The “Dual Voice” of Free Indirect Discourse: A Reading Experiment with Croatian Speakers Reading a Literary Text in English and Croatian

Abstract

The possibility of “dual voice” in free indirect discourse has attracted considerable attention in the fields of stylistics, cognitive science and literary criticism. An area suitable for empirical research studies in this regard is point of view and how it is identified during the reading process by non-native speakers as well as the role of translators in influencing the reader to accept a particular point of view. This paper presents results of a research study designed to examine how readers respond to free indirect discourse. The research considered four research questions:RQ1: Do readers hear a ‘dual voice’ when reading passages of free indirect discourse?RQ2: What kind of ‘contexts’ influence the identification of point of view?RQ3: Are there any differences in the results obtained between non-native speakers reading the original literary text and native speakers of the language reading the translation of the same original?RQ4: Has the translator influenced the readers of the translation in any way (thus serving as a “third voice”)?The text for the experiment was from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The experiment was conducted with two groups of participants: 38 non-native university students studying English as one of their majors to become elementary school teachers of English and 40 university students and native speakers of Croatian studying to become elementary school teachers teaching all core subjects. The results show that a quarter of the study participants could hear the “dual voice” and that the translator's influence remained for the most part irrelevant. The difference between the two study groups was not substantial and the reasons for choosing their answers mentioned by the participants did not significantly differ.