The language of violence in alfred döblin's novelberlin alexanderplatzand its translation into english

Abstract

Summary The article concentrates on the language of violence as the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz by the German author Alfred Doblin manifests it, and the difficulties of translating these signs into the English language which has its own ritualised codes of action, ideologies and cultural associations as signs. Traditional imagery in the form of metaphor or personification is more or less transferable, but next to this Doblin works with song motifs which by means of association underpin the signs of violence and aggression inherent in everyday language. These motifs are autonomous images of substantiated figurativeness, to which the other images and metaphors are referred. The associative fields are very specific manifestations of the historical experience structures of the German language, whereas similar codifications, conventionalisations and typifications inherent in the English language are linked to different functions and significations. As a result the problem arises for the translator that, before...