Leiden University Student Repository

Buschman, Judith (2021)

The Aging of Translations: A Case Study on Retranslating Orwell’s 1984

Master thesis | Linguistics (MA)

The aging of retranslations has been getting more attention in the last few decades. Yet not much research has been conducted that can easily be replicated. In this study, the method by Van Poucke (2017) is used to find out if the first translation of 1984 by George Orwell has aged. 1984 was chosen because of the relevance that it still has and because it can add to the limited research that has been done on retranslating science fiction. Two Dutch translations were analysed, namely the first translation by Kool (1950) and the second and most recent translation by Davids (1984). The first chapter of the two translations was analysed to find out if lexical and stylistic aging could be found. Furthermore, the translations were analysed on the aging of technological concepts. Van Poucke’s method was used, because it is the leading method that operationalizes the research of aging. The findings show that lexical aging could not be determined in the first translation. For stylistic aging...Show moreThe aging of retranslations has been getting more attention in the last few decades. Yet not much research has been conducted that can easily be replicated. In this study, the method by Van Poucke (2017) is used to find out if the first translation of 1984 by George Orwell has aged. 1984 was chosen because of the relevance that it still has and because it can add to the limited research that has been done on retranslating science fiction. Two Dutch translations were analysed, namely the first translation by Kool (1950) and the second and most recent translation by Davids (1984). The first chapter of the two translations was analysed to find out if lexical and stylistic aging could be found. Furthermore, the translations were analysed on the aging of technological concepts. Van Poucke’s method was used, because it is the leading method that operationalizes the research of aging. The findings show that lexical aging could not be determined in the first translation. For stylistic aging, much more evidence was found. After conducting this research, it can be concluded some evidence has been found that the first translation of 1984 has indeed aged and the aging of the first translation could have been a reason for retranslating the novel.Show less

retranslation

orwell

aging

translation

Author

Buschman, Judith

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Translation

Supervisors

Reus, T.
Zeven, K.L.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en