Translating George Bernard Shaw, a linguistic and cultural challenge

Ma. Elena Pérez Bustillo,María Graciela Eliggi

doi:10.37389/abei.v21i2.3817

Abstract

George Bernard Shaw, playwright and theatre critic, was an outstanding but also highly controversial figure. In his role as critic, writing for The Saturday Review, he exposed and condemned the weaknesses of Victorian drama, full of melodramatic, biased ideas, typical of the English bourgeois mentality of his time. He was concerned, not only with drama but mostly with the attitude of a hypocritical society. Rosalie Rahal Haddad’s book Shaw, O Critico/Shaw, the Critic (2009), presents what Shaw understood as good theater and comments on some of his critical texts that show how his ideas prevail and are still applicable today. In this work we intend to show, first, the difficulties met while translating from both Portuguese and late 19th century English and the decisions made by the translators. Secondly, we aim at referring to the process of negotiation of meanings (Eco 2008) and the linguistic and cultural revision resulting from the initial phase of translation, which is understood as a multidimensional process that includes the acts of reading and re-reading, as well as interpreting, based on context of production and reception, creating a text in another language, and finally revising, before coming out with the translated version.

Highlights

George Bernard Shaw, playwright and theatre critic, was an outstanding and highly controversial figure
It was not a translation from English to Spanish as we were used to, but the translation of the original manuscripts by Shaw in English, plus the sections by Rosalie Rahal Haddad, which contained a comprehensive introduction, and brief summaries – written by the author in Portuguese – at the beginning of each chapter to anticipate the contents of each text
In this article we present firstly, the difficulties met while translating from both Portuguese and English, late 19th century English, and the decisions made by the translators

Summary

Unusual collocation of “CLEAN” as adverb meaning completely:

I have once more shared with Ibsen the triumphant amusement of startling all but the strongest-headed of the London theatre critics out of the practice of their profession. (Shaw 182 emphasis by authors). I have once more shared with Ibsen the triumphant amusement of startling all but the strongest-headed of the London theatre critics out of the practice of their profession. Y una vez más compartí con Ibsen la diversión triunfal de escandalizar a todos menos a los críticos más firmes del teatro londinense, ya la práctica de su profesión. (Haddad b 328 emphasis by authors) alejados de Y una vez más compartí con Ibsen la diversión triunfal de escandalizar a todos menos a los críticos más firmes del teatro londinense, ya la práctica de su profesión. (Haddad b 328 emphasis by authors) alejados de

Spelling of the verb SHOW as SHEW

Expressions such as “pleecemin” “reel and ideel”