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Abstract

Two contemporary translations of the same literary source text can differ significantly. The focus of this research project was to identify major similarities and differences between two contemporary translations of the same source text with the aim of suggesting reasons for these differences. 

American translators Craig Hill and Norman R. Shapiro both published translations of La Fontaine’s Fables in the early 21st century. The Fables is a large text composed of over 200 short poems (fables). Due to the limited scope of this study, it was necessary to select a small number of fables to analyse in depth. To determine which fables to analyse, literature on the source text and the target texts was consulted. La Fontaine scholars, such as Slater, highlight cultural and political references as some of the most important elements of the text. Moreover, translation scholars, such as Aixelà and Newmark, suggest that translating these elements of a historical text is particularly challenging. A corpus-based approach revealed that both translators occasionally change an animal from the source text to a different animal and that their translations of Culture-Specific Items often differ.

The next step was to apply translation theory to describe translation choices and suggest reasons for these choices. The major theories used in this study were equivalence, Vermeer’s skopos theory, domestication and foreignization, Aixelà’s Culture-Specific Items, and Kung’s work on paratexts.

The main conclusion of this research is that differences between the target texts were usually the result of the translators using different strategies to adapt the source text to the target culture. In particular, it highlighted the difficulties of poetry translation compared to other literary genres, since the additional considerations of rhyme and metre contributed to both translators making unusual word choices.

Course: Translation Studies - MA/PGD - C0680

Date Deposited: 2024-02-06

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14372.html