‘The thee and the tha and the thysen’: An analysis of how the non-standard dialect in D.H. Lawrence’s novels has been translated into Dutch

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MA Linguistics

Translation

Master Thesis

‘The thee and the tha and the thysen’: An analysis of how the

non-standard dialect in D.H. Lawrence’s novels has been

translated into Dutch

Anna Hartley

11009837

November 2016

Supervisor: Dr Eric Metz

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1. Abstract

This paper explores the translation strategies used when translating the Nottinghamshire dialect features in D.H. Lawrence’s novels into Dutch. The main challenges in dialect translation are the presence of extra-linguistic connotations and the lack of formal correspondence in the target language. In societies where there is a large difference in prestige between the standard and non-standard varieties of the language, normalisation is often the preferred translation strategy. However, a complete normalisation of the non-standard language in a novel can result in a target text that appears rather flat in comparison to its source text. Translating the non-standard variety using an existing target text language variety, on the other hand, can render the characters in a novel unconvincing. This study takes a critical look at the two aforementioned techniques, and gives an overview of the other techniques put forward translation scholars Assis Rosa, Brodovich and Ramos Pinto. The theoretical background is followed by a qualitative analysis of the

strategies employed by four translators when translating the Nottinghamshire dialect in D.H. Lawrence’s modernist fiction into Dutch. Although Langeveld and Storm have previously dealt with the translation of English dialects into Dutch, this is the first study to focus solely on the Dutch translation of D.H. Lawrence’s novels.

Keywords: translation, Dutch, English, dialect, non-standard language varieties, normalisation, D.H. Lawrence.

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2. Introduction

2.1 Research question

The translation of a non-standard dialect can be a demanding task for even the most

experienced translator (Langeveld, 1988: 216). Not only do translators have to understand the dialect, which often differs to a large extent from the standard variety the translator is used to, they also have to be aware of the extra-linguistic content that the dialect contributes to a text. Individual dialect features have no exact equivalents in other languages (Brodovich 1997: 25), and as a dialect often carries very specific connotations, it can be extremely difficult to find an equivalent dialect that will have the same effect on the reader of the target text. Yet the many functions of a dialect in a text, including the major role it plays in the characterisation process, mean that the dialect cannot simply be ignored by a translator. Scholars describe the translation of dialect as a frustrating task for the translator, resulting in ‘a comparative flatness and

insipidness’ (Brodovich 1997: 26) and a target text that is merely a faint reflection of the original (Langeveld 1988: 216). Moreover, dialect usually suffers a degree of loss of meaning when it is translated (Newmark 1988: 194). The translator’s task is therefore to select a translation strategy that minimizes this loss as much as possible. The aim of this research is to investigate which strategies literary translators have at their disposal, and examine how Dutch translators have dealt with the Nottinghamshire dialect which is spoken by various characters in the novels written by the British author D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930).

The research is structured as follows. The first section will define the main features of the non-standard variety that is spoken by a number of Lawrence’s characters, and examine the

functions of dialect speech in fiction. The following sections will describe in detail a number of the translation strategies proposed by translation scholars. Finally, a comparative textual analysis of the non-standard linguistic variety in the source and target texts will be carried out, and the strategy adopted by each translator will be evaluated. The corpora for the research consists of three D.H. Lawrence novels as source texts: Sons and Lovers (SAL), (1913), The Rainbow (TR), (1915), and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (LCL), (1928). These particular novels were selected as source texts for two reasons. Firstly, there are characters in each of these novels who speak a non-standard variety of English, and secondly, all of these novels have been translated into Dutch. The target text corpus consists of four novels: Zonen en Minnaars (ZEM), (1966),

translated by J.F. Kliphuis, De Regenboog (DRi), (1947), translated by H.J. Balfoort & J. de Jong, De Regenboog (DRii), (1968), translated by J.A. Schalekamp, and Lady Chatterley’s Minnaar (LCM), (1950), translated by J.A. Sandfort.

Throughout this research, it is important to remain aware of the fact that the translation of a non-standard linguistic variety is not just dependent on the translator’s personal preference, but on

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6 the preferences and norms of other translation agents. Publishers have a great influence on the international circulation of literature (Sapiro, 2008: 154); in many cases, it is the publisher that initiates a literary translation. The final product is also often shaped by editors who provide the translator with guidelines to ensure that the target text conforms to particular norms (Fawcett, 1995: 189). The target language’s literary tradition may also constrain or motivate the translator’s decisions (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 292). In some languages, the use of dialect in literary works is more widely accepted than in other languages. For instance, in societies where there is a large difference in prestige between the standard and non-standard varieties of the language, there is a strong tendency towards the standardisation of the linguistic variation in translation (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 292). In British literature, dialect has been used to portray characters for centuries, and is witnessed in the works of numerous influential authors including William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte and Thomas Hardy (Ilhem, 2013). Langeveld (1988: 217) states, however, that dialect in Dutch literature is usually associated with a specific genre of literature, namely regional novels, referred to in Dutch as streekromans. As dialect is not generally found in other novels, the translation of a non-standard variety of the source language as a non-standard variety of Dutch can often be perceived by the reader to be somewhat unrealistic. For this reason, we can probably expect the translators of D.H. Lawrence’s novels to have employed a strategy which leans more towards the normalisation of the dialect when translating into Dutch. Any markers of non-standard speech that we do observe in the target texts are likely to be lexical markers, as Brodovich (1997: 29), Catford (1965: 88) and Newmark (1988: 195) all claim that translators rely more frequently on lexical items than on phonological and morphosyntactic markers when reproducing non-standard speech in the target text. This research will therefore also investigate whether non-standard lexical items play a main role in this corpus.

2.2 Status quaestionis

The most noteworthy critical studies of the non-standard linguistic variety depicted in Lawrence’s novels include those of Leith (1980) and Hillier (2013). In his 1980 publication Dialect and

Dialogue in D.H. Lawrence, Leith discusses the functions of the non-standard variety in the same three novels that are included in this research. Hillier (2013), on the other hand, discusses the functions of the dialect only briefly in her study of the dialect in Sons and Lovers, focusing her attention on the morphosyntactic, lexical and phonological features of the variety.

Translation scholars including Catford (1965), Newmark (1988), and Hatim and Mason (1990) have discussed the topic of linguistic variation in translation in their comprehensive publications on approaches to translation. More recently, Brodovich (1997) and Assis Rosa (2012) have published articles which deal solely with the topic of non-standard speech in translation. While Brodovich makes use of a descriptive case study - the translation of the non-standard English in one play and two novels into Russian - Assis Rosa’s article is primarily theoretical, and she does

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7 not draw upon any examples to demonstrate the strategies. While this provides the advantage of rendering the article comprehensible for translators of various languages, the article’s

functionality is limited to some extent by the fact that the translator is left to think up his or her own examples in order to visualise each strategy.

By far the most comprehensive publication on the strategies available to translators is Ramos Pinto’s 2009 publication ‘How important is the way you say it?’, in which she proposes her model of the decisions a translator must make during the process of translating a non-standard

linguistic variety, and the strategies that are subsequently available based on the outcome of each decision. She then goes on to identify and discuss the strategies used in the Portuguese translation of the two English plays Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw and My Fair Lady by Alan Jay Lerner. The strategies that are employed by a translator will undoubtedly vary according to the genre of the text and the language combination being translated. It is therefore important that various language combinations and genres are studied.

Other studies that focus on the translation of dialect in fiction include Englund Dimitrova’s (1997) analysis of the translation of the Swedish non-standard dialect in Vilhelm Moberg’s novel Din stund på Jorden (‘A Time on Earth’) into English and Russian, and Määttä’s (2005) analysis of the French translation of the non-standard speech of African Americans in William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury. Of the scholarly works on the translation of non-standard linguistic varieties, few have focused on the English-Dutch language combination. In his publication Vertalen wat er staat: Aspecten van het Vertalen (1988), Langeveld touches on the translation of non-standard English dialects into Dutch, and in her recent publication Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles in German and Dutch Translation: The remarkable case of the Six Poirots (2016), Storm looks at how the non-standard dialect in Agatha Christie’s

detective novel has been translated into German and Dutch. As far as we are aware, no research has been published specifically on the Dutch translation of Lawrence’s dialect. This innovative research draws on aspects of all of the aforementioned studies, combining a comprehensive overview of the dialect in the source text with a detailed analysis of the translation techniques used by the translator to translate the dialect in the target text. The end result is a detailed, qualitative analysis of how the dialect in Lawrence’s modernist fiction has been translated from English into Dutch.

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3. Theoretical background

3.1. Linguistic varieties: a definition

Languages are made up of many varieties, which, although generally regarded to be mutually intelligible, differ to some extent in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary (Weber and Horner, 2012: 29). These internal varieties of a language are often termed dialects. In many languages, one particular dialect has undergone a process of standardisation. This means that it has acquired a publicly recognised and fixed form which is usually registered in dictionaries and grammars (Trudgill, 1999b: 117). The standardised variety of English is referred to as Standard English, and stems from the varieties that were originally spoken in the southeast of England, as the government and other important institutions were situated there, as well as the universities of Oxford and Cambridge (Trudgill, 1999a: 13). The standardised variety of Dutch is known as Standaardnederlands (Standard Dutch) (Pinget, Rotteveel, and Van de Velde, 2014: 4).

The standard variety of a language is often considered to be the most important variety, primarily because of its wider functions: it is usually the variety that is used in written language, and it tends to be the variety that is taught to non-native speakers of a language (Trudgill, 1999b: 118). In comparison, other varieties, often referred to as non-standard because of their deviation from the standard (Taavitsainen & Melchers, 1999: 8), tend to be considered less prestigious and in some cases, even incorrect (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 290). However, from a purely linguistic standpoint, both are simply varieties of one language with their own phonological, lexical and morphosyntactic systems, meaning that neither variety can be considered incorrect.

The dialect a speaker uses is largely related to his or her geographical provenance (Catford, 1965: 85). For example, a speaker who originates from Sheffield may speak a Yorkshire dialect of English. This type of linguistic variety is referred to in linguistics as a diatopic variety (Auer & Schmidt, 2010: 230-232). Speakers of a dialect do not necessarily have to live in the same geographical region, however. Some dialects are spoken by members of a particular social group, for example, students. This form of dialect is referred to as a diastratic variety (Auer & Schmidt, 2010: 233), or a social dialect. The geographical distribution of dialectal varieties often corresponds to socio-economic patterns (Meetham, 1969: 243), and for this reason diatopic dialects and diastratic dialects are often considered simultaneously (Meetham, 1969: 248). Other groups, including those who have the same occupation, and those who are from the same ethnic background, can also speak a particular variety. An occupational dialect, such as the one spoken by the miners in Lawrence’s novels is often referred to as a diatechnic variety, and a dialect spoken by people from the same ethnic background is referred to as an ethnolect. A linguistic variety can also belong to a specific time period: a temporal dialect – often referred to as a diachronic variety – is a dialect spoken in a certain era. For example, if a speaker refers to ‘social media’ and ‘microblogging’, it is highly likely that the diachronic variety is contemporary. Of

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9 course, not all speakers of a particular dialect speak in exactly the same way, each individual has his or her own unique vocabulary, morphosyntax and pronunciation. The variety of language that is unique to an individual is known as an idiolect. A typical feature of an idiolect is the tendency to use particular lexical items frequently (Catford, 1965: 86).

In Discourse and the Translator, Hatim and Mason (1990: 39) present the different aspects of a dialect in a framework, which is aimed to help translators define the linguistic variety they are confronted with, and determine which aspects of the variety can be relayed in the target text. The framework includes four of the aspects mentioned above – geographical, social, temporal and idiolect – and one other aspect: whether the dialect can be considered standard or non-standard. When focusing on this aspect, the translator needs to analyse the extent to which the linguistic variety resembles the standard variety of the language to which it belongs. For example, the Bavarian dialect differs to a large extent from Standard German, and would therefore be considered ‘non-standard’.

3.2. Lawrence’s non-standard dialect

3.2.1. An Introduction

D.H. Lawrence was born and raised in Eastwood, a village in the East Midlands of England. Several of his novels include dialogue in the linguistic variety traditionally spoken in Eastwood, which contains features from both the Nottinghamshire dialect and the Derbyshire dialect, due to Eastwood’s location on the border between the two counties (Hillier, 2013: 22). This chapter aims to provide a detailed overview of the features of the non-standard linguistic variety that features in Lawrence’s novels.

3.2.2. Hatim and Mason’s model

Hatim and Mason use the non-standard variety spoken in D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady

Chatterley’s Lover to demonstrate their framework, which was introduced in the previous chapter. Although their example refers to one specific character, Oliver Mellors, it also applies to a large number of Lawrence’s other dialect-speaking characters.

Geographical dialect: Midlands of England

Temporal dialect: contemporary with publication; now dated Social dialect: working class

Standard: non-standard

Idiolect: [unmarked]

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10 The above model provides a clear overview of the non-standard language variety in the novels; we can briefly conclude that the variety can be considered a geographical dialect, as its speakers live in one particular region, the Midlands of England. It is also a sociolect that tends to be

spoken by members of the working class. The variety can be considered somewhat dated nowadays, but it was contemporary at the beginning of the twentieth century. As it deviates from the standard variety of English, the dialect is considered to be non-standard.

Although Hatim and Mason' framework is useful for the typology of the dialect, it does not provide any information on the specific features of the dialect, and a more in-depth description of the variety is required for this research, so that we can understand exactly the type of language that the translators of Lawrence’s novels were confronted with. In the following sections, we will therefore describe the main phonological, morphosyntactic, and lexical characteristics of the dialect.

