Fashion journalism in Maltese : translation and stylistic analysis of an early 20th century article and an early 21st century article

Abstract

This dissertation is based on the translation of two articles about fashion, from English into Maltese. One of them is taken from the magazine Dress and Vanity Fair of 1913 whilst the other from Vogue US of 2012. The scope of the selection of such articles, with such a time gap, is the difference in writing styles. Despite the fact that such pieces of writing do not belong to literary style, they do not form part of the informal style found in other magazines, such as women and lifestyle magazines. Both magazines (Vanity Fair, as is now entitled and Vogue) belong to the crème de la crème of fashion magazines and this dissertation analyses the different ways in which their journalists deal with the reporting of fashion: how elaborate and detailed the language, how formal or informal, how visible the journalists themselves are in the text and the like. From the point of view of the translator, this work is particularly interesting when it comes to the translation of terms that are not usually referred to in Maltese in the workshops of seamstresses, dressmakers and designers. Consequently, this dissertation presents the translator with several possible translation strategies. I attempt to strike a balance between wanting to retain the style of the original texts and making the language of the texts as flowing and natural to Maltese, as possible. Coming as secondary after the translations, this dissertation also includes two illustrated glossaries (one for each article). Since fashion journalism in itself is based on imagery as much as, if not more than text, the glossaries, in certain cases, help the reader understand where a term originates from and also, provide him with possible variants that might not have been included in the actual translated text. The main aim of this work is namely to show that it is possible to talk about fashion in Maltese, as the language used in practice, not as the language used in literary styles that might actually sound too formal and forced to Maltese-language speakers. When fashion is discussed in Maltese, it combines different translation strategies, including code-switching, borrowing, naturalisation and the like and this is what makes this fashion journalism in the same language, possible.