Description
Revolution and oppression in translated versions of Animal Farm
Aikaterini Gavra
MA ‘Translation: Greek, English, Russian’
The paper focuses on portrayal of two central themes, ‘oppression’ and ‘revolution’, in George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm (1945) and especially in Old Major’s speech. Old Major, the wisest and oldest of the animals unites the farm against humans and inspires the animals’ rebellion. The aim of the study is to explore a Russian (1989) and a Greek (2005) target version of Old Major’s speech. The study intends to highlight differences in the way the target versions shape oppression and revolution and to account for these differences in terms of pragmatic theoretical concepts. Findings show that oppression and revolution are more vividly shaped in the Russian target version than in the Greek one, along with pessimism about the farm’s situation, implications of hard work and exhaustion, collective awareness and optimistic prospects of a revolution. Multilingual parti¬cipants, answered questionnaires, for confirming data analysis. The research offers insight into how relevance awareness may shape translator intention to adapt target versions to respective audiences.
