Cover not available
Part of
The Discourse of Indirectness: Cues, voices and functions
Edited by Zohar Livnat, Pnina Shukrun-Nagar and Galia Hirsch
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 316] 2020
► pp. 119–142

Anne Frank’s Diary – The Graphic Adaptation as a case of “indirect translation”

Integrating the principle of relevance with Bakhtinian concepts

| Bar-Ilan University
| David Yellin Academic College of Education

The 2017 adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary into a graphic novel by Ari Folman and David Polonsky is addressed in this article as a case of indirect translation, a concept developed by Ernst-August Gutt on the basis of relevance theory. According to Gutt, indirect translation “interpretively resembles” the source text in respects that are relevant to a new target audience in a new context. Rather than applying this concept to interlingual translation, we use it to study an adaptation which involves a change of modalities – from the verbal to the multimodal. To find out how the adaptation retains the relevance of the original diary to a new generation of readers, familiar with new media and visual means of communication, we employ the Bakhtinian concepts of chronotope and polyphony. Through this case study we hope to demonstrate the usefulness of Gutt’s concept of “indirect translation” to the study of adaptations, to offer a link between the principle of relevance and Bakhtinian concepts, and to shed new light on the principle of relevance itself.

Keywords: indirect translation, relevance, chronotope, polyphony, graphic novel, Anne Frank’s diary
Article outline
  • 1.Relevance Theory and Translation Studies
  • 2.From ‘Version C’ to the graphic adaptation
    • 2.1Historical background
    • 2.2The graphic novel comes into being
  • 3.Addressees and audiences
    • 3.1From an imaginary addressee to real readers
    • 3.2The graphic diary: Reinterpreting the icon and addressing today’s young audience
  • 4.Chronotopes
  • 5.Polyphony
  • 6.The visual contribution: The page-space, words and images
    • 6.1The house behind
    • 6.2Life in the secret annex
    • 6.3Anne’s feminism
    • 6.4The many faces of Anne
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.316.06wei
References
Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhaĭlovich
1981 The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. by Michael Holquist, trans. by Caryl Emerson. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
1984 Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, ed. and trans. by Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1986 Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, ed. by Caryl Emerson, and Michael Holquist, trans. by Vern W. McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Bell, Allan
1984 “Language Style as Audience Design.” Language in Society 13 (2): 145–204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benjamin, Walter
2008 (1935) The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, trans. by J. A. Underwood. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Caruth, Cathy
1996 Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Cover, Rob
2006 “Audience Inter/Active: Interactive Media, Narrative Control and Re-Conceiving Audience History.” New Media and Society 8 (1): 139–158. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Curtis, Simon
(director) 2015 Woman in Gold.Google Scholar
Dentith, Simon
1995 Bakhtinian Thought: An Introductory Reader. London and New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Einhar, Anat
2017 “ ‘Anne Frank – ha-yoman ha-graphi’: mekheva re’uya la-yetsira ha-mekorit ” [‘Anne Frank – The graphic diary’: an appropriate homage to the original work]. Ynet (17 November). [In Hebrew.] Online at: [URL] (accessed 15 April 2020)Google Scholar
Enzer, Hyman Aaron, and Sandra Solotaroff-Enzer
(eds.) 2000 Anne Frank: Reflections on Her Life and Legacy. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois PressGoogle Scholar
Folman, Ari
(director) 2008 Waltz with Bashir.Google Scholar
Folman, Ari, and David Polonsky
2009 Waltz with Bashir. New York: Metropolitan Books.Google Scholar
Frank, Anne
1952 Anne Frank – The Diary of a Young Girl, trans. by Barbara M. Mooyaart-Doubleday. New York: Bantam.Google Scholar
2007 Yomana shel Na’ara [The diary of a young girl], trans. by Karla Pearlstein. Or Yehuda: Kineret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir. [In Hebrew.]Google Scholar
2017 Anne Frank – ha-yoman ha-graphi [Anne Frank – the graphic diary], ed. by Ari Folman, illus. by David Polonsky. Or Yehuda: Kineret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir. [In Hebrew.]Google Scholar
2018 Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation, ed. by Ari Folman, illus. by David Polonsky. New York: Pantheon Graphic novels.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1981 “Footing.” In Forms of Talk, 124–159. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Graver, Lawrence
1995 An Obsession with Anne Frank: Meyer Levin and the Diary. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Gutt, Ernst-August
1990 “A Theoretical Account of Translation - Without a Translation Theory.” Target 2 (2): 135–164. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1992 Relevance Theory: A Guide to Successful Communication in Translation. Dallas and New York: Summer Institute of Linguistics and United Bible Societies.Google Scholar
2000 Translation and Relevance: Cognition and Context. Manchester: St. Jerome.Google Scholar
Harrison, George
2017 “Have a Reth-ink: Rapper Gets a Tattoo of Anne Frank on his Face… because He’s ‘Dying’ for His Music.” The Sun (10 October). Online at: [URL] (accessed 15 April 2020).Google Scholar
Jacobson, Sid, and Ernie Colón
2010 Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography. New York: Hill & Wang.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman
1959 “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” In On Translation, ed. by Reuben A. Brower, 232–239. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, Henry
