Linguistic Aspects of Social Class in Five Jeeves & Wooster Books and Their French TranslationsRebetz, Jonathan Samuel (Avtor) Currie, Oliver (Mentor) Gacoin-Marks, Florence (Mentor) P. G. Wodehousesociolinguisticsliterary studiesfictolinguisticstranslation studiesThis master's thesis explores the representation of social class in P.~G. Wodehouse's Jeeves & Wooster books from the perspective of language. Initially, it is shown that Wodehouse used many stereotypes in his caracterization of Bertie Wooster and his manservant Jeeves. Then, since their use of language is one of those stereotypes, the thesis tries to establish how it could be analysed. Extant sociolinguistic frameworks are explored and assessed with regard to their their usefulness in the analysis of literary works. The conclusion is that while variationist methods are indispensable for the analysis of the spontaneous speech of living subjects, their usefulness is limited for literary studies. Still, a method that is applicable also in literature is the careful analysis of the linguistic variable. Furthermore, many other sociolinguistic concepts can be used with the purpose of understanding the potentially socially indexed language in a literary text, although the methods of their application have to be adapted to literary studies. One thus arrives at an interdisciplinary field -- the thesis names it literary sociolinguistics -- that analyses linguistic variables in literary texts in order to use them as supporting evidence in the explanation of characterization. Then, ensuing from the fact that the task of the literary translator is at its outset very similar to the task of the literary sociolinguist, a third academic field is appended to the framework miscellany, namely translation studies. Translators of all literary texts have to deal with the identification of socially and culturally connotated items (wherein one finds enregistered language) but in the case of novels where culturemes contribute to characterization, the latter are of extreme importance in translation; the translator must therefore follow several steps to translate such items well, and this thesis provides him with a possible course of action. The central section of the thesis, being the practical counterpart of the theoretical discussion, analyses the two main characters' personal idioms on the basis of a corpus of five novels, putting special emphasis on linguistic features characteristic of social class. The speech patterns of Jeeves and Wooster are interpreted through the analysis of the history, the formality, the typical contexts, and the corresponding register of the expressions used. The French translations of the identified patterns of speech are analysed by using the same criteria. Each of the translation choices is explained and assessed, and for those solutions which are held to be suboptimal, alternative translations are provided. Several universal conclusions are then drawn: firstly, that the concepts of sociolinguistics can indeed be useful in the analysis of works where there are many linguistic hints about the characters' social class; secondly, that the goal of a literary-sociolinguistic analysis should be the deeper understanding of characterization; thirdly, that the correct translation of sociolinguistic connotations is important but, as it is an example of cultureme translation, extremely difficult; and finally, that a translation can be moderately successful despite shortcomings when it comes to rendering sociolinguistic connotations in the target language, because in literary texts characterization is not dependent solely on the representation of the character's language.20222022-10-08 07:47:36Magistrsko delo/naloga141793sl