6533b834fe1ef96bd129d4f4

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Cultural References and Linguistic Exponents of Gender in the Norwegian Translation of Michał Witkowski’s Lubiewo

Barbara Gawrońska Pettersson

subject

Grammatical genderHistorybusiness.industryGermanic languagesNorwegianComicslanguage.human_languageLinguisticsGermanlanguageNarrativeSituational ethicsbusinessIntertextuality

description

The novel Lubiewo by the Polish writer Michal Witkowski has been called by its reviewers “a homosexual Decamerone.” The atmosphere of the book ranges from bright situational comic through bizarre tragicomic to serious reflection, and the narration structure resembles Boccaccio’s. The heroes (or heroines) of the novel belong to a complicated and internally split world of Polish homosexuals. Their sociolects and registers are, at first glance, barely translatable into Germanic languages: partly because of the Polish grammatical gender system, partly because of their extremely deep anchoring in the Polish culture. In this chapter, the Norwegian translation of Lubiewo is compared to the novel’s English and German versions. The focus lies on the strategies for rendering gender differences and cultural references, including intertextuality.

yearjournalcountryeditionlanguage
2019-01-01
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28509-8_15