Non-standard language in Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting and in Olavi Teppan's translation of the novel into Estonian
Date
2017
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
This thesis studies the effects and implications of the use of non-standard language in
Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting (1993) and examines the treatment of language in the
Estonian translation of the novel by Olavi Teppan (2010) proceeding from the concept of
the dominant as well as skopos theory. The main hypothesis of the thesis is that the
specifically Scottish elements of the source text have been reduced in the target text and
that the translator has conveyed thematic rather than linguistic concerns.
The thesis consists of an introduction, two core chapters, and a conclusion. The
introduction provides a brief overview of the socio-historical context of Trainspotting as
well as the novel’s key features, such as a quest for linguistic authenticity and the use of
the vernacular, and the main thematic concerns of the novel, such as the depiction of
working-class life and transgressive subject matter.
The first core chapter focuses on the use of language in the source text, examining
the relationship between the languages spoken in Scotland, namely Scots and Scottish
English, and discussing their relation to Standard English. The terms ‘language’ and
‘dialect’ are observed in the light of sociolinguistics and the sociolect spoken by the central
characters of the novel is explored and illustrated with examples of informal register and
colloquial vernacular.
The second core chapter introduces the theoretical framework of the study: the
concept of the dominant, originating in Russian Formalism and expounded on by Roman
Jakobson, and the target-text-based and target-culture-oriented skopos theory developed by Hans J. Vermeer. Thereafter, the idiolects of the novel’s eight first-person narrators are
analysed by comparing and contrasting their representation in Welsh’s novel and in
Teppan’s translation of the novel into Estonian.
The results of the study will be presented in the conclusion.
Description
Keywords
Welsh, Irvine, inglise keel, šoti, tõlketeooria, skopos'e-teooria, sotsiolingvistika