The Adventures of Hlapić in Burgenland Croatian
Abstract
The paper presents the results of a digital comparative text analysis of the Croatian original and the Burgenland editions of a children’s classic performed in combination with research methods of Translation Studies. The Croatian children’s novel of 1913, Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića [The Strange Adventures of Hlapić the Apprentice] by Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić (1874–1938), appeared in Burgenland Croatian in 1960 and again, with minor alterations, in 2000. Burgenland Croatian is the language of the Croatian minority predominantly positioned in Austria, considered to be a regional variant of Croatian. These two languages are similar, but they still differ in structural and semantic elements as they have been separately developing since the 15th century. The similarities allowed for a digital comparative text analysis of the linguistic aspects of source and target texts, including their linguistic complexity. The results of the digital analysis demonstrate the applicability of digital linguistics methodology in analyzing translated and rewritten literary texts when source and target language idioms are similar, especially in determining the stylistic differences between source and target texts. The results of the analysis of culture-specific items rendered in two target texts, as compared to the original, indicate there exist not many differences on the language text levels between the analyzed source and target texts, yet some discrepancies between the two editions of the translation into the Burgenland Croatian have been detected, and thus explained in the historical and cultural context of their appearance.[1]
Keywords: Croatian children's literature, Burgenland Croatian, digital text analysis, translating culture, culture-specific items, The Strange Adventures of Hlapić the Apprentice
The paper presents a combined digital comparative text analysis and descriptive analysis of linguistic and cultural aspects of the translation of Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića by Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić (1874–1938) from Croatian into Burgenland Croatian.
This language of the Croatian minority, situated predominantly in Austria but also in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, is considered to be a regional variant of the Croatian language. The first Croats populating the present Burgenland (Gradišće) fled their home country following the Turk attacks during the 15th and 16th centuries. The inhabitants of Lika and the territory between Senj and Obrovac were the first to relocate (Ujević). Burgenland was established as a separate Austrian state only in 1921 when its Croatian population adopted the name Burgenland Croats (Valentić 18, 20). Today, there are five groups of Burgenland Croats in 49 Croatian towns and villages.[2]
Burgenland Croatian (further BLC) and standard Croatian (further SC) differ due to the centuries-long separate development. The differences are visible at the phonological, morphological, lexical, and syntactic level (Neweklowsky). While SC stems from the Croatian Shtokavian dialect, BLC is based on the Croatian Chakavian dialect, also predominant in the written tradition of Burgenland Croats (Tyran). With only about 20,000 speakers today, BLC is on UNESCO’s list of endangered languages (Šćukanec). According to Božidar Finka, BLC functions simultaneously as an autonomous literary microlanguage and a variety of the Croatian literary language, which becomes established as a standard language in written and oral communication once it has its own grammar, vocabulary, and orthography (405). Therefore, the translation of Hlapić into BLC can be considered, in Roman Jakobson’s terms, to be either an interlingual translation or a translation proper, or an intralingual translation or a rewriting from a standard version of Croatian to a variant of Croatian spoken by a diaspora (114). However, as Karen Korning Zethsen has indicated, the differences between an interlingual and an intralingual translation “are more a question of degree than of kind” (809). The status of the target text(s) analyzed here depends on the status of BLC, yet it is not directly relevant for the aim of this research. Furthermore, we refer to both variants as “language,” and to the target texts as “translation,” whether it be intralinguistic or interlinguistic.
The languages are similar, so that “every Burgenland Croat who masters his own native language and its literary form well has no particular problems in following literature in Croatian literary language” (our trans.; Sučić 9). However, one can hardly expect this of children. It is for this reason, among many others, that Hlapić has appeared in the Burgenland translation.
The children’s novel about a little shoemaker has a special place in Croatian children’s literature. It has been widely read since its first appearance, internationally recognized as a classic (Kümmerling-Meibauer 137-38), and translated into 26 languages, including Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, German, English, Albanian, Chinese, Russian, and Turkish.[3] The 1998 Esperanto translation served as the relay text for translations into Japanese, Persian, Bengali, Vietnamese and Korean (Štimec).
The Burgenland Croatian translation, titled Čudnovate zgode inuša Hlapića, was first published in Vienna in 1960. Ignac Horvat (18951973) was listed as the “editor,” implying both language editing and an intralinguistic translation. The second edition, published in Željezno (Eisenstadt) in 2000, listed Horvat as the “translator,” implying the status of Burgenland Croatian as a separate language. It can be concluded that it was Horvat who originally translated, rewrote (or transfigured)[4] Hlapić into BLC. The texts of these two editions differ. Horvat died in 1973, so someone else probably modified the text in 2000. Possibly, but not likely, Horvat did it himself at the beginning of the 1970s, and then the manuscript was not published for the next 30 years.[5]
Translation Studies (TS) “ask questions about what happens when a text is transferred from source to target culture” (Bassnett 10). This research aims at establishing to what extent the BLC translation as the target text (TT) is equivalent (faithful) to the Croatian text as the source text (ST), that is, whether TT changes the linguistic and cultural aspects of ST, and, if so, in which ways. We also aim to confirm the suitability of digital analysis in comparing translations (or rewritings) of literary texts into languages with a relatively high level of similarity with the language of the source text.
1. Research Problems: Linguistic and Cultural Equivalence
The notion of equivalence has a long history in translation studies. According to Munday, it “continues to be a central, if criticized, concept” (49), partly because it lacks a clear definition. Scholars criticize its evasiveness, difficulties in establishing the level of equivalence, and the subjectivity in determining “the so-called tertium comparationis, an invariant against which two text segments can be measured to gauge variation” (Munday 49). Equivalence “has been understood as ‘accuracy,’ ‘adequacy,’ ‘correctness,’ ‘correspondence,’ ‘fidelity,’ or ‘identity’” (Venuti 5).
Vinay and Darbelnet detect equivalence when “the same situation” is “rendered by two texts using completely different stylistic and structural methods” (90). J. F. Catford considers the concept of equivalence and its status at different text levels and concludes that “[t]he SL and TL items rarely have ‘the same meaning’ in the linguistic sense; but they can function in the same situation” (49). As implied, there always exists some difference between a source text and its translation – equivalence necessarily incorporates variation. As Bassnett puts it, “[e]quivalence in translation, then, should not be approached as a search for sameness, since sameness cannot even exist between two TL versions of the same text, let alone between the SL and the TL version” (37-38).
Despite its problematic status in TS, the concept of (linguistic) equivalence is relevant for the present study. Since the focus here is on a comparative analysis of texts in two very similar linguistic idioms, a high proportion of similarity between the ST and the TT can be expected “at different, but interacting levels of text (syntactic, lexical, semantic, pragmatic and semiotic)” (Bolaños Cuéllar 80; Catford). Similarities (and differences) of the compared texts also indicate the lexical, structural, and even semantic similarities (or differences) between SC and BLC. In the present study, equivalence refers to the similarities between the source and target texts, while differences indicate a lack of equivalence in the analyzed pairs of ST and TTs. It should be added that these similarities (and differences) are relevant not only from a linguistic but also from a cultural perspective. Franco Aixelá expressed this with exceptional clarity: “in a language everything is culturally produced, beginning with the language itself” (57).
Differences between cultures put in a dialogue, in the process of translation, present a challenge in the form of intercultural gaps and “culture-specific items” (further CSIs), defined as:[t]hose textually actualized items whose function and connotations in a source text involve a translation problem in their transference to a target text, whenever this problem is a product of the nonexistence of the referred item or of its different intertextual status in the cultural system of the readers of the target text (Franco Aixelá 58). In an attempt to establish the nature of linguistic and cultural equivalence of ST and TT, this study focuses on these specific research problems:
1. Comparing two editions of the BLC translation at the level of
a) Paratext
b) Text
2. Performing a linguistic analysis of ST1 and the second edition of TT to establish and compare
a) Length and incidence of text units
b) Lexical complexity
c) Lexical variety
d) Discourse markers and sentence connectors
3. Detecting and comparing translation strategies
Due to the similarity of language systems, numerous identical lexical items occur in the source text and its translation, and there is relatively little cultural difference. According to Venuti, approaches to translating culture can be roughly divided between two translation methods: domestication, “an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target-language cultural values” and foreignization, “an ethnodeviant pressure on those values to register the linguistic and cultural difference of the foreign text” (20). This study aims at detecting linguistic and cultural modifications in two TTs in comparison with the ST.
2. Analyzed Texts
The more recent Burgenland translation of Hlapić (Brlić-Mažuranić, 2000) was chosen as the target text (further indicated as TT2) for two reasons. Firstly, the copies of the 1960 edition (further indicated as TT1) are rare, whereas the 2000 edition is still available, making the references to TT2 easier to trace. Secondly, the 2000 edition reveals a more consistent expression in BLC in contrast to SC, so that the comparison of ST1 and TT2 should offer a clearer picture and more specific results. The earlier text (TT1) (Brlić-Mažuranić, 1960), is taken into consideration in the interpretation of the findings.
According to B. Majhut, the original BLC translation is based on the text of the 1950s editions, titled Čudnovate zgode i nezgode šegrta Hlapića [The Strange Adventures and Misadventures of Hlapić the Apprentice], published by Svjetlost in Sarajevo, which follows the text of the third Croatian edition (Brlić-Mažuranić, 1941) (189).[6] The first Sarajevo edition appeared in 1951 and was reissued in 1952, 1954, and 1957. The BLC title leaves out the superfluous “Misadventures.” The Sarajevo editions share the same text, and we randomly selected the 1954 reprint edition (Brlić-Mažuranić, 1951/1954) as the ST1 in this study.
Our research reveals that the 2000 edition (TT2) used illustrations from another SC edition of Hlapić, the one from 1972, and followed it in a few places, further discussed below. However, TT2 is still predominantly based on TT1, and thus, indirectly, on the Sarajevo edition, further indicated as ST1. The 1972 edition, further indicated as ST2, following the second, i.e., the 1922 edition of Hlapić (Majhut 193), is consulted to clarify some differences between TT1 and TT2.
3. Methodology
A comparative content analysis of selected sections of TT2 and TT1 was carried out to determine differences in expression. Out of forty-four sections of TT1 and TT2, seven were selected. They include the initial and final section, three sections with titles modified in the TT in comparison with the ST, and two arbitrarily selected sections. An analysis of paratexts was performed to establish the immediate contexts in which the books appeared.
Next, a comparative content analysis of ST1 and TT2 was conducted to establish the general equivalence of the texts at the linguistic level. This was followed by digital content and corpus analysis (Johnson; Tadić) performed by the program NooJ (2013),[7] which describes natural languages by means of digital dictionaries and digital grammars. The Croatian Morphological Lexicon, version 4.6 (Tadić and Fulgosi), was applied to the analyzed texts. NooJ is a linguistic development environment that allows linguists to construct extensive linguistic resources and uses a bottom-up approach to sequentially apply these resources: each parsing operation accesses the Text Annotation Structure and enriches it by adding or removing linguistic annotations (Silberztein 240). It is available in 25 world languages, including Croatian. The analysis allows data to be obtained on occurrences, variants, collocations, all the characters in a text, and the grammatical properties of the variable types of words entered in a dictionary.
Conventional and digital content analyses were then combined to detect spots of departure of TT2 from ST1 at the level of language, followed by a content analysis of ST1 and TT2 to detect culture-related items. Franco Aixelá’s (1996) analytic model was used to determine translation strategies in TT2.
Franco Aixelá established a methodological frame for determining degrees of intercultural manipulation in translating culture. He distinguishes two major groups of strategies: aiming either at conservation or on substitution of the original items (61). The first group includes repetition, orthographic adaptation, linguistic (non-cultural) translation, and the extratextual and intratextual gloss, while the second includes synonymy, limited and absolute universalization, naturalization, deletion, and autonomous creation. He emphasizes that the list is not exhaustive and that there are other strategies, such as attenuation, frequently found in translations of children’s literature, defined as “replacement, on ideological grounds, of something ‘too strong’ or in any way unacceptable, by something ‘softer’, more adequate to target pole written tradition or to what could, in theory be expected by readers” (64).
This methodological frame is used in this study where a strategic departure from the original is detected at linguistic and cultural levels.
4. Results
4.1. Comparison of BLC Editions
Paratext
The paratexts of TT1 and TT2 show that they were published by the Croatian Printing Society as books 2 and 77, respectively. As one of the earliest publications of the Society, Hlapić is given special significance in the BLC community, which is confirmed by its second edition. On the cover flaps of the 2000 edition, there is a statement in BLC and German that Hlapić was accepted in 1960 as school reading for the higher grades of Burgenland bilingual compulsory schools (age 11-14). Besides, the title page of TT2 reveals that the BLC word inuš, “apprentice,” in the title of TT1 was replaced by the SC word šegrt, “apprentice,” in TT2, probably following the SC editions. However, the word inuš appears in the text of TT2, often in combination with šegrt (see the analysis of CSIs below).
The front cover of the TT1 edition includes a black and white illustration, while a color illustration adorns the front and back covers of the TT2 edition. There is a note in TT1 that the illustrations were taken from the Sarajevo Svjetlost editions. However, only three out of 24 originally published illustrations by Milan Marinković appear in the TT1 edition. The TT2 edition does not reveal the illustrator, but investigation reveals that its 15 illustrations are by Josip Vaništa, originally made for the Zagreb 1972 edition of ST2. It is only stated that the cover illustration was colored in by Monika Trimmel-Roženić, implying that the person who edited TT2 used ST2 as a more recent edition of Hlapić in preparing the 2000 publication. We have performed a thorough parallel analysis of relevant spots in TT1, TT2, ST1, and ST2, according to B. Majhut’s methodology (see note 6). It reveals that Horvat’s translation in TT1, despite the differences, remained the foundation of the text in TT2, except for several places in which TT2 reintroduced fragments missing from both ST1 and TT1, as discussed below.
