Translating Place: Linguistic Variation in Translation"

Word and Text
A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics
Vol. II, Issue 2

December / 2012
75 97
Translating Place:
Linguistic Variation in Translation
Alexandra Assis Rosa
University of Lisbon
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract
This article aims to discuss the problem for translation posed by linguistic variation, and in
particular by the relation between discourse and place, within the framework of Descriptive
Translation Studies and following a communicative approach to translated fiction.
For this purpose, this article discusses linguistic variation in terms of the correlation of
linguistic form, communicative meaning and socio-semiotic value, considers the fictional
recreation of accents and dialects, and suggests several major strategies for the translation of
such literary pseudo varieties (following Brisset 1996; Chapdelaine and Lane Mercier 1994;
Rosa 1999, 2001, 2003; Ramos Pinto 2009a and 2009b; Cavalheiro 2009; Rosa et al. 2011).
Throughout this paper, translational patterning regarding the translation of literary pseudo
varieties already identified by previous research will be discussed with the purpose of
identifying and discussing the underlying translational norms.
Keywords: translation, linguistic variation, fiction, translation strategies, translation norms
Introduction
In the 1990s, a number of studies were published on the topic of linguistic variation and
translation. Among them, cases in point are Annie Brissets work A Sociocritique of
Translation: Theatre and Alterity in Quebec, 1968-1988, Annich Chapdelaine and
Gillian Lane Merciers special issue of the journal TTR entitled Traduire les sociolectes,
Michael Cronins work on the growing visibility of Irish Gaelic in literary
(non)translated texts, included in Translating Ireland. Translation, Languages,
Cultures, as well as Birgitta Englund Dimitrovas study on the translation of dialect in
fiction. 1 These studies, and especially Brisset, provide a socio-critical context-oriented
analysis of the translation of linguistic variation, which is based on the identification of
extra-linguistic value for each linguistic variety. 2 Such studies, consequently, take for
1
Annie Brisset, A Sociocritique of Translation: Theatre and Alterity in Quebec, 1968-1988, trans.
Rosalind Gill and Roger Gannon (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1996); Annick
Chapdelaine and Gillian Lane-Mercier eds., Traduire les sociolectes, TTR-Traduction, Terminologie,
Rdaction, 7/2 (1994); Michael Cronin, Translating Ireland. Translation, Languages, Cultures (Cork:
Cork University Press, 1996); Brigitta Englund Dimitrova, Translation of Dialect in Fictional Prose Vilhelm Moberg in Russian and English as a Case in Point, in Norm, Variation and Change in
Language. Proceedings of the Centenary Meeting of the Nyfilologiska Sllskapet Nedre Manilla 22-23
March 1996, (Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell International, 1997), 49-65.
2
Among the studies wholly or partially dedicated to the topic of translating linguistic variation, one might
also quote Kitty M. van Leuven-Zwart, Translation and original: similarities and dissimilarities II,
Target 2/1(1990): 69-95; Brbel Czennia, Figurenrede als bersetzungsproblem: untersucht am
76
granted that [a] linguistic community is a market. Its vernacular and referential
languages are its symbolic commodities, each with its own use value and its own
exchange value. The circulation of these commodities is governed by power relations. 3
From the 1990s onwards, and following a similar approach, Portuguese
researchers also published a number of studies on the topic of linguistic variation in
translation. Such research has focused on the TV subtitling of Pygmalion, by George
Bernard Shaw, 4 on 20th century translations of Charles Dickens, 5 or on regional and
socio-cultural variation in subtitled versions of Gone with the Wind. 6 It has also
discussed theoretical and methodological implications of the study of translation of
linguistic varieties in general, also considering the application of this research to the
training of literary translators. 7
This paper aims to build on such research to offer a reflection on the translation of
linguistic variation. For this purpose, selected examples of theoretical and
methodological proposals will be discussed, in terms of (i) the operative categories they
offer for the study of linguistic variation as a translation problem; (ii) the implications
Romanwerk von Charles Dickens und ausgewhlten deutschen bersetzungen (Frankfurt a.M.: Lang,
1990); Basil Hatim and Ian Mason, Discourse and the Translator (London, New York: Longman, 1990);
Paul Bandia, On Translating Pidgins and Creoles in African Literature, TTR: Traduction, Terminologie,
Rdaction 7/2 (1994): 93-114, accessed October 14, 2012, http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/037182ar; Roberto
Mayoral-Asensio, La traduccin de la variacin lingstica (PhD diss., University of Granada, 1997);
Ritva Leppihalme, The Two Faces of Standardization: On the Translation of Regionalisms in Literary
Dialogue, The Translator 6/2 (2000): 247-269; Ritva Leppihalme, Ptalo Idioms and Catchphrases in
Translation, Erikoiskielet ja knnsteoria. VAKKI:n julkisut. Vaasa 2000 (2000): 224-234. With the
exception of Michael Cronin, Translating Ireland. Translation, Languages, Cultures, (Cork: Cork
University Press, 1996); Brigitta Englund Dimitrova, Translation of Dialect in Fictional Prose - Vilhelm
Moberg in Russian and English as a Case in Point, in Norm, Variation and Change in Language.
Proceedings of the Centenary Meeting of the Nyfilologiska Sllskapet Nedre Manilla 22-23 March 1996,
(Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell International, 1997), 49-65 and more explicitly Annie Brisset, A
Sociocritique of Translation: Theatre and Alterity in Quebec, 1968-1988, they tend to focus on a microlinguistic analysis of the translation of forms.
3
Annie Brisset, A Sociocritique of Translation,169.
4
Alexandra Assis Rosa, The Centre and the Edges. Linguistic Variation and Subtitling Pygmalion into
Portuguese, in Translation and the (Re)Location of Meaning. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research
Seminars in Translation Studies 1994-1996, edited by Jeroen Vandaele, (Leuven: CETRA Publications:
1999), 317-338; Alexandra Assis Rosa, Features of Oral and Written Communication in Subtitling, in
(Multi)Media Translation. Concepts, Practices and Research, edited by Yves Gambier and Henrik
Gottlieb, (Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001), 213-221; Sara Ramos Pinto, How
important is the way you say it? A Discussion on the Translation of Linguistic Varieties, Target 21/2
(2009): 289-307. Sara Ramos Pinto, Traduzir no vazio: a problemtica da variao lingustica nas
tradues de Pygmalion, de G. B. Shaw e de My Fair Lady, de Alan Jay Lerner (Translating into a Void:
the Problem of Linguistic Variation in Portuguese Translations of Bernard Shaws Pygmalion and Alan
Jay Lerners My Fair Lady.) (Phd diss., University of Lisbon, 2009).
5
Alexandra Assis Rosa, Traduo, Poder e Ideologia. Retrica Interpessoal no Dilogo Narrativo
Dickensiano em Portugus (1950-1999) (Translation, Power and Ideology. Interpersonal Rhetoric in
Dickensian Fictional Dialogue Translated into Portuguese 1950-1999.) (Phd diss., University of Lisbon,
2003).
6
Lili Cavalheiro, Linguistic Variation in Subtitling for Audiovisual Media in Portugal, Linguistica
Antverpiensia, 7(2008): 17-28.
7
Rosa, Traduo, Poder e Ideologia; Ramos Pinto, How important is the way you say it?; Alexandra
Assis Rosa, Lusa Falco, Raquel Mouta, Susana Valdez and Tiago Botas, Luso-Canadian Exchanges in
Translation Studies: Translating Linguistic Variation, Proceedings of the International Congress From
Sea to Sea - Literatura e Cultura do Canad em Lisboa, Special issue of Anglo-Saxnica 3/2 (2011): 3968.
Translating Place: Linguistic Variation in Translation
77
and contextual constraints involved in the translation of linguistic varieties; and (iii) the
findings that research has made so far.
Language is Place
Linguistic Varieties and Place
Language homogeneity is a fallacy. No language is homogenous, because any language
is subject to linguistic variation. Accents differ, and so do dialects (defined as
vocabulary and grammatical patterning). Language changes over time, with the most
apparent consequence that even different generations speak the same language in
different ways. At a given moment, it also varies since speakers belonging to different
regions, and social groups, involved in different professions, using language in
situations ranging from the extremely formal to the most informal, will speak the same
language in sometimes very different ways.
At any given moment, language, therefore, is place, both physical and social. It
expresses and creates, reinforces or changes the speakers place, that portion of space
allocated to or occupied by such a speaker, ones geographical and social place, sociocultural allegiance, position, social station, function or role.
If linguistic variation were simply a formal matter of dealing with the fact that
languages are not isomorphic, it would not be especially problematic for translation or
an interesting topic for research in Translation Studies. Linguistic variation becomes a
problem for translation once it is interpreted as a correlation of linguistic features, users
and uses; or, in other words, as a correlation of, on the one hand, different accents and
dialects; and, on the other hand, contextual features, such as time, space, socio-cultural
group, situation, and individual user.
LINGUISTIC
VARIABLES
CONTEXTUAL
VARIABLES
TYPE OF VARIATION
LINGUISTIC
VARIETIES
Phonetic and
Phonological features
(grouped in accents)
TIME
DIACHRONIC VS.
SYNCHRONIC
STAGES IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF A
LANGUAGE
Morphological,
Syntactic,
Semantic, and
Lexical features (grouped in
dialects)
PHYSICAL/GEOGRAPHICAL
SPACE
REGIONAL
REGIONAL DIALECT or
ACCENT
SOCIAL SPACE
SOCIAL
SOCIAL DIALECT or
ACCENT; SLANG;
TECNOLECT
INDIVIDUAL SPEAKER
INTERPERSONAL
IDIOLECT
COMMUNICATIVE
SITUATION
FUNCTIONAL
REGISTER
Figure 1. Linguistic Variation
By resorting to what some may call linguistic sensitivity, or actually ones