3.2.3. Phonology and Orthography

It can be very difficult for writers who use a non-standard dialect to satisfactorily represent the characters’ pronunciation, as they need to seek a balance between authenticity and reader comprehension (Hillier, 2013: 23; Ramos Pinto, 2009: 290). It goes without saying that the use of the phonetic alphabet in a novel is not an option, as it would most certainly alienate the reader. Lawrence therefore uses orthography to represent the sounds of the non-standard linguistic variety. For example, when an ‘e’ occurs before the consonant ‘v’ in Standard English, the ‘e’ is pronounced as an ‘i’ in the Nottinghamshire dialect depicted by Lawrence. The Standard English word ‘never’ [nevə] is therefore pronounced as [nɪvə], and spelled ‘niver’, when Mr Morel, one of the main characters in Sons and Lovers, says ‘Niver you mind’ (SAL: 68) and ‘I’ve niver known Jerry mean in my life’ (SAL: 28). Similarly, the word ‘whatever’ is written as ‘whativer’: ‘Whativer’s a matter, my duckie?’ (SAL: 44), ‘wherever’ is written as ‘wheriver’: ‘Wheriver dun they rear that sort?’ (SAL: 84), and ‘every’ is written as ‘ivry’: ‘Nowt b’r a lousy hae’f-crown, an’ that’s ivry penny-‘ (SAL: 15).

Van Marle (2003: 27) states that as non-standard varieties are usually purely spoken language systems, they are more likely to be influenced by the performance mechanisms governing speech production than standard varieties, which are now primarily written varieties. In other words, a construction that facilitates the pronunciation of a word is more likely to become a feature of a non-standard variety than a standard variety. In the non-standard variety spoken by a number of D.H. Lawrence’s characters, Van Marle’s theory holds true. There are a large number of reductions: instances where a sound is either reduced or completely eliminated from a word. The most frequently occurring phonological feature of the non-standard variety is most probably the reduction of the English definite article ‘the’, which is shown either as th’: ‘It’s her

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11 from th’ vicarage’ (TR: 30), or t’: ‘We’ve got what’s on t’ table’ (TR: 34). A study of the corpora shows that ‘th’ is used much more frequently than ‘t’. ‘Th’ is used to precede vowel sounds and most consonant sounds, whereas the definite article ‘t’ is always depicted before nouns

beginning with the voiceless alveolar stop [t]. In some cases, the definite article is even omitted altogether: ‘You’re niver satisfied till I’m down pit, none on yer’ (SAL: 52) and ‘Mornin’ missis!--mester in?’ (SAL: 28). In many instances, the voiceless glottal fricative /h/ at the beginning of a word is not pronounced when characters are speaking the non-standard variety. In the following examples, the word is written with an apostrophe instead of an ‘h’, to demonstrate that the characters ‘drop’ the /h/. ‘Her’ is written as ‘er’ and ‘head’ is written as ‘ead’ in the sentence: ‘Lettin’ your Missis split ‘er ‘ead open like she has done’ (SAL: 57), and ‘hard’ and ‘he’ are written as ‘ard’ and ‘e’ in the sentence: ‘When a man’s been drivin’ a pick into ‘ard rock all day, Mister Heaton, his arms is that tired, ‘e doesn’t know what to do with ‘em’ (SAL: 47). According to Trudgill (1999a: 28), this loss of the initial /h/ is a feature of many local dialects in England. The pronunciation of some proper nouns is also reduced by those speaking dialect. In Lady

Chatterley’s Lover, those who speak non-standard English pronounce the surname Chatterley ‘Chat’ley’: ‘Well thank you ever so much, Lady Chat’ley’ (LCL: 61), and in The Rainbow, Ursula’s name is pronounced ‘Urs’ler’: ‘Ello Urs’ler, ‘ow are yer goin’ on?’ (TR: 388).

Another feature of the non-standard dialect depicted is the pronunciation of the reflexive pronoun ending ‘-sen’ instead of ‘-self’. For example, in the novel Sons and Lovers, Mr Morel tells his wife to leave him alone while he washes himself: ‘Sluther off an’ let me wesh my-sen’ (SAL: 27). This is a typical feature of the Eastern Central traditional dialect area to which Nottinghamshire belongs (Trudgill, 1999a: 100). The Standard English third person reflexive pronoun ‘himself’ is barely recognisable in the non-standard variety: not only is the suffix ‘–sen’ used instead of the standard English ‘–self’, but both the ‘h’ and the ‘m’ are not articulated, forming ‘issen’: ‘A fool runs away for a soldier – let ‘im look after ‘issen – I s’ll do no more for ‘im’ (SAL: 220).

As we have seen, a number of pronunciation patterns are explicitly represented in Lawrence’s spelling. However, not all of the sounds that characterise the dialect are represented (Hillier, 2013: 42). For example, one of the characteristics that distinguishes the dialects of central and northern England – and therefore the Nottinghamshire dialect - from the standard variety of English is the way in which the vowel sound is pronounced in words like ‘path’ and ‘cat’ (Trudgill, 1999a: 69). In the Nottinghamshire dialect, the word ‘racket’ in the housekeeper Tilly’s

exclamation, ‘What a racket!’ (TR: 80) would be pronounced with a short ‘a’: [rækɪt]. However, in Standard English, the word would be pronounced with a long ‘ah’: [rɑːkɪt]. By writing the word in Standard English orthography, Lawrence does not make the Nottinghamshire pronunciation of the vowel explicit. In the same way, words such as ‘but’ and ‘truck’ in the following sentence spoken by Mr Morel, ‘But six shillin’ wearin’ his truck-end out on a stool’s better than ten shillin’ i’ th’ pit wi’ me, I know’ (SAL: 70), would be pronounced with a short ‘oo’, as [bʊt] and [trʊk]. In Standard English, these words would be pronounced with a short ‘u’ vowel, as [bʌt] and

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12 [trʌk] (Trudgill, 1999a: 53). Again, Lawrence does not distinguish the Nottinghamshire

pronunciation from the Standard English pronunciation. One can only speculate on the reasons why Lawrence did not represent these particular phonetic characteristics of the dialect: he may have presumed that his readership would be aware of these pronunciation patterns; he may have considered an overabundance in non-standard orthography to be a hindrance to comprehension and a distraction from what the character is saying (Leith, 1980: 246); or he may simply have not been able to devise a spelling that would represent the sounds effectively.

3.2.4. Morphosyntax

One of the most significant morphosyntactic features of the dialect is its personal deixis system, namely the use of the singular personal pronouns ‘thee’ and ‘thou’, and the plural personal pronouns ‘ye’ and ‘you’. Three hundred years ago, all varieties of English made the distinction between the singular form of ’you’ and the plural form of ‘you’, as many other languages still do today (Trudgill, 1999a: 90). The pronouns ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ were not only used to refer to one person, they were also used by speakers to address children or individuals who were considered ‘inferior’ to the speaker. In addition to denoting vertical relationships, the pronouns ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ were used in informal settings, for example when addressing close friends, and when a speaker wanted to express solidarity with the person he or she was addressing. These pronouns functioned very much like the French pronoun tu. The pronouns ‘ye’ and ‘you’, on the other hand, were not only used to refer to more than one individual, but they were used as a deferential form: to address individuals the speaker did not know well in a formal setting or to address individuals who were considered ‘superior’. These pronouns were comparable to the French pronoun vous. Eventually, the polite form was used so extensively in Standard English that the singular

pronouns ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ were gradually dropped from both that variety and a few other mainstream dialects (Trudgill, 1999a: 91). However, the pronouns did remain a feature of the Nottinghamshire dialect spoken by the characters in D.H. Lawrence’s novels. This can be observed in the following example. In the novel Sons and Lovers, Mr Morel addresses his son with the pronoun ‘thou’, which is often spelled and pronounced ‘tha’: ‘Tha can ha’e more than that’ (SAL: 68). However, when talking to the vicar, Mr Heaton, Mr Morel uses the more formal pronoun ‘you’, which is often spelt and pronounced ‘yer’: ‘Mr Heaton, can yer tell me owt for my ‘ead?’ (SAL: 48). Characters who only speak Standard English, such as Mrs Morel in Sons and Lovers and Anna Brangwen in The Rainbow, refer to everybody using the pronoun ‘you’, regardless of the characters’ relationship. For example, Mrs Morel addresses her young son, ‘You know you’ve got no right to rip his collar’ (SAL: 67).

A number of verbs in the non-standard dialect follow different conjugation patterns than in Standard English. In particular, the second person singular form of the verb is inflected differently. The present tense second person singular form is regularly used with the suffix –s,

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13 which is only added to the third person singular form in Standard English. This can be observed in Sons and Lovers when Mr Morel says ‘I’ve niver fun out how much tha knows, Alfred’ (SAL: 25).

Some of the verbs that are irregular in the past tense in Standard English are conjugated as regular verbs in the Nottinghamshire dialect. In The Rainbow, Tom Brangwen uses the past participle ‘wakened’ as opposed to the Standard English past participle ‘woken’ when he asks his stepdaughter, ‘Have you just wakened up?’ (TR: 64). Similarly, in Sons and Lovers, a pit lad uses ‘seed’ as the past tense of the irregular verb ‘to see’, instead of the Standard English past tense ‘saw’, claiming: ‘I seed him at th’ bottom’ (SAL: 108). On occasions, Lawrence relies on

orthography to differentiate the Nottinghamshire past tense from the Standard English past tense. For example, the word ‘heered’ is used by characters speaking the Nottinghamshire dialect as the past tense of the verb ‘to hear’, as opposed to the Standard English past tense ‘heard’. In the novel Sons and Lovers, a neighbour of the Morel’s says, ‘I’ve got a copperful of clothes, an’ I’m sure I heered the bell’ (SAL: 40). The infinitive form of the verb ‘to hear’ is pronounced [hɪə], with a vowel sound equivalent to the vowel sound in ‘deer’, whereas the Standard English past tense ‘heard’ is pronounced [hɜːd], with a vowel equivalent to the vowel sound in the word ‘nurse’. In the Nottinghamshire dialect, however, the vowel sound of the past tense is equivalent to the vowel sound in the infinitive form of the verb. To make the

pronunciation clear for the reader, and to differentiate this form from the Standard English past tense, Lawrence therefore spells the past tense of the verb with a double ‘e’.

3.2.5. Lexicon

There is an enormous variety of vocabulary in the different dialects of England (Trudgill, 1999a: 116), and this is reflected in the large scope of non-standard lexicon used by the speakers of the Nottinghamshire dialect in Lawrence’s novels. Since the focus of this research is the translation of the non-standard variety, and not the characteristics of the variety, just a few interesting examples have been selected for this section.

A recurring lexical feature of the non-standard variety is the conjunction ‘as’, which is used instead of the Standard English word ‘that’ (Hillier, 2013: 36). This feature is observed in the novel Sons and Lovers, when Mr Morel, the father of the family, claims: ‘But there’s that much draught i’ yon scullery, as it blows through your ribs like a five-barred gate’ (SAL: 235). ‘As’ is also used as a relative pronoun instead of the Standard English relative pronouns ‘who’, ‘which’ and ‘that’ (Hillier, 2013: 40). In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Mellors uses ‘as’ instead of the relative pronoun ‘that’: ‘She carted off ivrything as was worth taking from th’ ouse,’ (LCL: 198), and in Sons and Lovers, Mr Morel uses ‘as’ instead of the relative pronoun ‘who’: ‘A man as comes home as I do ‘s too tired to care about cloths’ (SAL: 47).

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14 The word ‘ay’ is often used to express assent, as an alternative to the word ‘yes’. In The

Rainbow, when his brother remarks, ‘It’s a fine night’, Alfred Brangwen simply replies, ‘Ay’, to indicate that he agrees (TR: 132). Earlier in the novel, when a young Anna claims she wants to see her mother, Tom Brangwen replies ‘Ay, but she’s badly’ (TR: 72). Here, the character uses ‘ay’ to indicate that he understands. Speakers use the word ‘nay’ to express dissent, as an alternative to the word ‘no’. When his stepdaughter tells him to go away, Tom Brangwen replies, ‘Nay, I’m not going. You can go’ (TR: 64).

A strong feature of the dialect in the novel Sons and Lovers is the lexicon which is related to the coal mining industry, an industry that was a major source of employment in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire at the time. This lexicon can be considered to be part of an occupational dialect, and includes words such as ‘pick-haft’ (SAL: 46) which is used to refer to the handle of the pick axe, ‘carfle’ (SAL: 167) which is used to refer to the coal wagon, and ‘oss‘ (SAL: 89), which is the dialect word for horse, used to refer to the pit pony. The words ‘gin-pit’ (SAL: 9) and ‘ash-pit’ (SAL: 10) are used to describe different parts of the mine, and the term ‘day-man’ (SAL: 238) is used to describe a miner who is hired on a daily basis.

3.3 The functions of non-standard dialect in literature

3.3.1. Dialect literature vs. literary dialect

Before we discuss the possible techniques for the translation of non-standard linguistic varieties, it is important to establish the reasons why an author may choose to include a non-standard linguistic variety in fictional literature. Taavitsainen and Melchers (1999: 13) identify two types of use of non-standard language in fictional literature. The first type is known as ‘dialect literature’. This term refers to works which are composed entirely in a non-standard language form and are aimed at readers who speak that particular non-standard variety. Dialect literature has a primarily social function, and is often used to boost patriotism (Taavitsainen and Melchers, 1999: 13.). The other type of non-standard language in literature is known as ‘literary dialect’ (Taavitsainen and Melchers, 1999: 13). Here, the main body of the text is written in standard language, but some or all of the direct speech is written in a non-standard form, a ‘literary dialect’. As D.H. Lawrence’s novels are written in Standard English and only make use of a literary dialect, this research will only be concerned with that particular use of non-standard language.

3.3.2. Newmark’s functions of non-standard dialect

In A Textbook for Translation, Newmark (1988: 195) states three main functions of dialect in fictional texts: to show a slang use of language; to stress social class contrasts; and to indicate

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15 local cultural features. The extent to which these functions apply to a particular text vary

depending on the genre and the function of the text.