TT2 is printed in a larger font and line spacing than TT1. These features emphasize the communicative function of the book, making it more appealing and easier to read. The table of contents appears only in the TT2 edition, but the division into chapters and sections is the same in all three books. There are 10 chapters (11, preface included), mainly divided into 3-4 sections, with just one chapter comprised of 14 sections.
The most notable difference is in the preface. TT2 omits the author’s preface, titled “Malim čitateljima,” [To little readers] included in ST1 (Brlić-Mažuranić, 1954 3) and ST2 (Brlić-Mažuranić 5). This short text, written by Brlić-Mažuranić, is an integral part of the novel: it introduces the protagonist, frames the reading experience, promises a happy ending, and encourages children to start reading. The narrator also establishes a close relationship with child readers. The function of the author’s preface was obviously not fully recognized in the BLC editions that replaced the preface with the one written by Horvat, titled “Draga dica!” [Dear Children!]. It conveys information similar to the original preface, only more directly and didactically. In TT1, Horvat adds information about the author[8] and her books, encouraging children to identify with Hlapić as an exemplary good boy and to take him as a role model. He mentions that the book was published as a Christmas gift, and finishes the text with a note about Jesus, who likes good children and “who has now, on Christmas, come to this world. And he has come so that, going all over the world, he would do good and teach us to overcome evil through love” (1960 3). These two sentences draw a parallel between the character of Hlapić and Jesus. However, the sentences appear only in TT1; in TT2, Horvat’s preface is republished, only without the reference to Christmas and Jesus. The reason for this might be that it was not Christmas time when TT2 was published.
Text
The seven sample sections of TT1 and TT2 were systematically compared to establish whether and how the text of TT2 was changed in comparison with TT1. Detected alterations embrace printing error corrections, the lexical replacement of functional and lexical words, the removal of simple extratextual glosses (Franco Aixelá 61), and an omission.
Table 1 shows examples of the lexical difference between TT1 and TT2. Examples 1-3 represent the replacement of function words. SC words, e.g. kao (“as”) and dakle (“thus”), found in TT1, are consistently replaced by the BLC words kot and ada in TT2. Items 4-6 exemplify the replacement of content words. For instance, strava (“horror”) is a SC word replaced adequately only in TT2 with a BLC word strahoća, while in TT1 rendered as strah (“fear”). The Croatian regional expression opravica (“dress”) found in ST1 is repeated in TT1, and replaced by the BLC word haljica in TT2. Examples 7-9 represent instances of extratextual glosses found in TT1 and dismissed in TT2. In many cases, the BLC words given in brackets in TT1 remain as the only words in the same spots in TT2. For instance, the initial expression svežanj (culo) (TT1) becomes culo in TT2. Sometimes, however, the SC word is kept, as in pregača (fertuk) (TT1), which becomes pregača in TT2.
Table 1. Lexical differences of TT1 and TT2
1 | kao | kao | kot | as |
2 | dakle | dakle | ada | therefore |
3 | ne[t]ko | neko | negdo | someone |
4 | strava | strah | strahoća | horror, scare |
5 | opravica | opravica | haljica | a dress |
6 | svijet | svijet | svit | world |
7 | svježa | svježega (friškoga) | friškoga | fresh |
8 | boju | boju (farbu) | farbu | paint |
9 | svežanj | svežanj (culo) | culo | a bundle |
A fragment is omitted in TT2, consisting of 44 words in TT1 (31 words in ST1 77; ST2 95), and includes an exchange between two characters. It starts with “‘A kamo se tako pašćiš?’ pita gospodar” (‘“Where to are you rushing so?” asks the master’; TT1 52). The text following the omitted segment in both TT1 and TT2 starts with a line parallel in structure and similar in meaning: “‘A kamo idete po kravu?’ pita gospodar” (‘“Where to are you going to get the cow?” asks the master;’ TT1 52; TT2 98). The omission interferes with the coherence of the text; therefore, it is probably an error in copying the text while preparing the new edition. It slightly influences the general equivalence of TT2 and ST1, but it seems to be unintentional, and as such, would not classify as a translation strategy.
4.2. Linguistic Analysis of ST1 and TT2
Length and incidence of text units
The results of the digital analysis of the quantitative characteristics of ST1 and TT2 are presented in Table 2. According to the total number of words (tokens), TT2 is slightly shorter than ST1, by approximately 1% (see TT2: ST1 ratio), chiefly due to the lesser use of functional words. ST1 includes 45 sentences more than TT2, but they are similar in length in both texts. The difference may be ascribed to merging some sentences in TT2 and to some interpolations. Generally speaking, translated texts are often longer than source texts due to explanations, paraphrases, and similar strategies used in translation. In this study, the difference in length of ST1 and TT2 is the opposite, but rather insignificant, which can be ascribed to the similarity of BLC and SC.
Table 2. Comparison of the quantitative linguistic analysis of ST1 and TT2
Tokens (T) | 24,305 | 23,981 | -324 | 0.98 |
Lexical words (LW) | 16,913 | 16,855 | -58 | 0.99 |
Function words (FW) | 7,392 | 7,112 | -280 | 0.96 |
Different words (DW) | 4, 833 | 3,968 | -865 | 0.82 |
Sentences | 2,009 | 1,964 | -45 | 0.97 |
Words per sentence (average) | 12.09 | 12.21 | 0.12 | 1.01 |
As can be seen in Table 3, the words ranked highest, in both ST1 and TT2, are je/je (third-person singular of the verb biti/biti, “to be”) and i/i (the connector “and”). While the frequency of je/je is almost the same in ST1 and TT2 (1353 vs. 1352), the frequency of i/i in TT2 increases by 10.18% in comparison to ST1. The 15 top ranked tokens in ST1 and TT2, include 14 pairs of words identical in both languages, with the exception of words kao (SC) and kot (BLC) that are equivalent, thus also forming a pair.
Table 3. Word frequency lists
Word | f | Word | f | |
je | 1353 | 1 | je | 1352 |
i | 997 | 2 | i | 1110 |
se | 575 | 3 | se | 535 |
da | 500 | 4 | Hlapić | 458 |
Hlapić | 457 | 5 | da | 433 |
su | 389 | 6 | su | 382 |
na | 370 | 7 | u | 369 |
u | 365 | 8 | na | 366 |
nije | 208 | 9 | a (within a sentence) | 218 |
Gita | 196 | 10 | nije | 208 |
a (within a sentence) | 193 | 11 | Gita | 186 |
kao | 169 | 12 | tako | 158 |
tako | 168 | 13 | s | 152 |
bilo | 155 | 14 | bilo | 144 |
ne | 153 | 15 | kot | 144 |
These results indicate the high lexical proximity of these languages. To verify this finding, Spearman’s rank correlation analysis of the 35 highest ranked tokens in ST1 and TT2 was performed, which rendered the value r=0.997. This correlation coefficient demonstrates that the analyzed texts are statistically highly related, i.e. that there is a consistent concurrence of lexical units of ST1 and TT2. The results also imply that the lexical difference between SC and BLC is primarily found at the level of content words, because many function words are identical.
