Despite SF’s general underrepresentation both in academia and the publishing world, there are scholars that have turned to this genre and studied it in relation to Lawrence Venuti’s concepts of...Show moreDespite SF’s general underrepresentation both in academia and the publishing world, there are scholars that have turned to this genre and studied it in relation to Lawrence Venuti’s concepts of foreignization and domestication, introduced in The Translator’s Invisibility (1995). Domestication has been considered “especially problematic due to its inventiveness of fictive worlds and the reliance of its estrangement function upon specific language” (Campbell, 2021, p. 6). One of the ways in which this inventiveness is expressed, is through neologisms, as Freedman (2000) explains, “this device being perhaps the most paradigmatic expression of science-fictional diction” (2000, p. 37). One of the scholars that has discussed neologisms in his work is Peter Newmark (1988), whom we will be discussing in this thesis. Newmark (1988) recognizes in his book, A Textbook of Translation, that translating neologisms is a challenging task, as he emphasizes that “neologisms are perhaps the non-literary and the professional translator’s biggest problem” (p.140). The aim of this thesis is thus to study neologisms within the SF genre in relation to Venuti’s concepts of domestication and foreignization. It will do so by conducting a case study on a SF text, namely Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (DADOES) by American writer Philip K. Dick. In the case study, three Dutch translations of DADOES will be compared to each other and the source text: De Elektrische Nachtmerrie (1969) by Frank Visser, Dromen Androïden van Elektrische Schapen? (1979) by Ivain Rodriguez de León and Blade Runner: Dromen Androïden over Elektrische Schapen? (2017) by Irving Pardoen. The research will focus on chapter three and the neologisms in it. The 26 neologisms were classified using Newmark’s (1988) nine categories of translation procedures, with an additional 10th (proposed category) and 11th category to cover instances of omission. The central research question of this thesis then, is whether the translation choices made by the three translators point to a foreignization or domestication-oriented approach, and which of the three translations can be considered the most domesticated based on the findings. As for the hypothesis, it is speculated that the 1969 and 1979 translations of neologisms will reveal a more domestication-oriented approach, whereas the 2017 text is expected to be more foreignized. In writing this thesis and conducting the case study, I set out to give insight into the potential that SF texts hold for academia and the translation field. Campbell (2021) emphasizes how SF is a “powerful means of communication, not only because it can serve to explore and explain the effect of technological developments, whether native or important, but also and more importantly because it can be a powerful means of social criticism” (p.2.). In a world that is constantly evolving as technology advances at a rapid rate, the subjects discussed in SF are more relevant than ever. Therefore, by studying the “inventiveness” (Freedman, 2000, p.37) of the SF genre in the form of neologisms and in how they are translated, we could learn more about the dynamics and developments in our own world as we speculate about the reasons for these translation choices.Show less
