Chapter 4
Impoliteness and pragmatic preferences in German translations of British and Irish children’s fiction
This paper argues that linguistic impoliteness in British and Irish children’s fiction undergoes some severe changes when translated into German. A novel system with five translation strategies is developed to account for the omission, weakening or aggravation of impolite utterances in the source text. In an analysis of three British and Irish children’s books and their German translations, it further shows that genre and publication date have a strong influence on the kind and number of changes to the source text. Especially older texts and school stories include a tendency to delete impolite utterances or use colloquial language which makes conflicts appear less serious.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Impoliteness and children’s fiction in translation
- 2.1Impoliteness in children’s fiction
- 2.2Children’s fiction in translation
- 2.3Translated impoliteness in Harry Potter
- 3.Hypotheses
- 4.Data
- 5.Methodology
- 6.Results
- 6.1Domestication vs foreignisation
- 6.2Impolite utterances
- 6.3Aggravated and weakened impoliteness
- 6.4Omissions
- 6.5Changes in idiomatic strategies and register
- 6.6Weakened expressions of emotions
- 7.Discussion
- 8.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
References (44)
References
Data
Blyton, Enid. 1941. The Twins at St. Clare’s. London: Methuen.
Blyton, Enid. 1970. Hanni und Nanni sind immer dagegen. Translated by Christa Kupfer. München; Wien: Franz Schneider Verlag.
Colfer, Eoin. 2001a. Artemis Fowl. New York City, NY: Viking Press.
Colfer, Eoin. 2001b. Artemis Fowl. Translated by Claudia Feldmann. Berlin: List.
Dahl, Roald. 1988. Matilda. London: Puffin Books.
Dahl, Roald. 1989. Matilda. Translated by Sybil Gräfin Schönfeldt. Reinbek: Rowohlt.
Rowling, Joanne K. 1998. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury.
Rowling, Joanne K. 1999. Harry Potter und die Kammer des Schreckens. Translated by Klaus Fritz. Hamburg: Carlsen.
Rowling, Joanne K. 2005a. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. London: Bloomsbury.
Rowling, Joanne K. 2005b. Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz. Translated by Klaus Fritz. Hamburg: Carlsen.
Secondary literature
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Culpeper, Jonathan. 1998. “(Im)Politeness in Dramatic Dialogue.” In Exploring the Language of Drama. From Text to Context, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Mick Short, and Peter Verdonk, 83–95. London; New York: Routledge.
Culpeper, Jonathan. 2011. Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
DWB – Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. “kropzeug.” Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm (DWB), digitalisierte Version im Digitalen Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. [URL] (21/03/2022).
Heuser, Rita. 2022. ”Kropp.” In Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Digitales Familiennamenwörterbuch Deutschlands, [URL] (21/03/2022).
Holtgraves, Thomas. 2000. “Preference Organization and Reply Comprehension.” Discourse Processes 30 (2): 87–106.
House, Juliane. 2004. “Linguistic Aspects of the Translation of Children’s Books.” In Translation – Übersetzung – Traduction. International Handbook on Translation, ed. by Armin Paul Frank et al., 683–698. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
House, Juliane. 2005. “Politeness in Germany: Politeness in Germany?” In Politeness in Europe, ed. by Leo Hickey, and Miranda Stewart, 13–28. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
House, Juliane. 2006. “Communicative Styles in English and German.” European Journal of English Studies 10: 249–267.
House, Juliane. 2010. “Impoliteness in Germany: Intercultural Encounters in Everyday and Institutional Talk.” Intercultural Pragmatics 7: 561–595.
House, Juliane. 2015. Translation Quality Assessment. Past and present. London; New York: Routledge.
Inggs, Judith. 2003. “From Harry to Garri: Strategies for the Transfer of Culture and Ideology in Russian Translations of two English Fantasy Stories.” Meta 48 (1–2): 285–297.
Kerchy, Anna. 2018. “Translation and Transmedia in Children’s Literature.” Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature 56 (1): 4–9.
Klingberg, Göte. 1986. Children’s Fiction in the Hands of the Translators. Lund: CWK Gleerup.
Kranich, Svenja, Hanna Bruns, and Elisabeth Hampel. 2021. “Requests across Varieties and Cultures: Norms are Changing (but not Everywhere in the Same Way).” Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies 32 (1): 91–114.
Lakoff, Robin. 1975. Language and Woman’s Place. San Francisco: Harper Colophon.
Lathey, Gillian. 2009. “Children’s Literature.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature, ed. by Mona Baker, and Gabriela Saldanha, 31–34. London: Routledge.
Leech, Geoffrey N. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.
Loveday, Leo. 2016. “The Making of a Sarcastic Villain: The Pragmatics of Captain Hook’s Impoliteness.” In Ways of Being in Literary and Cultural Spaces, ed. by Leo Loveday, and Emilia Parpală, 168–189. Cambridge: Scholars Publishing.
McIntyre, Dan, and Derek Bousfield. 2017. “(Im)Politeness in Fictional Texts.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)Politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh, and Dániel Z. Kádár, 759–783. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Meibauer, Jörg. 2017. “Pragmatics and Children’s Literature.” In Doing Pragmatics Interculturally. Cognitive, Philosophical, and Sociopragmatic Perspectives, ed. by Rachel Giora, and Michael Haugh, 371–387. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.
O’Connor, Cliodhna and Helene Joffe. 2020. “Intercoder Reliability in Qualitative Research: Debates and Practical Guidelines.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 19.
O’Sullivan, Emer. 2000. Kinderliterarische Komparatistik. Heidelberg: Winter.
Oittinen, Riita. 1993. I am Me – I am Other: On the Dialogics of Translating for Children. Tampere: University of Tampere.
Oittinen, Riita. 2000. Translating for Children. New York; London: Garland Publishing.
Parkes, Geoff. 2003. The Mistakes Clinic for German-speaking Learners of English. Southhampton: Englang Books.
Pleyer, Monika. 2019. Impoliteness in Children’s Fiction: Linguistic and Cross-Cultural Aspects. PhD Diss., University of Heidelberg. Heidelberg: HeiDok.
Pleyer, Monika. 2022. Linguistic Impoliteness in (Translated) Children’s Fiction. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang.
Short, Kathy G. 2018. “What’s Trending in Children’s Literature and Why It Matters.” Language Arts 95 (5): 287–298.
Toury, Gideo. 1980. In Search of a Theory of Translation. Tel Aviv: Porter Institute.
van Coillie, Jan, and Walter P. Verschueren. 2014. “Preface.” In Children’s Literature in Translation. Challenges and Strategies, ed. by Jan van Coillie, and Walter P. Verschueren, v–ix. London; New York: Routledge.
Watts, Richard J. 2003. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zipes, Jack. 2005. “Preface.” In The Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature: The Traditions in English, ed. by Jack Zipes, Lissa Paul, Lynne Vallone, Peter Hunt, and Gillian Avery, xxvii–xxxv. New York: Norton.
Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.