Frank O'Connor's short stories in German: A study in translation criticism.

Abstract

The primary aim of the present study is to assess the quality of Elisabeth Schnack's German translations of Frank O'Connor's short stories. O'Connor's stories pose particular problems for the translator, partly because of his distinctive personal style, which characteristically combines the colloquial, dialectal and poetic registers, but also because the stories, by virtue of their geographical location, are so deeply rooted in Irish culture and the Irish way of life. The study takes the form of a linguistic and stylistic investigation which, in addition to evaluating the translations, aims to establish the translator's priorities and translation strategies. One further aim of the study is to determine any differences between the literary contexts of the originals and translations by considering the extent to which the SL and TL audiences parallel one another. As a theoretical basis for the study, five existing models for translation criticism (Popovic, Wilss, Koller, Reiss, House) have been compared and evaluated. The assessment itself is divided into chapters on cognitive equivalence (where omissions, additions and mistakes are examined), connotative equivalence (which deals primarily with the treatment of O'Connor's style) and textual equivalence (which investigates cohesive devices and text-immanent features). By means of specific exemplification it is hoped to illustrate general difficulties posed in translating Anglo-Irish literature into German, and to discover how such difficulties may or may not be overcome. Thus, a study of this nature should not only heighten awareness and encourage discussion of the problems of literary translation, but it should also help to raise the standard of future literary translations into German.

Date of Award	1984
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath