Translation of adolescent language : the case of fiction for young readers

Abstract

Adolescent language is a highly emotive social dialect, which helps teenagers distance themselves from their childhood "others" as well as from the older generation. It manifests itself in an abundant use of swear words and other vulgarisms, slang and metaphoric language. The present article focuses on determining whether the translation of Melvin Burgess's JUNK has the same features of teen speech as the original text. The research results show that, of 118 examples of teen speech considered, 68 examples in the target text have the same features as the original text. The strategy of direct transfers, finding exact equivalents in the target cultureis most evident in the translation of metaphoric language, whereas swear words and slang tend to be standardized. The fact that most instances of adolescent language are rendered by employing direct transfers allows us to state that the translator of the novel has succeeded in creating an interesting literary text and achieving a similar effect on the target readership.