knowledge of sociolinguistic stereotypes, defined as attitudes and beliefs towards
language, a proficient speaker of a language is able to relate the patterning of linguistic
features (defined as accents and dialects) with particular time and space coordinates
(both physical and social), including a given communicative situation; and all these
78
features combine into a speakers linguistic fingerprint: his or her idiolect. So a

proficient speaker of a given language is able to correlate a cluster of linguistic forms
with contextual meaning, i.e. time, space, and user.
Communication requires
the availability
of a common
CODE
for a range of
which possesses
a set of
phonological
USERS
[graphological]
USES
differentiated by
addressee
medium
function
differentiated by
time
Space
syntactic
lexical
relationship
tenor
mode
of
domain
temporal
Discourse
physical
social
regional
social
Dialect
Marked
semantic
Indicated
by
particular choices
from the available
features
Figure 2. Linguistic variation (based on Bells chart)
Such a correlation is also represented in Bells flow chart depicting linguistic

variation. 8 Bell groups phonological, syntactical, lexical and semantic features into a
code which is used for a broad range of uses by a variety of users, as represented in
Figure 2. 9 Particular uses and individual users will then tend to evidence a specific
patterning in terms of their choice of formal features, as discourses and dialects,
respectively. Resorting to Systemic Functional Grammar, Bell suggests that particular
uses may be defined in terms of medium, function and interpersonal relations (mode,
domain and tenor) which will be marked in discourse; users, in turn, may be defined in
terms of time and space physical and social which will be marked by dialects.
Proficient language users will tend to recognize such formal patterning based on
previous experience and relate it to given uses and users.
In other words, discourse is loaded with communicative meaning and the
communicative competence needed to interpret it is therefore associated with both
8
Roger T. Bell, Translation and Translating (London: Longman, 1991), 185.

