Papers by Rebecca Kirkman
This paper aims to report reflectively on a major interdisciplinary research project designed to ... more This paper aims to report reflectively on a major interdisciplinary research project designed to investigate patterns of metaphor translation. The project is based on popular science texts and tracks metaphor in translation from English into French, German, Italian, Polish and Russian (with examples from Chinese and Spanish being added subsequently). The paper looks at questions of text selection and corpus design and considers some of the pitfalls that need to be avoided in these areas by researchers embarking on a similar project. Other methodological issues are also covered. At each step the choices that researchers – and in particular those at an early stage in their careers – who are undertaking an investigation into metaphor in translation are faced with will be discussed explicitly with a view to offering some guidance. Research into metaphor in translation can take on a wide range of different forms. In the project in question the approach taken is exclusively text-based and...
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The Harry Potter series poses particular problems for translators, and their translations raise m... more The Harry Potter series poses particular problems for translators, and their translations raise many questions for us. Do translators aim to produce a text that has the same effect as the original or one that familiarizes children with British culture? Do translators keep the source text’s English names and words or translate them into the target language? How do the translator’s choices affect the reader’s perceptions? How do factors like text type, text function and target group influence translation strategy choices and which techniques can a translator use when translating culture-specific items? My thesis examines the linguistic and cultural issues in the French translation of the Harry Potter novels by investigating how the translator, Jean-Francois Ménard, conveys the British cultural setting of the Harry Potter stories for French readers and translates the invented words, names and places. I identify specific translation problems, and analyse how the translator deals with these, and discuss the ways in which he transfers culture and meaning in producing a readable and entertaining translation for French readers.
What are the respective strengths and weaknesses of native and non-native speakers as teachers of... more What are the respective strengths and weaknesses of native and non-native speakers as teachers of English as a foreign or second language? Discuss the differing perspectives on this question in the literature.
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Papers by Rebecca Kirkman