Role language: what is it and how is it translated? A focus on translations of the works of Haruki Murakami

Program

13:20-14:20
Guest lecture: Satoshi Kinsui ”Role Language and Characters”

14:20-14:30
Break

14:30-15:30
Presentation: Hiroko Yamakido "Translating the Untranslatable: A Case Study of the Kansai Dialect in Haruki Murakami’s Novels and Short Stories"

15:30-15:45
Break

15:45 – 16:30
Presentation: Fusae Ivarsson “The Characters and Their Speech Styles in Drive My Car: A Novel/Film Comparison of the Japanese and Swedish Versions”

Abstracts

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Satoshi Kinsui ”Role Language and Characters”
‘Role language’ refers to sets of speech features that are closely related to the speakers’ personal images and it can be considered a type of linguistic ‘stereotype’. The research of role language is essentially interdisciplinary and has broad applications. Apart from syntax, lexicology, phonology, semantics, pragmatics, etc. which form the core of the discipline, various adjacent areas such as dialect studies, history, literature, sociology, developmental psychology, popular culture studies, etc., also have strong relationships with role language research. The area of comparative studies is also remarkable. Studies comparing English, German, Swedish, Korean, Chinese, etc. centred on role language are making progress, which is believed to contribute to a higher standard of translation quality.

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Hiroko Yamakido "Translating the Untranslatable: A Case Study of the Kansai Dialect in Haruki Murakami’s Novels and Short Stories"

This presentation explores how regional dialects (hereafter, “dialects”) in literary works are handled in translation. With their power to convey distinctiveness in language and setting, dialects can be useful in portraying individual characters; however, it is this very particularity, whether geographical, cultural or social, that makes the treatment of dialects one of the most challenging aspects of translation. To study this problem, I examined, as a case study, the English translations of several examples of speech in Kansai dialect from novels and short stories by Haruki Murakami. While the dialects in question are typically rendered into Standard American English, I discuss the ways in which the translators try to compensate for what is lost from the original. I finish my presentation with a brief examination of the Swedish translations of some of the Murakami works above.

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Fusae Ivarsson “The Characters and Their Speech Styles in Drive My Car: A Novel/Film Comparison of the Japanese and Swedish Versions”

The main characters in Haruki Murakami's short novel "Drive My Car" are portrayed to some extent differently in its film adaptation Drive My Car by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi. This presentation will summarise the dissimilarities between the novel and the film regarding the corresponding characters and analyse from the viewpoint of role language how such dissimilarities are reflected in the characters’ speech styles in the Japanese versions and their Swedish translations.

Please note that important details of the plot development of the above mentioned novel and film may be revealed in the presentation.

Links to the books that include the novel "Drive My Car":

• The Japanese version: 『女のいない男たち』村上春樹 著http://books.bunshun.jp/ud/book/num/9784167907082
• The Swedish version: Män utan kvinnor (översättare: Eiko Duke, Yukiko Duke)
  https://www.norstedts.se/bok/9789113097329/man-utan-kvinnor

Link to the film Drive My Car directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (with Swedish subtitles):

• https://www.njutafilms.com/drive-my-car-dvd-vod/