In my view, this approach is lacking because (1) it does not mention morphological features as a trait of
dialects; (2) it does not separate dialects from accents (a division that is particularly operative in the case
of standard dialect and accent for British English); (3) it only considers group varieties and does not
mention individual traits, defined as idiolects; and (4) the use of discourse (instead of register) is also
arguable.
79
linguistic competence and extra-linguistic knowledge of the experiential context in

which a given language is used. Again, by resorting to both linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge, a proficient speaker is able to relate formal linguistic patterning
with contextual variables. A proficient speaker is, consequently, able to locate another
speaker in time, in social and physical space, and in a given situation, just by
considering the way s/he speaks.
As Basil Hatim and Ian Mason suggest, however, there are other dimensions of
context to be considered in discourse. In another schematic representation of discourse,
the authors mention three. 10
Figure 3. Three dimensions of context (based on Hatim and Mason)
As shown in Figure 3, text, structure and texture will reveal three dimensions of
context. First, discourse, as communicative transaction, reveals the correlation of formal
features with users and uses. Second, as pragmatic action, language is used to do things
and any utterance may be interpreted e.g. in terms of speech acts, implicature, or
presupposition. Third, as semiotic interaction, discourse correlates the former with
socio-semiotic value thus revealing a close relationship with a given cultures values
and ideology.
10
Hatim, Mason, Discourse and the Translator, 58.
80
Figure 4. Discourse and context in linguistic variation
As represented in Figure 4, this paper focuses on the contention that language

varieties are significant for a proficient speaker in terms of especially two of the
contextual dimensions of meaning suggested by Hatim and Mason (1990). They have
communicative meaning, related to user and use; and they have socio-semiotic value,
related to power and prestige within a given community.
Consequently, discourse is place, in two different but related ways. First,
discourse is place because it is loaded with communicative meaning. Linguistic
varieties, understood formally as linguistic patterning, and defined as accents or
dialects, involve a correlation of such forms with the place of a given user and use.
Second, discourse is place because it is loaded with socio-semiotic value. Since the
correlation of linguistic markers and communicative meaning is also associated with a
certain amount of prestige, it both creates and expresses ones place within the space
drawn by socio-cultural values. Certain uses are more prestigious in a given community
whereas others are, on the contrary, associated with very low prestige and even sociocultural stigma. Discourse, therefore, does not occur in an evaluative void, much to the
contrary. Discourse occurs in place and it places.
Besides being able to allocate another speaker a given place within both social
and physical space, any proficient speaker will also be able to relate the speaker to a
scale of socio-cultural prestige and to allocate him a place in a network of power
relations. This will be carried out by resorting to the interface provided by
sociolinguistic stereotypes, which enable the contextual interpretation of the
constellation of formal features evidenced by the speakers use of language.
For the purpose of a descriptive study of the translation of linguistic varieties,
linguistic varieties may be grouped according to their socio-semiotic value and prestige
expressed by speakers attitudes and, accordingly, allocated different places in a spatial
81
representation of this scale of socio-cultural value or prestige. 11 In Figure 5, they are

divided into (1) a center of prestige occupied by the standard and especially by the
written standard, and formal, literary use and (2) peripheries occupied by less
prestigious varieties. In successive wider circles less prestigious varieties are located in
a continuum ranging from orality, regional substandard dialects and accents and, as is
my contention, in contemporary Portugal this continuum ends with stigmatized sociocultural substandard accents and dialects, located in the widest circle, further away from
the center of prestige. 12
Figure 5. The place of linguistic varieties in a scale of prestige
Linguistic and cultural identities are consequently a matter of social and physical
place (the communicative dimension of context, associated with user and use) as well as
place in a scale of prestige (the socio-semiotic dimension of context, associated with
values and power), as represented in Figure 5. Other languages and different time
frames may organize such varieties differently, positioning them either closer or further
away from the more prestigious place represented by the center of this diagram. 13
11
As in Rosa, Luso-Canadian Exchanges in Translation Studies; The Centre and the Edges;
Features of Oral and Written Communication in Subtitling.
12
In authentic use, such varieties often overlap (e.g. in socio-geographical varieties) and this schematic
representation may be criticized as a simplification. Moreover, orality does not necessarily correspond to
substandard. However, as also suggested by the survey carried out by Ramos Pinto, Traduzir no vazio,
user sensitivity expressed by sociolinguistic stereotypes does organize varieties into a continuum of
prestige, allocating orality a place which does not correspond to the center of prestige, which users tend to
associate with the standard, formal, written, and even literary use of language.
13
On other organizations of linguistic varieties along a similar scale of prestige see Dimitrova and both
Leppihalmes articles.
82
Literary Varieties and Place

At this point, however, a caveat is needed: literary varieties cannot be equated with
authentic language use and, as such, require further attention. As Page states,
[f]aithfulness to life, so often invoked in praise of dialogue, would be a very doubtful
virtue if it were ever practiced. 14 Accordingly, a line must be drawn between authentic
discourse and its recreation in fiction. Many filters apply between authentic linguistic
variation and literary varieties, or pseudo dialects and accents recreated in literature and
film.
The difference between authentic linguistic varieties and literary pseudo accents
and dialects may be explained by considering several filters and constraints that apply to
their fictional and literary configuration. First, sociolinguistic stereotypes organize the
raw data of actual linguistic variation into ready made and applicable categories
correlating forms, communicative meaning and socio-semiotic value. As said, these
categories are strongly motivated by a structure of prestige defined by the standard and
evocative of extra-linguistic value. Second, a repertoire of selective fictional markers
previously used to recreate literary varieties also applies. The use of literary pseudo
varieties and the association of forms and functions therefore only works against the
backdrop of both socio-cultural practices and a sometimes vast intertext of previous
practice generating a repertoire. 15 Third, further filters may be specific functions
assigned by an author, in a specific period or by an internal narrative structure. 16 Finally,
such a selective and filtered recreation is never free from constraints such as the need
for readability, the degree of consciousness of linguistic variation in a given linguistic
community, the medium, the complexity of plot, among others. Such filters and their
validity are, as such, contextually motivated and, as a consequence, intricately
associated with a given space and time.
For the consideration of character discourse as recreated by literary varieties,
several categories and distinctions apply: characterizing vs. non-characterizing, narrator
vs. character diction and groupal vs. individual characterizing discourse.
First, in fiction, character discourse is said to fall within two main categories:
neutral or characterizing. 17 Character discourse is purported to be neutral whenever it is
equated with the standard variety. In this case, neutrality is defined against an extralinguistic system of values that is also external to the literary text and created by the
linguistic community in which the text is produced. Character discourse is also
considered neutral in another sense when it does not bear markers to distinguish it from
14
Norman Page, Speech in the English Novel (London: Macmillan, [1973] 1988), 75.
As mentioned by Page, e.g. Dickens resorted to an immanent characterization of his characters which
was strongly influenced by the literary tradition of the Jonsonian comedy of humors, and the novels by
Smollett, not to mention the remarkable influence of his experience as a court reporter and of his devotion
to acting and public readings (Page, Speech in the English Novel, 99, 142, 144, 153).
16
As stated by Chapman about Victorian fiction, [a]nother convention of the novel is the assignment of
standard speech to characters that would realistically speak a non-standard variety. Virtuous characters
who play a major part in the story may be treated in this way, the purity of their speech reflecting the
purity of their natures and their superiority to their environment. Raymond Chapman, Forms of Speech
in Victorian Fiction (London, New York: Routledge, 1994), 221. Accordingly, it is mostly secondary
rogue characters, which use pseudo substandard discourse in Victorian fiction.
17
Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca, London:
Cornell University Press), 1978.
15
83
narratorial discourse. These two subcategories of neutrality may be classified as

external or internal. 18 It is worth mentioning at this point that these two types of
neutrality tend to coincide since in most cases narrator discourse equates with standard
variety, thus, importing into the narrative structure ideological structures of the culture
which generates it. 19
In a socio-critical study of linguistic variation in translation, however, one should
avoid the term neutral since identification with the standard far from being neutral is,
on the contrary, loaded with socio-cultural positive value and prestige. The term noncharacterizing may, therefore, be preferable for this category.
Whenever the text marks contextual features related to the speaker, discourse is
deemed to be characterizing. Some authors use characterizing discourse by resorting to
linguistic markers (whether signaling deviance from standard varieties or not) related to
a region, social group, and profession, as well as to individuals. It must be added that
characterizing discourse can also be situation related, since literary pseudo varieties
may also contribute to reveal permanent or momentary traits, such as a particular state
of mind, or a wide range of emotions.
Second, whenever present, characterizing discourse tends to allow for an internal
distinction between character and narrator diction, since the latter tends to coincide with
standard discourse. Consequently, literary varieties may also be interpreted as organized
into a center of authority and prestige occupied by narrator diction (which tends to be
non-characterizing and correspond to standard discourse) and peripheries of
characterizing (groupal or individual) character diction expressive of the location of
such characters in fictional space (both social and physical) and time.
Finally, as suggested by Page, characterizing discourse can be classified as
groupal (historical, regional, social, professional, age-related) or individual. In either
case it contributes to character profiling. 20 But it does so indirectly. Besides
contributing to verisimilitude, characterizing discourse indirectly presents characters
and their profiles, which are suggested by their speech and are consequently constructed
by reader interpretation. This is clearly different from, and more convincing than, a
direct presentation of a character carried out by a narrator. 21
To sum up, it is this complex correlation of linguistic forms, communicative
meaning and socio-semiotic value also resulting from several filters applicable in the
recreation of literary varieties that poses a particularly difficult problem for translators.
Again, translating forms is not especially problematic. As stated above, the difficulties
18
Rosa, Traduo, Poder e Ideologia.

Chatman (1978) defines this as neutral narrative diction, and Page mentions it as narrative style (Page
Speech in the English Novel, 15). The centrality of the narrators authority tends to correspond to standard
varieties. According to Traugott and Pratt (E.C., Traugott and M.L. Pratt, Linguistics for Students of
Literatures (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, 1980), 335-350), this norm was broken by Mark
Twain in 1885, when he created Huck, a first-person narrator who uses substandard features in The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Page, in turn, mentions the previous case of Moll Flanders, by Daniel
Defoe (1722) (Page, Speech in the English Novel, 47-48). One of the most famous examples is probably
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger (1951). Only considerably later are third-person narrators to be
found who resort to substandard discourse (Traugott and Pratt, Linguistics for Students of Literatures,
335-350).
20
Page, Speech in the English Novel.
21
Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (London, New York: Routledge,
1983), 59-60.
19
84
arise when a translator tries to replicate both the form and contextual meaning
(communicative and socio-semiotic) of a pseudo-accent or dialect from a literary source
text in order to indirectly characterize a character in another language, for another
receiver, in another culture:
If someone has the pronunciation, the vocabulary and the syntax that are characteristic of a
social class, or a regional group of people, his denotative message can be normally
translated into any standard language. If in a novel the speech patterns are used to evoke
social and/or geographic data about the speaker, the translator faces a problem, however. 22
Additional problems arise if a translator also tries to negotiate a poetics of fiction

