Fictional Orality by Jenny Brumme
Comparatio delectat, 2011

Chapter 15. Translating phrasemes in fictive dialogue
The Translation of Fictive Dialogue, 2012
This chapter provides a brief overview of the various functions and connotations phrasemes can ha... more This chapter provides a brief overview of the various functions and connotations phrasemes can have in literary texts in relation to the evocation of orality, and of the ways these traits might be rendered in translations. It starts by distinguishing between referential phrasemes able to accumulate diatextual and diamedial marks and communicative phrasemes often visibly related to a specific situation. The potential of these essential types is illustrated by two examples and their translations. The first one illustrates the use of referential phrasemes with clear colloquial connotations which evoke an informal mode of expression connected to an oral situation in The Double Bass (1981), written by Patrick Suskind as a monologue. The second example shows the creative exploitation of phraseological potential in a prototypical context, the didactic dialogue as developed in the classroom setting. Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s The Number Devil (1997) includes a large number of specialized collocations and idioms, which are playfully modified in the novel.

The aim of this article is to study the translation of fictive orality in the specific genre of s... more The aim of this article is to study the translation of fictive orality in the specific genre of suspense. Crime fiction has experienced some substantial innovations in recent years. We find that contemporary thrillers tend to use highly differentiated language to enhance character portrayal and also employ more realistic conversational style in everyday dialogues. The challenges deriving from this new crime fiction are briefly outlined by some examples from Wolf Haas's novels featuring Detective Brenner. Attention is paid to how suspense is generated in the Austrian source text and its translation into the target texts (English, French and Spanish). More specifically, the language awareness of the writer is related to the characteristics of the narrator's voice (informal T-form and dialogue with the reader). The different empirical data observed in the ST and the TTs highlight the interplay between the devices of spoken language (truisms, telegraphic style) and strategies used in order to bolster the suspense (holding-up of the showdown, allusions, play on words).

Oralia: análisis del discurso oral, 2021
En este artículo se propone un modelo integrado para el análisis de la oralidad ficticia en texto... more En este artículo se propone un modelo integrado para el análisis de la oralidad ficticia en textos y sus traducciones, con especial atención a su dimensión diatópica. Como punto de partida, se retoman los principales conceptos del marco teórico desarrollado por el estructuralismo alemán, como, por ejemplo, la cadena de variedades, la direccionalidad de la estratificación variacional y la distinción entre el lenguaje de la inmediatez comunicativa y el lenguaje de la distancia. A pesar de su rigidez y de algunas inconsistencias, el modelo permite clasificar las técnicas de traducción y, de este modo, profundizar en el funcionamiento de los textos traducidos. El enfoque se aplica al habla de los personajes en la novela Águilas y ángeles, de Juli Zeh. Para ello, se seleccionaron dos caracteres cuya habla contiene rasgos diatópicos y se compararon con sus traducciones al castellano, inglés, catalán y francés.
Background and justification: research into fictional orality and its translation
The Translation of Fictive Dialogue, 2012

Lingüística mediática y traducción audiovisual, 2015
As the task of subtitling involves writing an orally-delivered text, the representation of fictio... more As the task of subtitling involves writing an orally-delivered text, the representation of fictional orality poses a challenge for the subtitler. Even more so when the material in hand is a text-oriented film like Fontane Effi Briest (1974), a celebrated German film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the script of which is based on Theodor Fontane’s novel Effi Briest (1896), a classic of the German literature. Both Fontane’s and Fassbinder’s works stand out for the vivid language portrayed in the speech of their fictional characters. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the extent to which some of the resources that evoke orality in the source text – namely, discourse markers, modal particles and idioms – have been preserved in the Spanish target text. In this sense, the subtitles of three film sequences are analysed in depth and contrasted with the solutions provided by two Spanish literary translations of the novel.
Wiss. Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 1986
La tradution du dialogue fictif

Translation und sprachlicher Plurizentrismus in der Romania "minor", 2020
This paper addresses whether Catalan is a polycentric language or if there are several autonomous... more This paper addresses whether Catalan is a polycentric language or if there are several autonomous standards that can be reinforced, for example by different translations. Therefore, the study focuses on the main translation phenomena in the Central Catalan and Valencian versions of the German children’s books Der kleine Vampir (1979) and Der kleine Vampir zieht um (1980), by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg. From a first translation into Central Catalan (El petit vampir and El petit vampir canvia de casa) a subsequent version in Valencian was produced (El vampiret and El vampiret canvia de casa) which include both linguistic adjustments and some corrections.
This analysis focuses on personal articles, possessive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns and deixis, verbal conjugation, lexical choice, and tag questions in both Central Catalan and Valencian versions. The circumstances and context of the translations have also been taken into consideration in order to understand the rationale behind the translation and the adaptation choices that stem from an asymmetrical polycentric system of Catalan standard.

