CHIARA -  BRIT FROM READING
“HOW ELEGANT WE ARE!”
“OUR BRITISH SENSE OF HUMOUR HAS BECOME A WORLD STANDARD.”
GOD “SAVE” THE QUEEN 
“DO WHAT YOU MUST, JUST SO YOU DO IT PROPERLY”
“ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE, ABOVE ALL, ENGLISH”
BRITAIN BUILT AN EMPIRE THAT STILL EXISTS!
MELTING POT IS GOOD, BUT NOT TOO MUCH! 
SAY WHAT YOU MEAN BUT NON ASSERTIVELY.





Characteristics of Anglo modes of expression

 
Sample high level modes: 
the communicative intent manifests itself as 
a. concrete, 
b. explicit, 
c. practical, 
d. confrontational (but gentlemanly so: hedging, understatement), 
e. eclectic...


Sample low level modes: 
the communicative intent manifests itself through 
a. phrasal verbs, quasi deictic definite articles – spatial concreteness 
b. stress placement to “telegraph” essential information – explicitness 
c. mostly baton (with few redundant iconic) gestures – practicality 
d. turn taking to avoid silences & limit multiple floors – gentlemanliness 
e. creativity in varying genres (new situations, fads...) – eclecticism




Codes: a. verbal, b. paraverbal, c. behavioral, d. interactional, e. discoursual...


















Typology of translation types:

-- literal translation ("How do you do"  >  Come fai tu fare)

-- semantic translation ("How do you do"  >  Lieto di conoscerla)

-- communicative translation ("How do you do"  >  ??? )
---The choice of words depends totally on context and target readership.
---Take, for example, a possible translation of the first line from The
---Green Fields of France, aimed at the young Italians who participate
---in the peace marches.  Here "How do you do"  >  Buongiorno.
-----------"Well, how do you do, Private William McBride"  > 
-----------Be', buongiorno, soldato Guiglielmo McBride

-- communicative-cultural translation (with extensive re-editing, but
---only to conserve, in the translation, the communicative intents
---expressed in the original).  Here "How do you do"  >  Buon dì. 
-----------"Well, how do you do, Private William McBride"  > 
-----------Buon di', se permetti, soldato Giuffrè.

-- auteur translation (with extensive re-writing to express the
---translator's intents, superimposed on the communicative intents
---expressed in the original).  Here "How do you do"  >  Che vedo, 
---and "Private William McBride"  >  una croce
-----------"Well, how do you do, Private William McBride"  > 
-----------Tra le verdi colline, che vedo?! Una croce!
-----------(The German 'translation' was something like this.)






Create a "communicative-cultural" translation into Italian of the contemporary Scots ballad The Green Fields of France. 

Your verses must respect the meter imposed by the music: _ / _ _ / _ _ / _ _ /    so you should listen to the song while writing your version.  Of course, since Italian words are predominantly piane, you can also use the metric  _ / _ _ / _ _ / _ _ / _    and barely pronounce the last syllable. 

You have the choice of listening to:

either the Irish singer Karl Byrne, whom I heard and recorded live while I was in Glasgow last weekend (at O'Neill's pub in Sauchiehall Street: see the photos I took on the page with the lyrics). You can also choose to listen to Byrne's studio recording of The green fields of France: it is less emotionally-charged but doesn't have pub noise in the background;

or the recording of the original but less known version of the song, entitled No man's land.  It has slightly different lyrics from those that the Furey Brothers' Irish version has made popular worldwide and that I heard Karl Byrne sing last weekend in Glasgow. But it is nonetheless the original and it is sung by the author, the Scots folk singer Eric Bogle. 

Your goal, as communicative-cultural translators (but not auteurs), is to produce a song which Eric Bogle would have written if, knowing Italian as you do, he had visited an Italian military cemetery and, upon seeing the gravestone of a 19-year-old dead soldier, had had the same inspiration and series of communicative intents that lead to the lyrics of The green fields of France. (For the difference between communicative-cultural and auteur translations, see the class notes in the Lesson section above: click here.)

If you want to see an auteur translation of the song (to see what you shouldn't do), I have included on the lyrics page the version made by a German folk singer, Hannes Wader. Avoid this kind of total rewriting, since Bogle seems to disapprove of it.

Once you have finished your version, you can practice singing it to the keroke recording of the song which you will find on the lyrics page, too.

E-mail submissions (single or group) to translation @ boylan.it by May 24th. 

Click here for the lyrics page> file://localhost/c:/k_/w/s/boylan/courses/music/green_fi.htm