and the values evoked by the application of several filters which are also deeply
anchored in extra-linguistic value, and therefore expressive of a given time and space.
The correlation of discourse and place again becomes central to understanding the
difficulty of translating literary varieties intentionally used to provide extra-linguistic,
contextual information about a character.
Translation is Place
The Translation of Literary Varieties and Place
In addition, translation is also discourse and as such it is also contextually motivated or
constrained. When dealing with the translation of literary varieties, it must also be
considered that there are contextual norms constraining or motivating translation
decisions, as evidenced by translation patterning. As Annie Brisset states,[t]ranslation,
like any writing, reflects the institutional norms of a given society [...]. Thus, translation
theory should concern itself as much, if not more, with contrastive analysis of social
discourses as with contrastive linguistics or comparative stylistics. 23
Translation is a fact of the target cultures space and also of its place within a
wider network of intercultural exchanges. 24 As a consequence, research in Translation
Studies must go beyond a mere comparison of source and target languages and texts. In
the case of research on the translation of literary varieties, it must also go beyond
contrastive linguistics or comparative stylistics by focusing on institutional norms, on
sociolinguistic stereotypes, on contrastive analysis of social discourses, by importing
from sociological analysis, discourse analysis, semiotic analysis, in order to delve into
the ideological basis for social discourses and for translation as a fact of the target
culture resulting from the negotiation of at least two systems of norms: those belonging
to the source and the target cultures. Moreover, in a corpus of novels or plays and their
translation, any study necessarily also has to take into account literary norms and
traditions in the creation of literary varieties. This becomes necessary as soon as it is
acknowledged that such a corpus holds no actual, real linguistic varieties, but rather
22
HGS, Translation, in Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics, vol. 2, edited by T.A. Sebeok (Berlin,
New York, Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter, 1986), 1110.
23
Annie Brisset, A Sociocritique of Translation, 158.
24
Gideon Toury, Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond (Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins,
1995); Pascale Casanova, The World Republic of Letters, trans. M.B. DeBevoise (Harvard: Harvard
University Press, 2004).
85
pseudo varieties recreated in literary works, sifted through various literary norms and as
such different from, although related to, authentic use, as already stated.
As a consequence of the above, linguistic varieties are a function of space (social
and physical), among other contextual features; literary varieties are a function of space
(as a result of the application of several contextually motivated filters); and the
translation of literary varieties is a function of space (as a result of contextually valid
translation norms and of the intercultural relations which they also reveal).
In order to solve the translation problem posed by the wide range of extralinguistic connotations and fictional functions associated with literary varieties, the
translator must opt to recreate them or not. Decisions must be made regarding
translation procedures and strategies.
A Proposal for a Classification of Procedures and Strategies
Following Dimitrova, I have developed a proposal for a spatial classification of
procedures and strategies applicable to the translation of literary varieties into European
Portuguese. 25 This section presents a further stage of such a proposal to draw a sociosemiotic map of ideological, evaluative and intersubjective preferences regarding
translation decisions, which are strongly motivated by sociolinguistic stereotypes.
The following main translation techniques or procedures 26 appear to be applicable
to the translation of formal linguistic markers used to recreate less prestigious and
substandard discourse:
(1) Omission of linguistic markers signaling contextual meaning associated
with less prestigious or substandard discourse;
(2) Addition of linguistic markers signaling contextual meaning associated with
less prestigious or substandard discourse;
(3) Maintenance of linguistic markers signaling contextual meaning associated
with less prestigious or substandard discourse;
(4) Change of contextual meaning signaled by linguistic markers associated
with less prestigious or substandard discourse (e. g.: social becomes
regional; regional becomes oral)
(a) Change of a more peripheral substandard towards a less peripheral
variety;
(b) Change of a less peripheral variety towards a more peripheral or
substandard variety.
Translation procedures or techniques for characterizing less prestigious or
substandard literary varieties range from omission to addition, also encompassing the
attempt to maintain in the target text the contextual meaning signaled by linguistic
markers in the source text. With the exception of maintenance, all other procedures
25
Rosa, Luso-Canadian Exchanges in Translation Studies; The Centre and the Edges; Features of
Oral and Written Communication in Subtitling.
26
Following Chesterman (Andrew Chesterman, Problems with Strategies, in New Trends in
Translation Studies. In Honour of Kinga Klaudy, edited by K. Kroly and gota Fris (Budapest:
Akadmiai Kiad, 2005), 24), strategy is here defined in its basic problem-solving sense as a plan that is
implemented in a given context; technique or procedure is used to refer to routine, micro-level, textual
procedures; and shifts refer to the result of a procedure [] observable as kinds of difference between
target and source.
86
result in a shift, defined as a difference identified by linguistic and text-oriented

comparison between source and target texts; or a micro-structural level change resulting
from translation techniques or procedures (applied at sentence, clause, phrase, or word
level). 27 And shifts are the most pervasive feature in translation. As such, they deserve
further attention.
Translation shifts are defined by Bakker, Koster and van Leuven-Zwart as the
result from attempts to deal with systemic differences. 28 However, it is of special
importance for the purpose of this paper to acknowledge that the predominant feature of
translation is not a matter of obligatory shifts caused by systemic differences but rather
of non-obligatory shifts, as suggested by Gideon Toury: In fact, the occurrence of
shifts has long been acknowledged as a true universal of translation. [] [N]onobligatory shifts [] occur everywhere and tend to constitute the majority of shifting in
any single act of human translation. 29
The majority of shifts, then, are not determined by systemic, formal differences.
The majority of shifts are non-obligatory, norm-governed, contextually motivated by
cultural, ideological and political reasons. Shifts, therefore, are a function of place.
They occur as a result of contextually motivated decisions to introduce changes. As
translational phenomena they are facts of the target culture. More importantly, when
consistent, the sum of micro-level shifts may be grouped into globally recognizable
translation strategies, which are never devoid of consequences on the macro-level in
terms of the linguistic make-up and, consequently, also in terms of the contextual
(communicative and socio-semiotic) values evoked by the whole work. 30
I suggest interpreting the above-mentioned shifts as a result of global strategies, as
depicted in the following Figures 6 and 7. In them, translation shifts are represented by
arrows. The starting point of the arrow corresponds to the literary variety present in the
source text ; the tip represents the target language literary variety chosen to recreate the
former in the target text . When the arrows point towards the center of the diagram, the
shifts they represent result from a normalization strategy or from a centralization
strategy; when, on the contrary, the arrows point towards the periphery of this diagram,
the shifts they represent result from a decentralization strategy.
27
Chesterman, Problems with Strategies; Yves Gambier, Translation Strategies and Tactics, in
Handbook of Translation Studies, ed. Yves Gambier and Luc van Doorslaer (Amsterdam, Philadelphia:
John Benjamins, 2010); 412-418.
28
Matthijs Bakker, Cees Koster and Kitty M. van Leuven-Zwart, Shifts of Translation, in Encyclopedia
of Translation Studies, ed. Mona Baker (London, New York: Routledge, 1998), 226.
29
Toury, Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond, 57.
30
On macro-structural consequences of the patterning of micro-structural procedures and shifts see van
Leuven-Zwart, Translation and original: similarities and dissimilarities I and II.
87
Figure 6. Translating Linguistic Varieties: Normalization and Centralization
Normalization Strategy
The most pervasive strategy is for translation to bring into the center occupied by the
standard all less prestigious varieties located in the periphery of the circle and present in
the source text. Such shifts, when consistent, correspond to a normalizing or
standardizing translation strategy. They entail a corresponding change from source text
stigmatized or less prestigious literary varieties to the most prestigious variety in the
target text: the standard.
Research into literary translation often diagnoses this trend. Bassnett and
Lefevere 31 identify translation into English with a considerable standardization of
foreign or exotic features (and of socio-culturally marginal ones too). Hatim and
Mason, 32 following Venuti, 33 state that the last three centuries of translation into English
have revealed a normalizing and neutralizing tendency to silence the voices of the
source text producers. This tendency to normalize appears to be so widespread that
House 34 or Lane-Mercier 35 even pronounce the use of literary varieties to constitute a
case of non-translatability. Berman 36 concludes that translation is a powerful
31
Susan Bassnett and Andr Lefevere, Introduction: Where are we in Translation Studies? in
Constructing Cultures, ed. Susan Bassnett (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1998), 4.
32
Basil Hatim and Ian Mason, Discourse and the Translator (London, New York: Longman, 1990), 145.
33
Lawrence Venuti, The Translator's Invisibility (London, New York: Routledge, 1995).
34
Juliane House, Of the Limits of Translatability, Babel 4/3 (1973): 167.
35
Gillian Lane-Mercier, Translating the Untranslatable: The Translator's Aesthetic, Ideological and
Political Responsibility, Target 9/1(1997): 43.
36
Antoine Berman, Foreword to A Sociocritique of Translation: Theatre and Alterity in Quebec, 19681988, by Annie Brisset, transl. Rosalind Gill and Roger Gannon (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of
Toronto Press 1996), xviii.
88
centralizing anti-dialectal agent. Leppihalme 37 also identifies a tendency to normalize

