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The register of Tolkien’s The Hobbit and how it is translated into Japanese
Dalarna University, School of Language, Literatures and Learning.
2021 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

Tolkien, via his philological and linguistic abilities, managed to craftidiosyncratic dialogue that convey both concsious and subconscious characteristicsof the characters. How does one translate such unique dialogue from the Englishlanguage into the Japanese language whilst still remaining faithful to the sourcematerial? That is what this thesis investigated. The Hobbit, which was one of Tolkien’sfirst works was published in September 21st 1937 is analyzed in this thesis.The three trolls, Bert, William and Tom with their cockney-like sociolect and theinfamous beast Gollum with his corrupted, degenerated grammar are examinedthoroughly. The translation which this thesis use is by Teiji Seta published in 1965.This thesis also related the findings to the theory of fictionalized orality in the Japaneselanguage created by the researcher Satoshi Kinsui. The thesis finds thatSeta has a strong fluidity in his modus operandi when translating the dialogue ofthe three trolls and Gollum. One of the most distinct strategy indentified in thisstudy is the change of Gollum’s most prevalent idiosyncratic speech pattern. Thatpattern is the grammatical corruption in his speech, pockets becomes pocketses,eggs becomes eggses etc. This grammatical tendency is changed by Seta into aphonetical tendency, です (desu) becomes でし (deshi), する (suru) becomes しる (shiru) and so forth.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021.
Keywords [en]
Register, speech pattern, Tolkien, Legendarium, idiosyncrasies, idiosyncratic, The Hobbit, Kinsui, role language
National Category
Languages and Literature
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-37457OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-37457DiVA, id: diva2:1570670
Subject / course
Japanese
Available from: 2021-06-22 Created: 2021-06-22 Last updated: 2022-03-07

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • chicago-author-date
  • chicago-note-bibliography
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf