“His Dark Materials” in translation
A skopos-theoretical analysis of Hanna Lützen’s Danish translation of Philip Pullman’s
fantasy trilogy
Specialeafhandling, juni 2009
CLM Engelsk
Aarhus School of Business, Institut for Sprog og Erhvervskommunikation
Forfatter: Marianne Lund
Vejleder: Anne Gram Schjoldager
Antal tegn ekskl. blanktegn: 158.169
Table of contents
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 4
2. His Dark Materials......................................................................................................................... 8
2.1 The author ................................................................................................................................ 8
2.2 The worlds ................................................................................................................................ 9
2.3 The concept of Dust................................................................................................................ 13
2.4 The genre ................................................................................................................................ 15
3. Literary translation...................................................................................................................... 18
3.1 Aspects of literary translation in Denmark ......................................................................... 18
3.2 Translation of fantasy literature ........................................................................................... 20
4. Method and material ................................................................................................................... 22
4.1 Theoretical basis ..................................................................................................................... 22
4.1.1 The skopos theory ........................................................................................................... 22
4.1.2 Nord .................................................................................................................................. 24
4.1.3 Skopos and literary translation ..................................................................................... 31
4.2 Data selection .......................................................................................................................... 33
4.2.1 Neologisms ....................................................................................................................... 34
4.2.3 Non-standard language................................................................................................... 35
4.2.3 Names ............................................................................................................................... 36
4.3 Models ..................................................................................................................................... 37
4.3.1 Model of neologism types ............................................................................................... 37
4.3.2 Schjoldager’s model of microstrategies ........................................................................ 39
4.3.3 My model of microstrategies .......................................................................................... 41
5. Analysis and results ..................................................................................................................... 44
5.1 Comparative analysis of extratextual factors ...................................................................... 44
5.1.1 Roles ................................................................................................................................. 44
5.1.2 TT profile ......................................................................................................................... 45
5.1.3 ST profile ......................................................................................................................... 47
5.1.4 Comparison of profiles ................................................................................................... 49
5.1.5 Skopos and macrostrategy ............................................................................................. 50
5.2 Comparative analysis of intratextual factors ...................................................................... 52
2
5.2.1 Neologisms ....................................................................................................................... 52
5.2.1.1 Preservation strategies ............................................................................................. 53
5.2.1.2 Normalisation strategies .......................................................................................... 56
5.2.1.3 Inconsistencies .......................................................................................................... 60
5.2.2 Non-standard language................................................................................................... 65
5.2.2.1 Spoken language and dialect ................................................................................... 65
5.2.2.2 Archaic language ...................................................................................................... 69
5.2.2.3 Broken English ......................................................................................................... 70
5.2.2.4 Spelling ...................................................................................................................... 72
5.2.3 Names ............................................................................................................................... 74
5.2.3.1 Semantic meaning .................................................................................................... 74
5.2.3.2 Signs contained in names ......................................................................................... 75
5.2.3.3 Intertextual references ............................................................................................. 77
5.2.3.4 Inconsistencies .......................................................................................................... 78
6. Conclusion..................................................................................................................................... 81
List of tables...................................................................................................................................... 84
List of references .............................................................................................................................. 85
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................. 89
Appendix I Data: Neologisms
Appendix II Data: Non-standard language
Appendix III Data: Names
Appendix IV Summary of “His Dark Materials”
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1. Introduction
Even though fantasy can hardly be classified as a new phenomenon, the genre has become
increasingly difficult to ignore these past few decades. Writers like J. K. Rowling and C.S. Lewis
dominate the bookshelves in stores all over the western hemisphere with their acclaimed tales of
witches and wizards, dragons, talking lions, parallel worlds and perilous journeys. The ‘Pottermania’1 of the early 2000s, where fans, young and old, dressed up in pointy hats and robes and
camped out in front of bookstores to buy the newest addition to the Harry Potter-series, certainly
indicates a prevailing trend among the readership. Fantasy role-playing games have also become
increasingly popular with well-known brand-names like “Final Fantasy” and “Dungeons &
Dragons” in the forefront, chaining modern youth to the computer screen. Director Peter
Jackson’s very successful “Lord of the Rings” film-adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic threevolume novel, which received a total of 17 Academy Awards out of 30 nominations2, has once
again put names like Frodo, Aragorn and Gollum on everyone’s lips and cemented itself as a
success with all three films in the top-20 of all-time highest-grossing films – a list which also
includes several of the film-adaptations of the Harry Potter novels3.
As an avid reader of the Harry Potter novels, I too got caught up in the fantasy craze of this past
decade. So when a friend of mine first lent me her copy of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark
Materials”-trilogy to read, I was quick to allow myself to be sucked into yet another awardwinning fantastical reality; and, a few pages in, Pullman admittedly did manage to suck me in.
His overwhelmingly comprehensive universe of parallel worlds, exotic characters and mythical
beings, spun mainly around the exploits of the resourceful eleven-year-old protagonist Lyra
Belacqua, was, and still is, one of the most fascinating and gripping fantasy stories I have ever
read. And I am not alone.
This bestselling trilogy comprises the three novels “Northern Lights” (entitled “The Golden
Compass” in the US edition), “The Subtle Knife” and “The Amber Spyglass”. Among other
prizes, the last volume was the first children’s book to win the prestigious Whitbread Book of the
Year prize in 2002, and in 2007, “Northern Lights” won the poll as the best Carnegie Medal
winning children’s book of all time4.
1
Wikipedia article: Harry Potter fandom
Wikipedia article: The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
3
Wikipedia article: List of highest-grossing films
4
Wikipedia article: His Dark Materials
2
4
In 2007, New Line Cinema and director Chris Weitz turned the first volume of the trilogy into
the film “The Golden Compass”, starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, and featuring the
voice talents of Kathy Bates, Ian McKellen and Kristin Scott Thomas among others. This starstudded and long anticipated film adaptation was received with mixed reviews and criticised for
diluting controversial religious themes from the book in favour of grand Hollywood special
effects. Currently, New Line Cinema has no plans to produce sequels to “The Golden
Compass”.5 The two-part stage play adaptation of the trilogy, set in the London National
Theatre, was however much more successful6 and a Danish production of part one of the play,
translated by Hanna Lützen, is now playing in Aarhus, with part two scheduled for the autumn of
20097.
In the very nature of the word, fantasy often deals with alternate fictitious realities or parallel
universes, and this is also the case in “His Dark Materials” which actually takes place in several
different parallel worlds. The one that our main character Lyra grows up in is in fact quite
similar to what we know as Oxford or London in the real world, and certainly recognisable in
terms of geography, way of life and the human condition in general. The differences between the
invented world of the text and the ‘real’ world we live in, of course, appear most obviously in the
supernatural elements of Pullman’s universe: talking polar bears, flying witches, angels, magical
objects and, perhaps most interestingly, the dæmons who accompany each character as an animal
projection of his or her personality and soul; all phenomena which mark the genre and are
accepted by the reader as part of the fantasy experience.
But on a more subtle level, Pullman’s choice of terminology is actually one of the main clues to
the reader, that Lyra’s world is somehow skewed of from the reality of our world. For example,
the novels feature curious words like “anbarology”, “bloodmoss”, “night-ghast”, “chocolatl” and
“mulefa”, and refer to places such as “High Brazil”, “New Denmark” and “Brytain”. Readers
will also soon realise that the terms “theologian”, “philosopher” and “dust”, for instance, carry
different meanings in Lyra’s world than they do in ours. Pullman has used these neologisms to
underline the otherness of Lyra’s world with unfamiliar and strange words, but also as a linking
device to our real world, in that many of the terms are either reminiscent of ‘real’ words or
borrowed from other languages.
5
Wikipedia article: The Golden Compass (film)
Wikipedia article: His Dark Materials (play)
7
Aarhus Teater website
6
5
The moment my professional attention was first captured in my capacity of aspiring translator
was when I came across the word “panserbjørn” (a Danish compound meaning “armoured
bear”). As a native speaker of Danish, I could not help but wonder how a professional translator,
tasked with translating the trilogy into Danish, would approach this particular term. What would
her strategy be in that rather unique situation? And this soon led me to wonder how one might
approach all of these very colourful and creative neologisms, which, from a translator’s point of
view, could be considered both interesting and problematic. Since they form such an integral part
of Pullman’s universe, my first intuitive reasoning was that you would necessarily have to
address the issue of creatively transferring, if not all then at least, the most important ones to the
target language in order to ‘get it right’. But how do you effectively translate words which are
either made up, borrowed from various other languages or denote something else in the novel
than they do in real life?
Pullman’s trilogy was translated by the Danish author and literary translator Hanna Lützen and
entitled “Det gyldne kompas”, “Skyggernes kniv” and “Ravkikkerten”, and after having read
these as well, I decided to make her work on this widely popular trilogy the subject of my
master’s thesis. I have chosen to use the whole trilogy – the English source text (ST) and the
Danish target text (TT) - as the empirical basis for an analysis, which aims at determining:
- Lützen’s skopos and macrostrategy for translating the trilogy,
- how Lützen has solved specific translation problems,
- which microstrategies Lützen has employed to do so, and
- how Lützen’s micro-level solutions relate to the macrostrategy.
My focus will be on three specific translation problems:
First and foremost, I want to focus on the neologisms mentioned above: on what types of
neologisms are used, how Lützen has translated them and if she has been consistent throughout
the three novels.
Secondly, I will also be examining the translations of different dialectical and non-standard
manners of speech used by the author in the ST on different characters and peoples in order to
determine how Lützen has dealt with this problem in the TT.
Thirdly, the personal names of characters and creatures of the trilogy, which often carry meaning
or convey something about the character or creature in question, will also be examined and
analysed from a translation-theoretical point of view to determine Lützen’s approach to this
problem.
6
I will mainly be using Christiane Nord’s theoretical and analytical framework in my analysis of
Lützen’s work. Nord is a German translation theorist who is part of the functionalist school in
translation theory and inspired by Hans J. Vermeer’s very influential skopos theory, developed in
Germany in the 1970s. The skopos theory effectively dethrones the ST in terms of importance
and instead sees the purpose (skopos) of a given translation as the overriding and defining factor
in TT-production. (See e.g. Nord 2001:10-12)
Nord’s functional model for translation-oriented text analysis (Nord 2005) is a consequence of
her putting more emphasis on the ST than Vermeer does, in that she regards the ST as a basis for
decision-making on relevant points. Even though the model was developed as a tool for practical
translator training, it should also be applicable for determining Lützen’s skopos and macrostrategy under Nord’s documentary/instrumental-dichotomy.
In order to be able to examine Lützen’s decisions when faced with the above mentioned
translation problems, I am going to apply two taxonomies of micro-strategies to the selected
samples of data and use these as a tool to illustrate and discuss the translator’s considerations,
dilemmas and choices. The first taxonomy was developed by me for the particular purpose of
examining the translations of neologisms in “His Dark Materials”, but is inspired mainly by the
work of Vinay & Darbelnet (1995) and Schjoldager (2003). The second taxonomy of
microstrategies will be used in my examination of the translation of non-standard language and
names, and was developed by Anne Schjoldager (Schjoldager 2008).
My thesis is structured as follows:
Chapter 2 is a presentation of “His Dark Materials”, the author and the genre. Chapter 3 deals
with the topic of literary translation in a Danish context and reviews some of the research that
has been done in the field of translation of fantasy literature. Chapter 4 covers the theoretical and
analytical material applied in this thesis and describes the data used, as well as the methodology.
Chapter 5 constitutes the analysis and the results in two parts. The first part is the results of the
comparative analysis of extratextual factors and the second part is the results of the comparative
analysis of intratextual factors. Chapter 6 is my conclusion.
Abbreviations:
ST = Source text
TT = Target text
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2. His Dark Materials
Aside from being a thrilling read, Philip Pullman’s ”His Dark Materials” is interesting and
complex in many aspects. The purpose of this thesis is not to conduct a literary analysis,
however, and I will therefore only be focusing on four aspects: the author, the worlds of the
trilogy, the concept of ‘Dust’ and the genre. A brief summary of the storyline of all three novels
is available in Appendix IV below.
2.1 The author
Philip Pullman (b. 1946) was born in Eastern England, but spent some of his early childhood in
Australia, where his step-father was stationed. It was in Australia he was first introduced to
comic books like Superman and Batman, which inspired and fuelled his talent for telling stories.
After the family returned to Britain, Pullman attended school in North Wales and became
acquainted with John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, which would go on to become a major source of
inspiration to his writing “His Dark Materials”.8
After reading English at Exeter College in Oxford, Pullman spent twelve years teaching children
at various middle schools in Oxford. He would tell stories to his students in the class room every
Friday before the end of school, and wrote and produced the end-of-term plays, some of which
would go on to become inspiration for later novels. Pullman cultivated and refined his talent for
writing during this period and published his first children’s book, “Count Karlstein” in 1982.
After the publication of the first novel in his Sally Lockhart series, “The Ruby in the Smoke”, in
1986, Pullman took a part-time job teaching courses on the Victorian novel and Greek
Mythology at Westminster College in Oxford, but after eight years, he left teaching to become a
full-time writer.9
Pullman’s bibliography also includes what he himself calls fairy tales, such as “The FireworkMaker’s Daughter” and “I was a Rat”, but his most famous publications are without a doubt the
“His Dark Materials” trilogy. He wrote the three novels, “Northern Lights”, “The Subtle Knife”
and “The Amber Spyglass”, in his writing shed in the back of his home garden in Oxford over
the course of ten years, and the trilogy has won him many awards.10
Intelligent Life article: ”An interview with Philip Pullman”, by Robert Butler; HisDarkMaterials.org “Philip Pullman
Biography”
9
Ibid.
