Le Livre De La Jungle Analysis

V.2. Preliminary conclusions

“Le livre de la jungle” is probably the most famous work of Louis Fabulet and Robert d’Humières. Earlier editions are collectibles and the price can be pretty high. Analysing the translation, we discovered a very small number of micro-strategies in comparison with the Romanian versions. The majority proved to be on purpose, as it is obvious from the discussions, part of the analysis. Every single addition, permutation and substitution has a scope, most of the times connected with stylistic and linguistic ground. Modulation and repetition, were not found. We did encounter an adaptation, which, according to Klitgård, can be considered a text-specific translation problem: Marshal Niel is translated into “Maréchal

In Italian, as in all latin languages, nouns become augmentatives and/or diminutives through suffixes. Whilst in English there has to be at least two separated words in order to express something like a big man, a small boy, in Italian there can be a single word omone, ragazzetto. However, this would fall under the literal translation rather than oblique translation, as omone is a funny word or a funny way to express a big man. In general, adults tend to use augmentative when talking to children to increase the humoristic aspect, and diminutives to increase the cuteness. Working on a piece of children literature, the translator approached this technique; therefore one can encounter many augmentatives and diminutives in the Italian

The influence of the mother tongue is predominant, as Rikki-tikki Tavi becomes an Italian children story than a translation of Kipling’s work. It can be considered that there is a whole process of adaptation and equivalence behind all this, but considering the ambiguities and unclear patterns used by the translator, this can hardly be the real situation. It gives the feeling that the focus was not on the ST, but rather on the TT. The translator finds a way to make the ST familiar in TT, rather than to find a balance between literal and oblique translation. He/She does not focus on “underlying ideas and qualities that are being conveyed to us in a more or less subtle manner” (Klitgård: 2008, 249) by the author, but rather on how to make the text to be