Intralingual translations

One can translate from one language into another language, but also from one language variety into another variety of the same language. An example of the latter would be a translation from British English into American English. Many Harry Potter readers know that the American editions of the series were different from the British originals. While this is a very famous example, originally British books are often modified for American readers, in terms of spelling, vocabulary and cultural concepts. Despite common belief, such an intralingual translation of British books into American English is common practice and does not only happen in the realm of children’s literature (Mühleisen 2009: 377 and 388). American readers buying an originally British book are often unaware of the fact that it has been modified for them (Pillière 2010: 2). This is where traditional interlingual translations and intralingual translations differ from each other. The readers of books that have been translated from one language into another know that a translation has taken place. In an intralingual translation, the fact that editing has taken place is not as obvious to the reader (Pillière 2010: 6f.).

The American editors’ need to adapt British fiction for their readers is the outcome of the linguistic differences between the two varieties, which result from the history of the English language. Contemporary American English, as well as British English, derives from an earlier variety of English spoken on the British Isles (Algeo 2006: 1). As a matter of fact, American adaptations of British fiction offer good sources for insights into differences between British and American English (Algeo 2006: 5) and are therefore linguistically interesting.

One of the examples of an intralingual translation is the American edition of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary (Fielding 1998), which, apart from orthographic modifications, has also undergone changes in grammar, vocabulary and cultural references, as can be seen when comparing it to the original British edition (Fielding [1996] 2001). In the realm of grammar, for example, the editions differ in terms of prepositional usage and the forms of irregular verbs. Since Bridget Jones’s Diary is a quintessentially British book, a few cultural references had to be changed to make their meanings understandable to American readers. This practice is meant to ‘move the text toward the cultural background of the reader’ (Mühleisen 2009: 382). For example, some names of personalities from British popular culture were replaced with American or more internationally known stars. With cultural references, the reading experience is probably more vivid when one understands what exactly is meant. Nevertheless, the reader may still be able to guess what is meant even when the specifics of a reference are unknown. The majority of alterations in the American edition, however, were concerned with vocabulary items. Many of the words that were changed in the American edition were everyday words concerned with food, clothing and household items. Despite a large number of changes, many Britishisms remained unchanged in the American edition and the text still sounds distinctly British.
 
The changes undertaken in intralingual translations influence the voices of the characters and the narrator of a text (Pillière 2010). Such an alteration of literature, of a piece of art, can indeed be questionable. Mühleisen (2009) argues that American adaptations are made for ideological reasons, i.e. the need to establish and maintain a separate linguistic identity. As American literature is published in the UK without major changes (Pillière 2010: 7), one might wonder whether an intralingual translation is really necessary. As Mühleisen (2009: 391) points out, American adaptations of British novels could be carried out ad absurdum. Where does one stop? Generally speaking, an adaptation of the orthography may be reasonable, as it is indeed confusing to encounter two orthographic systems for the same language. When it comes to lexical or cultural changes, it is harder to say whether those are really necessary. In a book, words do not occur in isolation and the context often provides help for the reader. It is also not necessary to understand every single word or concept in order to enjoy a book. It is of course also debatable as to whether American readers actually want such translations (cf. Mühleisen 2009: 391f.). Changing a book to a large extent might diminish the charm that it had in its original form. Furthermore, literature can provide a door to a different, foreign world, thus broadening the reader’s horizons. The opportunities for this would be limited when a text is changed to be more similar to the reader’s own world. I can only concur with Mühleisen’s (2009: 387) view that ‘it is one of the excitements of the act of reading that you can enter a new world and discover things with which you are not familiar – and gradually find out more about them.’

Bibliography

Algeo, John. 2006. British or American English: A Handbook of Word and Grammar Patterns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fielding, Helen. [1996] 2001. Bridget Jones’s Diary. London: Picador.

—, 1998. Bridget Jones’s Diary. New York: Viking Penguin.

Mühleisen, Susanne. 2009. Language Ideology and the Language Divide in Cross-Atlantic Translations. In Americanisms: Discourses of Exception, Exclusion, Exchange, ed. Michael Steppat, 377-393. Heidelberg: Winter.

Pillière, Linda. 2010. Conflicting Voices: An analysis of Intralingual translation from British English to American English. E-rea: Revue électronique d’études sur le monde anglophone 8 (1): 2-10.