The numbers of different or unique words (types) in ST1 and TT2 differ in favor of ST1 (Table 2). This finding implies that the vocabulary of ST1 is more diverse, i.e. somewhat richer than that of TT2. In order to validate this implication, further steps of the linguistic analysis were performed.
Lexical complexity
Lexical complexity is determined by means of calculating “lexical density and the proportion of lexical words to function words” (Gholami et al. 369), and lexical density is defined as the ratio of lexical words to tokens, i.e. the total number or words (Schmitt).
Table 4. Comparison of lexical complexity of ST1 and TT2
ST1 (SC) | 16,913/24,305 | 0.69 | 16,913/7,392 | 2.28 |
TT2 (BLC) | 16,855/23,981 | 0.70 | 16,855/7,112 | 2.36 |
A relatively high level of lexical complexity of ST1 and TT2 was established by calculating the lexical density (LD) and the proportion of lexical and function words (L/F). As can be seen in Table 4, the proportion of LW and FW is 2.28 vs. 2.36. The lexical density of ST1 is 0.69, and that of TT2 is 0.70. It can be concluded that both texts analyzed are lexically dense (the closer the value to 1, the denser the text, and the wider the vocabulary needed for understanding such a text).
Lexical variety
An indicator of lexical richness is lexical variety (LV), also called the type-token ratio (TTR). Type refers to different words in this case. Thus, lexical variety is the ratio of different words (DW) and tokens. The closer the value is to 1, the greater the lexical richness and the amount of lexical variation of the text (Berman).
Table 5. Comparison of lexical variety of ST1 and TT2
ST1 (SC) | 4,833/24,305 | 0.20 |
TT2 (BLC) | 3,968/23,981 | 0.17 |
As can be seen in Table 5, the values of lexical variety for the texts analyzed are very similar: 0.20 and 0.17. These findings indicate that a great number of words is repeated. On average, approximately every fifth word in ST1 is repeated and every sixth in TT2. The low TTR indicates relatively small lexical variation. This can be expected in children’s literature because word repetition facilitates the reading process and the general comprehension of the text. For the present study, the results are important because they reveal that ST1 and TT2 are very similar in this respect, and the differences can be explained by a larger variety of morphological forms of individual words used in ST1 than in TT2.
Discourse markers and sentence connectors
The most frequent simple connector in complex sentences in both ST1 and TT2 is i/i (and), with over 1,000 occurrences. Croatian abounds in simple connectors, which can be divided into three categories for the purposes of the present paper: and-type, but-type, and or-type connectors. Most of them are identical in SC and BLC.
The first group includes i/i, and connectors such as pa/pa (fST1=120, fTT2=108), ni/ni (fST1=62, fTT2=60), niti/niti (fST1=10, fTT2=11), te/te (fST1=48, fTT2=35), and ter (fTT2=17), a BLC connector similar to te.
But-type connectors include a/a (fST1=195, fTT2=218), ali/ali (fST1=29, fTT2=39), nego/nego (fST1=37, fTT2=49), već/već (fST1=72, fTT2=80).
Finally, the connector ili/ili (or) appears 18 times in both texts.
The distribution of simple connectors is very similar in ST1 and TT2, except for a greater number of but-type connectors in TT2. This is connected with lesser use of discourse markers for contrast in TT2 (see markers no/no and ipak/ipak in Table 6), indicating their function was sometimes transferred to simple connectors.
As shown in Table 6, which presents a comparison of discourse markers (DMs) in ST1 and TT2, the DMs that appear most often in both texts are: temporal DM kad/kad (when, fST1=178, fTT2=181), the DMs of comparison kao/kot (as, fST1=171, fTT2=146), causal DM jer/jer (because, fST1=148, fTT2=132), and sequential DMs onda/onda (then, fST1=104, fTT2=98). These markers accentuate the narrative nature of the text, as temporal, sequential and cause-result relationships are essential for the development of the plot.
In contrast, the high incidence of kao/kot is related to specific stylistic qualities of the novel, in which similes, whether traditional or newly coined, give the text a special appeal. The most frequent contrast/concession marker is no/no (yet, fST1=75, fTT2=66).
Table 6. Discourse markers in ST1 and in TT2[9]
kad | 178 | temporal relation | kad | 181 |
kao | 171 | comparison | kot | 146 |
jer | 140 | cause/effect | jer | 126 |
onda | 104 | sequence | onda | 98 |
no | 75 | contrast/concession | no | 66 |
zato | 55 | cause/effect | zato | 56 |
dakako | 37 | reinforcement | pravoda | 26 |
zatim | 33 | sequence | zatim | 30 |
dakle | 23 | cause/effect | ada | 22 +1 dakle |
ipak | 27 | contrast | ipak | 22 |
naime | 21 | explanation | naime | 20 |
dok | 22 | temporal relation | dok | 16 |
ako | 17 | condition | ako | 27 |
premda | 12 | concession | premda | 13 |
i onako | 11 | redirecting | ionako | 10 |
doduše | 7 | redirecting | nemer | 6 |
napokon | 9 | sequence | nazadnje | 4 |
zbog | 7 | cause/effect | zbog | 10 |
istom | 6 | temporal relation | istom | 5 |
nakon | 5 | temporal relation | po | 6 |
konačno | 4 | sequence/consequence | konačno | 9 |
međutim | 4 | concession | medjutim | 4 |
zato što | 4 | cause/effect | zato ča | 1 |
otkad | 2 | temporal relation | otkad | 2 |
potom | 1 | temporal relation | potom | 5 |
Table 6 demonstrates that most markers in both languages are identical, but that out of twenty-five pairs there are nine different pairs, even though their meanings, function types, and usage are either fully or highly equivalent. Spearman’s correlation coefficient r=0.938 shows a high level of the concurrence of DMs in ST1 and TT2 of approximately 86%. This finding also reflects a high level of similarity between SC and BLC.
4.3. Translation Strategies
This stage of analysis focuses on translator strategies in TT2, with a particular focus on translating culture. Due to the high linguistic equivalence of ST1 and TT2, and the proximity between the BLC community and Croatia, the translatability of Hlapić is rather high. Thus, only a limited number of differences were expected.
In the following section, we consider items that are not directly culture-related, while a separate section is dedicated to culture-specific items (CSIs).
Linguistic equivalence
Differences
The comparison of the usage of DMs described above indicates a high co-incidence of specific lexical items in ST1 and TT2, whether they are identical lexical units, or equivalent expressions (such as kao/kot, dakako/pravoda, dakle/ada). This finding implies a high level of equivalence of ST1 and TT2 at the level of more complex units as well. To validate this insight, digital content text analysis was applied to establish the co-occurrence of similes in the text. Kao/kot (as) functions as an indicator of similes. As seen in Table 6, kao occurs 171 times in ST1, and kot 146 times in TT2. Content analysis revealed that seven ST1 occurrences belong to the author’s preface, which is not included in TT2. Also, the SC kao is used twice in TT2. Therefore, the ratio of the instances of kao/kot in the main text of ST1 and TT2 is 164:148, i.e. there are 10% fewer occurrences of kot+kao in TT2 in comparison to kao in ST1.
