Tradurre il fantasy per giovani lettori: "The Explorers' gate" di Chris Grabenstein

The purpose of this thesis is, on the one hand, to illustrate the peculiarities of children’s literature, fantasy fiction and their translation and, on the other hand, to propose a translation from English to Italian of some chapters of the e-book The Explorers’ Gate by American author Chris Grabenstein. The first chapters of this work offer an analysis of different critical studies on children’s literature and fantasy fiction and illustrate the characteristics of these two literary expressions. I will also discuss the different approaches to their translation in order to produce a translated text that is consistent with its literary genre and with translation theories. The third chapter is about the author and includes an interview on his idea of children’s literature and his opinions about translation. The second part of this thesis is represented by the actual translation of the e-book. Firstly, I will analyze the source text, dividing the analysis in extra-textual and intra- textual and focusing on sender, addressee, time and space, function of the text, plot, structure, narrator, style and language used by the author. I will also highlight those elements that probably would be challenging during the translation phase. Secondly, I will explain the macro-strategy that I adopted during the process of translation, which can be defined as child-oriented. In the last chapter I will highlight those passages that represented translation challenges and I will show how I tackled them.

"Who Fears Death" di Nnedi Okorafor, una proposta di traduzione

This dissertaton deals with the translation of selected chapters from Nnedi Okorafor’s novel Who Fears Death. The novel, set in a post-apocalyptic Africa ravaged by inter-ethnic violence, narrates the tale of Onyesonwu, an Ewu, a half-breed born of rape, facing the rejection of her community. Growing up Onyesonwu realizes that the color of her skin is not the only thing that sets her apart from the other inhabitants of Jwahir, as she starts to manifest magical powers, and during an unintentional visit to the spirit realms she finds out that her biological father, a very powerful sorcerer, wants to kill her. At this point the only option left to her is to learn the secret arts of magic under the guidance of Aro, the sorcerer, and then embark on a journey to put and end to the menace posed by her biological father, stop the massacres between the Okeke and Nuru people, and rewrite history. This work is structured in five chapters. The first presents a brief retelling of the author’s life and works. The second chapter constitutes the theoretical frame according to which the novel will be described, and illustrates an analysis on the function of sci-fi literature. The third chapter introduces the novel itself, dealing with its setting and cultural peculiarities, the literary genre to which it belongs, and analysing the themes deemed most relevant, among which the racial and gender issues. The fourth chapter consists of the translation of some chapters from the novel Who Fears Death, and the fifth of a comment on the translation, presenting both a textual analysis, and notes on the choices deemed most interesting or challenging in a translation process perspective.

Habibi. Proposta di traduzione di un romanzo young adult

This dissertation intends to present and analyse the translation from English into Italian of the first twenty-five chapters of Habibi, a teenager and young adult’s novel written by the Palestinian-American author Naomi Shihab Nye. It has been necessary to present the theoretical approach to the literary translation studies, in order to focus the attention on the translation problems and provide suitable solutions and strategies. The first chapter gives an historical perspective on children’s literature from the end of the Nineteenth century till today, distinguishing the Italian and the American contexts. The description of the evolution process of this literary genre, which developed to satisfy the needs of the educational system, is its central issue. At the end of the chapter, we outline the main traits characterizing children’s literature and the image of the ideal reader. The second chapter provides an overview on Palestinian literature, especially on the features of the contemporary novel and the Diaspora literature. Afterwards, we present the author Naomi Shihab Nye and the book Habibi. In the third chapter we analyze the novel, focusing the attention on the rhythm of the narration, on the linguistic registers and the textual peculiarities found during the reading stage, according to the features of the children’s literature. The fourth chapter consists of the translation of the first twenty-five chapters of the novel. The fifth chapter begins with a section about the translation theory, the literary translation studies, focusing on the translation of children’s literature. Finally, there is the translation analysis. Here we present the strategies and the choices of the translation process, along with some practical examples with reference to theoretical studies. Special attention is paid to culture-specific items, lexicon and syntax.The source text can be found in appendix.

No(i)rthern Ireland: Crime fiction and the northern-irish scene. Proposed translation into italian of two short stories from "belfast noir"

