Literatur III: Literarisches Übersetzen

Thema des Essays:

Trainspotting - Analyse der deutschen Übersetzung des Kapitels
"Strolling through the meadows" anhand des Modells
von Juliane House ("Translation Quality Assessment")

1. Analysis of the source text (ST) 2

1.1 Field 2
1.2 Tenor 2
1.2.1 Author′s temporal, social and geographical provenance 2
1.2.2 Author′s personal (emotional and intellectual) stance 2
1.2.3 Social role relationship 3
1.2.4 Social Attitude 3
1.3 Mode 4
1.3.1 Medium 4
1.3.2 Participation 6
1.4 Genre 6

2 Analysis and evaluation of the Target Text (TT) 7

2.1 Field 7
2.2 Tenor 8
2.2.1 Social role relationship 8
2.3 Mode 9
2.3.1 Medium 9

2. Evaluation of the TT 12

3. Bibliography 12

1. Analysis of the source text (ST)
1.1 Field

"Trainspotting" is the title of a novel, written by the contemporary Scottish author Irvine Welsh. The plot is set in contemporary Edinburgh, i.e. Leith, and deals with the lives and experiences of a group of heroin junkies. The chapter we are looking at deals with a nightly walk through the meadows that three of the characters set off to after a visit in a Pub. They are in search of two other mates of them. During their stroll they meet two girls they know and come across a squirrel which two of them attempt to hurt. The attempt is prevented by the third.

1.2 Tenor
1.2.1 Author′s temporal, social and geographical provenance

Irvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish author. Trainspotting has been his most famous book so far and established him as an influential Scottish author, writing novels with a Scottish background, promoting "Scottishness". The accuracy and detailed descriptions in the text let the reader assume what is known to be a fact, anyway, namely that Irvine Welsh himself has made his own experiences with taking drugs.

1.2.2 Author′s personal (emotional and intellectual) stance

Although a certain involvement in the Scottish drug scene is undeniable, he cannot be seen as a supporter of heroin addiction. Within the novel his position is marked by the end of the novel, when the protagonist leaves the drug scene of Edinburgh and sets off for a new life in another country and also by the communicative situation of the novel (loosely knit, short events in discontinuous order, told by changing 1st -person I-narrators) which will be analysed more closely in the chapter "participation". The permanent change of narrators produces changing perspectives, which, again, create objectivity and distance (as no character is too clearly preferred) and intimacy at the same time, because we get to know the secret thoughts of the different narrators.

[...]