Cover not available
Article published In:
Babel
Vol. 64:3 (2018) ► pp.348–369

Language style in the negotiation of class identity in translated contemporary Spanish fiction

Vázquez Montalbán’s Los mares del sur in English and Croatian

 | Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona)
 | University of Zadar
In the early novels of the Carvalho detective series by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, set in the years of Spain’s transition to democracy, the negotiation of identities and political stance are paramount characterization resources. Given the role of speech in the construction of identity, translations may vary in the readings they afford beyond the detective aspects. We apply the sociolinguistic concepts of identity work and language style (albeit mediated by fictive orality), and the discourse analysis tools of Appraisal Theory, to analyse two working-class characters in Los mares del sur (1979) and in its English (1986) and Croatian (2007) translations.
In Spanish the language style of both characters reflects class allegiance, involvement and tenacity, intense feelings, a direct interpersonal approach and a rejection of altercasting. Their vocabulary and quotations from external sources index their ideology. The English translation is the least aware of identity work through language style and interaction. The characters’ standardized speech shows less involvement, tenacity and intensity. The Croatian translation follows the source text literally; involvement is maintained within a fictive colloquial spoken variety. Both translations maintain directness and a contractive dialogic style, and both make references to class and ideology more explicit.
Keywords: language style and identity, Spanish detective novel, Appraisal Theory, Spanish into English translation, Spanish into Croatian translation, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Character analysis of two working class characters
    • 2.1The language style of Evaristo Cifuentes
      • 2.1.1General remarks
      • 2.1.2Evaristo’s evaluation of Ana Briongos
    • 2.2The language style of Ana Briongos
  • 3.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 October 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00042.esp
References (41)
References
Bayó Belenguer, Susana. 2000. “Montalbán’s Carvalho Series as Social Critique”. In Crime Scenes: Detective Narratives in European Culture Since 1945, ed. by Anne Mullen; and Emer O’Beirne, 300–311. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
. 2001. Theory, Genre, and Memory in the Carvalho Series of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. Spanish Studies Series 11. Lewiston NY: Edwin Mellen Press.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas; Stig Johansson; Geoffrey Leech; Susan Conrad; and Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Edinburgh: Pearson.Google Scholar
Brdar, Mario; and Rita Brdar-Szabó. 2012. “Intensification of adjectives and adverbs by means of reduplication in Germanic, Romance, Slavic and Finno-Ugric languages”. In Intensivierungskonzepte bei Adjektiven und Adverben im Sprachvergleich/Crosslinguistic Comparison of Intensified Adjectives and Adverbs, ed. by Guido Oebel, 293–344. Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovač.Google Scholar
Buschmann, Albrecht. 2010. “Las máscaras del héroe. La figura del intelectual y los ensayos de Manuel Vázquez Montalbán”. In Manuel Vázquez Montalbán desde la memoria: ensayos sobre su obra, ed. by José Manuel López de Abiada; Augusta López Bernasocchi; and Michèle Oehrli, 85–102. Madrid: Verbum.Google Scholar
Cascón, Eugenio. 2013. Español coloquial. Rasgos, formas y fraseología de la lengua diaria. Madrid: Edinumen. 3rd ed.Google Scholar
Colmeiro, José F. 1994. La novela policíaca española: teoría e historia crítica. Barcelona: Anthropos.Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas. 2007. Style: Language Variation and Identity. Key topics in sociolinguistics. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eaude, Mike. 2006. “The anger and ethics of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán”. International Socialism. A quarterly journal of socialist theory, 1101. [URL]
Espunya, Anna. 2012. “Sentence connection in fictive dialogue”. In The Translation of Fictive Dialogue, Approaches to Translation Studies 35, ed. by Brumme Jenny; and Anna Espunya, 199–213. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goetsch, Paul. 1985. “Fingierte Mündlichkeit in der Erzählkunst entwickelter Schriftkulturen”. Poetica 171: 202–218.Google Scholar
Grgić Maroević, Iva. 2012. “The Fatal Loss: Virginia Woolf’s ‘One’ and its Destiny in Croatian, Serbian and Italian Translations”. In Translating Virginia Woolf, ed. by Oriana Palusci, 181–190. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Joseph, John E. 2004. Language and Identity: national, ethnic, religious. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Katan, David. 2004. Translating Cultures. An Introduction for Translators, Interpreters and Mediators. Manchester: St Jerome.Google Scholar
Katnić-Bakaršić, Marina. 1999. Lingvistička stilistika. Open Society Institute. [URL]