The present thesis aims at proving the importance of cultural and literary contexts in the practice of translation: I shall show that, in the case of Northern Irish crime fiction, knowledge of both Northern Irish history and culture as well as of the genre of crime fiction are essential prerequisites for the production of a “responsible” translation. I will therefore offer a brief overview of the history of crime and detective fiction and its main subgenres; some of the most important authors and works will be presented as well, in an analysis that goes from the early years of the genre to the second half of the 20th century. I will then move the focus to Northern Ireland, its culture and its history, and particular attention will be paid to fiction writing in Ireland and Northern Ireland, with a focus on the peculiar phenomenon of “Troubles Trash”. I will tackle the topic of Northern Irish literature and present the contemporary scene of Northern Irish crime fiction; the volume from which the texts for the translation have been taken will be presented, namely Belfast Noir. Subsequently the focus will move on the theoretical framework within which the translations were produced: I will present a literary review of the most significative developments in Translation Studies, with particular attention to the “cultural turn” that has characterised this subject since the 1960s. I will then highlight the phenomenon of “realia” in translation and analyse the approaches of different scholars to the translation of culture-bound references. The final part represents the culmination and practical application of all that was presented in the previous sections: I will discuss the translation of culture-bound references according to the strategies presented in Chapter 4, referring to the proposed translations of two stories. Such analysis aims to show that not only expert linguistic knowledge, but also cultural awareness and a wide literary background are needed in order to make conscious choices in translation.

Academic and non-academic conference presentations - are they the same genre? Five case studies.

Il presente elaborato si pone l’obiettivo di determinare se il genere del discorso di conferenza non accademica coincida con il genere del discorso di conferenza accademica, nello specifico per quanto riguarda le loro introduzioni. La prima parte della tesi si concentra sulle basi teoriche. In primo luogo è stata sviluppata una panoramica della letteratura esistente riguardo ai discorsi di conferenza accademica, dalla quale si è poi ristretto il campo sugli studi che hanno preso in esame solo la loro introduzione. Alla luce dell’assenza di pubblicazioni sulle conferenze non accademiche, e di conseguenza anche sui loro discorsi, si è cercato di definire il genere del discorso di conferenza non accademica, applicando il concetto di ‘comunità discorsiva’ sia ai discorsi di conferenza accademica sia a quelli di conferenza non accademica. Una volta stabilito che il contesto non accademico differisce da quello accademico, si è passati a definire l’introduzione dei discorsi di conferenza non accademica in quanto genere. Nella seconda parte dell’elaborato è stata svolta l’analisi di cinque case study, ovvero della trascrizione delle introduzioni di cinque discorsi di conferenza non accademica. A queste è stato applicato il modello di mosse retoriche delle introduzioni dei discorsi di conferenza accademica elaborato da Rowley-Jolivet e Carter-Thomas, per determinare se fosse valido anche per le introduzioni dei discorsi di conferenza non accademica. Una volta scoperto che non lo è, e che quindi le introduzioni dei discorsi di conferenza non accademica e quelle dei discorsi di conferenza accademica sono due 'sotto-generi' diversi, è stato proposto un nuovo modello di mosse retoriche. Infine sono stati avanzati dei suggerimenti riguardo all’applicabilità del suddetto modello, non solo in altri studi nel campo dell’analisi di genere, ma anche nel settore dell’interpretazione simultanea, con particolare riferimento alla preparazione dell’interprete e alla strategia di anticipazione.

Pontypool, traduci e muori. Traduzione di pontypool changes everything di tony burgess.

This work is focused on the translation of the first half of the novel Pontypool Changes Everything, written by Canadian author and screenplay writer Tony Burgess in 1998 and – quite surprisingly – still unpublished in Italy. Although the book disguises itself as a product for general consumption – more precisely as a tale of zombies – it is clear from the very beginning that the author is not interested in conforming to the conventions of the genre to which his work belongs. On the contrary, he seems to exploit the recent success of zombiea-pocalypse inspired stories to build up a more complex type of narrative. Nonetheless, he writes a story that introduces certain innovative elements in the rather repetitive and seemingly outworn genre, like the idea of a language-borne virus. Burgess, who has a graduate degree in semiotics, was by his own admission “insufferably preoccupied with literary malformations” when he wrote the book. As a matter of fact his narrative tackles issues – albeit superficially and always entertainingly – that seem to stem from the theories which originated in the field of linguistics around the second half of the twentieth century. It goes without saying that translating – as much as reading – such a book is both a difficult and compelling operation. As a translator you are required to constantly shift from one strategy to another, paying great attention to the semantic nuances of the written words whilst keeping in mind what the actual intention of the text is. Together with the book translation, this dissertation offers a brief introduction to the fundamental principles of translation and a detailed analysis of some of the translation problems posed by the novel.

Web mining for translators: automatic construction of comparable, genre-driven corpora

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the efficacy of the application WebBootCaT to create specialised corpora automatically, investigating the translation of articles of association from Italian into English. The first section reflects on the relevant literature and proposes the utility of corpora for translators. The second section discusses the methodology employed, and the third section analyses the results obtained and comments on how language professionals could possibly exploit the application to its full. The fourth section provides a few concrete usage examples of the thus built corpora, to then conclude that WebBootCaT is a genuinely powerful tool that could be implemented by professional translators in order to save time and improve their translations in the long term.