The english translation of Grazia Deledda’s La Madre and the relevance of culture in translating Landscape metaphor

Résumé

This contribution explores the impact of the translator’s cultural framework on the translation of landscape-related metaphor via a contrastive analysis of La madre, by the Sardinian Nobel Laureate in Literature Grazia Deledda, and its 1922 translation (The Mother) by Mary Steegman.  Culture influences the vision of nature in providing distinct norms and ideologies about how people relate to others and the natural world. Deledda’s language of space originated from a subjective perception, and so did her use of space-related metaphors. In translation, however, the negotiation of meaning involving landscape metaphors becomes more complex. The source author’s subjective perception and individuality overlaps with the translator’s subjectivity, which impacts on the target text with political and ideological consequences. This contribution examines in particular anthropomorphism and the relationship between metaphor and simile. It will be argued that the translator’s interpretation can re-shape relationship and the target readers’ understanding of that landscape. The analysis will be based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and Mandelblit’s Cognitive Translation Hypothesis (1995). Ecostylistics will provide a further framework, to examine the patterns which uncover the translator’s approach with regards to nature and landscape.