A comparison of the concordance lists of kao/kot signifies a high level of equivalence of similes incorporated in both texts. Table 7 shows the first 25 relevant concordances in both texts. Out of these, 22 pairs are similes and the remaining 3 represent other functions of kao/kot.
Table 7. Concordances: kao/kot as indicators of similes[10]
Hlapić. Hlapić je bio malen | kao | lakat, a veseo kao ptica | Hlapić. Hlapić je bio malen | kot | lakat, a veseo kot ptica |
malen kao lakat, a veseo | kao | ptica. Cijeli je dan sjedio | malen kot lakat, a veseo | kot | ptica. Cijeli dan je sidio |
sobi. Imao je kuštravu kosu | kao | lav, a duge brkove do | Imao je guste, kuštrave vlase | kot | lav, a duge brke (mustaće |
je tako jak i krupan | kao | u medvjeda. Majstoru Mrkonji dogodila | je tako jak i gruban | kot | u medvida. Majstoru Mrkonji dogodila |
njoj se dogodila ista žalost | kao | i majstoru Mrkonji. No ona | njoj seje dogodila ista žalost | kot | i majstoru Mrkonji. No ona |
hlačama tako zelene noge | kao | zelena žaba, pi ih nije | ti hlača tako zelene noge | kot | žaba, zato ih nije rado |
Kreketao je “kre-kre” | kao | žaba, kad god je obukao | šaliti. Kreketao je “kre-kre” | kot | žaba, kadgod sije oblikao zelene |
Njihove sare sjajile su se | kao | sunce. Sam Hlapić zabijao je | Njihove sare svitile su se | kot | sunce. Sam Hlapić zabijao je |
tih čizama.” Onda se okrene | kao | lav prema Hlapiću i zagrozi | čižam!” Onda se okrene | kot | lav k Hlapiću i zagrozi |
on ni fućkao ni pjevao | kao | obično, nego je nešto razmišljao | on ni fućkao ni pjevao | kot | obično, nego je nešto razmišljao |
Oko njega bilo je tamno | kao | u zatvorenoj škatulji. Tiho kao | Oko njega je bilo tamno | kot | u zatvorenoj škatulji. Tiho kot |
kao u zatvorenoj škatulji. Tiho | kao | miš izađe Hlapić iz kuhinje | kot u zatvorenoj škatulji. Tiho | kot | miš izajde Hlapić iz kuhinje |
Tu je bila crna noć | kao | u zatvorenoj škatulji. Kad je | Ovdje je bila črna noć | kot | u zatvorenoj škatulji. Kad je |
bila su velika i grbava | kao | kruške. Kad je Hlapić svršio | su velika i grbava | kot | kruške. Kad je Hlapić svršio |
na Vas i pomagaču svakomu | kao | što ste i Vi meni | Vas i pomagat ću svakomu, | kot | ste i Vi meni |
bude bez šila i dretve, | kao | ni vojnik bez puške. Zatim | biti bez šila i drijetve, | kot | ni vojnik bez puške. Zatim |
šalu! No morao je šutjeti | kao | miš, da se ne probudi | šalu. No morao je šutiti | kot | miš, da se ne probudi |
postolar! Kapa se sada sjajila | kao | sunce, i Hlapić je metne | Kapa se je sada svitila | kot | sunce, i Hlapić si ju |
torbu preko ramena. Izgledao je | kao | general nekakve čudnovate vojske! Onda | torbu prik ramena. Izgledao je | kot | general nekakove čudnovate vojske! Onda |
tešku posudu, pa je odnese | kao | pero u kuću. Na stubama | tešku posudu, pa ju odnese | kot | pero u stan. Na stepenica |
su se dvije točke sjajile | kao | dvije crvene svijeće. To je | su se dvi kugljice svitile | kot | dvi črljene sviće. To je |
njezine su se oči krijesile | kao | crvene svijeće. »O molim«, reče | oči su se tako krisile | kot | črljene sviće. “O prosim”, reče |
posudu s mlijekom i brzo | kao | vjetar trčao uza stube. | ležati. Svejedno Hlapić zaspi slatko | kot | zec u travi. Neka nek |
ležati. Ipak Hlapić usne slatko | kao | zec u travi. Neka samo | spavao i nije ništa čuo, | kot | da ima pune uši batora |
i nije baš ništa čuo, | kao | da ima bazgu u ušima | kotrljati i ruljati po travi | kot | dvi labde. Kad im je |
Almost all the concordances exactly coincide. The following example is the only simile seemingly omitted from TT2:
“brzo kao vjetar trčao uza stube” (ST1 14)
“brzo kao vjetar trčao gori po stepenica” (TT2 18)
(ran upstairs [as] quickly as the wind)
The key word in this TT2 fragment is kao, and not kot, probably by mistake. Secondly, the equivalent of the 25th item on the TT2 list takes position 26 on the ST1 list (not shown in Table 7). Both ST1 and TT2 fragments compare Hlapić and his dog rolling on the grass to two balls.
Translation strategies – language level
Translation strategies were detected by means of conventional content analysis guided by the previous findings of the digital text analysis.
The previously mentioned simile, the spot considered in its context, reveals an intratextual gloss:
“prebacivati i kotrljati po travi kao dvije lopte” (ST1 16)
“prebacivati i kotrljati i ruljati po travi kot dvi labde” (TT2 21)
(“turning over and rolling and rolling on the grass as two balls”)
The word kotrljati (“to roll”) is explained in TT2 by ruljati, a genuine BLC word. This kind of gloss is given “as an indistinct part of the text, usually so as not to disturb the reader’s attention” (Franco Aixelá 62). In the following examples, synonyms and a paraphrase are used as intratextual glosses:
“kabao” (ST1 38) – “vidrica ili kabao” (TT2 48) – (‘a bucket or pail’)
“zvrk” (ST1 34) – “zvrk ili norac, koga dičaki gonu bičem” (TT2 43)
(“a top or a whirligig, which boys spin with a whip”)
Another similar example is this one:
“postolarski šegrt” (ST1 5) – “cipelarski šegrt ili inuš” (TT2 7)
(“a shoemaker’s apprentice or apprentice”)
Moreover, TT2 also uses an additional synonym, naučnik, in the metafictional auto-referential fragment, when Hlapić and Gita, now adults, tell their story to their children and apprentices:
“tri šegrta” (ST1 103) – “tri naučnike (inuše)” (TT2 134)
(“three trainees (apprentices)”)
Synonyms are often used in TT2, primarily for explanatory purposes, as noted above, but also to avoid repetition. For instance, “kuća” (“a house,” ST1) appears in TT2 in different places as kuća, stan, or stanić, even as palača (“a palace”), “mrak” (“darkness,” ST1) is rendered as mrak and škurina, and “zanat” (“craft”) as posao, orudje, and obrt.
