Ana Sofia Anjos Sousa Fialho Saldanha
Advisor: Prof. Dr. Josélia Neves
Awarding University: University of Coimbra, Portugal
KEYWORDS: Literary translation; Slang; Sexual Language; Taboo Language; Translation Studies
This translation project was accomplished in the scope of the Masters in Translation and had, as its main aim, the study of slang, sexual language and taboo language using, as object of study, William Sutcliffe`s work The Love Hexagon.
In order to achieve the aim of this project, four main chapters of the work were chosen and their complete translation was done. Of these four chapters, examples were withdrawn and later analyzed regarding the translation theories referred to in the theoretical analysis in this project.
As slang, sexual language and taboo language translation shall not be seen as themes that could only be studied from a linguistic point of view; social, translational and cultural factors were also taken into consideration.
With the aim of analyzing the possible translation options for the excerpts taken from The Love Hexagon, we proceeded to the creation of an exhaustive list of examples where slang, sexual language and taboo language exist. This same analysis allowed a comparative analysis of the source text and of the target text, in this case, the translation.
Using, as starting point, the strong presence of slang, sexual language and taboo language in the work already referred to, it was made an attempt to understand the translation strategies to be used regarding the translation of works which come from these areas and also regarding the "marginal" approach that these words and this work can suffer.
It was also added a description, as wide as possible, of the main characteristics which are attributed to slang, to its use and to its integration in society and in literature. It was also verified the existence of the "self-censorship" factor in the translated literature in Portugal and the predominant role performed by the translation in the "feeding" of this same "self-censorship".
