Research within translation characterises cultural references as being problematic for translators, meaning they must choose between different translation strategies as to how to transfer these references into the translated text. These strategies are often described in general terms according to how closely oriented they are to the target-culture or source-culture, known as domestication or foreignisation. Translation of literature into English is minimal in world terms and there is seemingly a lack of statistically comparable data concerning the translation of cultural references. This study investigates and compares translation strategies of words denoting cultural references in two translations of the 1998 Swedish Nordic Noir novel Sprängaren by Liza Marklund. The methodology in the study is based on descriptive translation studies, and a categorisation model for types of cultural references is used, as well as an adapted taxonomy model for evaluating translation strategies. Issues addressed are: what types of strategies are used; whether strategies change between translations; how the second translation stands in relation to the retranslation hypothesis and whether any general translation norms are apparent. Results show that a wide variety of translation strategies are used for different types of cultural references, with subtle differences in strategies used in each translation. However, both translations appear to be more domestication-oriented with little overall movement towards to the source culture, as the retranslation hypothesis suggests.

Denna studie syftar till att se vilka skillnader som går att urskilja mellan tre olika svenska översättningar av Arthur Conan Doyles A study in scarlet. Vidare syftar studien också till att se hur dessa skillnader förhåller sig till den så kallade nyöversättningshypotesen, som menar att varje ny översättning blir allt mer lik källtexten, samt de olika översättningsideal som varit norm under respektive tillkomsttid. Genom dels en kvantitativ analys och dels kvalitativ närläsning studeras språkliga, kulturella och övriga faktorer. Studien visar att nyöversättningshypotesen främst går att verifiera gällande språkliga faktorer och att samtliga översättningar till stor del speglar sina respektive samtiders översättningsideal. Det gör att lärare i de flesta fall kan välja översättningar efter hur bra deras respektive samtidsideal passar läsningens didaktiska syfte. Studien visar också på olika aspekter i A study in scarlet som i översättning försvårar läsarens förståelse av texten, vilket också är nyttigt för lärare att vara medvetna om i val av utgåva.

In 1879, eight years after the Franco-Prussian War, Jules Verne published his novel Les Cinc Cents Millions de la Bégum, confronting the philantropic Frenchman Dr. Sarrasin with the cold-blooded, arrogant and brutal German professor Schultze. In doing so, the author wanted to show the moral superiority of his country over what was then termed its “hereditary enemy”. Despite this problematic topic, Verne’s novel was translated to German for the first time in the same year; two more retranslations appeared in 1901 and 1967, respectively. One aim of this master’s thesis is to show how – in an effort to render the translation as close as possible to the original while also avoiding to offend their readers – the German speaking translators coped with the negative image of Germany (and the positive image of France). For this purpose, I use André Lefevere’s descriptive model to show under what circumstances literary works are created and translated. Another focus is put on the so-called retranslation hypothesis, established in the early nineties of the last century by French translator Antoine Berman and claiming that first translations always tend to be domesticating whereas later retranslations have a more foreignizing character. In this thesis I will put his thesis to test, looking for foreignizing and domesticating elements in all three translations. Furthermore, I try to reconstruct the reasons why the first translation of Verne’s novel was followed by two more German translations in the following ninety years.