Den autobiografiske pagt oversat
En undersøgelse af Édouard Louis’ Changer: méthode på dansk og engelsk
Keywords:
autobiography, translation, social class, sociology of translationAbstract
This article aims to map out some of the unique challenges that arise in the translation of autobiographical literature which deals with questions of social class. Through a comparative analysis of French author Édouard Louis’ Changer: méthode and the Danish and English translations, the study finds that translators tend to refine the language of the text, fail to be consistent in their translation of class-related terms, and struggle to convey the myriad of connotations related to sociolects and dialects to the new audience. In the case of Changer: méthode, the discrepancy between the original and the translation is larger in the English version than the Danish. I argue that this difference might be explained by norms in the Anglophone literary sphere, but that tailoring the translation to accommodate the target audience nonetheless compromises the premise of the genre and shifts the reader’s focus away from the text’s more sociological dimensions, effectively diminishing the work’s potential to spark debate in the public sphere.
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