10
Philip Pullman website
8
8
Generally, Pullman finds inspiration in everything he has ever read and sees it as his principle to
“read like a butterfly, write like a bee”11. He lists three specific authors to whom he feels
indebted in connection with “His Dark Materials”, namely, Heinrich von Kleist and his “On the
Marionette Theatre”, William Blake and John Milton and his “Paradise Lost”. The title of “His
Dark Materials” was in fact taken from a line in Book II of this latter poem, as Pullman also
points out by quoting Milton in one of the first pages of “Northern Lights”.12
The trilogy has raised objections, especially from Christian and Catholic groups, which point to
the critical view on religion presented by some of the characters, as well as Pullman’s depiction
of the church, as offensive. The author’s personal view on God and religion has been brought
forward in many interviews, especially in connection with the release of the film “The Golden
Compass” in 2007, which put the controversy back on the agenda. Pullman says that he did not
question God as a child, his grandfather being a clergyman with a skill for recounting Bible
stories, but as an adult, Pullman puts his views as follows:
“I can see no evidence (…) of the existence of God. So I’m caught between the words ‘atheistic’ and
‘agnostic’. I’ve got no evidence whatever for believing in a God. But I know that all the things I do know
are very small compared to the things that I don’t know. So maybe there is a God out there. All I know is
that if there is, he hasn’t shown himself on earth.” 13
2.2 The worlds
The fundamental basis of “His Dark Materials” is the idea of the multiverse – the existence of
multiple parallel worlds between which our characters travel throughout the trilogy. At the end
of the first novel, Lord Asriel explains to Lyra how these uncountable billions of parallel worlds
came into being:
“Now that world, and every other universe, came about as a result of possibility. Take the example of
tossing a coin: it can come down heads or tails, and we don’t know before it lands which way it’s going to
fall. If it comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until
that moment the two possibilities were equal. But on another world, it does come down tails. And when
that happens, the two worlds split apart. I’m using the example of tossing a coin to make it clearer. In
“The Amber Spyglass”: Acknowledgements.
Ibid.
13
Surefish article: “A dark agenda?”, by Susan Roberts
11
12
9
fact, these possibility-collapses happen at the level of elementary particles, but they happen in just the
same way: one moment several things are possible, the next moment only one happens, and the rest don’t
exist. Except that other worlds have sprung into being, on which they did happen.”14
Out of all these alternative realities, the trilogy is mainly concerned with five worlds. These five
are significant, because our characters either stem from them and/or spend a lot of time in them
over the course of the trilogy. The five parallel worlds, which thus form the foundation of
Pullman’s story, will be outlined here, based on the information given in the trilogy:
Lyra’s world
This is the most comprehensively described world, as it is the home of Lyra, the primary main
character, and also the world in which the entire first novel takes place. The fascinating thing
about Lyra’s world is its uncanny resemblance with our world: sometimes, one can barely tell
them apart, but small, seemingly insignificant differences, as well as larger and more
fundamental differences continue to set Lyra’s world apart from ours.
One of the main differences lies in the fact that all human beings in Lyra’s world have a dæmon;
an animal projection of the person’s soul, personality and inner self, which is always near its
human, but walks and talks independently. Only people from Lyra’s world have a visible
dæmon; people from other worlds cannot see theirs, unless they learn how to see it. Children’s
dæmons can change shapes at will, but settle on one animal form once the child reaches
adolescence and remain like that for the rest of their lives. Another main difference between
Lyra’s world and reality is the presence of supernatural beings: e.g. witches, who fly on pine
branches and live for hundreds of years, panserbjørne, who are armoured polar bears that speak
and act much like humans, and cliff-ghasts, which are eerie, flying predators and scavengers that
can also speak.
On a more subtle level, Lyra’s world is characterised by being less modern than our world in
many ways, even though the two are contemporary. People fly in zeppelins or hot air balloons,
there are no cars or computers and only six planets of the solar system have been discovered.
Furthermore, the church of Lyra’s world – the Magisterium – is a much more powerful and
oppressive force with the ‘Consistorial Court of Discipline’ and the ‘General Oblation Board’ in
the forefront, seeking to eliminate original sin in the form of the mysterious Dust.
14
”Northern Lights”: pp. 374-375
10
To a large extent, the differences in the way Lyra’s world has developed as opposed to ours are
mainly visible in the terminology used by Lyra and her fellow world citizens. Geographical
names, for example, include ‘New Denmark’, ‘Muscovy’ and ‘Brytain’ – countries which the
attentive reader can fairly easily identify as the correspondents to ‘North America’, ‘Russia’ and
‘Britain’ in our world. Similarly, Lyra refers to ‘electric lights’ as ‘anbaric lights’, ‘chocolatl’ is
Mrs Coulter’s word for ‘chocolate’, and Lee Scoresby, the balloonist, is referred to as an
‘aëronaut’.
Will’s world
Will’s world is identical with our world, and more specifically, with the present-day Oxford and
London of our world. Pullman opens the second novel with the introduction of this world and of
the secondary main character, Will, who was born there. Will’s world is therefore characterised
by its normalcy, compared to Lyra’s world for example, and by its references to ‘real’ world
places and facilities (e.g. Burger King, social services, Banbury Road, the public library,
computers, etc.). The character Dr Mary Malone, who is a physicist and a former nun, also stems
from this world.
The Ci’gazze world
Ci’gazze, or Cittàgazze, is a city in the world where Lyra and Will first meet, and it is described
in the second novel as having a Mediterranean air about it, with palm trees, pedal-boats and
white hotels in abundance. The names of the characters who live in Ci’gazze sound Italian – e.g.
Giacomo Paradisi - as does the name of the tower - Torre degli Angeli – where Will acquires the
subtle knife. In many ways, the Ci’gazze world is almost identical with our world, since it has
cola, baked beans, can-openers, refrigerators, etc. What makes this world foreign, and also
somewhat scary, is the fact that it is primarily inhabited by children because of the Spectres of
Indifference.
The Spectres are invisible to children until they reach puberty; once a person can see them, they
will attack him and suck the life and soul out of him, reducing him to a passive, indifferent shell.
The adults in the Ci’gazze world, who have managed to escape this fate, have fled into the
mountains, where the concentration of Spectres is lower, leaving the children behind in the city
to roam and do as they please.
11
The Ci’gazze world is also the place of origin of one of the central magical objects of the trilogy,
namely the subtle knife. The Guild of the Torre degli Angeli apparently made the knife in order
to be able to cut through the fabric of the universe and travel between parallel worlds. But as it
turns out by the end of the trilogy, the openings between worlds, cut by the subtle knife, are
actually what create the dreaded Spectres, who have destroyed so much in the Ci’gazze world.
The mulefa world
This world is introduced in the third novel, when Dr Malone escapes her own world in search of
Lyra and Will and stumbles upon an opening into this strange and alien place. The mulefa world
is a vast prairie or savannah, with natural roads made from lava flows curving through the grassy
landscape and groves of enormous trees that shed pods the size of car tyres. The beings, which
inhabit this world, are even more exotic and include, among others, the mulefa, some grazing
deer-like creatures and the tualapi. Dr Malone discovers how all of these beings have diamondshaped skeletons, with one limb in the rear, one in the front and two at the centre.
The mulefa are human in the sense that they have their own sound-system of a language, solve
problems, raise families and have feelings, but their appearance is far from human: Dr Malone
describes them as grey-coloured, four-legged creatures with horned heads and short, flexible
trunks. The mulefa live in symbiosis with their world and depend upon the large seed-pods of the
gigantic trees, which they use as wheels and as a means of transportation. The tualapi on the
other hand are gigantic and malicious birds with two white, sail-like wings situated at the front
and the rear of their bodies, and their main purpose in life seems to be to destroy and kill
wherever they go.
This particular world, as such, seems to be as far removed as possible from the reality we know
in some aspects, e.g. evolutionary biology and language, but, at the same time, it is so
recognisable in other aspects, as it turns out over the course of the third novel. The mulefa are in
essentials human-like beings; they have individual names, they are dependent on the resources of
their world, they work hard to feed themselves and their families, and they even have a creation
myth very similar to that of the Christian Bible.
The world of the dead
This very bleak and dark world is also introduced in the third novel, when Lyra and Will decide
to go there to find Lyra’s friend Roger, who died shortly before Lyra left her own world in the
12
end of the first novel. The world of the dead is a great desolate plain where all people from all
the parallel worlds end up, without their dæmon, once they die, and since there is no place else to
go, the world of the dead is inhabited by the ghosts of everyone who has ever died.
It is guarded by the monstrous Harpies, who take the form of dark, filthy birds with the faces and
breast of a woman. The Harpies taunt and scream at the ghosts, feeding on the worst in human
beings and installing fear and remorse in the tortured ghosts in the world of the dead.
Lyra and Will manage to cut an opening from this world to another world, allowing the ghosts to
escape eternal imprisonment and dissolve into the air, thus transforming the fate of the dead.
2.3 The concept of Dust
The mysterious Dust is the plot-driving element throughout Pullman’s trilogy. Lyra’s quest is
centred on discovering the truth about it and, as events unfold, the fate of all the worlds seems to
be intertwined with Dust. In the first novel, it is simply introduced as ‘Dust’ – glowing particles,
like light, that seem to settle around a man and his dæmon - (“Northern Lights”: 21-22) but,
later, a scholar further defines it as ‘Rusakov Particles’: ”Elementary particles that don’t interact
in any way with others” (“Northern Lights”: 89). The church in Lyra’s world sees Dust as the
physical evidence of original sin in the biblical sense, since humans only really begin to attract
Dust once they reach adolescence and innocence transforms into experience (“Northern Lights”:
368-371). The church, in its eager to eliminate original sin, therefore attempts to prevent Dust
from settling on pre-adolescent children by cutting away their dæmons. Pullman has used a
passage from the Bible - ‘for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return’ - to explain why these
particles became known as Dust in Lyra’s world (“Northern Lights”: 371).
In the second novel, Pullman elaborates the concept further by introducing ‘dark matter’ as an
equivalent to Dust. Dr Mary Malone describes dark matter as Shadows, or particles of
consciousness, which flock to humans and human-made objects, and she and Lyra discover that
humans can communicate with these particles. Lyra communicates with them through her
alethiometer and Mary through her computer screen in the Cave and, later, the I Ching (“The
Subtle Knife”: 84-96). When Mary finally establishes contact with the Shadow-particles, the
Shadow-particles tell her that they are angels; spirit and matter in one (“The Subtle Knife”: 247250).
In the third novel, Mary discovers that the mulefa also know about the existence of Dust and
refer to it as ‘sraf’. Unlike humans, the mulefa can see the sraf with the naked eye, and they
13
believe it is generated by them and their conscious actions (“The Amber Spyglass”: 222-225).
By the end of the trilogy, the angel Xaphania reveals the true nature of Dust: “Dust is not a
constant. There’s no fixed quantity that has always been the same. Conscious beings make Dust
– they renew it all the time, by thinking and feeling and reflecting, by gaining wisdom and
passing it on.” (“The Amber Spyglass”: 496)
Pullman’s Dust is thus essential for humanity and the universe if anyone is to survive and it is
also deeply rooted both in the Bible and in science: metaphorically as original sin and literally as
dark matter (Walsh 2003:242-243). The connection with the Bible and the concept of original sin
does not end with Dust though. As mentioned above, Pullman has found much inspiration in
Milton’s “Paradise Lost” which in turn takes its point of departure in the story of the Fall (Bird
2001:111-112). First of all, the title “His Dark Materials” refers back to the ‘dark materials’ that
remained after God created the world, as Milton wrote in Book II of “Paradise Lost”. But on the
level of the text, references to Eve, the serpent and the Fall are so abundant that it is hard to miss
the fact that Pullman, in essentials, is telling the same story as Milton.
Lyra performs her journey from innocence to experience in blissful unawareness of the fact that
she is destined to be “Eve again” and save the world (“The Subtle Knife”: 313). Even though
Mrs Coulter and the church fight hard to prevent Lyra from falling, the angels manage to send
Mary Malone as the serpent, and once Lyra, Will and Mary are reunited in the mulefa world,
Mary tells them the story of her conversion from being a nun in celibacy to becoming a scientist
with knowledge and sexual experience. The story helps Lyra and Will in realising their feelings
for each other and they fall. (Wood 2001:255)
If you read “His Dark Materials” as a rewriting of the Fall, the message Pullman is sending is,
that what really matters is embracing, living in, and living with the real world, and that this is the
way to regain paradise or to create ‘the republic of heaven’ (Wood 2001:256). In Pullman’s
view, the fall from innocence and the pursuit of knowledge is thus something to be celebrated,
and the necessity of Dust for the survival of the universe in the trilogy symbolises this. Pullman
himself puts it as follows: “One of the things I was trying to do in the story... is to show my
characters revelling in the beauty of the world; and seeing, as if with new eyes, how
extraordinarily precious and wonderful the physical world is.”15
15
HisDarkMaterials.org: Quotes
14
2.4 The genre
“His Dark Materials” is of course first and foremost a work of fictional literature, and the general
consensus seems to be that it should be classified as ‘fantasy’.16 However, as Rosemary Jackson
points out, the term ‘fantasy’ tends to be applied rather indiscriminately to all literature that gives
a non-realistic representation of the world, e.g. horror stories, science fiction, myths, fairy tales,
legends, etc. (Jackson 1993:13-14).
Karen Patricia Smith (Smith 2005:135) and Clare Walsh (Walsh 2003:242) both suggest that
“His Dark Materials” is classifiable as science fantasy; a blend of science fiction and fantasy. In
order to examine this view, we need to be able to distinguish between the two:
What fantasy and science fiction literature have in common is that both genres create text worlds
that are distinctly different from the readers’ world. The realities in science fiction and fantasy
novels are thus often set in a foreign, alternate universe, the future or maybe on a different
planet; or they may be set in a world very reminiscent of the readers’ reality which has foreign
elements in it, such as witches or time travellers. What sets fantasy apart from science fiction is
how this foreignness is represented. In science fiction, the foreign element is based on something
that is actually possible or at least conceivable in relation to reality, whereas fantasy literature
has no such limitations and allows supernatural occurrences. A novel about a young girl, who
crosses through a mirror to enter into another parallel world, would therefore be categorised as
fantasy because readers know that this would be impossible in reality. (Dalgaard 2000:11)
Pullman’s trilogy clearly makes use of the fantastical and supernatural elements that allow it to
be classified as fantasy: talking polar bears, tiny Gallivespian spies who fly on the backs of
dragonflies, an alethiometer that can answer just about any question one poses, and gigantic
vicious birds with diamond-shaped bodies, to name a few. But Pullman’s fantastical elements
often tend to obey what Walsh (Walsh 2003:245) dubs ‘near-scientific laws’, which makes this
trilogy stand out in comparison to conventional fantasy. A good example is the ability of the
witches in Lyra’s world to make themselves invisible to others. Instead of merely attributing this
power to witchcraft magic or the flick of a wand, the way much fantasy literature does, Pullman
explains it as follows: “True invisibility was impossible, of course: this was mental magic, a kind
of fiercely-held modesty that could make the spell-worker not invisible but simply
unnoticed.”(“The Subtle Knife”:33). Similarly, the basis of the trilogy, the multiverse, is rooted
The trilogy is for example classified as ’fantasy’ on Wikipedia (article: His Dark Materials) and on the website of the
Danish Publisher, Gyldendal.
16
15
in the real and scientific ‘multiple-worlds theory’ which many prominent quantum physicists
subscribe to today. (Walsh 2003:242-245)
Aside from functioning as science fantasy, Pullman’s trilogy also matches the conventions set
out by Smith (Smith 2005:136) for being a high fantasy narrative. High fantasy is characterised
by seriousness, mythic overtones, life and death battles, good versus evil and young protagonists,
who must go through their fair share of mystery and mayhem to accomplish the critical task they
set out to undertake. Smith identifies five key conventions:
1. Young protagonists (sometimes greatly troubled) who have an important life mission that may be
addressed through a crucial, otherworldly adventure;
2. An excursion into an invented world that may have well-defined boundaries (possibly mappable) or
more abstract configurations;
3. Perilous journeys that provoke mind- (and life-) altering events and consequences;
4. Adult (and other) guides who offer information and assistance to major characters;
5. A return to the primary world with new information, insights, and abilities to address the problems that
the protagonist(s) left behind. (Smith
2005:136)
Pullman’s trilogy arguably adheres to these conventions: Lyra and Will are both young and
troubled as they set out on a very perilous and life-altering mission to save the world, through
several invented universes, assisted by gyptians, witches, Dr Malone, etc., until they return to
their respective primary worlds as adolescents, who have matured and learned from the ordeal.
Pullman has actually claimed in an interview that he considers “His Dark Materials” to be ‘stark
realism’ and not fantasy, which in the light of the above seems to be a quite bold assertion. He
explains himself as follows:
I have said that His Dark Materials is not fantasy but stark realism, and my reason for this is to emphasise
what I think is an important aspect of the story, namely the fact that it is realistic, in psychological terms.
I deal with matters that might normally be encountered in works of realism, such as adolescence,
sexuality, and so on; and they are the main subject matter of the story – the fantasy (which, of course, is
there: no-one but a fool would think I meant there is no fantasy in the books at all) is there to support and
embody them, not for its own sake.(…) I was using the fantastical elements to say something that I
thought was true about us and about our lives. 17
17
HisDarkMaterials.org: Quotes
16
Despite Pullman’s argument here, I would still argue that the trilogy, first and foremost, and for
the purpose of this thesis, is to be considered as a piece of fantasy literature belonging to either
or both of the sub-genres of science fantasy and high fantasy.
17
3. Literary translation
This chapter touches upon the area of literary translation and some of the aspects a literary
translator may need to consider. 3.1 considers aspects of literary translation from the viewpoint
of a handful of experienced Danish literary translators and 3.2 deals with some of the research
that has been done in the area of translation of the fantasy genre and related genres.
3.1 Aspects of literary translation in Denmark
Literary translators in Denmark are a diverse group of people. They are not formally educated or
trained to be literary translators and, in theory, anyone could claim the title by simply translating
a piece of literature. Publishers tend to favour highly educated people, though, when they engage
someone to undertake a literary translation, and Danish literary translators thus range from the
very few who can make a living out of translating literature alone, to authors, university
lecturers, teachers and commercial translators, who translate literature on the side. (Hasselbalch
1999:63-64)
What these people have in common though, is that they undertake the sometimes very difficult
task of producing a ‘good’ translation of an author’s literary work. A task which, according to
literary translator Anne Marie Bjerg, is in fact impossible. In principle, there is no such thing as a
final and correct translation of a literary work, because you cannot translate one reality into
another, and any translation will therefore always be an approximation or an attempt to
convincingly create the illusion, that the reality of the translation equals that of the original.
(Bjerg in Hasselbalch 1999:77-78)
The ideal goal in literary translation, according to literary translator Thomas Harder, is to ensure
that the relationship between the original text and its readers is recreated between the translation
and its readers. This means that the translator should give his readers the same experience of
reading the same story in the same tone and with the same narrative, linguistic and stylistic
devices. Furthermore, the translator should employ language that corresponds to the language
used in the original as perceived by the respective groups of readers. (Harder 1995:7-10)
In practice, however, the literary translator will often have to compromise this ideal, according to
Harder: A given word will rarely have an equivalent in another language that corresponds
exactly to that word in terms of lexical meaning, stylistic value and associations; and the cultural
18
reality from which the original literary work stems, and to which it refers, will never be identical
with the cultural reality in which the translation is received. In Harder’s view then, the literary
translator is tasked not only with linguistic and stylistic transfer but also, to a large extent,
cultural transfer. (Harder 1995:10-11)
The importance of the relationship between language and culture in literary translation is also
stressed by Michael Padkjær Abildgren, who points to the translator as the bilingual and
bicultural mediator and bridge-builder who, ideally, produces a translated literary work that
enables his readers to forget that they are reading a translation. (Abildgren 1999:63-68)
Anne Marie Bjerg illustrates the difficulties inherent in translating between cultures with an
example from one of her Danish translations of Swedish novels. Even though Denmark and
Sweden are neighbouring Nordic countries with languages that are very much alike
etymologically speaking, the differences in the semantic meaning of individual words are vast,
according to Bjerg, because Sweden differs from Denmark in terms of e.g. size, culture, history,
social and economical structure, and geography. The Swedish word “skog” (“forest” or “wood”),
to a Swede, thus denotes a dimensionally vast and fundamentally dangerous place, where people
may get lost and die, but also an important source of income due to large-scale commercial
forestry. To a Dane on the other hand, the Danish equivalent, “skov” (“forest” or “wood”18),
denotes a large, but delimited, recreational wooded area with paths and litter baskets, where one
has to make a real effort to get truly lost. What at first glance seems like two innocent and
perfectly equivalent terms can therefore connote rather different things in different cultures and
become cause for consideration to the literary translator. (Bjerg 2007:130-142)
The concept of literary style is also a matter that needs to be taken into account by the literary
translator. Harder exemplifies this point in his Danish translation of Salman Rushdie’s “The
Satanic Verses”. Rushdie generally uses non-complex English sentences of normal length in this
novel, but certain passages are characterised by highly complex, page-long sentences; a stylistic
feature that Harder endeavoured to preserve by translating accordingly. He thus used Danish
sentences of normal length and complexity where the author had done so and translated the long
and complex ones into equally long and complex Danish sentences, despite the fact that these
might be quite a challenge to the Danish reader, who is accommodated to shorter sentences with
few subordinate clauses or interposed sentences. (Harder 1995:19-20)
18
Since neither the Danish nor the Swedish language have the wood/forest distinction available to them, the terms
”skov” and ”skog” cover both English meanings.
19
Many different aspects of literary translation influence the outcome and thereby also the quality
of the translation that is ultimately produced. A translation of a work of literature should
therefore not be seen as identical with the author’s original, according to Harder, but rather as a
representation of said original, created by another individual on different terms. A raised
awareness of this exact point could, according to Harder, be achieved by a heightened focus on
reviewing literary translations in Denmark. Qualified reviews in newspapers are scarce, and they
are rarely performed by reviewers who are familiar with the language of the original or who have
even read the original. Proper quality reviewing of translated works of literature, would also
raise quality standards for translators and publishers alike, inducing the parties to do the original
authors justice to a larger extent, and give the readers the chance to be able to tell bad, mediocre,
good and excellent literary translations apart. (Harder in Hasselbalch 1999:43-45)
3.2 Translation of fantasy literature
Since translation of fantasy literature as such has not been subject to vast academic research,
translation of closely related genres, such as children’s literature and science fiction, will also be
considered in this section.
The very popular Harry Potter novels, which at this point have been translated into 67
languages19, have been a rather popular subject for scrutiny in terms of translation. J. K.
Rowling’s magical universe presents challenges to the translator in various forms:
Anne-Lise Feral (Feral 2006) looks at the French translator’s treatment of realistic features in
“Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, such as educational, cultural and moral values and,
for instance, exemplifies how the translator has transformed the ST colloquial English of the
children and the colloquial British dialect of the character Hagrid into TT Standard French. Feral
concludes, that the French translator has given preference to the educational function of the TT
on its young and impressionable readers, and smoothed down British otherness by reinforcing
the magical and fantastical features, thus reducing Rowling’s “hybrid of fantasy, school, orphan
and adventure” (Feral 2006:475) to a fairytale in French.
Other authors have chosen to focus on the translation of specific magical features in the Harry
Potter novels. Nancy K. Jentsch (Jentsch 2006) considers the French, German and Spanish
translations of the novels and focuses on their translations of newly coined words. She compares
19
Wikipedia article: Harry Potter in translation
20
the three, for instance, on their treatment of people’s and place names and names of other
invented phenomena, which in the Potter universe often involve humour, playfulness, puns and
double meaning. Jentsch concludes her observations on the solutions chosen by the three
translators on various problematic terms by accentuating the German translation as the one with
the best mixture of retained English terms and target language translations.
In her master’s thesis, Caroline van der Plas (van der Plas 2005) analyses the Danish translation
of the fifth Harry Potter novel from a skopos-theoretical point of view in an analysis of both
extratextual and intratextual factors, the latter being focused on the translation of proper names
and invented words. Van der Plas concludes that the Danish translator has stayed close to the
original in the TT and transferred the majority of proper names unchanged, while most of the
invented words have been translated in a way that clarifies their meaning to the Danish reader.
Another immensely popular work of fantasy literature is Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”,
which Kirsten Köneke has considered in its Danish translation (Köneke 1999). Köneke discusses
the problems in the existing translation, as well as the problems a new translation would face;
problems which, according to Köneke, are rooted in the fact that the novel was translated as a
piece of children’s fiction in the late 1960s, when getting the popular message across was more
important than transferring the style. Köneke argues for the need for a new translation that stays
more true to the style, tone and rhythm of the original and is addressed to adult readers as well as
children, just like Tolkien’s original was.
Halskov and Holdt’s corpus-based dissertation on the translation of science fiction literature
(Halskov 2003) also focuses on issues that are relevant in connection with translation of the
fantasy genre, namely the distinction between neologisms and technical language or LSP 20.
Halskov and Holdt point to this distinction and the combination of the two features as the main
challenge in translation of science fiction. The translator has to be able to tell the difference
between made-up words, which are a consequence of the genre, and LSP terms, which are ‘real’
words that are also typical of the genre, and use the proper micro-strategy, according to his
skopos, with each element in order to obtain functional equivalence.
While this section by no means represents an exhaustive overview of the research that has been
conducted in the area of translation of fantasy, it does speak to the relevance of performing this
kind of research and sheds some light on the problems that the genre often poses in terms of
translation.
20
LSP = Language for Special Purposes
21
4. Method and material
This chapter is a presentation of the theoretical and analytical material that I am going to use and
of my methodological approach to the data. 4.1 is a presentation of my theoretical basis, 4.2 is a
presentation of the data and the data selection process, and 4.3 is a presentation of the three
models that will be applied in 5.2 below.
4.1 Theoretical basis
I have chosen to base my analysis of Hanna Lützen’s translation of “His Dark Materials” on
Christiane Nord’s analytical framework, which is anchored in Hans J. Vermeer’s very influential
skopos theory. I will begin by outlining the foundation and principals of the skopos theory,
before I continue with a review of Nord’s approach to functionalism and the models she
proposes. Finally, I will conclude this section by looking at some of the criticism that has been
raised about the skopos theory’s applicability to literary translation.
4.1.1 The skopos theory
Vermeer’s skopos theory is a prominent and influential part of the field of functional translation
studies, which developed during the 1970s and rejected the notion of equivalence-based
translation in favour of TT functionality. During the two previous decades, translation studies
had, to a large extent, centred on the concept of equivalence and approached translation from a
rule-based, linguistic point of view. (Schjoldager 2008:142-145)
The functionalist and communicative approach to translation began in the 1970s with the early
work of Katharina Reiss on text types and language functions. Reiss links the three language
functions - informative, expressive and operative – to the text types or the communicative
situation in which they are used and proposes specific translation methods according to text type.
Her focus on the communicative purpose of a given translation is still based on the idea of
equivalence, but it rests on the level of the text and thus moves translation theory away from the
lower linguistic levels of word and sentence. (Munday 2001:72-76)
Justa Holz-Mänttäri’s model of translational action is another important functionalist approach to
translation. Holz-Mänttäri places the professional translation within its communicative and
22
sociocultural context by defining the roles and players involved in the process (the initiator, the
commissioner, the ST producer, the TT producer, the TT user and the TT receiver), and she puts
emphasis on the importance of the TT being functional to its target receivers; a task which lies
with the translator who is the expert. The needs of the receivers are thus the determining factors
for the TT. (Munday 2001:77-78)
Vermeer places his own skopos theory as part of the theory of translational action, which sees
translation as a particular variety of translational action, based on a ST. The logical reasoning
behind the theory therefore lies in the action-theoretical idea, that since any action has an aim or
purpose and a result, translation, which is a translational action, must therefore also have an aim
or purpose and a result. In Vermeer’s terminology, skopos is the technical term for the aim or
purpose of a translation and translatum the term for the translated text or result. (Vermeer
1989:221)
Vermeer argues that every translation can and must be assigned a skopos and that this is done by
means of the commission, which is basically a negotiation between the commissioner (the client)
and the translator (the expert) of an adequate definition of both the skopos and the mode of
realisation. The commission may, however, also be an implied one, inferred by the translator
from the circumstances and the situation. According to Vermeer, the commission is an essential
part of the process if the task is to be fulfilled successfully. Ideally, it should always contain
information, as specific as possible, about the goal and the conditions under which the goal is to
be attained. If the translator finds the commission realisable, he can then begin to make decisions
about the optimal transfer procedures to attain the skopos. (Vermeer 1989:221-230)
Vermeer also stresses that it is possible to have more than one skopos, i.e. sub-skopoi, within one
translation task. The translatum should therefore not necessarily be regarded as an indivisible
text which can have only one skopos. (Vermeer 1989:222)
The translator is the responsible party in carrying out the commissioned task successfully and in
accordance with the skopos, which is the decisive factor, according to Vermeer. A consequence
of this view on skopos as the top-ranking principle is the ‘dethroning’ of the ST: the ST is bound
to and intended for its source culture and should be regarded as a mere constituent of the
commission. The role of the ST in a given translation is thus decided by the translator. (Vermeer
1989:221-222)
Vermeer proposes a hierarchy of rules which forms the basis for the skopos theory:
23
1. The skopos rule: The translator should translate in a way that enables the TT to function in
the situation in which it is used, with the people who want to use it, and precisely in the
way they want it to function. (Nord 2001:29)
2. The rule of intratextual coherence: The translator should produce a TT which is
meaningful and understandable to the receivers and coherent with the communicative
situation and culture in which it is received. This rule is subordinate to the skopos rule.
(Nord 2001:32-33)
3. The fidelity rule: The translator should produce a TT which is intertextually coherent with
its corresponding ST; the exact relationship between the ST and TT depends on the
skopos. This rule is subordinate to both the skopos rule and the rule of intratextual
coherence. (Nord 2001:32-33)
The goal of the skopos theory, according to Vermeer, lies in underscoring the rather obvious and
yet often overlooked fact, that translation is not a purposeless activity; translation is always
performed to serve a purpose and to serve the needs of clients. The skopos theory makes this fact
explicit. The skopos theory also contributes positively to the range of options available to the
translator in terms of strategies, and adds to the accountability and professionalism of the
translator by maintaining that translation should be carried out by professionals, who are capable
of attaining the goals of their translations. (Vermeer 1989:231) & (Schjoldager 2008:153)
4.1.2 Nord
Christiane Nord is a German translation theorist who has taught translation theory and practice at
the University of Heidelberg for nearly thirty years. Her two publications, “Translation as a
purposeful activity” (2001) and “Text analysis in translation” (2005), are both influential pieces
within the genre of functionalist translation theory in that they can serve both as aids in translator
training and as framework for analysis of existing translations. These two books are my main
sources in this chapter.
Loyalty
Nord is, as mentioned above, also devoted to the functionalist school, and much of her work is
based on Vermeer’s skopos theory and builds upon the idea of translation as a purpose-driven,
functional activity. Nord, however, puts more emphasis on what she describes as “loyalty”:
24
According to this view, the translator is committed bilaterally to the source text as well as to the targettext situation, and is responsible to both the ST sender (or initiator if s/he is also the sender) and the TT
receiver. This responsibility is what I call “loyalty”. Loyalty is a moral principle indispensable in the
relationships between human beings, who are partners in a communication process, whereas fidelity is a
rather technical relationship between two texts.
(Nord 2005:32-33)
Nord thus places the translator in the position of a mediator between the two cultures involved.
The translator is responsible for taking into account the interests of the ST-sender, the TTaddressees and the initiator on a personal and ethical level. Nord dubs her approach ‘function
plus loyalty’. (Nord 2001:123-128)
It is also worth noting here, that Nord consistently uses the term ‘brief’ (Nord 2001:30) about
what Vermeer refers to as ‘the commission’. Accordingly, ‘brief’ is the term that will be used
hereinafter.
Roles
With this emphasis on the interacting parties, Nord also finds it necessary to properly define and
analyse the roles played by the people involved in the functional network. She takes her point of
departure in the above-mentioned model of translational action by Holz-Mänttäri and
distinguishes between eight different roles: (The following is based on Nord 2001:19-22)
The Initiator:
This is the person/group/institution that needs the TT and has the role of starting off the
translation process and defining the purpose for which the TT is needed. The initiator may also
be the ST author, the prospective TT receiver or the commissioner.
The Commissioner
This is the person/group/institution that asks the translator to produce the TT for a particular
purpose. The commissioner can influence TT production by e.g. asking for a particular
terminology.
The Translator
The translator is the expert and has the responsibility for carrying out the commissioned task.
He/She is expected to produce a functional TT that meets the demands of the brief.
25
The ST producer
This is the person who has actually produced the ST and who is responsible for the stylistic or
linguistic choices in the text which express the communicative intentions of the sender.
The ST sender
This is the person/group/institution that uses the ST to convey a certain message. The ST sender
is often synonymous with the ST producer, especially with literary texts.
The TT addressee
This is the prospective person/group/institution for which the TT is intended.
The TT receiver
This is the person/group/institution that actually reads the TT after it has been produced.
The TT user
This is the person/group/institution that finally puts the TT to use, e.g. as training material or in
an advertisement.
Nord also points out, that different roles may be fulfilled by the same person, and that it is not
always necessary to distinguish between this many different roles in every situation. (Nord
2001:22)
Macrostrategies
Nord distinguishes between two translation macrostrategies in her typology, which is based on
strictly functionalist terms, namely documentary and instrumental (Nord 2001:45-52). The
inspirational origin of this distinction can be traced back to a point made by Vermeer: He
outlines a hypothetical situation where he demonstrates how the function, and thus the skopos, of
the translation of a curious ambiguity in a French will clearly decides, if it should be translated in
a “documentary” way or an “instrumental” way. (Vermeer 1989:231-232)
According to Nord’s typology, the main function of a documentary TT is metatextual since it is
effectively a text about a text, or a text about certain aspects of a text. A documentary translation
thus changes the communicative function of the ST by: “producing in the target language a kind
of document of (…) a communicative interaction in which a source-culture sender communicates
with a source-culture audience via the source text under source-culture conditions.” (Nord
2001:47)
26
She further sub-categorises the documentary translation strategy into four different types: An
interlineal translation focuses on reproducing the source language system in a word-for-word
manner, and is mainly put into use in the field of comparative linguistics, for instance, where it is
useful in demonstrating structural differences between languages. A literal translation focuses on
reproducing the source language form according to the norms of the target language, and is often
used in translations of direct quotations in, for example, news texts. A philological translation
aims at reproducing source language form and content, and adds footnotes or glossaries
explaining source culture phenomena. Examples of philological translations include e.g. Bible
translation and translations of texts from classical Greece. An exoticizing translation reproduces
source language form, content and situation and is exemplified in the translations of fictional
texts which do not change the source culture setting. (Nord 2001:47-50)
An instrumental translation aims at: “producing in the target language an instrument for a new
communicative interaction between the source-culture sender and a target-culture audience,
using (certain aspects of) the source text as a model” (Nord 2001:47). An instrumental TT can
thus achieve the same range of functions as a ST (Nord 2001:50).
Nord sub-categorises instrumental translation into three different types: An equifunctional
translation focuses on achieving ST-functions in the TT and is often applied to translations of
manuals and technical texts where the target receivers, ideally, should not notice that they are
reading a translated text. A heterofunctional translation aims at achieving functions similar to
ST-functions in the TT if, for reasons of cultural or temporal distance, the functions of the
original cannot be preserved as a whole or in the same hierarchy. A homologous translation
focuses on achieving the same or a homologous degree of originality as the ST, and is for
instance used in poetry translated by a poet. (Nord 2001:50-52)
As pointed out by Schjoldager however, Nord does not consider this typology to be a closed
system into which all translations must necessarily fit. It is entirely possible to have a skopos
which requires a mixture of the two macrostrategies in order to be achieved, even though most
translations arguably may be categorised as either documentary or instrumental. (Schjoldager
2008:167-168)
The looping model
Even though Nord clearly prioritises the function of the skopos as the over-riding principle, she
also sees the ST as an important factor: “The source text provides the offer of information that
27
forms the starting point for the offer of information formulated in the target text.” (Nord
2001:62) ST analysis can guide the translator on important questions: Is the assignment
realisable, which ST units are relevant to a functional translation, and which macrostrategy is
appropriate and in accordance with the brief? (Nord 2001:62)
Nord suggests models which may be applicable in a thorough ST analysis, among others her own
“looping model”:
Nord’s experiences in the field of translation induced her into developing the looping model for
translation-oriented text analysis with particular emphasis on the importance of ST analysis. Her
model aspires to be universal, with respect to text type and languages, and useful to professional
translators, students and teachers alike. (Nord 2005:1-3)
The model consists of three main steps: The first step is the analysis and/or interpretation of the
TT skopos. The second step is the ST analysis which is subdivided into two parts: an analysis of
extratextual factors to determine the level of compatibility between the ST and the requirements
of the brief, and an analysis of intratextual factors, which pays more detailed attention to the STelements that are of importance to TT-production according to the skopos. The third step is the
final structuring of the TT. (Nord 2005:36-39)
The name, “looping”, stems from the fact that Nord does not see the process of translation as a
linear and progressive one, but rather as a recursive process involving regular feedback loops
where the translator looks back with each new piece of information and corrects or confirms
previous findings. (Nord 2005:34-39)
Nord’s approach
Nord describes her approach to functional translation in Chapter 4 of Nord (2001) through three
central concepts: the brief, ST analysis and translation problems. This is also, in broad terms, the
approach that I intend to follow in my analysis in Chapter 5 below and Nord’s method will
therefore be outlined here. Since my purpose is not to translate “His Dark Materials”, but to
determine Lützen’s skopos, macrostrategy, and microstrategies applied to translation problems in
her translation of the trilogy, some of Nord’s models are still applicable.
28
The brief
According to Nord, the translation brief is an important aspect of functionalism. In particularly in
the context of translator training where inexperienced students may find it useful. She lists five
points which should, ideally, be contained in the brief, if not explicitly then implicitly:
 the (intended) text function(s),
 the target-text addressee(s),
 the (prospective) time and place of text reception,
 the medium over which the text will be transmitted, and
 the motive for the production or reception of the text. (Nord
2001:60)
If the translator is to be able to find the aspects in which the ST and TT will diverge, he/she will
have to perform a comparative analysis of the ST profile and the TT profile. The latter is, ideally,
defined in the brief, whereas the former will have to be inferred from the communicative,
extratextual situation of the ST. What is important is that the same model is used for the analysis
of the ST-in-situation and the TT-in-situation in order to make them comparable. (Nord 2001:5963)
These five points, which thus constitute the external profile of a text in a given situation, are each
important in their own right:
1. Text functions
In Nord’s framework, the intended function of the TT is the decisive principle, but the principle
of loyalty requires an analysis of ST functions as well, if the translator is to decide which TT
functions are compatible with the ST. (Nord 2005:77-82)
Nord’s translation-oriented model of communicative text functions is based on Bühler and
Jakobson’s models and she outlines four basic types: The referential function, which is
denotative and refers to objects or phenomena of the world; the expressive function, which is
sender-oriented and refers to the sender’s attitude towards objects or phenomena of the world;
the appellative function, which is receiver-oriented and designed to make him or her respond in a
certain manner; and finally the phatic function, which is contact-oriented and aimed at
establishing, maintaining or ending contact between the parties. (Nord 2001:40-45)
2. Addressees
Detailed information about the addressees, their background in terms of age, sex, education and
geographic origin, their expectations, and world knowledge is of crucial importance to the
29
translator, who needs to have a clear picture of the TT addressees for whom the translation is
intended. The same is true of the ST addressees, who by definition will always be different from
the TT addressees in at least one respect: namely cultural and linguistic origin. (Nord 2005:5762)
3. Time and place
To know the time of text production and of text reception is important to the translator since a
time lag between ST production and translation generates a new set of considerations with
respect to temporal distance between the sender and the addressees and with respect to changes
in genre and language conventions. (Nord 2005:70-74)
Similarly, the places of text production and text reception are important in terms of geographical
variety of the source language and of the target language, cultural and political conditions in the
respective places and the relativity in geographical distances as seen from the respective places.
(Nord 2005:67-70)
4. Medium
The medium is the vehicle which conveys the text to the reader, and the translator of course
needs to know if the TT is to be produced orally or in writing and which medium the ST is
conveyed by. More specifically, the means of publication of both ST and TT, e.g. newspaper
article, brochure or book, are also important since they leave clues as to the addressees, the
sender’s intention, the motive for communication and features which are typical of the medium
in question in the respective cultures. (Nord 2005:62-66)
5. Motive
The dimension of motive pertains not only to the reason why a ST or a TT is to be produced, but
also the occasion for which it is to be produced. Some motives are conventionally bound to
certain text types (e.g. the death of a famous politician will lead to an obituary) and the
determination of motive can also give clues as to other situational factors, e.g. the sender, the
sender’s intention and the intended addressees. The motive for ST production and the motive for
TT production can be compared by the translator in order to determine the consequences for the
translation procedure of any differences between the two. (Nord 2005:74-77)
Translation problems
Once the ST-in-situation has been compared with the TT-in-situation, the translator will be in a
position to identify translation problems. Translation problems are thus objective or
30
intersubjective problems, which can be identified in advance via a comparison of the ST and TT
profiles, and not to be confused with translation difficulties, which are subjective and attributable
to the translator’s lack of competence or knowledge (Nord 2001:62-64). Nord uses four subcategories of translation problems: (The following is based on Nord 2001:64-68)

Pragmatic translation problems arise from differences between the ST and TT situations
and are thus identifiable in the extratextual factors. They are present in every translation task and
can be generalised across all cultures and languages.

Cultural translation problems arise from differences in norms and conventions between the
two cultures involved. They are present in most translation tasks.

Linguistic translation problems arise from structural differences in the vocabulary, syntax
and suprasegmental features of the two languages involved.

Text-specific translation problems are bound to one particular ST and cannot be generalized.
They may include e.g. puns or neologisms, and often require creativity on the translator’s part.
4.1.3 Skopos and literary translation
The skopos theory in particular, and functionalism in general, has been criticised on various
counts (as discussed by Nord in Chapter 7, Nord 2001), but one of the main objections from the
community to the skopos theoretical approach deals with its applicability to the field of literary
translation.
Vermeer discusses the claims that neither literature nor translation of literature has purpose or
aim by pointing to his definition of an action: “if no aim can be attributed to an action, it can no
longer be regarded as an action” (Vermeer 1989:224). Since the creation and publication of
literature on the one hand, and the translation of literature on the other, arguably involves its fair
share of purposeful action it can hardly be attributed to completely unmotivated activity or ‘the
kiss of the muse’. Writing and translating are actions which the writer and the translator choose
to perform, and both therefore have purpose and aim, according to Vermeer. (Vermeer
1989:224-228)
But as pointed out by Ida Klitgård (Schjoldager 2008:247-253), literature may have many
different purposes and the translation of literature may therefore often be regarded as
31
multifunctional in terms of macrostrategy. She gives the example of a situation where an Afghan
novel is to be translated into Danish, and demonstrates how, for various reasons, the translator
may make use of both documentary and instrumental strategies in all of their sub-categorised
types according to various sub-skopoi:
…the initiator, commissioner or translator may want to inform readers of Afghan literary style and
structure (documentary), to provide a literal translation in order to stay as loyal to the form as possible
(documentary), to include philological comments to inform readers of Afghan culture and present
situation in the world (documentary), to exoticise the text in order to make the readers experience the
foreignness of Afghan culture (documentary), to aim for a reproduction of the source-text function in the
target text, e.g. by solely focusing on the main “message” of the text, such as telling a story of unhappy
love, disregarding its cultural heritage (equifunctionally instrumental), to make the readers adopt a certain
opinion of or stance towards the regime in Afghanistan (heterofunctionally instrumental), and/or to give
the Danish target text the same status as the Afghan source text, in other words to ensure that the
translation is read and valued on equal terms with Danish literature and not regarded as either minor or
marginal literature in the Danish literary system (homologously instrumental).
(Klitgård in
Schjoldager 2008:252-253)
This multifunctionality of literature contrasts with many other text types, such as advertisements
and operating manuals, whose function is usually more clear-cut and easily definable. The
functional approach to literary translation is therefore more complicated.
Nord also points out how literary translators and scholars often do not see functionalism as
something which is applicable in their field. The ST has a different status in literary translation
than it has in translation of e.g. news texts and computer manuals, and the critique therefore
especially revolves around Vermeer’s ‘dethroning’ of the ST as the only yardstick for a
translation. In this view, the functionalist literary translator is essentially a traitor to the literary
ST. According to Nord however, a ST will always be the product of the many variables of time,
place and addressees in which it came into being – as will a TT. Taking a literary ST out of its
situational context is, as such, impossible. (Nord 2001:119-122)
Nord cites Theo Hermans’ view on ST ‘dethronement’ as another argument of the futility in
translating with the ST as the only yardstick:
Taking the supremacy of the original for granted from the start, the study of translation then serves
merely to demonstrate that original’s outstanding qualities by highlighting the errors and inadequacies of
32
any number of translations of it. The outcome, needless to say, is an invariably source-oriented exercise,
which, by constantly holding the original up as an absolute standard and touchstone, becomes repetitive,
predictable and prescriptive – the implicit norm being a transcendental and utopian conception of
translation as reproducing the original, the whole original and nothing but the original.
(Hermans in
Nord 2001:121)
Nord’s introduction of the ‘function plus loyalty’ approach (as described above) which induces
the translator to pay more attention to the interests of the ST sender, could be regarded as a
means of improvement to the applicability of functionalism to literary translation. Nord’s
Chapter 5 (Nord 2001) also demonstrates how a functional approach to literary translation may
be tackled when she applies purpose-oriented principles to examples of various translations of
Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”. The analysis shows how literary translation can be
approached from an analytical and methodological point of view and that functionalism and the
skopos theory are valid conceptual and analytical tools in this particular branch of intercultural
communication as well as in others.
4.2 Data selection
I have chosen to focus on three different intratextual features in my analysis of intratextual
factors: translation of neologisms, non-standard language and names. These features are
characteristic of the genre of fantasy literature in general, and of Pullman’s trilogy specifically,
in the sense that they all serve certain functions within the text; functions which may prove
difficult for the translator to transfer to the target language. Neologisms often do not appear in
dictionaries and require creative solutions from the translator, who, at the same time, has to be
aware of the functions these neologisms serve in the ST and the functions they are going to serve
in the TT. Non-standard language may be a challenge in translation due to structural differences
between the source and target languages and the decision of whether or not to translate personal
names relies very much on both the situation and the function of each name.
The following is a presentation of the data and a description of how it was selected.
33
4.2.1 Neologisms
Pullman has constructed an invented world that both distinguishes itself from and resembles our
real world. As exemplified in 2.2 above, one of the ways in which Pullman has made Lyra’s
world stand out like this, is by using odd terminology: various otherwise familiar countries,
things and phenomena have been renamed or have been given names from a foreign language,
and many of the fantastical objects and creatures introduced into the trilogy have been given
strange and unfamiliar names as well. All in all, Pullman has spun a creatively designed web of
exotic and foreign words which serve several functions in the ST: They distance Lyra’s world
from the readers’ reality, create an exotic mood that helps mark the genre, and challenge the
readers’ ability to make sense of it all and to fit the features of Lyra’s world into their own
reality. The function of these neologisms thus seems to be to entertain and challenge readers by
creating a foreign and exotic effect.
Words such as these fall under the designation ‘neologisms’, which are defined by Cabré (Cabré
1999: 205) as words, which speakers perceive as new words and which do not appear in
dictionaries. Newmark (Newmark 1988: 140-150) further defines neologisms as “newly coined
lexical units or existing lexical units that acquire a new sense” (Newmark 1988:140).
In order to obtain a clear impression of which specific types of neologisms Pullman has used and
how Lützen has translated these neologisms, I have identified and extracted each neologism in
the trilogy alongside its translated counterpart. The identification process was based on the
criteria set out by Cabré and Newmark and on my own personal knowledge of the English
language, aided by dictionaries and linguistic intuition. Due to the general popularity of “His
Dark Materials”, the internet also proved to be a useful resource in identifying neologism. There
are several web-communities21 dedicated to the trilogy, which list and debate this unusual
terminology in online encyclopaedias, and I could therefore check my entries against these to
ensure, that I had not missed important terms. Terms that were mistakenly identified as
neologisms, due to my being a non-native speaker of English, were eliminated from the data
using English-Danish dictionaries.
Each neologism is logged in Appendix I with its corresponding translation including book and
page references for both. The neologisms that appear in more than one book have been logged
once for each book, in order to check for consistency, and the neologisms that have been
translated differently or inconsistently have been logged once for each TT variation. Since some
Wikipedia article: His Dark Materials terminology; BridgetotheStars.net: ”His Dark Materials” Wiki Encyclopaedia;
Srafopedia: His Dark Materials Wiki.
21
34
of these neologisms require a context, the entries in Appendix I often contain more than one
word. Appendix I is organised according to the specific function a given neologism serves in the
context of the novels, e.g. institutions, science & technology, etc., and each ST-TT pair in
Appendix I is categorised according to neologism type and microstrategy.
4.2.3 Non-standard language
The characters in “His Dark Materials” all stem from different worlds, countries and social
classes and they differ greatly in terms of age, sex and even species - a multiplicity of characters
which is arguably one of the factors that make the trilogy so broadly appealing in terms of
readership and fan base. Philip Pullman, among other things, distinguishes between all these
different characters through their manner of speech which is conveyed to the reader in passages
of dialogue and direct speech.
Our main-character, Lyra, and her street urchin friends from Oxford share a colloquial manner of
speech which is exemplified in their use of informal and non-standard contractions and
grammatically incongruent syntax. The children in the Ci’gazze world, Angelica and Paolo, also
use non-standard language, but their contractions differ noticeably from the ones used by Lyra
and her friends, indicating that the children of these two worlds use different dialects of English.
Even though spoken language, and thus non-standard language, is a naturally occurring
phenomenon in literature that features direct speech and dialogue, the function of it in the
context of Pullman’s trilogy is arguably more complex, seeing as he uses it to distinguish
between different varieties of English in order to accentuate the fact that the characters stem
from various different parallel universes.22
Another group of characters that distinguish themselves through their manner of speech is the
gyptians, who speak a particular dialect of English that has apparently been influenced by FenDutch; a fact that Pullman reveals in the first novel. Aside from the Dutch-sounding terminology
which they use occasionally (e.g. “Zaal”), the gyptians also have a distinct progressive verb form
(e.g. “a-going”) which only they use. It certainly sets them apart from other characters in that this
form is not considered standard in modern English.23
Finally, the direct speech of certain non-native speakers of English in the trilogy – e.g. the
Tartars and the Mulefa – is often represented by means of limited vocabulary, faulty syntax and
unusual spelling. The Tartars, in particular, speak in non-fluent broken English which has been
22
23
Appendix II.
Ibid.
35
represented by Pullman through deliberate errors in tense, number and sentence-structure in
general, whereas the Mulefa’s direct speech is in fact Standard English, which is rendered
phonetically on paper, the way the Mulefa hear and pronounce utterances in English.24
The non-standard language in Pullman’s trilogy thus all serves a function, both within the
literary work itself and with respect to its readers who will, presumably, be affected in some way
by dialects in print, unusual wording and quaint spelling.
To get an impression of how Lützen has treated these different kinds of non-standard language in
her translation, I identified and extracted passages which exemplify each of the above-mentioned
types. The examples were then listed in a table alongside their corresponding Danish translations
and this constitutes the data for my analysis of translation of non-standard language in the
trilogy. The examples I have examined are all available in Appendix II, which lists the ST-TT
pairs, with book and page references, in four categories: Spoken language and dialect, archaic
language, broken English and spelling.
4.2.3 Names
The personal names of the characters in Pullman’s trilogy are also interesting in terms of the
genre, since names often have a specific function in fantasy literature, and especially in
children’s literature, other than simply serving as a random name. Two good examples are the
personal names in the Harry Potter novels, which often give the reader humorous clues as to the
character’s abilities and allegiance (van der Plas 2005:55-60), and the names of characters in
Astrid Lindgren’s children’s books, which often reveal certain characteristics or traits (Klingberg
1986:45-46)25. In order to convey these underlying clues and attributes to the TT-reader, the
translator may need to actually translate or change them.
Pullman’s naming of characters and the various other names which are mentioned in the trilogy
are first and foremost characterised by diversity, and it seems clear that the majority of them
were not just haphazardly picked. The main characters travel a great deal, both within their own
worlds and parallel worlds, and they encounter people and creatures from various countries,
cultures and social classes. The names of all these characters therefore often contain signs which
convey information about nationality, gender, occupation or class (e.g. “Giacomo Paradisi”,
“Mrs Lonsdale”, “Sister Clara”, “Lord Asriel”, etc.). Pullman also uses names which refer
24
Ibid.
For example: ”Mad-Eye Moody”, “Remus Lupin” and “Severus Snape” from the Harry Potter universe(van der Plas
2005:55-60) , and “Pippi Långstrump” and Krösa-Maja” from Lindgren’s novels (Klingberg 1986:45-46).
25
36
intertextually to history, mythology or religious texts from our world (e.g. “Plato”, Bigfoot”,
“Jesus”, etc.) 26. Finally, some of Pullman’s characters also bear names which carry semantic
meaning (e.g. “Lyra Silvertongue”, “Gracious Wings”, etc.)27.
These three functions of the personal names in “His Dark Materials” – semantic, signifying and
intertextual – are therefore important both in terms of the message Pullman intends to convey by
using them and in terms of the effect the names have on the reader.
In order to determine how Lützen has translated names, I identified and extracted all the personal
names contained in the trilogy alongside their translated counterparts from the Danish translation
of the trilogy. Each ST name was listed in a table with its TT translation and book and page
references for both. Every name appears only once, except for the names that have been
translated inconsistently or differently by Lützen; these appear once for each different TT name.
This is the data that will be used in my analysis of translation of names below. The data is
available in its entirety in Appendix III, which lists the names in ST-TT pairs according to the
categories to which the characters belong, e.g. ‘the church’, ‘witches’, ‘mythological names’, etc.
The characters that have several different names or aliases are listed in their own separate
categories at the top of the table. Appendix III also includes an overview of the functions which
the names serve (semantic, signifying or intertextual) as well as a classification of the translation
microstrategy employed on each ST-TT name pair.
4.3 Models
I will now turn to the three models which will function as the main tools in my analysis of
intratextual factors below. The first is a model of neologism types, the second is Schjoldager’s
model of microstrategies, and the third is my adapted model of microstrategies.
4.3.1 Model of neologism types
Since Lützen arguably must have attempted to understand the etymological origin and contextual
meaning of many of Pullman’s neologisms in order to translate them, I found that it would be
26
27
Appendix III.
Ibid.
37
helpful for my analysis to do the same. Of course, only the author can truly know what lies
behind each of these words and how he coined them, but with the help of the information
available in the web-communities dedicated to the trilogy28, the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia,
dictionaries and personal linguistic knowledge, I have classified the vast majority of the
neologisms listed in Appendix I under the nine categories presented in Table 1:
1.
Compound of existing words
2.
Existing word with new sense
3.
Existing word or compound that has been modified in spelling
4.
Word derived from an acronym
5.
Portmanteau word
6.
Eponym
7.
Neoclassical borrowing or word derived from a neoclassical language
8.
True borrowing from another language
9.
Archaic word
Table 1 Model of neologism types
This model of neologism types was designed for this particular purpose, and is based on and
inspired by the work of M. Teresa Cabré and Peter Newmark. Cabré (Cabré 1999:88, 207)
distinguishes between four main types: neologisms in form (derivations, compounds, phrases and
shortenings), functional neologisms (lexicalisation of an inflected form and neologism formed by
syntactic conversion), semantic neologisms (broadened, narrowed or changed meaning of base
form) and borrowed neologisms (true borrowings and neoclassical borrowings). Newmark
(Newmark 1988:140-150) lists twelve different types: Existing words with new senses, existing
collocations with new sense, new coinages, derived words (including blends), abbreviations,
collocations, eponyms, phrasal words, transferred words, acronyms, pseudo-neologisms and
internationalisms.