regionally marked idioms, in two studies dedicated to the translation into English and
Swedish of Finnish novels. Rosa 38 and Cavalheiro 39 describe the normalization of
substandard Cockney and African American Vernacular English in Portuguese versions
of Pygmalion and Gone with the Wind subtitled by the public TV channel RTP. This
tendency bears evidence that especially in the Portuguese public channels subtitling is
identified as instrumental for the promotion of literacy 40. Ramos Pinto 41 identifies
normalization in Portuguese translations of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady published (for
the page and the stage) before 1974 and also in those aired by public TV channels.
This trend to normalize is so often identified that it has even been described as the
law of growing standardization in the following way 42:
in translation, source text textemes tend to be converted into target-language (or targetculture) repertoremes. [] Textual relations obtained in the original are often modified,
sometimes to the point of being totally ignored, in favour of habitual options offered by a
target repertoire.
As suggested, textual relations in the original tend to be replaced in the target text
by positive-value options already available in the target-cultures repertoire. In the case
of less prestigious or substandard literary varieties, more than their textual relations, it is
their status as repertoremes that radically changes: the negative value of less prestigious
or substandard literary varieties tends to be changed into the positive value of the
standard varieties. This tendency is so widespread that it has even been described as a
translation universal of normalization. 43 As a consequence of normalization, the
representation of spoken language in the source text is adjusted towards the norms of
written prose creating a text which is more readable, more idiomatic, more familiar and
more coherently organized than the original. 44
Normalization therefore involves a change of any linguistic markers associated
with low-prestige or negative socio-semiotic value into those associated with high
prestige and socio-semiotic value. There is a leveling of characterizing discourse which
becomes non-characterizing. Externally, the sometimes wide range of source text
heteroglossia is reduced in the target text to the monoglossia of the target language
standard varieties. Internally, character diction and narrator diction coincide, and
narrative functions associated with this distinction are no longer identifiable.
37
Ritva Leppihalme, The Two Faces of Standardization and Ptalo Idioms and Catchphrases in
Translation.
38
Rosa, The Centre and the Edges.
39
Cavalheiro, Linguistic Variation.
40
Maria Jos Alves Veiga, Subtitling Reading Practices, in Translation Studies at the Interface of
Cultures, ed. Joo Ferreira Duarte, Alexandra Assis Rosa and Teresa Seruya, (Amsterdam, Philadelphia:
John Benjamins, 2006), 161-168.
41
Ramos Pinto, Traduzir no vazio: a problemtica da variao, 13.
42
Toury, Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond, 268.
43
On translation universals, see Anna Mauranen and Pekka Kujamki. Translation Universals: Do they
Exist? (Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2004).
44
Sarah Laviosa-Braithwaite, Universals of Translation, in Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation
Studies, ed. Mona Baker (London, New York: Routledge, 1998), 290.
89
Against this backdrop of normalization, Brisset, 45 however, mentions the

breakthrough use of joual (a very low prestige Quebec working class dialect of the
Montreal area) as a result of maintenance procedures of source text low prestige
varieties in 1968 productions by Michel Tremblay for the Centaur Theatre in Montreal.
Once in the repertoire, the use of fictional joual made it easier to also maintain the low
prestige of some literary varieties present in source texts: it became an available
resource for translations into Canadian French.
The study of translations of novels by Charles Dickens published in Portugal after
the 1974 revolution also finds a similar attempt to apply maintenance procedures to
some of the substandard literary varieties present in the source text as a means of
indirectly characterizing characters both in terms of their regional and social
background and in terms of their importance in narrative (since only secondary rogue
characters use substandard discourse in Victorian fiction). However, this strategy of
maintenance of substandard literary varieties (in terms of communicative and sociosemiotic value) is still observed against the backdrop of a predominant tendency to
change and thereby normalize substandard varieties. 46 Cavalheiro also describes the
attempt by a private TV channel to recreate the substandard nature of African American
Vernacular English by replacing it with Portuguese Afro-negro dialect from Brazil in
subtitled versions of Gone with the Wind. 47 Ramos Pinto also describes this tendency in
Portuguese translations of Pygmalion and of My Far Lady, but more noticeably in all
translations for the stage, in all print translations but especially in those published after
1974 and also in the subtitled versions aired by a private Portuguese TV channel. 48
Chiaro mentions 49 the overall tendency to omit sociolinguistic markers from screen
translations, in what is labeled a homogenizing convention, with the exception of
comedies, whose characters are sometimes dubbed with stereotypical accents; cases of
sociolinguistic markers included in screen translations of what are labeled serious
genres are mentioned as occurring only rarely.
Centralization Strategy
Research on the translation of linguistic variation has also come across some examples
of an attempt to recreate the substandard varieties in the source text that neither fit into
maintenance, addition or omission nor entail a shift to the central, most prestigious,
standard varieties. Besides the widespread tendency to normalize, Dimitrovas research
identifies a further trend: the use of colloquialisms to translate source texts
characterizing regional and social substandard. 50 Robyns also mentions the tendency to
use standard argot to substitute the less prestigious regionally marked slang, in French
translations of popular Anglo-American detective fiction in the 1960s and 1970s. 51 In
other cases, the attempt to recreate for instance Cockney in Portuguese also results in
this type of shift because a mainly socially stigmatized dialect and accent is translated
45
Brisset, A Sociocritique of Translation, 187.