The term slang was originally used to refer to the lexicon used by people of a ‘low and disreputable character’ (Ayto & Simpson, 2010: ix). Nowadays, it is used to refer to highly

colloquial and informal vocabulary, or vocabulary that is used by people who practise a particular profession (Ayto & Simpson, 2010: ix). Some of the lexical features of the dialect in the three D.H. Lawrence novels can be considered slang. However, the term slang refers solely to lexicon, and a large number of the non-standard features we observed in the source texts were

morphosyntactic and phonological. The representation of a slang use of language is therefore the least important of the three functions of dialect in our source texts. The other two functions play a more significant role in Lawrence’s work.

In all three source texts, there is evidence of dialect being used to stress social class contrasts. The linguistic markers of a certain language variety are almost always associated with a certain amount of prestige, which expresses the character’s place within the community depicted by the author (Assis Rosa, 2012: 80). The majority of readers presume that characters who speak a standard variety are from a higher social class than those who speak non-standard varieties (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 291). This is due to the fact that the greatest degree of regional variation is observed among lower working-class speakers (Trudgill, 1979: 9). Lawrence draws upon this linguistic stereotype: the characters in the novels who are from a low social class generally speak a non-standard variety of English, whereas those with a higher social status speak Standard English. The characters, too, comment on other characters’ speech, providing evidence that the non-standard dialect is stigmatised and associated with a lower social class. For example, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Lady Chatterley asks of Oliver Mellors, ‘How could they make him an officer, when he speaks broad Derbyshire?’ (LCL: 92) and in The Rainbow, William Brangwen remarks that a girl he meets in Nottingham has a ‘common accent’, and therefore assumes she is ‘a warehouse-lass’ (TR: 211).The difference in social class is particularly emphasised when characters from different social classes converse with each other. In Sons and Lovers, when Gertrude Coppard, a girl from a ‘good burgher family’ (SAL: 15) first meets her future husband Walter Morel, a working class miner, her standard English speech contrasts greatly with his local dialect, stressing their different backgrounds:

“And you are a miner!” she exclaimed in surprise. “Yes. I went down when I was ten.”

She looked at him in wondering dismay.

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16 “You soon get used to it. You live like th’ mice, an’ you pop out at night to see what’s going on.”

“It makes me feel blind,” she frowned.

“Like a moudiwarp!” he laughed. “Yi, an’ there’s some chaps as does go round like moudiwarps.” He thrust his face forward in the blind, snout-like way of a mole, seeming to sniff and peer for direction. “They dun though!” he protested naïvely. “Tha niver seed such a way they get in. But tha mun let me ta’e thee down sometime, an’ tha can see for thysen.”

(SAL: 19) Thus, there is a large amount of proof that D.H. Lawrence used different language varieties to stress social class contrasts. However, it could be argued that this function is more

comprehensive than Newmark perceived it to be, as the use of dialect not only informs the reader of a character’s social class, it unveils a lot more about a character’s socio-cultural profile. It situates a character within a certain geographical location and time-frame, and gives an

indication of his or her educational level and ethnic background (Ilhem, 2013: 102). For example, when Mr Morel speaks dialect in Sons and Lovers, the vast majority of readers will be aware that he is from a working class background. A large number of readers will also be aware that he is from the East Midlands of England, and some may even be able to place the dialect more specifically. Many readers will associate his strong use of dialect with a low level of education, and some may also be able to recognise that he is a miner due to the lexicon he uses. The use of a dialect can therefore contribute greatly to the characterisation process, in a manner that is much more convincing for the reader than a direct presentation of a character carried out by the narrator (Assis Rosa, 2012: 83).

The third function described by Newmark (1988: 195) is ‘to indicate local cultural features’. D.H. Lawrence himself had working class origins and was born in Nottinghamshire, where his novels are set. Although his novels belong to the fiction genre, they are largely centred on Lawrence’s own observations, and he uses the dialect to portray the social community within which he grew up (Hillier, 2013: 22). The use of this authentic dialect allows the reader to take ‘a tourist’s interest in local colour’ (Lawrence, Black, and Boulton, 1992: 2). Authors often indicate local cultural features by including lexical features in the dialect speech that are specific to a particular community. An example of this in Lawrence’s novels is the mining lexicon used by Mr Morel and his colleagues, ‘dingin’ away at coal face’ (SAL: 47) and ‘drivin’ a pick into ‘ard rock all day’ (SAL: 47), which aims to evoke the malaise of the miner’s social class (Ilhem, 2013: 118).

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3.3.3. Additional functions of non-standard dialect

In addition to Newmark’s three functions, a dialect can also be used to reflect the state of a relationship between two or more characters at a certain point in a novel (Hillier, 2013: 27). This function can best be explained by an example. In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Lady Chatterley, a member of the upper class, only speaks Standard English. Oliver Mellors, the son of a blacksmith and the Chatterleys’ gamekeeper, speakers both Standard English and the local dialect. Lady Chatterley tells Mellors that she would like to sit and relax in his hut in the woods, and proceeds to ask him questions about it, to which he replies in Standard English:

‘ “Do you lock the hut when you’re not here?”

“Yes, your ladyship.” ‘ (LCL: 90)

However, as she continues her enquiry, he soon becomes irritated and proceeds in dialect: ‘ “Do you think I could have a key too? So that I could sit sometimes! Are there two keys?”

“Not as Ah know on, the’ isna.” ‘

(LCL: 90)

The narrator acknowledges this, stating, ‘He had lapsed into the vernacular. Connie hesitated. He was putting up an opposition’ (LCL: 90). The characters’ attitude towards each other is reflected in their speech; the more they irritate each other, the more Mellors exaggerates the linguistic differences between them using non-standard English. This function of the dialect is also witnessed in Sons and Lovers, when Mr Morel exaggerates the linguistic differences between himself and his wife when they criticise each other (Hillier, 2013: 27).

Finally, the dialect can be used creatively, to add comic moments to the text. This is often the case when a character speaks a non-standard variety in situations where non-standard speech would be deemed socially inappropriate. In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Oliver Mellors deliberately speaks the Derbyshire dialect when he meets his lover’s upper class sister, even though he is also able to speak Standard English. He is fully aware of the fact that she disapproves of his relations with her sister because of their difference in social class. The reader would therefore expect him to use the standard variety in this situation, in order to reduce the apparent difference in class and gain her approval. Instead, he speaks in the broad non-standard variety to provoke her, stating: ‘Nay nay, let me talk Derby if it suits me. If yo’n nowt against it’ (LCL: 242). In the same novel, Lady Chatterley attempts to imitate Mellors’ dialect in what is a rather humorous passage:

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18 He smiled.

‘Ay, sholl ter?’ he repeated.

‘Ay,’ she said, imitating the dialect sound.

(LCL: 177)

As we have observed, a literary dialect adds not only linguistic meaning, but also pragmatic and semiotic meaning to a fictional text. This makes the translator’s task even more challenging than one first perceives it to be. In the following section, we will identify the obstacles a translator may face when attempting to translate dialect speech in fiction, and examine the potential translation strategies that have been put forward by scholars.

