The translation into Catalan of marked structures inKing Lear

Abstract

Different languages have different means (or structures) to either foreground or background the informational (thematic-rhematic) import of the constituents involved in their sentences. English and Catalan differ substantially, since these two languages resort to two different types of strategies to encode such pragmatic information. Whereas in English thematic (old) information may be left deaccented inside the clause, in Catalan it must be moved to a peripheral (dislocated) position in the structure. This might trigger the binding of a clitic in the clause to satisfy the requirements of the verb. Hence, in order to maintain the quality of the original text, translators should be aware of the equivalences that marked structures have in the target language so as to avoid the weakening of the quality of the target text. If the choice of marked structures is relevant in the original text, that choice should be reflected in (quality) target texts as well. To approach how marked structures are treated in translations, four strategies (which are either contrastive and/or involve clitic binding in Catalan) will be analysed in a fragment of Shakespeare's King Lear.