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Part of
The Corpus Linguistics Discourse: In honour of Wolfgang Teubert
Edited by Anna Čermáková and Michaela Mahlberg
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 87] 2018
► pp. 223–253

Translating fictional characters – Alice and the Queen from the Wonderland in English and Czech

| University of Birmingham
| University of Birmingham

In this chapter, we propose a novel theoretical framework for the literary translation of fictional characters. This framework develops the cognitive corpus linguistic notion of mind-modelling to account for process-, product- and function-oriented aspects of literary translation. We use the examples of Alice and the Queen from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to compare character cues across the English original and a Czech translation. The character cues we focus on are reporting verbs. Reporting verbs, as part of the presentation of fictional speech, form a central component of narrative fiction and so provide an ideal evidential basis for our theoretical framework. The translation shifts we found through our comparison of source and target text specifically include gendered uses of reporting verbs. By approaching the target text as both a translation and a reading of the text in its own right we are able to view translation shifts as a reflection of shifts in the mind-modelling of fictional characters.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Repetition and reporting verbs
  • 3. Said and other reporting verbs in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  • 4.Translating Alice and the Queen
    • 4.1 Alice
      • 4.1.1 Alice in English
      • 4.1.2 Alice in Czech
    • 4.2The Queen
      • 4.2.1 The Queen in English
      • 4.2.2 The Queen in Czech
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.87.10cer
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