Functional Interdiscursivity and Linguistic Conventions in Neuronovels

Abstract

This study aims to challenge, both theoretically and practically, the concept of genre in translation studies. First, starting from the conceptual delimitation and theoretical boundaries between text type, genre and register, this article presents the characteristics of these concepts and their applicability in relation to the translation process. Secondly, by exploiting the functionality of interdiscursivity and hybridisation of genres, the present analysis proposes a discussion of how the neuronovel fluidises the boundaries between literary genre and neuroscientific discourse through the “neurologisation” of vocabulary, style and narrative strategies, and of the particularities that the translation of neuronovels or literary neurotranslation reveals. The study concludes with a case study of the translation into Romanian of Jonathan Lethem’s novel Motherless Brooklyn (1999), focusing on the translation strategies of simple and complex vocal tics and on the translation difficulties imposed by the atypicality of narrative discourse told from the perspective of a character diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome.