Some literary translation problems posed by Salman Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses' : with special reference to a published German translation

Abstract

The central concern of this thesis is with quality and quality assessment of translation. Constructive proposals are made with a view to facilitating improved quality assessment, especially with reference to the context in which the target text is presented. To assess the nature of that context, the notion of profiles (for source text and target text) is introduced in section 5.6. These profiles not only help determine what kind of translation suits a given context best, but also enable users to develop strategies and guidelines for the translation process with the aim of ensuring quality and consistency. The first five sections of this thesis examine the factors constituting the context of any translation situation and that of The Satanic Verses in particular: WHO (the author, the translator, the commissioner, the audience, the reviewer), WHAT (text-type and function; literary category, i.e. Magic Realism), WHEN and WHERE (the socio-cultural background), WHY (motivation and purpose), HOW (intercultural aspects of translation, loss and gain, prescriptive and descriptive approaches, translation quality and assessment). In sections 6, 7 and 8, the findings from the earlier sections are put into practice to develop my strategy and to discuss decisions of detail in TI1 and TT2. The discussion shows that the existing German TTs (TT1 and the Knaur reissue) would benefit from a careful and wide-ranging revision. Section 9 charts some of the changes a recent reissue of Die satanischen Verse made to the original TT. Section 10, recognising the special importance of TT context in this instance, briefly outlines the publication history of the ST and the German TT, and the impact of the fatwa. Section 11 contains my own TT of the novel's first chapter. The Angel Gibreel.