Magdalena Zyga Idiolekte in deutschsprachigen literarischen Texten

About this book deutsch english

The book presents an analysis of the language of the literary characters from the works Der Keller. Eine Entziehung by Thomas Bernhard and Jeff Koons by Rainald Goetz. The subject of analysis are the original texts and their translations into English and Polish. The author of the book offers insight into the psyche of the protagonist-narrator (Der Keller) and of the artist Künstlers (Jeff Koons) via their peculiar individual languages (i.e. idiolects). Why does Bernhards alter ego continuously repeat certain words and phrases, juggle with prefixes and suffixes, use past tenses in a strange way? What is the function of italics? Are the rhymes, incorrect word forms and the sometimes monstrously long sentences manifestations of the “high-pitched madness” of the artist? What is ‘eye dialect’ and what role does it play? The answers are to be found in Idiolekte in deutschsprachigen literarischen Texten. One can also learn why the readers of the English or the Polish translation can have a different impression of the literary figures than the readers of the original texts. Moreover, translators – also translators to be – can find advice on how to translate literary texts in an ‘idiolect-friendly’ and above all in a reader-friendly manner. The 5-step model of translation presented in the book is based on cognitive linguistics as well as on the modern theories of translation and literary analysis proposed by M. H. Freeman, S. Baranczak, M. A. K. Halliday.