Extratextual gloss is frequently found in TT1, but also appears in TT2; for instance, in the following examples:
“duge brkove” (ST1 5) – “duge brke” (mustaće) (TT2 5)
(“a long moustache (moustache)”)
In addition to intratextual gloss used to explain lexis, six instances are used to explain meaning in the narrative context, at the level of literary understanding. This strategy implies that the capacity of child readers is underestimated, which could never be ascribed to Brlić-Mažuranić. In these segments, the text is adapted for young audiences, as the translator sees them. It is a version of the strategy of attenuation. These instances of intrusion of the translator’s voice distort the intentions of the ST1 and alter the sincere relationship between the author (impersonated as the narrator) and the reader, maintained in the original.
In the following example, the word sada/sada (“now”) is added in Hlapić’s companion Gita’s declaration when she earns herself supper through an acrobatic performance (ST1 37).
“Vidiš li kako je moj posao izvrstan!” (ST1 36)
“Vidiš li sada, kako je moj posao izvrstan!” (TT2 46)
(“Do you see now how excellent my business is!”)
Gita wants approval and validation not only of her immediate success but, much more important, of her artistic vocation and her system of values. The insertion turns our attention to the performance and diminishes the general implications of this fragment, which reflects an important theme in the novel.
In the following segments, there is enough supporting information for readers to make correct inferences, but the translator adds explicit clarification. Marko lost his geese, and the narrator remarks: “That, of course, was not the biggest of misfortunes, but it depends for whom!” (ST1 18), which is rendered as “… misfortunes, but for Marko, it was an awfully big one” (TT2 22). When Hlapić finds shelter under a bridge, we find out: “You could not stand there, but only sit or crouch” (ST1 24), and in the translation, this is expanded into: “Because the bridge was low, you could not stand under it, but only sit or crouch” (TT2 31), as if readers would not understand on their own why Hlapić had to crouch under the bridge, or that losing two geese is a big issue for Marko.
A few examples of omission include: leaving out “in the dark” in TT2 from: “running towards the fire in the dark” (ST1 38; cf. TT2 48-49) and “on foot” from: “travelling on foot to the third village” (ST1 29; cf. TT2 36). These omissions may not have been intentional, but they make the narrative information less specific.
A couple of interpolations have also been found. The interpolated word most in TT2 functions as an intensifier in “[the boots] were most unfortunately too tight” (ST1 7; cf. TT2 9, emphasis added). The text “The third floor was so high that there the moon was still looking at the windows” (TT2 16) is an addition to the fragment in which Hlapić climbs to the top floor of a building, included neither in ST1 (12) nor TT1 (9). It was a part of the manuscript, first omitted from the 1941 edition of Hlapić (23n5). However, it is included in ST2 (17), which followed the 1922 edition. Thus, this interpolation in TT2, as compared with ST1, is a reconstruction of the original text, most likely based on ST2.
Another item is rather confusing. While in ST1 Hlapić’s full bag is compared to a “large bumblebee when it fills itself with honey” (46), which is the same as in ST2 (58), as well as in all the earlier editions of the novel; in the 1913/2010 critical edition (70), TT1 (31), and TT2 (58), the bag is compared to “a calf’s tummy when it chomps a lot of green clover,” and, several pages further, the bag is no longer “not like a bumblebee” (ST1 56), but rather “not like a blown-up calf” (TT1 37; cf. TT2 71).
Six omitted fragments between 5 and 22 words in length are probably mistakes, just as a few misinterpreted words. For example, djeteo (“a woodpecker”) is rendered as dite (“a child”), and krupan (“big”) as gruban (“rude”). Successive sentences changed place twice, and the same happened with the names of Hlapić and his dog Bundaš once: in ST1 Hlapić is mentioned second (18), but in TT2 (23) he is mentioned first – probably because it seemed to the translator the boy was more important than the dog. However, since Bundaš found Marko’s geese in this episode, he was given preference in the original for a reason.
Apart from sporadic syntactic inconsistencies, the above examples conclude the list of differences not directly related to cultural issues between ST1 and TT2.
Culture-specific items – translation strategies
As Franco Aixelá claims, “[e]ach linguistic or national-linguistic community has at its disposal a series of habits, value judgments, classification systems, etc. which sometimes are clearly different and sometimes overlap” (53). Due to the linguistic equivalence of ST1 and TT2, and to the proximity of SC and BLC, the number of CSIs in the analyzed texts is relatively small.
Franco Aixelá distinguishes two kinds of CSIs: proper nouns and common expressions such as “objects, institutions, habits and opinions restricted to each culture and that cannot be included in the field of proper names” (59 Proper nouns are subdivided into conventional proper nouns, having no particular meaning, and loaded proper nouns, ranging “from faintly ‘suggestive’ to overtly ‘expressive’ names and nicknames” (59).
Only a few characters in Hlapić have conventional names, including the protagonist. Hlapić is either his family name or a nickname; he lacks the first name. The only family name other than Hlapić is Mrkonja; a loaded proper noun, based on the Croatian adjective mrk (“sullen, grim”). Master Mrkonja is described as hard-hearted, unjust, and ill-natured, although his character softens in the end.
Some of the names are conventional proper nouns, and some of the characters are named by non-capitalized common nouns, i.e. pseudo-names functioning as names throughout the novel; for example, majstorica/majstorica (“mistress”), crni čovjek /črni človik (“man in black,” literally “black man”), etc. Three animals carry loaded names: the dog Bundaš (derived from bunda, “fur coat”), the horse Sokol (“falcon”) and the donkey, Kokodan (ko-ko-da, the onomatopoeic expression for a rooster’s crow). The proper nouns are faithfully reproduced in TT2, and pseudo-names are rendered by equivalent BLC expressions.
Some areas of cultural content can be considered neutral, in the sense that no particular translation strategies were applied. These include intertextual references to literature (Hlapić tells Gita the story of a pea-princess, a reference to Andersen’s tale), folklore (Kraljević Marko, Prince Marko, a hero of folk epic poetry), rural customs (a competitive game of throwing stones from the shoulder), etc. (Narančić Kovač). These items are faithfully transferred from ST1 to TT2 and recognized as the shared cultural heritage.
A few CSIs related to everyday life demonstrate that different translation strategies are sometimes used, too. Thus, the following example is an intratextual gloss, offering explanation to urban child readers who may not be familiar with the purpose of cowbells.
“počela je krava zvoniti” (ST1 21)
“počela je krava zvoniti zvoncem za vratom” (TT2 27)
(“the cow started tolling the cowbell on her neck”)
Replacement strategy (Franco Aixelá 64) is used in the next example, when Hlapić, a town child, wakes up in a village feeling as if he were in a menagerie.
