Tatsiana Pasherstnik

Extreme case of domestication

or Who is Rosella in the Italian translation of the novel “Gone with the wind”?

Some month ago disusing the novel “Gone with the wind” by Margaret Mitchell with an Italian friend of mine, I have discovered that there is a certain Rosella in the Italian version. Then some question arose: Who is Rosella? Why was the proper name translated? Which translation strategies were used in translating Scarlett as Rosella? Who are/were the translators? Why did they decide to translate the name? Was it their idea or were they forced doing it? Under which historic circumstances was the translation published? Fundamentally, the question is: Who are the actors of translation in this period in this country?

So, through deduction, I came to the topic “Translation under fascism in Italy”.

Following one example, the translation of an American novel “Gone with the wind”, I analyze the influence of Mussolini’s regime to translation in Italy in the interwar period.

I will comment on the relationship between the Italian publishing houses and the government; status of translators and translations; Italians’ literature preferences of that period, and attempts of the government to influence it. I will dedicate my attention to “Mondadori” publishing house and its way of “surviving” under the regime.

I will analyze the language policy of “italianizzazione”, its reasons, influences, and consequences. And I will pay attention to how this policy influenced the object of my research – Italian version of “Gone with the wind”.

There are many works on the Italianization as a linguistic phenomenon, but in this research I will try to see the policy of Italianization as an extreme case of domestication in translation (Venuti). After a comparative analyses of the first translation of the novel (1937, film - 1949) and the post-war translation (1957, film - 1977), I established that there was a specific way of translating in Italy between the two wars.

This research is based on Rundle’s work “Translation under fascism” and some articles on the Italianization in Italy (Leso/Cortelazzo/Paccagnella/Foresti).

As far as the conference is focused on the methodological questions, here are some points that seem to be relevant for the present work:

-       Proper names transfer. No unique technique or guidelines.

-       Problem of translation techniques classification/nomination

-       Actors of translation

-       Translation models

-       Interaction of translation with other disciplines (Delabatista, Rundle)

-       A success/failure of translation/translator (Tashinskiy)

bio-note: 

PhD Student at the University of Vienna (Austria). Previously studied Translation at the Belarusian State University (Belarus) and the University of Turin (Italy).  Scientific interests: political discourse, pragmatics, language of mass media, film translating, theory of translation and interpreting, gender linguistics, theory of speech acts, comparative linguistics.