The translation into Maltese of ‘The tales of Beedle the Bard’ by J.K. Rowling

Abstract

The aim of the study is to provide a translation into Maltese of two short stories, together with the introduction, from Joanne K. Rowling’s slight volume The Tales of Beedle the Bard, namely the Introduction to the book, Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump and The Warlock’s Hairy Heart. Bearing in mind the current global status held by Rowling’s literary works, a number of translation theories, mainly those offered by Catford, Newmark, Eco, Oittinen, Puurtinen, Shavit, Venuti, Nida and Taber, were consulted in order to provide a theoretical overview pertinent to the study at hand. Children’s literature is also highlighted so as to bring out the most appropriate translation strategies to tackle such a genre. The difficulties encountered during the translation process are analysed, focusing on the various linguistic strategies consulted, negotiating between generalisation and particularisation, foreignisation and domestication, choosing the right syntactic alterations, aiming to attain equivalence between the source and target texts. The dissertation also delves into the matter of reproducing a similar effect the original work provoked on its target readership, being a dual audience. Special attention is therefore given to the translation of the source literary titles, the characters’ names and the ‘Potterisms’ coined by Rowling, considering it is a globally established work. Other challenges such as the reproduction of style and translation of archaic words are also discussed. Translation shifts are analysed in order to illustrate the linguistic and cultural difference between the source language and target language, based on the situational circumstances dealt with in the process. The source and target texts are then compared aiming to highlight the writing techniques, prose functions and presentational modes adopted by Rowling and produced in the target texts. Finally, the similarities as well as the differences demonstrate that the attainment of formal correspondence and equivalence calls for different strategies, proving that literary translation can be essentially both derivative and a reconstruction of the world created by the original author.