) ............................................................................................ 16 5.2.2 Ōgai translation (1909) ................................................................................................................................................................ 17 6. Analysis and results ............................................................................................................................................17 6.1 General observations .......................................................................................................................................................................... 17 6.2 Intelligibility ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 19 6.2.1 Culturally loaded terms.................................................................................................................................................................. 19 6.2.3 Underemphasis ............................................................................................................................................................................. 20 6.2.3 Politeness ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 20 6.2.4 Understanding of the ideas and themes of the play ........................................................................................................................... 21 6.3 Brevity .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 21 6.3.1 Brevity and speech register .............................................................................................................................................................. 21 6.3.2 Overexplanation............................................................................................................................................................................ 22 6.3.3 Brevity and emphasis ..................................................................................................................................................................... 22 6.4 Characterization .................................................................................................................................................................................. 23 6.5 Actability .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 24 6.5.1 Actability