Abstract
This article analyzes the representation of linguistic variation in the Finnish translations of four Swedish coming-of-age stories depicting migrant or minority perspectives: Mikael Niemi’s 2000 Popular Music from Vittula, Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s 2003 Ett öga rött, Marjaneh Bakhtiari’s 2005 Kalla det vad fan du vill, and Susanna Alakoski’s 2006 Svinalängorna. Through an analysis of speech and thought representation techniques and focalization, the article explores the role played by literature and translation in the materialization of dialects and sociolects as bounded entities. The paper argues that linguistic and social hybridity, on which the reception of minority and migrant literatures often focuses, is accompanied by the reification of new varieties conceived as authentic expressions of migrant and minority experience. Literature and translation are active agents in such processes, which are largely based on cultural, discursive, and cognitive constraints that condition the interpretation of each text.
Highlights
Boundaries, hybridity, and authenticityThe story of growing up between two or more cultures has been a popular theme in Western narrative fiction for decades
This article analyzes the representation of linguistic variation in the Finnish translations of four Swedish coming-of-age stories depicting migrant or minority perspectives: Mikael Niemi’s 2000 Popular Music from Vittula, Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s 2003 Ett öga rött, Marjaneh Bakhtiari’s 2005 Kalla det vad fan du vill, and Susanna Alakoski’s 2006 Svinalängorna
I will analyze the representation of sociolinguistic variation in the Swedish source texts and in Finnish translations of Mikael Niemi’s Populärmusik från Vittula (2000, published in English as Popular Music from Vittula in 2003), Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s Ett öga rött ([‘One Eye Red’], 2003), Marjaneh Bakhtiari’s Kalla det vad fan du vill ([‘Call It Whatever You Want’ or ‘I Don’t Give a Fuck What You Call It’], 2005), and Susanna Alakoski’s Svinalängorna ([‘Swine Projects’ or ‘Swine Rows’], 2006)
Summary
The story of growing up between two or more cultures has been a popular theme in Western narrative fiction for decades. I will analyze the representation of sociolinguistic variation in the Swedish source texts and in Finnish translations of Mikael Niemi’s Populärmusik från Vittula (2000, published in English as Popular Music from Vittula in 2003), Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s Ett öga rött ([‘One Eye Red’], 2003), Marjaneh Bakhtiari’s Kalla det vad fan du vill ([‘Call It Whatever You Want’ or ‘I Don’t Give a Fuck What You Call It’], 2005), and Susanna Alakoski’s Svinalängorna ([‘Swine Projects’ or ‘Swine Rows’], 2006) This analysis, which focuses mainly on speech and thought representation, is necessarily a linguistic one. I will analyze whether the concepts of hybridity, boundaries, authenticity, and polyphony are useful in explaining both the emerging genre of multicultural coming-of-age stories in Sweden and some of the translation strategies that can be observed in Finnish translations of novels belonging to this genre. A formalist linguistic or pragmatic analysis would not suffice to answer why this particular novelistic genre has emerged and how and why certain translation strategies related to this genre can be identified
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
