This thesis identifies a gap in existing research and reflects on the position of translations, comics, graphic novels and classics in the literary canon. By taking Homer's Odyssey as an example,...Show moreThis thesis identifies a gap in existing research and reflects on the position of translations, comics, graphic novels and classics in the literary canon. By taking Homer's Odyssey as an example, this thesis demonstrates both the didactic and the literary quality of the graphic novel, which have been and still are undervalued by academics. Furthermore, this thesis explores the nature of (intersemiotic) translation, by studying the transition from Homer's epic to Gareth Hinds' graphic novel.Show less
Despite the fact that in our day and age in which downloading movies, streaming Netflix, and playing online games have become a mainstream source of entertainment for many, a vast audience still...Show moreDespite the fact that in our day and age in which downloading movies, streaming Netflix, and playing online games have become a mainstream source of entertainment for many, a vast audience still knows how to make their way to the theater. In addition to the grand Broadway showstoppers, there are a number of musicals that bring an additional set of features to the stage and provide the audience with an insight into the cultural, historical, political or societal background against which these stories are set. England-based Billy Elliot incorporates ‘songs in community centres, village halls, and pubs, [set] during the 1970s and early 1980s with the aim of exposing the inequalities of British Society from a Marxist perspective’ (Gordon, 2016, p. 426). Through the use of Venuti’s dichotomous notions of foreignization and domestication, this thesis attempted to find whether these cultural-historical musicals allow for translatability and what role his notions play in the process. Set within the framework of a target text-oriented DTS-based comparative analysis, the areas of culture, class, and dialect are examined which play a significant role in Billy Elliot and many other cultural-historical musicals. While other studies on foreignization and domestication have primarily found a preference for domestication (McKelvey, 2001; Xu & Tian, 2013; Yılmaz-Gümüş, 2012), this three-fold study rather found an overall compensating strategy in which culture and class received a more domesticating approach while the dialect was approached through foreignization – a compromise in order to chiefly retain the musical’s source culture and simultaneously educate and entertain the target culture’s audience.Show less
In order to ensure that healthcare professionals from abroad understand the Dutch health legislation, translations of this legislation are required. This thesis contributes to this purpose by...Show moreIn order to ensure that healthcare professionals from abroad understand the Dutch health legislation, translations of this legislation are required. This thesis contributes to this purpose by translating frequently occurring medical and legal terms in the BIG law. These terms will be collected in a terminology. Healthcare professionals can consult this terminology before applying to the BIG register, to make sure that they understand the contents of the BIG law.Show less
This thesis reports on a small-scale online self-completion survey on the opinions on subtitling conventions by Dutch viewers in order to investigate the growing dissatisfaction among Dutch viewers...Show moreThis thesis reports on a small-scale online self-completion survey on the opinions on subtitling conventions by Dutch viewers in order to investigate the growing dissatisfaction among Dutch viewers while watching subtitled television. The intuitions of Dutch lay viewers were compared to the opinions of scholars and professionals. A better understanding of lay perception of subtitling could assist in providing translations that satisfy both lay and professional evaluators. The theory suggested that while guidelines exist for subtitling, there is an increasing amount of people who are concerned about the quality of subtitling. Aside from acknowledging other causes for dissatisfaction, this self-completion survey focused on the possibility that outdated guidelines could be a cause for growing dissatisfaction. The results from the survey remained open to interpretation as the opinions of the participants on the samples presented to them were varied. However, the results do suggest that while the existence of a subtitling standard is appreciated for the sake of consistency and predictability, some specific examples of audiovisual material might benefit from deviating from the prescribed standard. Yet, the data did not provide a conclusive answer on how to implement any changes, and suggested that the changes suggested in this thesis would provide both solutions and problems for a nearly equal number of people.Show less