The purpose of this model is thus to have a framework within which the majority of neologisms
in the trilogy can be categorised in accordance with their origin. It helps clarify considerations
pertaining to the translation of the neologisms and is, as such, a tool for examining and
discussing the decisions made by Lützen in the translation of neologisms. Since the model was
Wikipedia article: His Dark Materials terminology, BridgetotheStars.net: ”His Dark Materials” Wiki Encyclopaedia
& Srafopedia: His Dark Materials Wiki.
28
38
developed for this particular purpose, it is perhaps most easily clarified by means of examples
from Appendix I:
1.
A compound of existing words, with or without a hyphen, can constitute a neologism, e.g.
“fire-mine” or “bloodmoss”.
2.
Existing words that are given a new sense in the universe of the trilogy are neologisms in the
sense that they denote something other than what the reader expects, e.g. “Dust” which is not
conventional dust but particles of consciousness. This category also covers combinations of
existing words used to denote invented machinery, places or institutions, e.g. “The Intention
Craft” or “the General Oblation Board”.
3.
Existing words or compounds that have been modified in spelling could be e.g. “Brasil”
which is spelled with a ‘z’ in Standard English, or “aëronaut” which is spelled without the
diacritic mark in Standard English.
4.
Words derived from acronyms could for example be the noun “gobbler” and the verb “to
gobble”. Both neologisms are derived from the acronym “GOB” which stands for “General
Oblation Board”.
5.
A portmanteau word is a blend of two or more words, e.g. “gyropter” which is a blend of
“gyroplane” and “helicopter”.
6.
An eponym is a word derived from a proper name, e.g. “Beringland” (a country named after
the explorer, Vitus Bering, presumably) or “Rusakov Particles” (particles named after the fictive
scientist Boris Rusakov).
7.
Neoclassical borrowings or words derived from a neoclassical language are exemplified in
neologisms such as “intercision” (Latin) and “teleutaia makhaira” (Greek).
8.
True borrowings from other contemporary languages than the source language include e.g.
“panserbjørne” from Danish and “chocolatl” from Aztec.
9.
An archaic word, which contemporary readers may have difficulties with, could for example
be “Cathay”, which is an outdated and very rarely used name for China.
4.3.2 Schjoldager’s model of microstrategies
The following model constitutes the taxonomy which I am going to use in my examination and
discussion of Lützen’s choices in the micro-level analysis. Due to the curious nature of
neologisms, I found it necessary to develop a model of translation microstrategies for that
39
specific purpose alone, which will be presented in 4.3.3 below. The model presented here will
thus be applied to non-standard language and names, and not to neologisms.
Schjoldager’s taxonomy of microstrategies (Schjoldager 2008:89-110) was inspired by Vinay
and Darbelnet’s seven translation procedures and Delabastia’s five transformation categories,
among others. It comprises twelve different microstrategies as shown in Table 2:
1.
Direct transfer
2.
Calque
3.
Direct translation
4.
Oblique translation
5.
Explicitation
6.
Paraphrase
7.
Condensation
8.
Adaptation
9.
Addition
10.
Substitution
11.
Deletion
12.
Permutation
Table 2 Schjoldager's model of microstrategies (Schjoldager 2008:92)
Based on Schjoldager’s chapter 6 (Schjoldager 2008:89-110) these twelve strategies will now be
presented in more detail:
1.
The strategy of direct transfer transfers the ST element unchanged to the TT.
2.
A calque transfers the structure of a ST element to the TT or translates it in a way that is
very close to the ST element, resulting in unidiomatic and sometimes even incorrect target
language.
3.
The strategy of direct translation is used to translate in a word-for-word procedure and as
closely as possible by means of linguistic equivalents, resulting in idiomatic and correct target
language.
4.
The strategy of oblique translation is used to translate in a sense-for-sense procedure in an
attempt to cover the contextual meaning of a ST element and obtain functional equivalence.
5.
The explicitation strategy makes implicit information from the ST explicit in the TT.
40
6.
The paraphrase strategy is used to translate the ST meaning rather freely and in a way that is
difficult to define, but the contextual meaning is mostly transferred.
7.
Condensation renders the contextual meaning of the ST in a shorter way, which may involve
implicitation.
8.
The adaptation strategy recreates the effect of a ST element in the TT, entirely or partially,
by creatively imitating it.
9.
Addition involves adding a unit of meaning to the TT which cannot be directly inferred from
the ST.
10.
The substitution strategy changes the semantic meaning of a given ST element in the TT.
11.
Deletion involves leaving out a ST unit of meaning entirely in the TT.
12.
The strategy of permutation recreates the effect of a ST element in different place in the TT.
4.3.3 My model of microstrategies
Many neologisms lack dictionary equivalents in other languages and therefore require creative
and alternative approaches from the translator tasked with transferring them to a target language.
That is also the case with the neologisms in Pullman’s trilogy. I therefore found it necessary to
apply an adapted model of microstrategies that takes into account this curious nature of
neologisms.
The model is based on and inspired by three other taxonomies: Vinay & Darbelnet’s seven
translation procedures (Vinay & Darbelnet 1995), Schjoldager’s taxonomy of techniques, which
comprises eleven techniques (Schjoldager 2003:29-34), and van der Plas’ seven translation
techniques (van der Plas 2005:52-43).
My taxonomy comprises eight microstrategies, but is bipartite with four microstrategies under
the heading ‘preservation strategies’ and four under the heading ‘normalisation strategies’. This
bipartition is concerned with how a given microstrategy translates the foreign effect of a given
neologism in the TT. The four preservation strategies preserve the effect by reproducing it in the
TT, whereas the four normalisation strategies do not preserve the effect in the TT, but rather
normalise the otherwise foreign and exotic effect of a neologism. The taxonomy is outlined in
Table 3 and presented in detail below.
41
Preservation strategies:
1.
Non-translation (I)
2.
Danicization
3.
Direct translation
4.
Adaptation
Normalisation strategies:
5.
Non-translation (II)
6.
Explicitation
7.
Substitution
8.
Omission
Table 3 My model of microstrategies
1.
Non-translation (I): The ST element is transferred unchanged and remains foreign to the TT
reader. This microstrategy corresponds to Schjoldager’s “Non-translation” (Schjoldager
2003:31) and Vinay & Darbelnet’s “Borrowing” (Vinay & Darbelnet 1995:85), but takes into
account the effect of non-translation on the neologism in question.
2.
Danicization: The ST element is transferred but is modified in the TT in spelling or
inflection to match the norms of target language morphology and phonology. The transferred
element thus remains foreign to the TT reader. This microstrategy corresponds to van der Plas’
technique “Fordansket” (“Danified”) (van der Plas 1995:53).
3.
Direct translation: The ST element is translated into correct target language by means of
linguistic equivalents and remains foreign to the TT reader. This microstrategy corresponds to
Schjoldager’s “Direct translation” (Schjoldager 2003:31), but is of course only applicable to
neologisms that actually have linguistic equivalents in the target language.
4.
Adaptation: The ST element is creatively adapted into a TT element that imitates it but
preserves the foreign effect on the TT reader. This microstrategy corresponds to Schjoldager’s
“Adaptation” (Schjoldager 2003:33).
5.
Non-translation (II): The ST element is transferred unchanged but is non-foreign to the TT
reader. This microstrategy also corresponds to Schjoldager’s “Non-translation” and Vinay &
Darbelnet’s “Borrowing” but is different from non-translation (I) in that non-translation (II)
changes the effect of the neologism in question to non-foreign.
42
6.
Explicitation: The ST element’s meaning is rendered non-foreign by means of additional
explicitation or addition in the TT. This microstrategy corresponds to Schjoldager’s
“Explicitation” (Schjoldager 2003:32), but the effect of this strategy is that the TT-element
becomes non-foreign to the TT reader.
7.
Substitution: The ST element is translated into a non-foreign TT element. Whereas
Schjoldager’s “Substitution” (Schjoldager 2003:33) changes the ST meaning, this microstrategy
changes the effect of the neologism from being foreign in the ST to being non-foreign in the TT.
8.
Omission: The ST element is omitted in the TT and the foreign effect is left out. This
microstrategy corresponds to Schjoldager’s “Omission” (Schjoldager 2003:34).
After this presentation of method and material, I am going to turn to the analysis and its results in
chapter 5 below.
43
5. Analysis and results
This chapter constitutes the analysis which will be performed on the basis of the theoretical
approaches outlined in chapter 4. I will begin with a comparative macro-level analysis of the
extratextual factors in 5.1 and continue with the comparative micro-level analysis of intratextual
factors in 5.2.
5.1 Comparative analysis of extratextual factors
In order to determine Hanna Lützen’s skopos and macrostrategy for translating Philip Pullman’s
“His Dark Materials”, it will be necessary to take a look at the extratextual situation of the
assignment, firstly by briefly identifying the roles of the people involved in the translation
process. Since the brief, which Lützen was (presumably) given, stating the purpose and
conditions of the translation more or less explicitly, is not available for this analysis, I am going
to attempt a reconstruction of it, based on the information available. Similarly, I am going to
establish the extratextual profile of the ST-in-situation for the purpose of comparing the two
profiles in order to clarify Lützen’s skopos and macrostrategy in accordance with Nord’s
analytical framework outlined in 4.1.2 above.
5.1.1 Roles
The Initiator/Commissioner:
The Danish publishing house, Gyldendal, has published the trilogy in Denmark and is
presumably therefore the initiator and commissioner of the translation. More specifically,
Gyldendal probably has an editor attached to the assignment, who functions as the commissioner
and as the representative of the publishing house. Unfortunately, I have not been able to identify
the editor of the translation by name though.
The Translator
The translator is Hanna Lützen, who is a Danish literary translator and author. In Denmark, she
is perhaps best known for her translations of “His Dark Materials” and J. K. Rowling’s seven
“Harry Potter” novels, and her own authorship is also firmly set within the genre of horror and
44
fantasy. Lützen has a Master’s degree in comparative literary studies from the University of
Odense.29
The ST producer/ST sender
The producer and sender behind the ST is Philip Pullman, who is a British author, best known
for “His Dark Materials” and the Sally Lockhart series. (See 2.1 on Pullman)
The TT addressee/TT receiver
The prospective TT addressees and receivers are the Danish readers, who are not adequately
proficient in English to read the trilogy in its original version.
The TT user
TT users could for example include the theatre producers in Århus, who have used Lützen’s
translation as the basis for a stage play adaptation of the trilogy, and myself, who is using the
translation for analytical purposes.
5.1.2 TT profile
As mentioned above, the brief, which Lützen may have received from Gyldendal before
commencing the translation process, is not available, and so this attempt to reconstruct the brief,
as it may have appeared, is based on the situational factors and the factual information that is
available now, since the translations have already been published.
Text function
The TT is presumably intended to be an entertaining piece of fictional fantasy literature that is
exciting, comprehensible and enjoyable to read for the TT addressees in the target language.
According to Nord’s model of text functions, this means that the overall function of the TT
should be the expressive function.
Addressees
The prospective addressees of the TT are, as mentioned above, the part of the Danish-speaking
population who are not sufficiently fluent in the English language to read Pullman’s trilogy in its
original version. Since English is taught in Danish schools from an early age, it is probable that
the majority of Danes have at least a minimal level of familiarity with the language and the
culture of the English-speaking countries. British and American television series, films and
29
Wikipedia article: Hanna Lützen
45
entertainment shows on Danish TV-stations are also a factor in improving both language skills
and cross-cultural knowledge, so it would be wrong to say that the TT addressees are not familiar
with the British language and culture.
More specifically, we are presumably dealing with persons who have an interest in, and a habit
of, reading fictional novels belonging to the genre of fantasy, science fantasy or high fantasy. It
is also possible, that the readers are familiar with the author through previous Danish-language
publications of his work.
The website of the publishing house Gyldendal has the trilogy listed under the category “Børn og
unge” (“Children and young adults”) and, more specifically, under the sub-category “Fantasy”.30
This indicates that the initiator is first and foremost aiming the TT at children and young adults,
who, in Gyldendal’s view, mainly constitute the segment of the population that reads fantasy
literature. With the release of the above-mentioned film adaptation however, Gyldendal
republished the trilogy in a fourth edition with a front cover illustration from the film on all three
novels and a montage of still photos from various scenes of the film inside the first novel.31 In
the website description of this new edition of the second novel, Gyldendal has included the
following remark: “Bøgerne kan læses med lige stor fornøjelse af både børn (fra cirka 12) og
voksne.” (“These books are equally enjoyable to read for children (from approx. age 12) and
adults alike.”)32
The TT addressees can thus be defined as Danes between the ages of 12 and 99, especially
young adults, who are relatively familiar with the English language and British culture, and who
enjoy reading fantasy literature or wish to become acquainted with the genre.
Time and place
Since the trilogy was not published as a whole, but over the course of five years, the Danish
translations of the three novels were also performed accordingly. The first novel was translated
by Hanna Lützen and published in 1996, the second in 1997, and the third in 2001.33
Hanna Lützen translations were all published in Denmark.
30
Gyldendal website
The three novels ”Det gyldne kompas”, ”Skyggernes kniv” and ”Ravkikkerten”, which I have used as data, are all
fourth editions. (See List of references below)
32
Gyldendal website: Skyggernes kniv (My translation in parenthesis)
33
Publication dates of first editions retrieved from Saxo website.
31
46
Medium
The TT was published in book form and the medium is therefore written communication. More
specifically, the TT takes the form of three separate books, which all form part of the trilogy as a
whole.
Motive
The primary motive for translating the ST into a Danish-language TT must necessarily be to sell
copies of said TT in order to make a profit. The publishing house has made an investment by
purchasing the rights to distribute Pullman’s trilogy on the Danish market in a Danish version,
because they believe it will have a large segment of prospective Danish-speaking readers, who
are unable or unwilling to read the English original. Inherent in this motive, there is of course a
secondary motive, namely Gyldendal’s desire to convey, to a Danish-speaking audience, a
trilogy that is popular, exciting and well-written. In order for the Danes to be able to experience
Pullman’s trilogy, Gyldendal therefore decided to have it translated into Danish.
5.1.3 ST profile
In accordance with Nord’s approach, I will now continue with the analysis of a profile of the ST
by following the same five points above.
