Strategier vid översättning av svordomar från kinesiska till svenska och engelska : En analys av Mo Yans Det röda fältet - Hong gaoliang

Sammanfattning: In this paper, Chinese swear words are studied in Mo Yan's most famous novel, Red Sorghum, Hong Gaoliang 红 高粱 and how they are translated into Swedish by Anna Gustafsson Chen and into English by Howard Goldblatt. As a tool for analysis I rely on Pedersen's model of translation strategies. A comparison is made between the target texts to test the hypothesis that the English translation of the swear words is more adapted to the target culture, than the Swedish one which is closer to the source text. In addition, I determine which strategies are most common in translating swear words for each translator, and if there are any differences in translation strategies, as they testify of the norms prevailing in each target culture. The translators showed similarities in terms of most common and second most common strategy, cultural substitution followed by direct translation, but while the English translator makes more use of target culture-adapted strategies, the Swedish one is closer to the source text in her translation of the swear words, thus the hypothesis is confirmed.