“u menažeriji” (ST1 21)
“u cirkusu med zvirjem” (TT2 27)
(“in a circus among wild animals”)
This is also an instance of attenuation since the word (and the concept of) menagerie is replaced by the word circus, denoting an institution most children are familiar with, probably because the translator found the notion of menagerie too culturally remote, or rarely used (in communication) by BLC-speaking children. The addition preserves the implication of animal-produced noise.
The strategy of naturalization (Franco Aixelá 63) is found in the following example:
“četvrti razred pučke škole” (ST1 28)
“četvrti razred osnovne škole” (TT2 35)
(“the fourth grade of elementary school” [“primary school” in ST1])
Pučka škola (an outdated term) and osnovna škola both refer to primary education. Elementary school is compulsory and comprises 8 grades, while at the time the story is set, pučka škola with its four grades was most education poor children ever had, if they had any. The translator’s choice is closer to contemporary children, but an authentic historical context disappeared.
Elementary school is compulsory and comprises 8 grades, while at the time in which the story took place, pučka škola, consisting of four grades, was the most education poor children ever got – if they got any. The translator’s choice brought the text closer to contemporary children but lost the authentic historical context.
Words denoting food are mostly rendered by either identical or equivalent expressions. The word gibanica, a special kind of cheese pastry (ST1 45, 46, 56), is an exception. Hlapić received some from grateful villagers. In TT2, this food is named “lepnja” (“scone,” TT2 57), “kolač” (“cake,” TT2 58), and “savnica” (“strudel,” TT2 71), demonstrating three distinct strategies. Three different words, denoting the same object, exemplify synonymy. Limited universalization, applied when a CSI is “too obscure for readers” (Franco Aixelá 63), is used here in the choice of “lepnja” (BC). The SC word lepinja, literally translated into BC, is a less specific source CSI, and a concept more familiar to the BLC readership than gibanica; besides, it denotes a similar kind of pastry. This strategy relies on discovering a common denominator. Finally, kolač reveals the strategy of absolute universalization, since a neutral reference is used instead of the CSI. The specific features are abandoned for the sake of general meaning. Savnica would probably be the closest translation in this case.
The final two areas are money and religion. The words used to denote money units in ST1 are rendered in TT2 in several ways. For instance, “forinta” (“forint,” ST1 52) and “krajcar” (ST1 65) remain unchanged in TT2 (66, 85). Six crowns (“kruna,” ST1 66) are still six crowns (“korun”) in both TT1 (44) and TT2 (85). However, “novčić” (“a coin,” i.e. “dva novčića” – “two coins,” ST1 67) and “filir” (ST1 68) are both rendered as “krajcar” (TT1 45; cf. TT2 87). This reveals the strategy of establishing consistency in the depicted literary world. Krajcar (Germ. Kreutzer) and novčić were smaller units of forint (gulden), the currency of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1892, when kruna (“crown”) was introduced, with filir as the smaller unit (Majhut 177). It should be noted that the original manuscript refers only to the monetary system based on guldens (176). The earliest Croatian editions changed the author's intention of setting the plot in the late 19th century by moving it to the first decade of the 20th century. This caused the confusion in the money terminology in all editions of Hlapić prior to 2010 (177 ff). Analyzed texts do not escape this confusion, in spite of obvious intentions to the contrary. The sausage costs ten “filira” (ST1 19) / “filirov” (TT2 24), the basket man collected six “kruna” (ST1 62) / “korun” (TT2 85), and each goose costs four crowns (ST1 18), and 300 crowns in ST2 (23). There remains “4 krune” (“four crowns”) in TT1 (18) and becomes “dva dukate” (“two ducats”) in TT2 (23).
The latter example demonstrates yet another translation strategy. Ducats, i.e. gold coins, also existed as a currency in Europe in the 20th century, but the reasons for using this word had to be found elsewhere. Firstly, the word was used in the original text, e.g. in “tvrde dukate” (“hard ducats,” ST1 76; cf. TT2 98), and it thus belongs to the lexis of the novel. Secondly, the word is also a general term and not necessarily connected with a particular currency, just like “srebrnjak” (“silver coin,” ST1 91; TT2 118) and “srebrni novac” (“silver money,” translated into the fully equivalent “srebrni pinez,” TT2 117). As such, these terms are neutral and do not add to the confusion of crowns and guldens. Thus, when geese cost two ducats each, instead of two crowns each, and when Hlapić gives Grga a “dukat” (TT2 63) instead of a “forinta” (ST1 50), this is a generalization and the adoption of a neutral reference, a strategy denoted as absolute universalization (cf. Franco Aixelá 63).
It should be noted, however, that this particular item is ambiguous. It is both inconsistent and confirms the strategy of establishing consistency. Here (TT2 63), “dukat” refers to the money Grga’s mother entrusted Hlapić with, so he could give it to her son. Yet, when this money was first mentioned, it was a “forinta” (TT2 66), the same as in ST1 (52). Thus, there is inconsistency in naming Grga’s mother’s money. On the other hand, if dukat is considered to be a general term denoting any coin of great value, as suggested above, there is no inconsistency in rendering the ST1 forinta bundled up in a kerchief by Grga’s mother, either as forinta or as ducat.
The area of religion as a cultural issue exemplifies the translation strategy of autonomous creation, used almost consistently. This strategy represents the highest level of cultural manipulation since it refers to including cultural reference nonexistent in the source text (Franco Aixelá 64).
Hlapić is deeply rooted in the Christian system of values. The original manuscript does not conceal this, but it does not preach or give lessons, either. The Christian faith and goodwill are blended in the novel by subtle literary techniques, and by the multi-layered character of Hlapić. He is good and virtuous, but not perfect or obedient. He has flaws: he runs away from home, fights with a calf, and has an argument with little shepherds. The appeal of the novel owes much to this adventurous and pious character that sets a model for young readers and demonstrates subversiveness at the same time.
The BCL translator actively changed this subtle ideological structure. There are five CSIs related to religion and religious practices, and two of them demonstrate the strategy of autonomous creation. One of these is the following:
“Then he [Hlapić] blessed himself, took off his cap and started eating” (ST1 16; ST2 22)
“Then he took off his cap, blessed himself, as he always did at home, and started eating” (TT1 12; TT2 21; emphasis added).
The sentence is modified and extended in translation. The new order of actions may also be an example of the strategy of naturalization. The translator finds taking off one’s hat before blessing oneself respectful in the target culture, while this is unnecessary in the source culture, in which eating with a hat on would be impolite. Further, it is obvious that Hlapić is used to blessing himself before eating, hence the added fragment is unnecessary. Its function is to set this action as a model of behavior. The same happens in the following example. Hlapić is under the bridge, sharing the shelter with the man in black, and he uses the blessing not only as self-assurance, but also as a test of the man in black’s intentions:
“Now Hlapić blessed himself aloud” (TT1 17)
“Now Hlapić blessed himself aloud: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.” (TT2 32; emphasis added)
The following examples demonstrate a reversed attenuation. The translator employs stronger expressions with religious connotations, requiring stronger commitment. Grga spent nights “po rđavom poslu” (“doing his rotten business”; ST1 43; ST2 53), which became “po svom grišnom poslu” (“doing his sinful business”; TT1 28; TT2 53). Then he wanted to repent his sins: “da okajem svoje grijehe” (ST1 91; ST2 114), and repentance was turned into doing penance for his sins: “da pokoru činim za svoje grihe” (TT1 61; TT2 117).