Text function
The main function of the ST is presumably to entertain the ST readers with Pullman’s trilogy
which depicts a fictional text world filled with fictional characters. This is visible in the trilogy
being a gripping quest through creatively invented parallel worlds, inhabited by strange and
fascinating characters, where supernatural artefacts and occurrences are abundant. The overall
function of the ST must therefore be categorised as expressive.
Addressees
Pullman’s own considerations on his target audience for the trilogy have been cited as follows on
the website of the publisher of the American version, Random House:
47
I don't know about this business of writing for this audience or that one. It's too like labelling the book as
fantasy it shuts out more readers than it includes. If I think of my audience at all, I think of a group that
includes adults, children, male, female, old, middle-aged, young everyone who can read. If horses, dogs,
cats, or pigeons could read, they'd be welcome to it as well. I don't want to shut anyone out.34
This rather broad definition of target audience is perhaps a symptom of the fact that Pullman has
no desire to exclude anyone as prospective buyers of the books. But it also illustrates the
problem with functionalism applied to the literary genre: it is often hard to narrowly define the
addressees. We may, however, tentatively presume the ST addressees to be English-speaking
British citizens, who are interested in reading science fantasy or high fantasy novels, and who or
may not be familiar with the author and his previous work. In Britain, “His Dark Materials” was
first published by Scholastic UK Ltd. who publish children’s books, and on their website the
trilogy is listed under ‘older fiction’, meaning fiction for children aged 12 or older.35 However,
the description included on the website also notes that the trilogy is read by children and adults
alike.36
The ST addressees can thus be defined as people aged 12 to 99, although mainly young adults,
who are sufficiently fluent in the English language, and who share an interest in reading
literature of this genre.
Time and place
The first editions of the three novels were published over the course of five years; the first novel
in 1995, the second in 1997 and the third in 2000.
The ST was written by Philip Pullman in his home in Oxford, London, and all three novels were
originally published in the UK.
Medium
The ST was originally published as written communication in three separate books. Since the
completion of the last novel, though, the trilogy has also been republished in its entirety with all
three novels included in one book.
34
Random House Q & A with Philip Pullman
Scholastic UK Ltd. website
36
Ibid.
35
48
Motive
Like any author by profession, Pullman writes, first and foremost, to earn a living. That being
said, the motive behind the production of the ST probably also stems from a desire to entertain
readers with a story, which he has first dreamed up and then put to paper, using his flair for
creative story-telling and capturing plot-lines. The two motives are thus mutually intertwined
since Pullman uses his talent for entertaining and his passion for writing fiction to earn a living,
so that he may continue to write and entertain in the future.
Behind these two motivational factors lies the writer’s classical motive, which Nord also points
out: “Their intention is not to describe “reality”, but to motivate personal insights about reality
by describing an (alternative) fictitious world.” (Nord 2005:78)
5.1.4 Comparison of profiles
A comparison of the TT profile and ST profile should allow us to obtain an impression of the
compatibility of the two and to determine the skopos and macrostrategy of the translation.
Text function
The ST and the TT are both intended to be entertainment embodied in fantasy fiction and they
are therefore both categorised as being expressive texts on the functional level. To Lützen’s
assignment, this means that she should attempt to transfer the function of the ST to the TT.
Addressees
Both the ST addressees and the TT addressees are rather broad groups of receivers with respect
to age in particular, but also in terms of sex, education and world knowledge. What they have in
common though, is that they are mainly young adults, but also adults of all ages, who have an
interest in reading fantasy fiction of this kind, and many of whom are probably already familiar
with the genre in terms of expectations.
The differences lie in the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the ST addressees and the TT
addressees respectively. Since the TT addressees can be expected to have only little knowledge
of the source culture and a vague familiarity with the English language, Lützen would have to
take this into account if she encountered source culture-bound elements in the ST.
49
Time and place
The temporal gap between ST publication and TT production is a year or less in the case of all
three novels, and this factor should therefore not have been a concern for Lützen in the
translation process.
The ST was produced and received in the UK whereas the TT was produced and received in
Denmark. You could argue that the two states are in close proximity geographically, since they
are only separated by the North Sea; references to geographical distances in the ST should
therefore not have caused problems in the TT. Accordingly, the source and the target cultures are
also similar in many ways, but Lützen would still have to consider cultural, political and societal
references that are bound to the source culture and could be misinterpreted or not understood in a
target-cultural context.
Medium
Since both texts were published as written communication in the form of books, which is also the
norm with this genre in both cultures, the medium should not have been a cause for concern with
respect to strategy or skopos.
Motive
The motives for the production of the two texts are actually quite compatible, since both Pullman
(and his publisher) and Lützen (and her publisher) are interested in delivering a product that is
entertaining to its addressees. If all parties are to earn a living and, hopefully, make a profit, both
the ST and TT will necessarily have to be sellable, exciting and interesting pieces of literary
entertainment. Motive should therefore not have been a problematic factor to Lützen in the
translation process.
5.1.5 Skopos and macrostrategy
This comparative analysis of extratextual factors points to the conclusion, that Lützen’s skopos
must have been to translate the ST into a TT that was entertaining, exciting and interesting to
read for the ST receivers. Since the main function of this prospective TT matches that of the ST,
Lützen should have been able to meet the purpose by translating under an overall instrumental
strategy, which aims at achieving most or all of the ST functions in the TT; more specifically,
this would mean a heterofunctional instrumental translation strategy.
50
That being said, there are also other factors which need to be taken into account when you are
dealing with a functionally complex genre like literature. The ST is, as shown in chapter 2 above,
set partly in a world that is identical with the source culture (Will’s world), partly in a world that
is quite reminiscent of the source culture (Lyra’s world), and partly in worlds that have very little
or nothing in common with the source culture (the mulefa world, the Ci’gazze world, and the
world of the dead). On an overall level, you could argue that Pullman’s main idea must have
been to tell a fantastical story on premises which are fantastical, but that the story, at the same
time, has to be relevant to the reader’s reality and the premises therefore have to be recognisable
on some level.
Since the source culture here functions as the recognisable reality to which the ST refers, the
translator will also have to deal with the problems that arise in connection with translation of
culture-bound elements, such as names of character, places, streets and food items. She would
have to decide whether or not to replace these source-culture elements with target-culture
elements, e.g. replace a typical British name like “Nicole Jones” with a typical Danish name like
“Nikoline Jensen”.
As shown in the above comparative analysis of extratextual factors though, the two cultures we
are dealing with here are not vastly different. The Danish readers will have some knowledge of
the target culture and the target language, and they are therefore prepared for English personal
names, street names, etc. If Lützen were to use an instrumental strategy to achieve the function
of the ‘real’ world referent by moving this referent to a Danish setting, she would have to do so
consistently and that would involve a great deal of changes to the ST; changes which are not
really necessary to such an extent, when you consider the TT addressees’ knowledge.
It would probably therefore be more appropriate for Lützen to employ an exoticizing
documentary strategy on passages which refer to the source culture or to cultures reminiscent of
the source culture, and thus change the function of the ST in that particular respect. This also
allows her to remain more loyal to the original author and his text, and because of the relative
closeness of the source and target cultures, the source culture will not seem so immensely
foreign and exotic to the average TT reader anyway.
To sum up: the skopos with the translation is to entertain the TT receivers on an equal or similar
level as the ST entertained the ST receivers, and this is primarily achieved by a heterofunctional
instrumental translation strategy, which recreates the function and effect of the fantasy trilogy in
the target language. The primary goal then is to give the readers the same experience of being in
51
strange parallel worlds with supernatural beings and paranormal objects, whereas the sourcecultural references should be translated by means of an exoticizing documentary strategy.
Ideally, these macrostrategic considerations should be reflected in the micro-level choices that
Lützen has made. I will therefore now turn to the results of the comparative analysis of
intratextual factors with this result in mind. As mentioned above, I have chosen to focus my
attention on three particular aspects at text level, and will not perform an exhaustive comparative
analysis of all intratextual aspects.
5.2 Comparative analysis of intratextual factors
This section comprises the micro-level analysis of the three translation problems described in 4.2
above, namely neologisms in 5.2.1, non-standard language in 5.2.2 and names in 5.2.3.
5.2.1 Neologisms
I will now proceed with the analysis of Lützen’s translation of neologisms, which according to
Nord’s definitions can be classified as a text-specific translation problem, using the eight
translation microstrategies described above (Table 3) as points of departure for a discussion of
Lützen’s choices. In some instances, it will also be relevant to clarify neologism types and
origins in order to be able to assess and compare the effect of the ST element and the TT element
in question, respectively. The examples I will be using are all listed in Appendix I below with a
reference to the book from which it stems as well as a page reference to both the ST and the TT.
Page references to the individual examples used will therefore not be given in the analysis
below.
The analysis begins with the four preservation strategies, then moves on to the four
normalisation strategies and concludes with an examination and discussion of inconsistencies in
Lützen’s translations of neologisms within the individual novels as well as between the three
novels.
52
5.2.1.1 Preservation strategies
Non-translation (I) is exemplified with the word “Byanplats”, which, in Lyra’s world, denotes a
patch of high ground in the Fen-marshes where the gyptians gather for larger meetings. The
reader learns the meaning of the term from the context of both the ST and the TT and this is
probably the reason why Lützen has chosen to leave it unchanged. I have unfortunately not been
able to establish the exact origin of the word. It is quite possible, that it was simply coined by
Pullman, but it is presumably derived from some form of Dutch, since that is apparently the
lineage of the gyptians. In any event, “Byanplats” does not refer to a real place in the reader’s
reality and it should therefore be equally foreign to both ST-readers and TT-readers.
The same is true of the words “Cittàgazze” and “Ci’gazze”, which are both names for the city in
the world of the Spectres. “Cittàgazze” is Italian for “city of the magpies” – a fact which is stated
in both the ST and the TT, leaving Lützen with the option of preserving both terms unchanged
without detracting from the TT reader’s feeling of being in a strange and foreign world nor
leaving him puzzled as to possible meanings of the words. It may also be presumed that both
“Byanplats” and “Cittàgazze” or “Ci’gazze” would be equally hard to pronounce for Danish and
English speaking readers respectively, which further strengthens Lützen’s basis for using nontranslation (I) in these situations.
A third example of Lützen’s use of this strategy is the case of the subtle knife – a powerful,
double-edged knife which is a magical object central to the plot of the second and third book of
the trilogy. The subtle knife has several alternate names in the trilogy and two of those,
“Æsahættr” and “teleutaia makhaira”, Lützen transfers unchanged to the TT. “Æsahættr” is a
true borrowing from Icelandic and means “god-destroyer” whereas “teleutaia makhaira” is
ancient Greek and means “the last knife of all”. Pullman’s borrowings from other languages are
usually accompanied by a contextual explanation or clarification and since this is also the case
here, Lützen has elected to retain the foreignness of odd terminology and used non-translation (I)
as her strategy.
The danicization strategy transfers the element relatively unchanged to the TT; the difference lies
in slight changes in spelling, intended to accommodate to norms of target language phonology
and morphology. Lützen has especially used this approach in the case of the otherworldly,
almost alien, universe featured in the third novel, where the humanoid inhabitants have trunks,
horns and diamond-shaped skeletons and speak a complicated language that requires the use of
the trunk. Pullman dubs this sentient people “mulefa”, whereas an individual mulefa is called a
53
“zalif”. The inhabitants of the mulefa-world also include huge malicious bird-like creatures
called “tualapi”. These three terms were all seemingly coined by the author and bear no obvious
clues to the personality, character or abilities of what they denote – quite possibly a consequence
of the fact that this universe is so utterly different from our world in terms of evolutionary
biology that it would be rather pointless to borrow from other languages, contemporary or not.
Accordingly, Lützen has chosen to keep them unchanged and thereby preserved the exotic effect
- except for when the context calls for grammatical inflection, in which cases she has danified
the terms in accordance with Danish morphology conventions, giving us “mulefaerne” (“the
mulefa”, pl.), “zaliffen” (“the zalif”, sing.) and “tualapierne” (“the tualapi”, pl.) in the TT.
Another interesting example of danicization is the term “gyptian”. Pullman’s name for this
people is a blend of the words “gypsy” and “Egyptian” and can thus be categorized as a
portmanteau word. The gyptians of the novel are also a nomadic people, but unlike real-life
gypsies, they travel by boat. Lützen’s translation, “jypsi”, has no connotations to gypsies, who
are called “sigøjnere” in Danish, and Pullman’s reference will therefore be lost on any Danish
reader who does not catch the phonological similarity to the English word. Lützen has, however,
managed to transfer the foreignness of this neologism and, by modifying the spelling slightly and
danifying it, made it phonologically easier for a Dane to pronounce.
The strategy of direct translation is of course only of use when the neologism in question has
linguistic equivalents in the target language, since words coined by the author will not appear in
any dictionary or lexicon. Lützen’s use of this micro-strategy is therefore also frequent on
existing words that have another sense or meaning in the parallel worlds of the trilogy:
“Experimental theologians”, for instance, in the ST are physicists, and even though this is not
explicated in so many words until the beginning of the second novel, the reader is able to gather
as much from the context, allowing Lützen to use the Danish equivalents, “eksperimentalteologer”, in the TT. This is also the case with the very central concept of “Dust”, which
throughout the trilogy remains the cause of much debate, speculation and intrigue. And because
“Dust” is such a central theme in the novels, Lützen has been able to use the Danish equivalent
“Støv”, capitalised as in the ST, in order to recreate for her TT readers the effect that lies in
giving a familiar and arguably dull word a whole new sense and thereby all new connotations,
just as Pullman did for his ST readers. Any confusion with regular dust is quickly cleared up
through the context.