Oralia, 2019
En este artículo se propone un modelo integrado para el análisis de la oralidad ficticia en texto... more En este artículo se propone un modelo integrado para el análisis de la oralidad ficticia en textos y sus traducciones, con especial atención a su dimensión diatópica. Como punto de partida, se retoman los principales conceptos del marco teórico desarrollado por el estructuralismo alemán, como, por ejemplo, la cadena de variedades, la direccionalidad de la estratificación variacional y la distinción entre el lenguaje de la inmediatez comunicativa y el lenguaje de la distancia. A pesar de su rigidez y de algunas inconsistencias, el modelo permite clasificar las técnicas de traducción y, de este modo, profundizar en el funcionamiento de los textos traducidos. El enfoque se aplica al habla de los personajes en la novela Águilas y ángeles, de Juli Zeh. Para ello, se seleccionaron dos caracteres cuya habla contiene rasgos diatópicos y se compararon con sus traducciones al castellano, inglés, catalán y francés.
Moderne Sprachen, 2020
This paper analyses the graphic novel Arrugas (2007) by Paco Roca, originally written in Spanish,... more This paper analyses the graphic novel Arrugas (2007) by Paco Roca, originally written in Spanish, and its translations into French, Catalan, German and (British and American) English. In order to reach conclusions with regard to the adopted translation strategies we focus on four areas that are relevant to the translation of graphic novels and fiction in general: narrative perspective, proper names, address pronouns, and cultural terms. The analysed versions can be classified according to their domesticating vs. foreignizing strategies (French, British English vs. Catalan, German, American English) and the application of generalising techniques (esp. German).

Fontane Effi Briest (1974), de Fassbinder: Los subtítulos en una película con predominio del texto
As the task of subtitling involves writing an orally-delivered text, the representation of fictio... more As the task of subtitling involves writing an orally-delivered text, the representation of fictional orality poses a challenge for the subtitler. Even more so when the material in hand is a text-oriented film like Fontane Effi Briest (1974), a celebrated German film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the script of which is based on Theodor Fontane’s novel Effi Briest (1896), a classic of the German literature. Both Fontane’s and Fassbinder’s works stand out for the vivid language portrayed in the speech of their fictional characters. Therefore,
this paper aims to explore the extent to which some of the resources that evoke orality in the source text – namely, discourse markers, modal particles and idioms – have been preserved in the Spanish target text. In this sense, the subtitles of three film sequences are analysed in depth and contrasted with the solutions provided by two Spanish literary translations of the novel.
The Translation of Fictive Dialogue
Traducir La Oralidad Teatral. Las Traducciones Al Castellano, Catalán, Francés y Euskera De Der Kontrabass De Patrick …
La oralidad fingida: descripción y traducción. Teatro, …, 2008

Recurrent communicative events in TV police procedurals, as dictated by genre conventions, lead t... more Recurrent communicative events in TV police procedurals, as dictated by genre conventions, lead to the use of recurrent, stereotypical language in these audiovisual products. This paper explores repeated lexicon and syntactic structures (text blocks) from corpse finding and initial forensic analysis, as well as from interrogation sequences in crime TV shows. It also reflects on the extent to which such repetition poses a challenge for subtitlers. The examples for analysis have been taken from the American TV shows Dexter (2006) and Castle (2009). The paper sheds light on how textual recurrence supports recognition of the genre and plot structures and helps to condense, up to a certain degree, the relevant elements of the message in the case of subtitling. As the genre under study is at the crossroads between fiction, specialised discourse and evocation of everyday conversation, this paper combines approaches from different research fields in order to use the most widespread concepts...

