Analysing multilingual crime fiction and its translation: the issue of foreignisms
ENMultilingual crime fiction has become a popular sub-genre for English-language readers. Such novels are set in a foreign country, its protagonists are detectives or police from that country. Part of the pleasure of reading these novels is the feeling that one is seeing the country from the inside, an experience which is supported by the use of numerous foreignisms. This article has a double aim: the first is to categorize the foreignisms and their connections with specific aspects of the foreign society, while the second is to analyze the effect when these novels are translated. The specific data comes from twelve Englishlanguage novels in American writer Donna Leon’s Brunetti series, set in Venice, as well as from eight of the translations into Lithuanian. From the categorization of the foreignisms, one can see that Leon emphasizes four aspects of Venetian society: social relations indicated by forms of address, institutions which are important in police investigations, the unique urban geography of Venice and Italian cuisine and its close relation to the concept of family. To give her readers the feeling of immersion in a foreign culture, Leon deliberately avoids explaining most of the Italian words and phrases she uses in her novels. These are signaled as foreignisms by italics but are not translated. However, the four Lithuanian translators, all working for the publisher Charibde, follow the long-held Lithuanian rule that foreignisms must be translated. They compromise by doing this in the text and not, as is more traditional, in footnotes. Analysis also shows that they provide translations for only about half the foreignisms when they appear for the first time. The article suggests that their internal translations still interfere with the specific effect that the English writer is trying to create.Multilingual literary texts are seen as promoting a variety of languages in opposition to the power of English as a global language. The Lithuanian translators, on the other hand, are continuing, though in weakened form, the policy of linguistic patriotism which was very significant in the period of Soviet occupation.