3.4. Non-standard dialect as a translation problem

3.4.1. Comprehension

It is a known fact that a translator has to be able to fully understand what is written in the source text in order to translate the text successfully (Langeveld, 1988: 209). The translators of

Lawrence’s novels therefore firstly had to decipher what was being said by the characters speaking the non-standard variety, before they could even begin to translate the dialogue into Dutch. This is a demanding task, particularly when utterances such as ‘Nay, yo’ mun ax ‘er’ (LCL: 58) and ‘It’s a winder as we canna ha’e a sup i’ th’ ‘ouse’ (SAL: 61) bear very little resemblance to the standard variety of English. Dialect words sometimes belong to a category that Newmark (1988: 176) termed ‘unfindable words’. These words cannot be found in standard dictionaries, and translators therefore often have to contact the source text writer, if possible, to find out their meaning. Alternatively, the translator can consult source language experts or a dictionary of the dialect (Newmark, 1988: 177-178). Nowadays translators also have the internet at their disposal, giving them access to a plethora of information on dialects. However, at the time the translations included in this corpus were produced, this was not yet an option. Searching for those unfindable words will therefore have been a difficult and time consuming task (Newmark, 1988: 176). In the preface to Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the editors acknowledge the problem of understanding Lawrence’s dialect, stating that it can act as a barrier to understanding ‘especially to the many readers who are not native speakers of British English’ (LCL: viii).

3.4.2. Extra-linguistic connotations

While the comprehension of the dialect can pose a challenge for the translator, the central problem lies in the extra-linguistic connotations of the dialect. As we have observed in the

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19 previous chapter, a dialect can add meaning to a text which reaches far beyond the linguistic level (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 291). Therefore, the translator not only needs to understand the linguistic aspects of the dialect, but also its pragmatic functions. When using a literary dialect to distinguish characters, authors often make use of language ideologies. They frequently rely on certain sociolinguistic stereotypes that the majority of readers will be familiar with, in order to evoke a particular image in the reader’s imagination and aid the characterisation process. The translator not only needs to have a good knowledge of sociolinguistic stereotypes in both the source language and the target language, he or she needs to be able to recreate the stereotypes for the target text reader. It can be extremely difficult to find a linguistic variety that arouses exactly the same connotations as the source text variety. Ramos Pinto (2009: 289) confirms this, stating that the translator faces an ‘impossibility’ when searching for a formal correspondence or equivalence for the linguistic variety. In rare cases where the translator is able to find a linguistic variety with a similar status, the use of this linguistic variety can often be regarded as unrealistic, as a particular linguistic variety has a very localised meaning, and is intrinsically linked to a particular time and space (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 289). It would be rather unconvincing for readers of a Dutch target text to come across characters who speak in a regional Dutch dialect in cases where the spatial coordinates of a novel set in a typically English town have been preserved. The translator therefore firstly needs to decide whether or not to preserve the linguistic variation in the target text, before selecting a suitable translation strategy.

3.5 Strategies for translating non-standard dialect

3.5.1. Normalisation

The most pervasive strategy for translation of a non-standard linguistic variety is the normalising strategy (Assis Rosa, 2012: 87). In this strategy, non-standard linguistic varieties, which are often associated with low prestige, are translated using the standard variety of the target text, which tends to be the most prestigious variety. To illustrate this strategy by means of an example, the source text dialect question, ‘Art commin’ Tom, or art for stoppin’?’ (TR: 23) would be translated as something similar to, ‘Kom je, Tom, of blijf je hier?’. The application of this strategy is

extremely widespread in the translation of fictional literature. So much so that it has led some scholars, including House (1973: 167, qtd. in Assis Rosa, 2012: 87) to deem non-standard linguistic varieties untranslatable. Toury (1995: 267-274) acknowledges the normalisation trend in his ‘law of growing standardisation’. The law states that in translation, source text patterns are often modified, and in some cases even ignored, to favour the more habitual patterns of the target language (Toury, 1995: 268). The non-standard linguistic varieties of an English source text would therefore be normalised during translation into Dutch, as non-standard varieties are

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20 not habitually portrayed in Dutch literature. This corresponds to the point that was raised in the introduction: that the translator’s choice of strategy is often restricted by target culture constraints and explicit guidelines set by the publishing company.

Although it is widely employed, this strategy is far from ideal, and has received a lot of criticism. Langeveld (1988: 212) describes this technique as a ‘wezenlijke verarming’, a substantial diminishment, of the text. The strategy results in a number of translation losses, and can have a significant effect on the quality of the text. By allowing all the characters to speak the standard variety of the target language, the discourse loses its characterising function (Assis Rosa, 2012: 88), as characters are no longer defined by the way they speak. The difference between

characters’ social status can also no longer be perceived, as all characters speak the same variety. Furthermore, the text becomes monoglossic (Assis Rosa, 2012: 93), meaning that both the aesthetic value of the linguistic variation, and any attempts made by the source text author to portray the state of a relationship between characters using different language varieties are erased in the target text. The strategy can, however, be viewed as a safe strategy that can be employed if the translator is having difficulty finding a suitable equivalent non-standard variety in the target text, due to either a lack of such variety or a lack of time (Assis Rosa, 2012: 93). Moreover, the translator can be certain that the standard variety will not have any unintended effects on the readership, as can sometimes be the case when an existing non-standard target language variety is used.

3.5.2. The use of an existing target-language dialect

If the translator wishes to preserve the linguistic variation, he or she may choose to translate the non-standard linguistic variety using an existing non-standard variety of the target language. In doing so, the translator ensures that any differences in the socio-cultural status of characters that the author wished to portray are retained in the target text. However, finding a suitable target language can pose a challenge. Catford (1965: 87) states that selecting an equivalent dialect is concerned with more than topography and spatial co-ordinates. Thus, when translating the non-standard variety in Lawrence’s novels, the dialect of the East Midlands of England, the translator should not simply choose an existing dialect from the eastern midlands of the Netherlands. He or she needs to pay more attention to human geography (Catford, 1965: 87), and select a linguistic variety that is spoken by a community with a similar socio-cultural prestige. A possible solution for the translation of the dialect in Lawrence’s novels would therefore be to use the dialect spoken in Heerlen, a town in the south-east of the Netherlands. One may question why this variety would be a suitable equivalent to the East Midlands dialect. At the time the source text was written, Heerlen too was a mining town: there were eleven coalmines in operation between 1899 and 1976 (Cornips, 2003: 33). During this period, the dialect of Heerlen also enjoyed a

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21 similar social status to the dialect of the East Midlands: it was spoken by the vast majority of the locals, and just a small proportion of the town’s population was able to speak the standard variety of Dutch, which is referred to in Dutch as Standaardnederlands. These people belonged to the town’s elite, and included clergymen, schoolteachers and notaries (Cornips, 2003: 42). In Lawrence’s novels, we also observe that the majority of the working class characters speak dialect, whereas those who are well educated or belong to the upper classes speak Standard English.

