Analisi e traduzione di "The family law" di Benjamin Law

The aim of this dissertation is to propose a translation from English into Italian of The Family Law, an autobiographical novel written by Benjamin Law, an Australian author of Cantonese origins. The present dissertation is divided into four chapters. The first chapter presents the author of the book, by providing his biography; in addition, the chapter contains an overview of the Australia immigration problem, which is an important issue in the book due to the fact that the author’s parents had moved from Hong Kong to Caloundra, Australia. The second chapter presents the book The Family Law, by focusing on its main themes and by paying special attention to the description of the characters; furthermore, it analyses the plot of the chapters which I decided to translate, and provides a selection of Italian publishers which might be interested in publishing the book. The third chapter consists of my translation of the chapters I selected. The final chapter analyses the strategies I adopted while translating and examines some of the problematic issues that I encountered during the translation process, in particular at the level of morphosyntax, lexicon, cultural references, and style.

Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy: a critical analysis

In this work, I will try to provide an insightful and accessible analysis of Funny Boy, a coming-of-age novel by Sri Lankan Canadian author Shyam Selvadurai. I will provide a brief biography of the author and a concise outline of the historical context. Subsequently, after discussing the novel's structure and its main characteristics, I will proceed to analyze the significance of the novel's title and the role played by ethnicity and sexuality as equivalent sources of alienation, both individually and through their combined agency. To that end, I will focus on what I consider to be the most salient episodes of the novel that, in my opinion, best exemplify the sense of alienation that any individual belonging to a minority group experiences at some point in their lives in mainstream society.

La traduzione dei racconti di Pat Mora: muoversi tra due lingue e due culture

This dissertation deals with the translations of seven books for children written by the Chicano author Pat Mora. I started to be interested in the Chicano world, a world suspended between Mexico and the United States, after reading a book by Sandra Cisneros. I decided to deepen my curiosity and for this reason, I discovered a hybrid reality full of history, culture and traditions. In this context, the language used is characterized by a continuous code switching between Spanish and English and I thought it was an interesting phenomenon from the literary and translation point of view. During my research in the Chicano culture, I ran across Pat Mora. Her books for children fascinated me because of their actual themes (the cultural diversity and the defense of identity) and their beautiful illustrations. For this reason, I chose to translate seven of her books because I believe they could be an enrichment for children literature in Italy. The work consists of five chapters. The first one deals with the identity of Chicano people, their history, their literature and their language. In the second chapter, I outline Pat Mora’s profile. I talk about her biography and I analyze her most famous works. In the third chapter, I introduce the seven books for children to be translated and I point out their plots and main themes. In the fourth chapter, I present the translation of the books. The fifth chapter is the translation comment. I deal with the linguistic analysis of the source texts and the analysis of the target texts focusing on the choices made during the translation process.

Italian American women in Helen Barolini's Umbertina

This essay analyzes the story and the culture of Italian American women, in particular how they are treated in the novel "Umbertina" by Helen Barolini. The essay first introduces briefly the causes of the great migration and the conditions of immigrants in the US. Then the focus moves on the analysis of the main themes that belong to the genre of Italian American literature. After having shortly treated the biography of Helen Barolini and a general presentation of her novel Umbertina, the essay goes on with the description of its three Italian American female characters and, in particular, of what it meant to be both immigrants and women, together with all the interior and generational conflicts they had to face in order to accept their new hybrid identity. An analysis of some meaningful metaphorical objects in the novel, such as the tin heart and the bedspread, the metaphor of Persephone and of the threshold conclude the essay. Through the analysis of the story of Umbertina, this essay wants to show how migration can lead to a displacement and the kind of journey people had to undertake in order to overcome the conflicts deriving from their belonging to an in-between culture and to accept their hybrid identity.

"Portugal Vale A Pena" Un ritratto senza tempo del portogallo attraverso il prisma dei giornalisti

This dissertation aims at enhancing the cultural and linguistic skills in Portuguese of the author of this work, as it is a third language. This activity is carried out starting from the analysis and research of topics mentioned in a number of texts within a particular literary work, “Portugal Vale A Pena”. In this work, many Portuguese personalities express their vision on their country and state why Portugal matters. Since these texts have many cultural references, it can be assumed that such work of analysis and research can lead to better linguistic skills as well as a greater knowledge of the Portuguese culture. All of the chosen texts were originally written by journalists. This choice originates from the important service these professionals provide to the public as well as from the special role their work has played in my interpreting studies over the last couple of years. Chapter 1 explains why I chose this dissertation and who are the target users of these texts. Chapter 2 focuses on the role of journalists. A brief history of modern journalism is presented and its functions are analysed. This chapter also includes a section that examines which values make an event newsworthy. Attention is then paid to the evolution of Portuguese journalism, from Salazar's dictatorship until today. Teaching of journalism in Portuguese academia is also presented. Then, a selection of Portuguese-language media is offered. Chapter 3 focuses on some aspects of Portugal, with particular attention to its history. Finally, Chapter 4 presents a selection of texts from the original book. This part provides a biography of the authors, a translation with a comment and a presentation of some of the topics from the texts. To conclude, a glossary with words and expressions from the original text is included and their translations into Italian, Spanish and English are provided.