Automotive Customer Facing Literature is increasingly responsible for enticing customers to a car brand or car model. Low translation quality in this documentation can have a detrimental effect on...Show moreAutomotive Customer Facing Literature is increasingly responsible for enticing customers to a car brand or car model. Low translation quality in this documentation can have a detrimental effect on the quality perception of the brands by potential customers. This thesis examines the Automotive Customer Facing Literature, such as brochures, specification and price guides, and website texts, for the premium car brands Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) and can be positioned within the fields of Terminology, Translation and Translation Quality Assessment. Since the involvement of the new communication agency Spark44, two years ago, the translation quality of ACFL texts has decreased due to mistranslations, incorrect language use and polluted translation memories and term bases. This is a serious problem that an increasing number of markets complain about. Therefore, this study has examined the translation process for JLR Nederland and provides a Translation Quality Assessment (TQA) utilizing the Multidoc adaptation of the SAE J2450 model, which was specially designed for assessing automotive translations. Based on the results from both the mathematical and observational TQA, the main problems have been identified and solution/advices for these problems have been presented. The aim of this thesis is to present solutions and advice to the involved companies to help them improve the translation quality of their target texts in the Netherlands and other European markets, and eventually all markets worldwide. This has been done in cooperation with the Dutch Product Manager and the in-house transcreator of Jaguar Land Rover Nederland (JLR NL), who, thanks to extensive translation reviews, is responsible for the high quality of the translated texts for the Dutch market, and the Product Manager of JLR NL. Therefore, this thesis will be presented to the Dutch Product manager of JLR NL, the in-house transcreator of JLR NL, Spark44, and the translation agency responsible for all the translations of Automotive Customer Facing Literature (above the line) for both brands.Show less
In this thesis, an in depth analysis of the terms mishandeling in Dutch law and assault in British and American law is drawn, to ascertain whether these terms could function as translations for...Show moreIn this thesis, an in depth analysis of the terms mishandeling in Dutch law and assault in British and American law is drawn, to ascertain whether these terms could function as translations for each other. The hypothesis is that these terms may be significantly different, and are therefore not suitable as translations for each other. Studies on equivalence and the componential analysis by Nida and the prototype analysis by Rosch serve as a theoretical framework for the comparison, as well as the legal context of the terminology. It may be concluded from the analysis that Dutch mishandeling and American assault may be used as translations for each other, but British assault is significantly different from these terms. Other translations are offered to solve this issue.Show less
The aim of this research is to gain insight in how futurity is expressed within English and Dutch legal contracts and to define the relation between modality and temporality. It is hypothesized...Show moreThe aim of this research is to gain insight in how futurity is expressed within English and Dutch legal contracts and to define the relation between modality and temporality. It is hypothesized that futurity is not unequivocally expressed in contract language. Also, it is expected that not only within futurity but also within modality a potential degree of ambiguity can be found considering expression of epistemic, dynamic, and deontic modality.Show less
Translating a novel that contains one or more regional or social dialects can be a daunting task for a literary translator. It is therefore surprising that little research has been done by well...Show moreTranslating a novel that contains one or more regional or social dialects can be a daunting task for a literary translator. It is therefore surprising that little research has been done by well-known translation theorists on the translation of dialects. One of the few scholars who has written about this subject is Peter Newmark in his A Textbook of Translation. He urges translators faced with this challenge to produce ‘… possibly classless speech’ and to leave out most of the dialect words (p. 195). This strategy of normalization is also suggested by Andrew Chesterman, where he names dialect normalization as one of his potential S-universals, which is a term used to ‘formulate a generalization about a difference between translations and source texts’ (Chesterman, p. 40). Although numerous scholars have written on the strategy of normalization in general (See e.g. Baker 1996; Kenny 1998; Mauranen 2007; Xia 2014), almost none have linked this procedure specifically to translating dialect. In fact, no clear strategy or procedure has emerged that could help translators overcome this challenge of translating dialectal elements in the source text. Therefore, this thesis will examine the question to what extent literary translators faced with regional and/or social dialects apply the strategy of normalization on several linguistic levels (syntax, lexical items, morphology, and orthography) in their translations. In order to examine this question, source text excerpts and their corresponding target text excerpts from two novels that contain a specific dialect were compared, namely Trainspotting and The Help. While Trainspotting is almost exclusively written in Scottish English, The Help contains examples of the African American Vernacular English dialect (AAVE) of some of the characters. These excerpts were compared with each other, focusing not on the entire text as a whole, but on specific linguistic levels within the text: syntax, lexical items, morphology, and orthography. This enabled me to examine to what extent (on which levels) the strategy of normalization was applied. Throughout my research, I will approach the notion of normalization as being ‘the tendency to conform to patterns and practices which are typical of the target language, even to the point of exaggerating them’ (Baker, pp. 176-177). I will therefore