Linguistic improvisation: how Morrison’s Jazz finds its groove in Estonian

Abstract

Jazz (1992) is the second installment of Toni Morrison’s trilogy, which begins with Beloved (1987). As Morrison’s Jazz has been heavily influenced by the music genre of the same name, the aim of this thesis is to see how jazz-related elements and techniques function and are realised in both Jazz and its Estonian translation Džäss (2008) by Udo Uibo and Krista Kaer. As the translations of Morrison’s novels are understudied, the aim is to contribute to filling the gap in research. Previous research shows jazz has influenced the narrative, content as well as formal structure of the novel. Therefore, the three subchapters of the literature review offer a short but informative overview of various ways the use of jazz derived elements and the historical background of the genre are employed in Toni Morrison’s Jazz. The function and connections of jazz elements in the novel and the translation are analysed through applying a combined methodological framework that consists of thematic analysis, terminology borrowed from the field of musicology, and selected translation strategies. Artificial intelligence was employed to identify patterns in 13 different extracts selected from Toni Morrison’s Jazz. The comparative analysis of the construction and connections between jazz elements in Jazz and Džäss has been divided into four subsections, each addressing different musical techniques present in the novels, followed by a broader discussion in the second chapter before the final conclusions are presented. An appendix containing full length quotations in both English and Estonian is included at the end of the thesis. Keywords: Morrison, Toni; thematic analysis; translation studies; Jazz; artificial intelligence