Del texto a la traducción. Estudios en homenaje a Pilar Elena, 2020
Brumme, Jenny (2020): ¿Está claro está tan claro? La partícula discursiva catalana esclar en la f... more Brumme, Jenny (2020): ¿Está claro está tan claro? La partícula discursiva catalana esclar en la ficción traducida. A propósito de Drecera al paradís (2007) – Atajo al paraíso (2008) – Höllenfahrt ins Paradies (2011), de Teresa Solana, en: Recio Ariza, M.ª Ángeles; Roiss, Silvia; Santana López, Belén; Holl, Iris, De la Cruz Recio, Manuel (eds.): Del texto a la traducción. Estudios en homenaje a Pilar Elena. Granada: Comares, 55-69.
This article studies the Catalan discursive particle esclar and its translations into Spanish and German in Teresa Solana’s novel Drecera al paradís (Shortcut to Paradise, 2007). Since the author’s style aims to emulate the spoken reality of Barcelona, the 30 occurrences of esclar in the speech of the characters are classified according to the proposal by Cuenca and Marín (2012) elaborated from two spoken language corpora. Based on the poly-functionality of the particle, 12 conjunctive uses are determined, 5 as discourse marker, 5 interjective uses and 8 with modal meaning. The analysis of the translations shows great convergence between Catalan and Spanish in the solutions provided by Solana in her own translation. In contrast, the German translation by Petra Zickmann shows an approach that adapts with flexibly to the evoked contexts, although it gives preference to translation by natürlich (10 occurrences) and to omission (9 occurrences).
This paper deals with the adaptation of graphic novel to animation film. We analyse the award-win... more This paper deals with the adaptation of graphic novel to animation film. We analyse the award-winning Arrugas (2007) about Alzheimer’s, written and drawn by Paco Roca. Firstly we give an overview of different genres dealing with Alzheimer’s: information comics, documentaries and fiction both print and audio-visual. We then present some details about the author and the plot and how the graphic novel and film have been received. Our analysis focuses on differences between the comic and the film version a) in depicting the doctor-patient interaction and b) in linguistic variation in dialogue.

Translations are part of the normal life of a language. In literature, the author often aims to b... more Translations are part of the normal life of a language. In literature, the author often aims to bring a character alive through the way he/she speaks. This use of speech makes us question the relationship between the language represented in the fictional dialogue, the standardised norm of that language and genuine everyday speech. An operative translation of a fictional dialogue is, therefore, an indicator of the flexibility of linguistic codifications in the target language. It highlights the potential sources of conflict between actual and standardised language use. In this article two non-standard elements in a controversial extract from the novel Ruhm (2007) by Daniel Kehlmann are analysed: the exaggerated use of anglicisms and the invention of a colloquial intensifier. The language used by the main character while contributing to an online forum debate pushes the boundaries of German and strengthens the grotesque portrayal of his character. The translation (Fama, 2009) is shown to recreate loyally the intention of the author. It is agile in recovering the repeated intensifier where appropriate. However, it uses fewer anglicisms and repeats the intensifier more often. The translation uses a mixture of quotations, invented phrases and evocation of authentic speech. I conclude that this suggests that Catalan has achieved a certain normality of use.
Brumme, Jenny / Resinger, Hildegard (eds.), La oralidad fingida: obras literarias. Descripción y traducción
Con la colaboración de Amaia Zaballa.
Jenny Brumme: Introducción, p. 7-8.
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Fictional Orality by Jenny Brumme
This analysis focuses on personal articles, possessive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns and deixis, verbal conjugation, lexical choice, and tag questions in both Central Catalan and Valencian versions. The circumstances and context of the translations have also been taken into consideration in order to understand the rationale behind the translation and the adaptation choices that stem from an asymmetrical polycentric system of Catalan standard.
this paper aims to explore the extent to which some of the resources that evoke orality in the source text – namely, discourse markers, modal particles and idioms – have been preserved in the Spanish target text. In this sense, the subtitles of three film sequences are analysed in depth and contrasted with the solutions provided by two Spanish literary translations of the novel.
This article studies the Catalan discursive particle esclar and its translations into Spanish and German in Teresa Solana’s novel Drecera al paradís (Shortcut to Paradise, 2007). Since the author’s style aims to emulate the spoken reality of Barcelona, the 30 occurrences of esclar in the speech of the characters are classified according to the proposal by Cuenca and Marín (2012) elaborated from two spoken language corpora. Based on the poly-functionality of the particle, 12 conjunctive uses are determined, 5 as discourse marker, 5 interjective uses and 8 with modal meaning. The analysis of the translations shows great convergence between Catalan and Spanish in the solutions provided by Solana in her own translation. In contrast, the German translation by Petra Zickmann shows an approach that adapts with flexibly to the evoked contexts, although it gives preference to translation by natürlich (10 occurrences) and to omission (9 occurrences).