Browsing by Author "Leden, Laura"

In my pro gradu thesis I study the use of the adapting translation strategy omission in the Swedish and Finnish translation of L.M. Montgomery's Emily trilogy (1923 - 1927). Omission means reduction or elimination of part of the source text. The translations are made in the middle of the 20th century, with the expectation of the Swedish translation of the last book, which is from 1985. The aim of my thesis is to study what has been omitted and why as well as how the omissions affect the characterization. The former is done by categorizing the omissions and the latter through analysis of character indicators. The Emily trilogy belongs to the genre girls' books, which is a subgenre to children's and young adults' literature. Translation of children's and young adults' literature follows the same norms as translation of adult literature, but also didactic and pedagogical norms, which are in contrast to norms of equivalence. Both children's and young adults' literature and girls books are genres with a peripheral position within the literary polysystem. The low status of the genre at the time of translation is a reason for the deviation from the norms of equivalence in the translations. I have derived a model for categorization of the omissions in my material from categories of reasons for omissions presented by Rodica Dimitriu (2003) and Eirlys E. Davis (2007). The categories in my study are purification, no direct contribution to the plot, culture bound elements, linguistic reasons, previous omission, and other, here listed according to frequency of occurrence. Purification, which is due to the didactic norms, is the most common category and occurs chiefly in the translations of the first two books. The category no direct contribution to the plot is almost as common and is related to a wish to shorten the texts. The Swedish and Finnish translations contain similar omissions, but the omissions are fewer and on average shorter in the Finnish translations, where the percentage of omitted text is lower as well. The Swedish translation of the third book is an exception. It contains the least omissions of all the translations, which is due that the translation was made as late as 1985. Furthermore, the number of omissions, and in particular of purifying omissions, decreases gradually book by book. The percentage of omitted text is greatest in the Swedish translations of the first two books. Generally, a reason for why omissions are so frequent in the translations is that they have a younger target audience than the source texts. The analysis of character indicators in the translations shows that the omissions have affected the characterization. The purifying omissions affect the indirect characterization of the adult characters due to that character indicators in the form of actions and speech demonstrating improper behavior or linking the character to sexuality have been omitted. Omission of nature descriptions affects the analogous characterization of Emily through landscape due to that Emily's relationship to nature is not pictured as equally strong and physical and related to creativity as in the source texts. The analysis also shows that the effect on the characterization is greatest in the Swedish translations of the first two books, which contain the highest amount of omitted text.