Jackie Kay's The Adoption Papers

196 Pages·2015·1.57 MB·English

Università degli Studi di Padova
Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari

Corso di laurea Magistrale in
Lingue e Letterature Europee e Americane
Classe LM-37

Tesi di Laurea

Jackie Kay’s The Adoption Papers:
An Italian translation

Relatore Laureanda
Prof. Katherine Ackerley Isabella Guarnieri
n° matr. 1053260 / LMLLA

Anno Accademico 2014 / 2015

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction p.9
Chapter 1
1.1 Jackie Kay p.11
1.2 Autobiographic works p.15
1.3 Post-colonial heritage in contemporary Britain p.21
Chapter 2
2.1 Translated literature p.26
2.2 Translation theory p.30
2.2.1 General consideration p.30
2.2.2 Different approaches to literary translation p.34
2.2.3 Translating poetry p.36
2.2.4 Translating autobiographic works p.39
2.3 My experience as a translator p.42
Chapter 3
3.1 Analysis of the original text p.45
3.2 Translation of the original text p.49
3.2.1 Translation p.50
3.2.2 Commentary on the translation p.51
3.3 Translation – relevant aspects p.134
3.3.1 Metaphors and similes p.134
3.3.2 Dialect p.138
3.3.3 Shift and transposition p.141
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3.3.4 Culturally specific aspects p.143
3.3.5 Flow of thoughts p.147

Conclusion p.151
Bibliography p.155
Appendix 1 (original text) p.162
Riassunto p.191
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INTRODUCTION

This dissertation consists of the translation of Jackie Kay’s long poem The Adoption
Papers. My interest in the Scottish writer started with the course of Contemporary
Literature in English, during which I came across the drama The Lamplighter, a journey
through the Atlantic slave trade. Kay’s sensitivity struck me and I began to read her
works. Starting from personal experiences, she is able to depict people’s weaknesses; her
writing explores the human condition and, through her intelligence and humour, she leads
readers to reflect upon their bittersweet existence.
The Adoption Papers (1991) is a long poem that tells the story of a black girl’s adoption
by a white Scottish couple: it is Jackie Kay’s story. The personal experience has
determined the literary subject matter, thus the author’s autobiography took an artistic
form. This is her breakthrough work whereby she began to obtain positive outcomes from
critics.
The admiration for Kay’s writing and my personal involvement in her story brought me
to analyse and translate this highly emotional text. My aim was to put myself to the test
with a double challenge: autobiographical works and poems require particular attention
to details in terms of content, for the former, and form, for the latter. Moreover, I chose
to work on a text that so far, officially, has not been translated into Italian.
In the first chapter, I presented the biography of the author, making an overview of her
works; even if her life has determined the subject of all her writing since the beginning
of her career, I focused on the main theme of identity in her autobiographic works, The
Adoption Papers (long poem) and Red Dust Road (novel). The context of her writing is
that of contemporary Britain, where racism, developed as a consequence of the colonial
period, has not been extinguished but has only changed shape. Writing has encouraged
Kay to face discriminatory attitudes and to define a faithful representation of herself;
despite all difficulties, she has taken advantage of her complex heritage, becoming one of
Scotland’s most popular writers.
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The second chapter concerns translation theory and the place of translated works in
literature. Starting from a reflection on the value of translated literature and established
that translation requires the same competences and abilities of writing, I directed my
attention to the different phases of the translation process. I analysed the two main
approaches toward the original text and the corresponding translation methods:
foreignization (source-oriented translation) and domestication (target-oriented
translation). Then, as far as methods are concerned, I described Newmark’s theory,
referring in particular to semantic and communicative translation. Because of the nature
of The Adoption Papers, I expanded the analysis of the main features of translation theory
related to poetry and autobiographic works. Finally, I illustrated my experience as a
translator, describing my approach to the text, the methods I followed and the steps I had
to take in order to reach a respectable translation.
The translation is in the third chapter, following a section on the analysis of the original
text, where I described linguistic features, structure and content. The translation is
accompanied by a parallel commentary that clarifies my translation choices: on the left
there is the translation of the poem, while on the right we find the commentary; the
original text can be found in the appendix. The last section is devoted to those features of
the translation that have required particular attention because of their complexity:
figurative language, dialect, shifts, cultural matters and different traits of stream of
consciousness. The solutions I proposed may supply a potential way to follow for a
translator that deals with a text that has similar features to The Adoption Papers.
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