Article,
Register Analysis in Literary Translation: A Functional Approach
Babel: Revue internationale de la traduction/International Journal of Translation, (2000)
Abstract
It is the aim of this paper to argue that register characterisation plays a relevant part in the translation- oriented ananlysis of literary texts. Register is defined (e.g., by Michael Halliday) as a semantic configuration that we associate with a particular situation type and characterised on the basis of three variables or components: field, tenor and mode. Contemporary stylistics, insofar as it is a stylistics of discourse and not only of text, emphasises the importance of the study of context in literary texts. As different scholars have pointed out, the context of literary texts is rather peculiar in that it shows a double articulation: there is an outer context and an inner context. It is precisely in the characterisation of the inner context that register analysis will prove helpful, as it will shed light on the fictional situation created within the text. Although the detailed implication of register analysis for literary translation can be manifold, only a few items are singled out for illustration: degree of technicality and marked field mixing with regard to the variable of field, terms of address (especially T/V pronoun distinctions) and modality with respect to tenor, and the interplay between grammatical complexity and lexical density as markers of oral and written language in the area of mode.