focus on those dialectal source text features that have been completely standardized to the norms of the target language in the translations of Trainspotting and The Help. The results seem to confirm that dialect normalization is an universal strategy used by literary translators to overcome the difficulty of translating specific dialectal elements in the source text. Normalization also seems to be used on all linguistic levels. However, the results show that dialect normalization is not exclusively used in these situations. Other procedures such as modulation and omission are also used to translate dialect speech, although most of these procedures work together with the strategy of normalization to standardize the Dutch target text. Furthermore, an important factor seems to be the original approach of the source text author in representing the original dialect in his or her novel. Irvine Welsh focused on the orthography in Trainspotting, resulting in a higher degree of dialect normalization on the orthographical level in the target text. Kathryn Stockett took a syntactical approach on dialect representation in her novel, The Help, resulting in a higher degree of dialect normalization on the syntax of the translation. Very few examples can be found in both novels where the author had used either an existing Dutch dialect, or had used irregular or marked language to create a similar dialect (or an effect of such) in the target text.Show less
Song translation is a relatively under-researched field in Translation Studies (Susam-Sarajeva, 2008, p. 187). Most studies that do exist revolve around singability (Low, 2003; Stopar 2016),...Show moreSong translation is a relatively under-researched field in Translation Studies (Susam-Sarajeva, 2008, p. 187). Most studies that do exist revolve around singability (Low, 2003; Stopar 2016), singability and rhyme (Low, 2008), or fidelity to the source text (Franzon 2005). The combination of song translation theory and metaphor theory, however, is a virtually unresearched combination of fields. Low (2017) states: “[s]ong lyrics are often rich in metaphor” and he recommends that song translators, more than 'regular' translators, should “attempt to maintain the richness of metaphor” (p. 34). This thesis analyses three songs from musicals that have been translated from English to Dutch. These musicals are of different genres and for different audiences, to include the influence that these factors might have had on the choices of the translators. The musicals used in this study are drama musical Les Misérables (E: 1985; D: 1991), animated film musical Anastasia (1997) and romantic comedy musical Hairspray (E: 1988; D: 2003). Using the MIPVU (Metaphor Identification Procedure VU University Amsterdam [Steen et al., 2010]), this thesis analyses the metaphors in the three songs, in both the English source text and the Dutch target text. Subsequently, it attempts to establish how the translators dealt with the metaphors, and, ultimately, to see whether the fact that the target texts are singable translations of a song had any influence on the choices of the translator. This is endeavoured by answering two questions. Firstly, can the translations of the metaphors in songs be analysed by means of Newmark's (1981) and Schäffner's (2004) categorizations of procedures used in metaphor translation? Secondly, can singularities be explained through Low's pentathlon principle (2005) for song translation?Show less
This thesis discusses the peripheral position of children's literature in the literary polysystem and the consequences this position has on the translation of it. The hypothesis is that this...Show moreThis thesis discusses the peripheral position of children's literature in the literary polysystem and the consequences this position has on the translation of it. The hypothesis is that this position will lead translators of children's literature to use a more laissez-faire approach when translating. With the use of Antoine Berman's model of deforming tendencies, texts for adults and texts for children and their translations are compared to see whether more "negative" changes occur in children's literature, thus showing that children's literature is indeed situated in a peripheral position in the literary polysystem.Show less
This thesis investigates the ongoing debate about the role of translation in second language learning. In the past, scholars and teachers alike assumed that translation caused interference and...Show moreThis thesis investigates the ongoing debate about the role of translation in second language learning. In the past, scholars and teachers alike assumed that translation caused interference and therefore halted a learner’s progress in learning a second or foreign language. More recent research, however, has attempted to counter common conceptions regarding translation’s ineffectiveness as a language-learning and language-teaching tool. My thesis provides an overview of past and current language acquisition theories and teaching methods, and explains why most of these theories and methods are considered to be flawed. The recently developed task-based teaching method aims to address these flaws, and calls for task-based language exercises, including task-based translation exercises. In a pilot study I investigated the value of task-based translation exercises when Dutch secondary school students are learning grammatical aspect (i.e. the present perfect) in English. Overall, the study showed that using task-based translation exercises enhances the use and understanding of grammatical aspect (i.e. the present perfect), although there appeared to be a discrepancy between HAVO and VWO participants.Show less