Should a translator choose to use this dialect, he or she may translate the following phrases spoken by the housekeeper Tilly in The Rainbow, ‘I couldn’t tell you. She’s got a little girl with her,’ (TR: 31) and ‘Of three or four, with a head like a fuzz-ball’ (TR: 31) as ‘Ich weit ut neet. Zie het un kleen meadje bie zich’ and ‘Van un joar of drei, veer, mit unne kop wie unne pluuzebol’. Similarly, he or she may translate Mr Morel’s phrase ‘It’s ma as brings th’ money whoam, not thee. It’s my house, not thine,’ (SAL: 33), as ‘Ich bring hiej het broeëd op de plank, neet doe. Het is mien hoes, neet dat van dich’. Speakers of Dutch will immediately notice that this dialect differs rather drastically from Standard Dutch. If a translator chooses this approach, he or she needs to consider whether the dialect will limit the readability of the dialogue, as too much accuracy can actually compromise the reader’s understanding of the dialect speech (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 290). We observed in the source text that Lawrence did not always adapt the orthography to reflect the pronunciation of words, as he did not want to hinder the comprehension of the text. The

translator should therefore not feel obliged to render the characters’ speech completely in a non-standard variety. As Newmark (1988: 195) stated, the potential target text reader needs to be at home in the dialect that is chosen. A translator may therefore choose to select just a few features of this dialect to be represented in the target text, whilst writing the rest of the dialogue in

Standard Dutch. Ideally, the features chosen would be characteristic of other dialects in the region, to increase the chance that the reader will be familiar with them, and to reduce the risk of the characters becoming too associated with Heerlen, thus maintaining the credibility of the English setting to some extent. The translator could choose features that are typical of both the Heerlen dialects and other dialects in Limburg, where Heerlen is situated. A typical lexical feature that the translator may therefore choose to include is the formation of the diminutive with the suffix ‘-ke’ instead of the standard Dutch suffix ‘-je’ (Cornips, 2003: 55), while a potential morphological feature could be the use of the pronoun ‘geej’ instead of ‘u’ as a second person singular pronoun. The translator may translate the phrase ‘Yer non want ter make a wench on ‘im‘ (SAL: 24), in which the word ‘wench’ is used to mean ‘girl’, as ‘Geej wilt toch geen meiske van ‘m make’?’. Target text readers will be aware that the character is speaking in dialect, but the dialogue will still be comprehensible for the majority of readers.

Although one can make the dialect comprehensible to the reader by mixing it with features of the standard language, creating a stylised dialect termed by Langeveld (1988: 212) as

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22 translating the non-standard dialect using an existing target-language dialect. Firstly, the target text dialect may have an unintended effect on the readership (Hatim and Mason, 1990: 41). An unintended effect can arise, for instance, if non-standard varieties are only spoken by those with a low socio-cultural status in the source culture, but by all layers of society in the target culture. Readers of the target text may therefore perceive the characters to have a higher socio-cultural status than the source text author intended. Similarly, the variety of the target text may have slightly different connotations than the variety used in the source text. The connotations of a particular dialect are often extremely unique, meaning that the employment of this strategy could have controversial consequences. Furthermore, incongruity could be an issue, as the spatial values evoked by the linguistic variety employed in the target text often differ significantly from the references to a specific space which are included in the text (Assis Rosa, 2012: 90). For example, if the translator chooses to use the dialect of Heerlen for the non-standard speech, the characters’ speech may be rather unconvincing if the reader also comes across actual English place names, such as Kensington (LCL: 13), Derbyshire (LCL: 145) and Nottingham (SAL: 109). An option that would reduce this incongruity would be the alteration of the spatial coordinates of the target text: the target text would therefore be set in the Netherlands. However, this

significantly changes a text, and some may therefore consider the target text to be an adaptation rather than a translation.

3.5.3. The use of general non-standard language

Brodovich (1997: 29) states that the translator should aim to portray characters with a specific socio-cultural status effectively, without making his or her speech appear to be too nation-specific. An alternative translation strategy would therefore be to translate the dialect using general non-standard language, defined by Brodovich (1997: 26) as ‘forms which are outside the accepted literary standard but do not belong to any particular local dialect’. A translator

translating a source text into Dutch may choose to show general non-standard speech by demonstrating the deletion of the ‘t’ at the end of a word. This pronunciation characteristic is not specific to one particular dialect, as it can be observed in at least six of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands (Cornips, 2003: 50). The dialect phrase ‘Sugar’s in th’ cupboard,’ (LCL: 166) could therefore be translated as ‘Suiker staat in de kas’’. The reader would therefore be aware that the character speaks a non-standard variety, but the variety is not region specific, nor is the readability of the dialect hindered. A morphological feature that the translator could include is the use of ‘hun’, the dative case of the third-person pronoun, where ‘zij’, the third-person nominative plural pronoun is used in Standard Dutch. The translator could therefore translate the phrase: ‘They ta’ein ‘im ter th’ ospital’ (SAL: 108) as ‘Hun brengen ‘m naar ‘t ziekenhuis’. This

phenomenon originated in the south of the Netherlands, but can now be heard across the whole of the Netherlands (Cornips 2003: 63). It is a characteristic of non-standard language that all

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23 Dutch readers will be familiar with, and as it is no longer region-specific, the incongruence

experienced by the reader will be limited. Nevertheless, a loss may still occur, as it is highly likely that this general non-standard language will not evoke the same stereotype as the source text dialect.

Brodovich’s strategy bears a close resemblance to the strategy proposed by Newmark (1988: 195). Newmark declared that translators should aim to produce naturally slangy speech in moderation, processing only a small proportion of the source language dialect. In other words, the translator should aim to produce a form of informal speech which is considered to be somewhat colloquial, but still fully comprehensible for the target text reader. When a translator employs this strategy, the non-standard dialect is diluted, yet not completely normalised. Assis Rosa (2012: 81) also deals with this strategy. She presents different linguistic varieties in a diagram of concentric circles, based on their socio-semiotic value and prestige. The centre is occupied by the most prestigious variety, the standard variety, while the outer circles represent a continuum from orality to the least prestigious substandard varieties. Translating a regional non-standard dialect using general non-non-standard language would be what Assis Rosa (2012: 85) classes as a centralisation strategy, a ‘change of a more peripheral substandard towards a less peripheral variety’, (i.e., a normalisation shift).

Assis Rosa (2012: 87) comments on the extensive use of the normalisation shift, yet Ramos Pinto (2009: 293) claims that cases of complete normalisation are rare. This suggests that although the variety used in target texts is usually more similar to the standard variety (i.e. more centralised), translators do tend to retain some form of linguistic variation in the target text. It is therefore probable that many translators rely on general non-standard language to translate a non-standard linguistic variety. Evidence of general non-standard language can be found in Westerdijk’s Dutch translation of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, in which the translator has translated the dialect using ‘as’ instead of ‘als’ and ‘hunnie’ instead of ‘hun’ (qtd. in Langeveld, 1988), and in Van Iddekinge-van Thiel’s Dutch translation of Agatha Christie’s novel The

Mysterious Affair at Styles, in which the maid uses colloquial phrases such as ‘In de regel heb ik ‘t niet op buitenlanders’ (qtd. in Storm, 2016: 179).