Two more fragments related to religion and religious practices missing from ST1 appear in TT2. On the last pages of ST1, Mrkonja, his wife, Gita, and Hlapić “odoše u crkvu” (“went to church”; ST1 98). In TT1, this short statement is extended into: “projdu u crikvu, da se zahvalu Bogu” (“went to church to thank God”; TT1 66, emphasis added). Horvat again expanded the expression to provide additional information, which was hardly necessary. However, this passage is much longer in TT2.:
[They] went to church to thank God. When they stepped into the church, the joyful sun shone on all the windows of the church and thus they saw that they had come at the right moment, and that God himself was rejoicing because of the happiness he had bestowed on them. (127)
This text, except for the fragment “to thank God,” taken from TT1, is a faithful translation of the passage as found in ST2 (122), from the original manuscript found in the earliest Croatian editions, which can be seen in the critical edition of the novel of 2010 (Brlić-Mažuranić 146). It was omitted from ST1 in order to minimize references to the Catholic faith, considered inappropriate in former Yugoslavia’s communist regime.
Finally, a fragment of 135 words, missing from both ST1 and TT1, also an integral part of the earliest Croatian editions (Brlić-Mažuranić 1913/2010 74n2), and included in ST2 (61), reappears in TT2 (61-62). It is a conversation between Hlapić and the little shepherds about God. Whoever was preparing the second edition of the novel in BLC, noticed that these two fragments were missing in TT1, and made sure to include them in TT2, as well as the sentence about the tall building and the moon mentioned above. This is a special kind of translation strategy, which re-establishes the original text. It could be named reconstruction.
5. Final Remarks
The analyzed texts demonstrate a relatively high level of isomorphism, owing to the high proximity of their respective languages and cultures. The frequency lists of the analyzed samples show that ST1 and TT2 share most lexical units, also reflecting the overall closeness of SC and BLC. These findings are confirmed by a comparison of lexical complexity and lexical variety, and also by the incidence, the correlations and the repertoire of discourse markers in the texts. Both quantitative and qualitative data imply a high level of equivalence between ST1 and TT2.
The comparison of editions of the BLC translation shows that TT1 is closer to ST1 in its choice of lexical units and that it uses extratextual gloss more often than TT2. This can be considered a general linguistic-cultural issue and remains the main point of departure between TT1 and TT2. Differences between them can be related to cultural, historical and political contexts in the respective historical periods when the publications appeared (the mid-20th century and the turn of the 21st century).
The lexical selection of TT1, which often includes words of SC instead of, or alongside, genuine BLC words, can be explained by its political and linguistic context. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a strong movement of young intellectuals among Burgenland Croats towards the adoption of the Croatian literary language as the linguistic norm, rather than preserving the traditional BLC (Šćukanec 46). Horvat was one of those strongly oriented towards the linguistic convergence between SC and BLC (Sučić 7).
Šćukanec explains that the valuation and standardization process of Burgenland Croatian began in the mid-1970s (45) when Burgenland Croats turned to preserve their language as “the key attribute of their material and spiritual culture” (Jembrih 176). It is no wonder that TT2 takes a turn towards a more consistent BLC expression.
These results also justify the choice of TT2 over TT1 for our analysis, because it is more representative of genuine BLC than TT1.
In addition, it has been shown that digital comparative analysis of translations or rewritings between similar languages can help to establish the level of similarity of a source text and a target text and also reveal their stylistic differences. This methodology can be particularly useful in analyzing intralinguistic translations of children’s literature, which is often characterized by changes of the physical space of the text, especially reduction and extension (Korning Zethsen 807).
The analysis of translation strategies indicates there are not many points of departure between ST1 and TT2. Proper names, a typical CSIs subject to cultural manipulation, remain faithfully conveyed. Only the pseudo-names were translated at the linguistic (non-cultural) level by corresponding lexical items or collocations, preserving the equivalence. Still, several translation strategies in translating culture were found.
The adoption of conservation strategies in TT2, such as intratextual and extratextual glosses, can be explained by intentions to promote BLC, still preserving the link with the original. SC vocabulary items repeated from ST1 may obstruct reading or sound awkward in the CBL context, and explanatory BLC words facilitate the reading process and comprehension of TT2.
The analysis of CSIs other than proper nouns reveals several substitutive strategies. The most notable differences occur in the thematic area of religion and the application of explanatory strategies used to clarify literary meanings. This confirms the initial findings of the content analysis and the comparison of the author’s original preface in ST1 with the translator’s prefaces in TT1 and TT2 – the emergence of didacticism, not characteristic of the original novel.
Interestingly, the strategies adopted in translating religion-related items in TT2 and emphasis on such issues in TT1 are the reverse of those detected in translations of Hlapić into Slovenian in the period 1955-1978, in which all the fragments related to faith and religion were erased (Mazi Leskovar). This can be explained by the opposing political contexts of communist Slovenia, probably the most secularized state of the former Yugoslavia (19451991), and the pious community of Catholic Burgenland Croats in Austria. Kocijančić Pokorn (2012) points out that removing religious references was a frequent practice in translation of children’s literature into Slovenian in the period after World War II It should also be noted that Zagreb editions of Hlapić did not omit the references to religion, making the reconstruction of religious passages possible in TT2, as based on ST2. In contrast, the Sarajevo edition (ST1) removed most such fragments. If it could be settled on the basis of a single book, it seems that the approach to religious topics in children’s literature in the socialist states of former Yugoslavia was not exactly the same. Alongside examples of censorship detected in translations of children’s literature into Croatian (Kocijančić Pokorn), different practices can also be found. The case of Hlapić indicates that the attitude in Bosnia and Herzegovina was similar to that in Slovenia, while Croatia was more “tolerant” of such issues, at least when children’s books originally written in Croatian are concerned.
Although important, the described translation strategies do not dominate the translation of Hlapić. They are rather aberrations in a TT2, demonstrating a satisfactory level of translator responsibility and respect for the original, especially in reconstructing the missing parts. Domestication techniques are rare, giving preference to source-oriented strategies, especially in TT1, which used the novel, in part, to teach Burgenland children some SC. In this sense, the text-orientation of TT1 can be considered as “informative” because “it contributes to the preservation of the information about the [source culture] element … with a view to ‘educating’ or informing the target reader about certain features of the [source culture]” (Veselica Majhut 98). On the other hand, despite its didactic overtones, TT2 managed to establish a text that is more target-oriented, i.e. dedicated to the linguistic needs of the target culture, than TT1.
Finally, the translator (and the language editor of the second edition) should be given credit for producing translations that convey the richness of the original to speakers of this small, nevertheless important language.
Works Cited
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