King, Stewart. 2013. “Carvalho y Cataluña: la subjetividad de los márgenes”. Cuadernos de Estudios Manuel Vázquez Montalbán 11: 28–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2014. “Crime fiction as world literature”. Clues: a journal of detection 32 (2): 8–19.Google Scholar
Koch, Peter: and Wulf Oesterricher. 1990. Gesprochene Sprache in der Romania: Französisch, Italienish, Spanish. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krajenbrink, Marieke; and Kate M. Quinn (eds). 2009. Investigating Identities. Questions of Identity in International Crime Fiction. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kresić, Marijana; and Goranka Rocco. 2012. “Sprachidentität und Kontext”. In Sprache(n) als europäisches Kulturgut. Languages as European Cultural Assets, ed. by Claudia Schmidt-Hahn, 17–38. Innsbruck – Wien – Bozen: Studienverlag.Google Scholar
Linder, Daniel. 2014. “Chester Himes’s For love of Imabelle in Spanish: Josep Elias’s ‘absurdly’ overcompensated slang”. In The Voices of Suspense and Their Translation in Thrillers, Approaches to Translation Studies 39, ed. by Susanne M. Cadera; and Anita Pavić Pintarić, 95–110. Amsterdam: Brill / Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
López Serena, Araceli. 2012. “Recreating spoken syntax in fictive orality: an analytical framework”. In The Translation of Fictive Dialogue, Approaches to Translation Studies 35, ed. by Brumme Jenny; and Anna Espunya, 167–183. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Malinowski, B. 1923. “The problem of meaning in primitive languages”. In The Meaning of Meaning, ed. by C. K. Ogden; and I. A. Richards. London: Kegan Paul (International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method). Supplement 1.Google Scholar
Martin, James R.; and P. R. R. White. 2005. The Language of Evaluation. Appraisal in English. Houndmills Basingstok: Palgrave McMillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marz, Linda; and Anita Higgie (eds). 2007. Questions of Identity in Detective Fiction. London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Mead, George Herbert. 1973. Geist, Identität und Gesellschaft aus der Sicht des Sozialbehaviorismus. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch.Google Scholar
Miranda, Carolina; and Barbara Pezzotti. 2011. “Investigating Society: The Cases of Pepe Carvalho and Tito Ihaka”. Journal of New Zealand Studies 111: 81–92.Google Scholar
Munday, Jeremy. 2008. Style and Ideology in Translation. Latin American Writing in English. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pavić Pintarić, Anita; Zaneta Sambunjak; and Tomislav Zelić (eds). 2016. Sprachliche Konstituierung der Identität durch Emotionalität. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Petrucci, Peter. 2012. “The translation of cinematic discourse and the question of character equivalence in Talk to me ”. Multilingua 311: 231–251. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rolls, Alistair; Marie-Laure Vuaillar-Barcan; and John West-Sooby. 2016. “Translating national allegories: the case of crime fiction”. The Translator 22 (2): 135–143. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stamou, Anastasia G. 2014. “A literature review on the mediation of sociolinguistic style in television and cinematic fiction: Sustaining the ideology of authenticity”. Language and Literature 23 (2): 118–140. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Toury, Gideon. 1980. In search of a theory of translation. Tel Aviv: Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics.Google Scholar
. 1995. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tracy, Karen. 2002. Everyday Talk: Building and Reflecting Identities. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Vázquez Montalbán, Manuel. 1979. Los mares del sur. Barcelona: Planeta.Google Scholar
. 1986 (2012). Southern Seas. Transl. by Patrick Camiller. Brooklyn NY: Melville House Publishing. First ed., 1999 [1986, Pluto Press].Google Scholar
. 2007. Južna mora. Transl. by Draženka Milovanović. Zagreb: VBZ.Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility. A history of translation. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vilarós, Teresa M. 2003. “The novel beyond modernity”. In The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Novel. From 1600 to the Present, ed. by Harriet Turner; and Adelaida López de Martínez, 251–263. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Young, Richard F. 2008. Language and Interaction. An Advanced Resource Book. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

张, 瑞雪
2024. Review of Translation Studies form the Perspective of Appraisal Theory (from 2005 to 2023). Modern Linguistics 12:10 ► pp. 605 ff. DOI logo
Liu, Qi Yuan, Lay Hoon Ang, Moniza Waheed & Zalina Mohd Kasim
2022. Appraisal Theory in Translation Studies—A Systematic Literature Review. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 30:4 DOI logo
Liu, Qi Yuan, Lay Hoon Ang, Moniza Waheed & Zalina Mohd Kasim
2022. Appraisal Theory in Translation Studies—A Systematic Literature Review. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 30:4 ► pp. 1589 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 november 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.