3.5.4. Ramos Pinto’s model

Ramos Pinto (2009) realised that although different strategies such as those discussed above have been put forward, no comprehensive typology existed for the translation strategies. She therefore devised a model aimed to aid future research on the topic. The model includes the three aforementioned strategies, and introduces various other strategies. Although it was intended for use by researchers, the model could also be consulted by translators who find themselves confronted with non-standard discourse in a source text. According to Ramos Pinto

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24 (2009: 292), the first decision a translator faces is whether or not to preserve the non-standard linguistic variety in the target text. Should the translator choose to preserve linguistic variation, he or she then faces several further options. The next decision involves whether or not to preserve the spatial and temporal coordinates of the variety (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 294). Let us take for example, the translation of the novel The Rainbow into Dutch. The four options the translator has for the temporal and spatial coordinates of the target text are as follows:

- To preserve both the spatial and temporal coordinates (producing a target text set in the East Midlands of England in 1915)

- To preserve the spatial coordinates but not the temporal coordinates (producing a target text set in the East Midlands of England at the time of translation)

- To preserve the temporal coordinates but not the spatial coordinates (producing a target text set in the Netherlands in 1915)

- To alter both the temporal and space coordinates (producing a target text set in the Netherlands at the time of translation)

A motivation for the translator to alter the spatial coordinates of the text may be if he or she intends to use an existing non-standard variety of the target text language (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 294). For example, if the translator wanted to use the dialect of Heerlen to translate the

Nottinghamshire dialect spoken in The Rainbow, the characters’ speech would be much more convincing to the reader if the plot was also set in Heerlen instead of in Nottinghamshire. A motivation for the translator to alter the temporal coordinates of the text may be the relative ease of writing in contemporary language rather than in an archaic variety (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 294); this is particularly significant if the translation is produced much later than the source text. However, the alteration of the spatial and/or temporal coordinates may come under criticism, as many view the alteration of such significant aspects of the text to be an adaption, and not a translation (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 294). It is therefore important that the translator first consults the publisher before making any alterations of this kind.

Assuming that the translator decides to preserve the spatial coordinates of the source text, he or she has a range of strategies to choose from. Ramos Pinto (2009: 295) presents these strategies on the following continuum, ranging from more to less normalised discourse. It is important to mention here that the target text sentences used in the explanation of the strategies are my own, and have not been taken from the existing target texts. The source text examples have been taken from the source texts included in the corpus of this research.

- Use of the standard variety in direct discourse, with written indications informing the reader that the character was speaking a non-standard variety.

This is a compensation strategy used to compensate the loss caused by the omission of linguistic variation. If the translator of D.H. Lawrence’s novel The Rainbow were to make use of this strategy, he or she may translate the dialect utterance, ‘Why

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Lizzie—a-25 Monday—we seed her goin’ past’ (TR: 31), as ‘ “Lizzie en ik hebben haar maandag zien langs lopen”, zei ze in het dialect’. Although the reader is subsequently aware that the speaker is speaking a non-standard variety, the translator does not give the reader an indication of which dialect is being spoken; readers are expected to imagine the dialect, and therefore also its connotations, themselves.

- Reduction of the linguistic variation to forms of address and honorifics

Although the linguistic variation is removed from the target text, the reader will still be able to understand the power relations between the characters. The effectiveness of this technique depends on how the target language uses honorifics in speech. In Dutch, the formal pronoun ‘u’ is used to address somebody who is older, somebody who is

perceived to be superior or somebody the speaker is not well acquainted with (Vismans 2013: 166-167). The informal second person pronoun ‘je’, on the other hand, is used to address someone younger or perceived to be less prestigious, or in an informal setting. In the source text dialect sentence ‘Your mester’s got hurt’ (SAL: 108), a young boy from the mining pit uses the formal second person possessive pronoun ‘your’ when

addressing, the older, more prestigious, Mrs Morel. When translating this sentence into Dutch, a translator may use the informal Dutch second person possessive pronoun ‘je’: ‘Je man is gewond geraakt’. As Mrs Morel is older than the young boy, readers at the time of the publication of the source text would expect the boy to address her using the formal pronoun in Dutch. Using the informal possessive pronoun ‘je’ can therefore be considered non-standard. In this way, the translator preserves some linguistic variation, while translating the rest of the sentence into Standard Dutch.

- Upgrading the level of standard discourse formality

The use of this strategy allows the translator to retain the linguistic variation in the target text. The standard dialogue is made more formal in the target text than in the source text, and the non-standard variety can be translated as a less formal standard variety. For example, if the translator were to use this strategy, he or she may translate the following standard language utterance: ‘My husband has no idea where I am. He’ll be wondering all kinds of things,’ (LCL: 131) spoken by Lady Chatterley, in the following way: ‘Mijn man is niet op de hoogte van waar ik ben. Hij zal zich waarschijnlijk ongerust maken’. When using this strategy, the difference in social status is still suggested to some extent in the different characters’ dialogue. However, the difference is likely to be more subtle than in the source text, where it is expressed by means of a different variety rather than simply a different register of the same variety. Moreover, the linguistic stereotypes intended by the source text author are likely to be weakened, and perhaps even lost altogether.

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26 - Use of oral discourse features

As oral discourse is less prestigious than written discourse, the translator may use features of oral discourse in order to portray the speech as non-standard. This may include features of spontaneous speech such as exclamations, tags, reformulation, false starts, and fillers (Assis Rosa 2015: 211). In instances where these features are used in the source text, such as Oliver Mellor’s utterance, ‘Eh well! This wor’t best,’ (LCL: 177), the use of the same features in the target text seems logical. However, if the source text dialogue does not contain any features that are typical of oral disourse, such as the sentence ‘Tha loved me just now, wider than iver tha thout tha would,’ (LCL: 176), the addition of a feature such as a reformulation or a filler in the translation may alter the meaning of the utterance, making the speaker seem more hesitant than in the source text.

- Use of features from different non-standard varieties

This strategy resembles the strategy put forward by Brodovich (1997: 26) and Catford (1988: 195). The translator may make use of phonological, lexical and morphosyntactic features that occur in various non-standard varieties of the target language. The target text reader is made aware that the character is speaking a non-standard variety, yet the variety is not specific to one particular region, meaning that there is less incongruence between the setting of the novel and the non-standard variety spoken by the characters. The stereotypes that this speech evokes may however not be entirely equivalent to those evoked by the dialect speech in the source text.

- Use of features of a specific non-standard variety

As already discussed, this strategy makes use of a dialect with a similar status to the one used in the source text. If this strategy is employed, the difference in social class

between the characters who speak the non-standard variety and the characters who speak the standard variety is likely to be retained. However, in cultures where non-standard varieties are not usually a feature of fictional literature, it can be deemed unconvincing, and furthermore, there is often an incongruence between the setting of the novel, which is usually in a country where the source language is spoken, and the target language variety chosen, making the characters’ speech rather implausible for the reader.

Ramos Pinto (2009: 296) states explicitly that the strategies cannot be seen as generally better or worse than each other; the circumstances of each individual translation and its translator will determine which of the strategies is most appropriate. She also states that in many cases, a combination of different strategies can be found in the same target text, as translators work with

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27 a number of features that are easily recognised by the target text readership (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 296). In the following chapters, the analysis of the strategies that have been utilised by the Dutch translators of D.H. Lawrence’s novels will be based on Ramos Pinto’s model.