2008 Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York and London: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Katriel, Tamar
1997 Performing the Past: A Study of Israeli Settlement Museums. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Kohn, Ayelet
2016 “The Polyphonic Framing of Ehud Olmert.” Iyunim be-Safa ve-Khevra 9(1-2): 116–141. [In Hebrew.]Google Scholar
Kohn, Ayelet, and Rachel Weissbrod
2012 “ Waltz with Bashir as a Case of Multidimensional Translation.” In Translation, Adaptation and Transformation, ed. by Laurence Raw, 123–144. London and New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther, and Theo Van Leeuwen
1996 Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
1998 “Front Pages: (The Critical) Analysis of Newspaper Layout.” In Approaches to Media Discourse, ed. by Allan Bell, and Peter Garrett, 186–220. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
LaCapra, Dominick
2001 Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Lefevere, André
2017 (1992) “Translation: Ideology – On the Construction of Different Anne Franks.” In Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame, 45–54. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Livingstone, Sonia
2008 “Taking Risky Opportunities in Youthful Content Creation: Teenagers’ Use of Social Networking Sites for Intimacy, Privacy and Self-Expression.” New Media and Society 10 (3): 393–411. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marom, Hagai
2011 Makhteret ha-graffiti shel Tel-Aviv [The Tel-Avivian graffiti underground]. Tel Aviv: Halfi Art Publishing. [In Hebrew.]Google Scholar
McCormick, Richard W.
2002 Gender and Sexuality in Weimar Modernity: Film, Literature, and “New Objectivity.” New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Merkle, Denise
2002 “Presentation.” TTR 15 (2): 9–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morson, Gary Saul, and Caryl Emerson
1990 Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Nardi, Bonnie A., Diane J. Schiano, Michelle Gumbrecht, and Luke Swartz
2004 “Why We Blog.” Communications of the ACM 47 (12): 41–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
O’Connor, Anne-Marry
2015 The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt Masterpiece Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Park-Fuller, Linda M.
1986 “Voices: Bakhtin’s Heteroglossia and Polyphony, and the Performance of Narrative Literature.” Literature in Performance 7 (1): 1–12. Online at: [URL] (accessed 15 April 2020) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Porat, Dina
2001 “A Forty Years Struggle, Anne Frank’s Diary and Holocaust Deniers, 1958–1998.” In The Holocaust: The Unique and the Universal – Essays Presented in Honor of Yehuda Bauer, ed. by Shmuel Almog, David Bankier, Daniel Blatman, and Dalia Ofer, 160–183. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem. [In Hebrew.]Google Scholar
Rudin, Shay
2014 “ ‘Pka’at shel nigudim’: ha-shizur ha-poeti be-yomana shel Anne Frank ” [‘A bundle of contradictions’: The poetic interweaving in Anne Frank’s diary]. Iyunim be-sifrut yeladim 23: 41–83. [In Hebrew.]Google Scholar
Rudner, Ofra
2017 “ Anne Frank – Ha-yoman ha-graphi: yaldat ha-shoah ke-gibora exzistentsialistit merateket ” [Anne Frank – the graphic diary: the holocaust girl as a fascinating existentialist hero]. Haaretz (14 November). [In Hebrew.] Online at: [URL] (accessed 15 April 2020).Google Scholar
Saar, Yuval
2018 “ Anne Frank – ha-yoman ha-graphi: lishmor al ha-khayut shel ha-mutag ” [ Anne Frank – the graphic diary – to retain the vividness of the brand name.] Portfolio (27 February). [In Hebrew.] Online at: [URL] (accessed 15 April 2020)Google Scholar
Shavit, Avner
2017 “ Ani Anne F.: Ha-roman ha-graphi al-pi yomana shel Anne Frank hu ibud mofti ” [I, Anne F.: The graphic diary based on Anne Frank’s diary is an exemplary adaptation]. Walla (13 November). [In Hebrew.] Online at: [URL] (accessed 15 April 2020).Google Scholar
Siegl, Nina
2018 “Researchers Uncover Two Hidden Pages in Anne Frank’s Diary.” The New York Times (15 May). Online at: [URL] (accessed 15 April 2020)Google Scholar
Smith, Kevin
2002 “Translation as Secondary Communication: The Relevance Theory Perspective of Ernst-August Gutt.” Acta Theologica 22 (1): 107–117. Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson
1986 Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Spiegelman, Art
1986 Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Toury, Gideon
2012 Descriptive Translation Studies and beyond (revised edition). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weber, Sandra, and Claudia Mitchell
2008 “Imagining, Keyboarding, and Posting Identities: Young People and New Media Technologies.” In Youth, Identity, and Digital Media (The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning), ed. by David Buckingham, 25–48. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Weiner, Stephen
2003 Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel. New York: NBM.Google Scholar
Whitfield, Stephen J.
2001 In Search of American Jewish Culture. Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber
1988 “Representation and Relevance.” In Mental Representations: The Interface between Language and Reality, ed. by Ruth M. Kempson, 133–153. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
2004 “Relevance Theory.” In The Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Laurence R. Horn, and Gregory Ward, 607–632. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Zethsen, Karen Korning
2009 “Intralingual Translation: An Attempt at Description.” Meta 54 (4): 795–812. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Kohn, Ayelet & RACHEL Weissbrod
2022. ‘It’s just a comic’ - Or is it? Addressing the past in Rutu Modan’sThe Property. Visual Studies 37:5 ► pp. 461 ff. DOI logo
Rudin, Shai
2022. The Genre of the Middle Grade Graphic Problem Novel. New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship 28:1-2 ► pp. 86 ff. DOI logo
Weizman, Elda & Zohar Livnat
2022. Dialogic meaning-making in political settings. Pragmatics and Society 13:5 ► pp. 731 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 march 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.