commentary for the grinch | Assignments Translation Studies and History

COMMENTARY ON THE TRANSLATION OF

‘HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS’

“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is a children’s storybook written by

Theodor Seuss Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss, in 1957. It is a story written in

verse and rhymes for children. And, the author enriched this story with illustrations

in all pages. This book was also adapted into an animated TV show (How the

Grinch Stole Christmas!) in 1966, and into a live-action motion picture (How the

Grinch Stole Christmas) in 2000, and into a computer-animated film (The Grinch) in

2018.

According to the Functional Theory of Text Types by Katherina Reiss, the

type of this text is expressive and it has an expressive function. This storybook

tries to arouse some feelings and thoughts on the reader both by the author’s

words and by illustrations the author put in every single page. The reader reads this

text to enjoy. In an attempt to achieve this goal, the writer tries to give better

imagination skills to children with the illustrations and the rhymes he used.

After analyzing the text for translation purposes, with the help of Skopos

Theory suggested by Vermeer, I decided that my target audience is children who

enjoy reading children’s story with their imagination. And the purpose of my

translation is to give the target reader the pleasure of reading without giving

verbiage. Which means that I tended to use easier equivalence of the meaning to

ease the children’s reading and comprehension while still trying to keep the rhymes

- the fun of the text.

!There is more information about the translation process of mine with respect

to the ‘Translational Norms’ proposed and theorized by Gideon Toury:

Operational Norms →

•As matricial norms, I applied addition and omission strategies. I want to give

example of a sentence that I can show both strategies.

-“Then he growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming…”

-“Sonrasında hırlayıp endişeli bir şekilde parmaklarıyla masada ritim tutarak…”

I omitted “Grinch” here because I found it little bit bizarre to translate it as “Grinç

parmaklarıyla”. And, I added “masada” here even if the original sentence doesn’t

include because in the target language there is a usage like “masada ritim tutmak”

and it fits the situation of Grinch at that moment. So, i saw no harm adding that

word.

Partial preview of the text

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COMMENTARY ON THE TRANSLATION OF

‘HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS’

“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is a children’s storybook written by Theodor Seuss Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss, in 1957. It is a story written in verse and rhymes for children. And, the author enriched this story with illustrations in all pages. This book was also adapted into an animated TV show (How the Grinch Stole Christmas!) in 1966, and into a live-action motion picture (How the Grinch Stole Christmas) in 2000, and into a computer-animated film (The Grinch) in

According to the Functional Theory of Text Types by Katherina Reiss, the type of this text is expressive and it has an expressive function. This storybook tries to arouse some feelings and thoughts on the reader both by the author’s words and by illustrations the author put in every single page. The reader reads this text to enjoy. In an attempt to achieve this goal, the writer tries to give better imagination skills to children with the illustrations and the rhymes he used. After analyzing the text for translation purposes, with the help of Skopos Theory suggested by Vermeer, I decided that my target audience is children who enjoy reading children’s story with their imagination. And the purpose of my translation is to give the target reader the pleasure of reading without giving verbiage. Which means that I tended to use easier equivalence of the meaning to ease the children’s reading and comprehension while still trying to keep the rhymes

the fun of the text. There is more information about the translation process of mine with respect to the ‘Translational Norms’ proposed and theorized by Gideon Toury: Operational Norms →

• As^ matricial norms, I applied addition and omission strategies. I want to give

example of a sentence that I can show both strategies.

- “Then he growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming…”

- “Sonrasında hırlayıp endi ş eli bir^ ş ekilde parmaklarıyla masada ritim tutarak…”

I omitted “Grinch” here because I found it little bit bizarre to translate it as “Grinç parmaklarıyla”. And, I added “masada” here even if the original sentence doesn’t include because in the target language there is a usage like “masada ritim tutmak” and it fits the situation of Grinch at that moment. So, i saw no harm adding that word.

• As^ textual linguistic norm, I can give two translator choices of mine:

- I^ applied^ domestication^ strategy^ in^ the^ translation^ of^ “Grinch”^ into^ “Grinç”.

Because the pronunciation of “Grinch” is the same with “Grinç” and it doesn’t lose any meaning here so I decided to adapt it to target language.

- I applied foreignization strategy in the translation of ‘Whoville’ into ‘Whoville’.

Because it is the name of the world in that story. And, I decided to keep it in the original form because it is a proper name. Therefore I didn’t want to adapt it to the target language that much. I want the reader to know the real world’s name. Initial Norm → My reader’s expectation is to enjoy reading while easily comprehending the message of the story. The readers expect to feel like they are a part of Whoville. Taking these expectations into consideration, I tried to produce both adequate and acceptable translation. Adequate translation so that the reader can still have an idea of the source culture and acceptable translation so that the reader can comprehend the situations and feel she or he is one of the characters in this story. There are some translation problems I encountered while proceeding the translation task. I want to give some examples of the text specific problems:

- Who

- Who-pudding

- Who-roast beast

In the story, they call the people of Whoville “Whos”. However, I translated as Whoville halkı. Because I supposed that “Who’lar” wouldn’t quite understandable for children. Because I chose “Whoville halkı” for my translation, according to that, I translated “Who-pudding and who-roast beast” as “Whoville halkına özgü puding ve rosto”.

- Noise

- Feast

In the story, there is a multiple iteration of the words “noise” and “feast”. I thought that using the same word all over again wouldn’t make the story interesting in the target language. So I used two different words for the same word. For example, I used “gürültü” and “şamata” for the translation of “noise”. And, I used “ziyafet” and “yemek” for the noun “feast” and, “ziyafet çekmek” and “tıka basa yemek”, yemek tıka basa” for the translation of verb “feast”. I think in this way that part of this story looks more interesting to children.

commentary for the grinch, Assignments of Translation Studies and History

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Partial preview of the text

Download commentary for the grinch and more Assignments Translation Studies and History in PDF only on Docsity!

COMMENTARY ON THE TRANSLATION OF

‘HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS’

• As^ matricial norms, I applied addition and omission strategies. I want to give

- “Then he growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming…”

- “Sonrasında hırlayıp endi ş eli bir^ ş ekilde parmaklarıyla masada ritim tutarak…”

• As^ textual linguistic norm, I can give two translator choices of mine:

- I^ applied^ domestication^ strategy^ in^ the^ translation^ of^ “Grinch”^ into^ “Grinç”.

- I applied foreignization strategy in the translation of ‘Whoville’ into ‘Whoville’.

- Who

- Who-pudding

- Who-roast beast

- Noise

- Feast