Rosa, Traduo, Poder e Ideologia.
47
Cavalheiro, Linguistic Variation in Subtitling, 23.
48
Ramos Pinto, How important is the way you say it?, 14.
49
Delia Chiaro, Issues in Audiovisual Translation, in The Routledge Companion to Translation Studies,
ed. Jeremy Munday (London, New York: Routledge, 2009), 159.
50
Dimitrova, Translation of Dialect in Fictional Prose.
51
Clem Robyns, Towards a Socisemiotics of Translation, Romanistische Zeitschrift fr
Literaturgeschichte - Cahiers d'Histoire des Littratures Romanes 1/2 (1992): 224-225.
46
90
for Portuguese printed versions as regional features of Beira or Minho 52 and translated
for Portuguese subtitled versions of Pygmalion also by resorting to oral features of
characterizing discourse. 53
These procedures have correspondingly been associated with a strategy of
centralization, which differs from normalization because although the target text shows
a shift toward varieties that are not as negatively evaluated as those depicted in the
source text, the target text still includes some form associated with a less prestigious
variety. 54
Additionally, source text regional varieties prove to be a very interesting case
when the transfer of contextual meanings and values is aimed at in translation. In some
cases, such an attempt to recreate peripheral regional varieties may produce an
incongruous target text. This incongruity results from the clash of spatial/regional
values evoked by literary varieties and actual references to a specific context
corresponding to the specific time and space coordinates of a character (which becomes
even more apparent in the case of audiovisual translation or in the case of translation for
the stage). 55
52
The accents of these two regions of continental Portugal appear to be easily identifiable.
Rosa, The Centre and the Edges and Features of Oral and Written Communication in Subtitling;
Ramos Pinto, How important is the way you say it? and Traduzir no vazio.
54
Rosa, The Centre and the Edges, Features of Oral and Written Communication in Subtitling;
Traduo, Poder e Ideologia and Rosa et al., Luso-Canadian Exchanges in Translation Studies:
Translating Linguistic Variation.
55
In such cases, a strategy of translocalization or relocation may be considered, and the whole plot may
travel through translation, whereby a source text country and region is transformed into another target text
country and region where the target language is spoken (on specific subcategories of possible space and
time changes, see Rosa, Traduo, Poder e Ideologia; Ramos Pinto How important is the way you say
it?). However, questions regarding the categorization of these techniques and strategies as resulting in a
translation or an adaptation tend to arise. Another interesting case in point is the recreation of a
characters peripheral foreignness in a source text. Such cases may involve the recreation of that
foreignness in the target language, which is not problematic provided the linguistic foreignness depicted
in the source text does not coincide with the target language. On the recreation of foreignness in
translation see Rosa et al., Luso-Canadian Exchanges in Translation Studies and Chiaro, Issues in
Audiovisual Translation, 159.
53
91
Figure 7: Translating Linguistic Varieties: Decentralization
Decentralization Strategy
Following Cronin, Brisset and Rosa, in certain historical moments, the socio-cultural,
ideological and political context in which a translation is produced may result in the
interference of translation norms regarding the otherwise widespread patterning defined
as the universal of normalization. Such norms may determine both the maintenance of
extra-linguistic negative value or the more radical replacement of extra-linguistic
positive-value items by their opposite, motivating the inclusion of less prestigious or
even substandard literary varieties in translated texts.
Against the above mentioned predominant strategy to normalize and centralize
substandard literary varieties in translation, a most interesting strategy is mentioned in
Brissets study: in 1978 Michel Garneau translated Macbeth, by William Shakespeare,
into Qubcois or Quebec French, a less prestigious dialect of French and also by using
joual, the Quebec French working-class dialect of the Montreal area. 56 This is
ideologically interpreted by Brisset as an attempt to legitimize Qubcois by elevating
it from its status as a dialect (Brisset 1990, 167). 57 The canonized status of both source
text and author was instrumental in the elevation of Qubcois, the Canadian-French
dialect used in the translation. These consistent shifts from standard source text
language to Qubcois or Quebec French were far from obligatory. They expressed an
intentional global strategy and resulted from contextual motivations related to the
defense of Quebec French, in response to a political and ideological atmosphere of
nationalist aspirations. The language conflict underlying this translation strategy bears
56
Daniel Fischlin, Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Project, University of Guelph, 2004,

Accessed November 20, 2009, http://www.canadianshakespeares.ca.
57
92
very close ties with the demand for territorial and political autonomy 58 and as such
reveals the intricate connections between discourse, identity and, again, place. In the
words of Brisset, Translation becomes an act of reclaiming, of recentring of the
identity, a re-territorializing operation. 59
The radical strategy consisting of the exact opposite of the dominant ones of
centralization or normalization of substandard dialects has to be considered as it is both
theoretically and data-motivated. This strategy lacked an operative label and the
corresponding conceptualization. This has been labeled a decentralization strategy,
whereby the source text prestigious standard is translated into a target language less
prestigious variety or into target language substandard, as represented in Figure 6.
The abovementioned strategies are not only related to the procedure of change.
Characterizing less prestigious or substandard discourse may also be submitted to two
further radical shifts in translation: omission and addition. The former has already been
here equated with a predominant normalization strategy that eradicates deviant
characterizing discourse from target texts, thus contributing to the target texts
monoglossia. The latter radical change has also been here associated with a
decentralization strategy that creates, strengthens, enriches, or diversifies the target
texts heteroglossia by adding characterizing less prestigious or substandard discourse.
The following table systematizes the procedures and strategies this paper suggests
are applicable to describing the translation of literary varieties.
Procedures
(1) Omission: linguistic markers signaling characterizing less
prestigious or substandard discourse in the source text are
not recreated in the target text.
Strategies
Normalization
Result
Monoglossia
(2) Addition: linguistic markers signaling characterizing less

prestigious or substandard discourse are added to the
target text (the source text had none).
Decentralization
Heteroglossia
(3) Maintenance: linguistic markers signaling characterizing

less prestigious or substandard discourse in the source
text are recreated in the target text; communicative and
socio-semiotic dimensions of context are maintained.
--
Heteroglossia
(4) a) Change of a more peripheral substandard towards a less

peripheral variety: linguistic markers for a more
peripheral or even stigmatized literary variety present in
the source text are recreated by those for a less peripheral
literary variety in the target text
Centralization
Heteroglossia
Decentralization
Heteroglossia
(4) b) Change of a less peripheral variety towards a more

peripheral or substandard variety: linguistic markers for a
less peripheral literary variety present in the source text
are recreated by those for a more peripheral or stigmatized
literary variety in the target text.
Figure 8: Procedures and strategies for the translation of literary varieties

58
59

93
If not only procedures and strategies are considered but also their result in
translating literary less prestigious or substandard varieties, normalization by omission
of less prestigious or substandard varieties from the target text results in monoglossia.
The whole work is translated into the most prestigious target language linguistic variety
as a consequence of standardization and normalization laws and universals. An
identification of narrator diction with character diction ensues and all the narrative
functions associated with characterizing discourse are radically changed or erased. In
view of the table above, all other procedures and strategies, however, result in the target
text s heteroglossia, by maintenance, change or the most radical procedure of addition.
In this light, also maintenance procedures deserve our attention as a possible tool to
counter the most predominant translational decision for normalization.
Final Remarks
The choice not to recreate characterizing less prestigious or substandard literary
varieties, i.e. to normalize them and thus create a monoglossic target text, is probably
subject to a wide range of motivations or constraints. Among them, the following are
worth mentioning:
(1) explicit editorial guidelines contained in the translators brief;
(2) a necessary prioritization of the textual components to be translated which
apparently tends to favor denotative or referential and communicative
features (in detriment of interpersonal and informative features);
(3) an ideological context favoring normative behavior and the corresponding
translation norms in force in the target culture;
(4) the intended readership and the speculative anticipation of its expectations;
(5) the importance attributed to literary varieties in the source text and the
functions they perform;
(6) the difficulty in establishing an acceptable target text equivalent unit for the
correlation of source language forms and values, also determined by
different poetics of fiction;
(7) avoiding unintended effects caused by the recreation of literary varieties;
(8) the lack of time, low pay and reduced tools available for the translator to
recreate in the target text the source text s literary varieties, extra-linguistic
connotations and functions.
Among these, it is worth stressing the influence of the intercultural relation
associating source and target cultures, i.e. their relative place and status; as well as the
relation associating source text author and target text translator, i.e. their relative place
and status. In some cases, the standard is considered the only acceptable option to
recreate a highly prestigious or canonized source text, author and culture.
The predominant decision not to transfer source text literary varieties into the
target text is not devoid of consequences, either. As Hatim and Mason state,
[r]endering ST dialect by TL standard has the disadvantage of losing the special effect
intended in the ST, while rendering dialect by dialect runs the risk of creating
unintended effects. 60 One of such effects may be a naturalization or domestication of
60
Hatim and Mason, Discourse and the Translator, 41.
94
the story, transferred from the source culture into the target culture, as mentioned by
Dimitrova; 61 or the change of interpersonal relations at discourse and plot level, as
suggested by van Leuven-Zwart; 62 or the leveling of all voices which are rendered in
very close resemblance to non-characterizing narrator diction.
However, this paper focused on the ideological, political and social implications,
both motivations and consequences, of the recreation of literary pseudo-varieties
mentioned by several socio-critical studies. As stated, translation tends to normalize or
centralize characterizing less prestigious or substandard literary varieties, by resorting to
the prestigious standard (associated with the official language, the language of
education and culture), in a possible attempt to associate the translator and the translated
text with the prestige of the standard and the positive socio-cultural values it evokes.
Against this tendency, any attempt to include in translations (either systematically or
not) the range of less prestigious or substandard varieties used in local and spontaneous
interaction assumes a special meaning. It becomes an act of contestation with the
express purpose of subverting an established dynamics of power, thereby revealing the
ideological visibility of the translator and of his/her violent meaning producing
aesthetic. 63 This may also expose a given translators privileged place and status both
within the target culture and within the intercultural relation expressed and created by
such a translation.
In the words of Theo Hermans, [t]ranslation is of interest because it offers firsthand evidence of the prejudice of perception. Cultures, communities and groups
construe their sense of self in relation to others and by regulating the channels of contact
with the outside world. 64 In a nutshell, translation offers evidence of the intricate
connections between the sense of ones self and the sense of otherness. Translation
reveals ones (intra- and intercultural) definition of place.
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Traducerea spaiului: variaia lingvistic n traducere

Articolul discut problema traducerii din punctul de vedere al variaiei lingvistice i n particular
al relaiei dintre discurs i spaiu, n cadrul studiilor de traducere descriptive i folosindu-ne de
abordarea comunicativ la ficiunea tradus.
Cu acest scop, articolul discut variaia lingvistic n termenii corelaiei formei lingvistice, a
nelesului comunicrii i a valorii socio-semiotice, consider recreaia de accente i dialecte, i
sugereaz cteva strategii majore pentru traducerea unor asemenea pseudo varieti (prin
referirea la Brisset 1996; Chapdelaine i Lane Mercier 1994; Rosa 1999, 2001, 2003; Ramos
Pinto 2009a i 2009b; Cavalheiro 2009; Rosa et al. 2011). ablonarea traducerii varietilor
pseudoliterare, care a fost deja identificat de cercetrile anterioare, va fi discutat cu scopul de
a identifica i de a discuta normele de baz ale traducerii.

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A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics

Vol. II, Issue 2

Alexandra Assis Rosa