54
The adaptation strategy involves some creative thinking on the translator’s part, and Lützen’s
ability to successfully transfer ST neologisms into imitative TT neologisms that preserve the
exotic effect is evident in many of her solutions. Pullman’s “dæmon”, which in the trilogy is the
term for the animal projections of the human soul that accompany each character from Lyra’s
world, is a good example of this strategy. Since “dæmon” is a Danish word that means “demon”,
non-translation in this case would have meant leaving the Danish reader with the wrong set of
connotations. Ultimately, the reader would of course soon learn from the context that a “dæmon”
is not a devilish monster, but Lützen chose to come up with another term in the TT, probably to
avoid the connotative confusion. Her solution, “daimon”, is reminiscent of “dæmon”, just like
“dæmon” is reminiscent of “demon” in the eyes of the ST-reader, and at the same time, it
constitutes an unfamiliar word and adds to the mystique of the fantasy thrill. Lützen has
commented on her choice of “daimon” in an interview where she says: “It is a Greek word for
something akin to a guardian angel. I actually talked to Philip Pullman about it and he thought it
was fine.”37
Another example that demonstrates Lützen’s use of the adaptation strategy is the term
“Gobblers”, derived from the acronym GOB which in turn is short for “the General Oblation
Board”. In the trilogy, the General Oblation Board, headed by Mrs Coulter, is an institution
under the church which sees Dust as the equivalent of Original Sin and therefore seeks to
eliminate its effect by performing horrible experiments on children and their dæmons. The
religious affiliation is visible in the word “oblation”, which denotes “offering” in the
terminology of the Roman Church, but Lützen has presumably regarded this connotation as
superfluous and instead chosen to let her translation of “the General Oblation Board” reflect the
wicked nature and strictness of the board by calling it “Disciplinærkommissionen” (“the
Disciplinary Committee”) in the TT – a term that is fairly well-known in Denmark and therefore
slightly less foreign and exotic to the TT reader and certainly less reminiscent of religious
matters. This particular decision reflects upon Lützen’s options in her translation of “Gobblers”,
because when Lyra discovers that Mrs Coulter is the head of the Gobblers, and thus responsible
for the kidnapping of her friend Roger, Lyra’s attention is brought to the fact that “Gobbler” is
derived from “General Oblation Board” and Lyra realizes that the two are one and the same
thing. Lützen could hardly base her translation on an acronym she has not used in TT and was
therefore forced to come up with something imitative instead. Her translation, “Snapperne” (“the
37
Metroxpress article: ”Sådan bliver dæmon til daimon”, by Line Felholt.
55
Snatchers”), is thus a consequence of “Disciplinærkommissionen”, but also an imitative
adaptation of “Gobblers”. It mirrors what it is the Gobblers do, namely snatch children, and
preserves the foreign effect in that it is a nominalisation of the Danish verb “at snappe” (“to
snatch”) and thus a relatively unfamiliar word to the TT-reader.
One final example of adaptation could be Lützen’s translation of “the Peaceable Ocean”. Here,
Pullman clearly renames the Pacific Ocean in order to give Lyra’s world a foreign twist, and
Lützen’s translation, “Rolighedshavet” (“the Ocean of Peace”), transfers Pullman’s intentions to
the TT by imitating the Standard Danish equivalent of the Pacific Ocean, “Stillehavet”. Lützen’s
solution is exotic and yet recognisable to the TT-reader.
These are just some of the examples of the four preservation strategies employed by Lützen
which all, in different ways, achieve if not the same, then a similar effect on the TT reader. The
above examples indicate that Lützen was conscious of the effect of the neologisms and that she
has strived to recreate the effect of them, in various creative ways, in her TT. I will now move on
to the normalisation strategies.
5.2.1.2 Normalisation strategies
The non-translation (II) strategy is only visible in one instance, namely the case of “the
panserbjørne”. The rather unique paradox here is that “panserbjørne” is actually a compound of
two Danish words, meaning “armoured bears”, and therefore a true borrowing from the target
language. Pullman has borrowed it in order to further exoticise Lyra’s world for his Englishspeaking readers by using foreign words that even introduce foreign letters (ø). Lyra’s immediate
reaction upon overhearing the word is also one of bafflement (“Northern Lights”:27), and it is
not until she is actually introduced to a panserbjørn, later on, that she and the reader learn that
they are in fact armoured polar bears who speak and function in their own polar bear community
on Svalbard.
The fact that Lützen has chosen to keep this Danish word unchanged arguably leaves the TT
reader a lot less baffled than is the case with the ST, even though “panserbjørne” is also a
neologism in Danish. It would seem that Lützen, in this particular case, has prioritised not
straying too far from the ST by renaming the “panserbjørne” into something more exotic, like
she did in the case of “dæmon”. The fact remains, that her solution to this presumably rare
56
problem gives the TT readers less of an experience of being ‘left in the dark’ than was the case
with the ST readers.
The explicitation strategy is in fact also applied by Lützen on only one occasion. When the ST
first introduces the term “intercision”, it is actually not clear to either the reader or Lyra what it
refers to. They both learn at a later point in the first novel that “intercision” denotes the
horrifying process of cutting the invisible bond between a human being and his demon; a
complicated surgical procedure conducted in secrecy by the Gobblers. Pullman borrowed the
word from Latin, meaning “the act of cutting asunder”, and even if the ST readers are not fluent
in Latin, you could argue that its reminiscence to the English term “incision” would provide
them with a clue as to what “intercision” might mean. Lützen’s translation, “intercision, altså
gennemskæring” (“intercision, meaning cutting”), constitutes an explanatory addition to the
unchanged ST element, and makes very explicit to the ST reader what the TT reader could
perhaps only speculate on. Even though Lützen’s choice here detracts from the mystique by
explicating, you could however argue that the Danish readers are less likely to make the
connection to “incision” and therefore need an explanatory note in order to be on equal terms
with the ST reader. One way of avoiding the need for additions could perhaps have been to adapt
“intercision” into a Danish neologism similar to “gennemskæring” instead of simply copying the
term.
The normalisation strategy that Lützen has used most frequently is the substitution strategy.
Since substituting a neologism with the ‘normal’ Danish equivalent inevitably takes away from
the exotic feel to the story, it is also interesting to look at possible reasons as to why Lützen
would choose that approach.
A good example is Pullman’s partiality for changing the names of countries and nationalities by
means of altered spelling, archaic names, etc. These names are not central to the storyline as such
nor are they mentioned more than once or twice each, but, in the grand scheme of things,
Pullman utilises these subtle details as a constant reminder of the fact that Lyra’s world is similar
to, but not identical with, the reader’s reality. While Lützen has used direct translation or
adaptation on some of these renamed countries38, there are also quite a few examples of
substitution: “Muscovy” becomes “Rusland” (“Russia”) in the TT, “High Brazil” is translated
into “Brasilien” (“Brazil”), “Eireland and Corea” become “Irland og Korea” (“Ireland and
Korea”) and “the mines of Sveden” along with “the Norroway government” are translated as “de
38
E.g.”New Denmark” – ”Ny Danmark” and “Cathay” – “Kinesiens Land”. (See Appendix I for further examples)
57
svenske miner” (“the Swedish mines”) and “den norske regering” (“the Norwegian
government”) respectively.
In short, Lützen has chosen the standard Danish way of spelling the names of these countries or
nationalities, however subtle Pullman’s changes may have been. It is possible, that Lützen
regarded these examples as minute details that, because they are not of plot-essential importance,
did not merit that much attention from the translator, who was perhaps also pressed for time and
therefore prioritised giving thought to other problem areas. Another reason could be that Lützen
felt it would confuse the reader unnecessarily if she deliberately misspelled the names of these
countries. Given that a relatively large number of the target audience is adolescent children and
young adults, the latter explanation could point to a tendency in Lützen’s considerations towards
favouring correct spelling, as a means of educating impressionable readers, over misleading
designations of countries. Finally, it is entirely possible that Lützen, by mistake, overlooked at
least some of the ‘misspellings’ in the process and thereby translated what she for example
thought was “the mines of Sweden” into its corresponding equivalent in the TT.
The substitution strategy is also evident in a few examples that concern aircraft technology. The
preferred means of travelling in Lyra’s world are hot air balloons and Zeppelins, and one of the
more prominent characters, Lee Scoresby, is actually a balloonist. In Pullman’s terminology, the
airport is thus “the Aërodock”, a balloonist is “an aëronaut” and an accident involving a Zeppelin
is “an aëronautical accident”. Even though the ST readers will probably deduce the author’s
meaning fairly quickly from the context, they are still affected by their encounter with these
unfamiliar words. They will inevitably stop and think twice before reading on, and this, surely,
must also have been Pullman’s intention when he pieced together the peculiarities of Lyra’s
world. However, when the TT readers read about “lufthavnen” (“the airport”), “en luftskipper”
(“a balloonist”) and “en flyulykke” (“a plane crash”) in Lützen’s Danish translation, they are
arguably not affected by this conventional terminology at all. The exotic touch to Lyra’s world is
lost on the Danish reader who reads on without being reminded of the special and strange
relationship between Lyra’s world and the ‘real’ world. Lützen could have chosen to preserve
that effect by imitating or maybe danifying Pullman’s original terms – after all, “aeronautics” is
called “aeronautik” in Danish and “aerodynamics” is called “aerodynamik”; the associations
would arguably be the same to the TT-reader as they were to the ST-reader. The fact remains,
however, that her translations of these three terms effectively normalise what Pullman intended
to be a foreign universe. It is difficult to say why Lützen would choose that approach, given her
58
skopos, but, again, it is possible, that she judged these three terms to be minor details that were
not essential to the big picture.
There are other examples of Lützen’s use of this normalisation strategy, but one final example in
particular is worth mentioning here because of its frequent use in the trilogy; namely “naphtha”.
In Lyra’s world, “naphtha” is the word for what we know as kerosene or paraffin oil, and our
characters use it in “naphtha lamps”, providing a more soft-lighted alternative to electric lights.
The reader can deduce from the context that a “naphtha lamp” is an oil-lamp in Lyra’s universe,
but Pullman’s use of this quaint term again reminds us, that we are in a parallel world, where an
oil-lamp is not just called an oil-lamp. Lützen, fairly consistently, translates “naphtha” into
“petroleum” (“paraffin oil”) and “naphtha lamp” into “petroleumslampe” (“paraffin lamp”),
giving her ST readers the normal Danish equivalents rather than challenging their imagination by
using an unconventional Danish term for “petroleum”, like “nafta” for instance, which would
have reproduced the intended effect on the reader. As mentioned above, the term “naphtha”
appears quite frequently in the ST in different situations and places, and, in my opinion,
functions as a constant reminder to the reader that the reality of the novels is strange and
somewhat foreign. That function is lost in the ST due to Lützen’s normalisation strategy.
The final strategy of omission is exemplified where Lützen translates the phrase “rolls of
cahuchuc-covered cable” into “store kabelruller” (”big rolls of cable”), thus omitting the fact that
these cables are “cahuchuc-covered”. Pullman used the Native American word for rubber or
plastic and his intent here probably was simply to illustrate, that the cables were coated with
plastic which happens to be called “cahuchuc” in Lyra’s world. Lützen’s omission normalises
the situation and reduces the TT reader’s feeling of being subjected to a strange universe. Other
examples of omissions on Lützen’s part could be “a coal-silk curtain” which she translates into
“et forhæng” (“a curtain”) and “the Maystadt anbaric scalpel” which in the TT becomes
“Maystadt-skalpellen” (“the Maystadt scalpel”). Both these latter examples are, however, also
examples of neologisms that apparently were especially problematic to Lützen throughout the
process of translating the trilogy. Her simply omitting them here is arguably a symptom of the
difficulties she experienced with certain neologisms – a point that will be discussed below,
where the inconsistencies in some of Lützen’s choices are examined. The fact remains, that
omitting neologisms in the TT takes away from the exotic feel to the ST and thus the effect
intended by the original author, as was also the case with the other three normalisation strategies
as demonstrated above.
59
Even though the translator has mainly strived to retain the exotic feel to the trilogy by preserving
the foreign effect, she has not managed to do so in all instances as shown here.
5.2.1.3 Inconsistencies
When you literally scrutinise “His Dark Materials” alongside Hanna Lützen’s translation looking
for neologisms and their Danish counterparts, as I have done, you inevitably notice details such
as the translator’s different, inconsistent translations of the same ST element. They will in most
cases go unnoticed by the TT reader who has never seen the original, making it seem slightly
pedantic to line them up for analysis. But these inconsistencies may in fact help shed some light
on Lützen’s considerations with respect to some of Pullman’s neologisms and particular
problems she may have experienced in the process. It is also interesting to look at possible
consequences - for the translator and for the trilogy - of inconsistent translations of neologisms.
The first example is the above-mentioned compound neologism “coal-silk”: The term only
appears in the first novel, but is mentioned several times and in different connections. Even
though the meaning of “coal-silk” is never made explicit to the reader, the context does give it
away to some extent. The phrases “a coal-silk curtain” and “coal-silk anoraks” reveal that we are
dealing with some sort of fabric, and my best guess would be, that it is actually nylon or rayon
that Pullman has renamed here, since nylon was first invented as a replacement for silk and is
made partly from coal.
Book + Page
references
ST
TT
1- 239/244
”a coal-silk
curtain”
“the nurse
dressed herself
in coal-silk”
”et forhæng”
1- 256/261
1- 265/269
1- 293/297
“coal-silk
anoraks”
“The trouble was
that coal-silk
wasn’t as warm
as proper fur,”
”, no matter how
much it was
padded out with
hollow coal-silk
fibres.”
Table 4 "Coal-silk" (Appendix I.2)
1- 293/297
TT (backtranslation)
(a curtain)
Microstrategy
”sygeplejersken
hentede sin egen
forede
kunstsilkedragt”
”polaranorakker”
(the nurse
fetched her own
lined rayon suit)
Substitution
(polar anoraks)
Substitution
”Problemet var, at
kunstsilkeanorakker
ikke var lige så varme,
som Lyras pels.”
(The problem
was that rayon
anoraks weren’t
as warm as
Lyra’s fur)
(The synthetic
fibres couldn’t
keep out the
cold)
Substitution
”Kunstfibrene kunne
ikke holde kulden
ude,”
Omission
Substitution
60
Table 4 lists five examples of the neologism “coal-silk” from the ST with Lützen’s
corresponding translations, in chronological order. Even though the ST element is consistently
the same in each example, Lützen’s translations vary from completely omitting “coal-silk” (as
mentioned above) to substituting it with different non-foreign Danish words: “polar”, kunst” and
“kunstsilke”. Lützen’s use of the normalisation strategy in all five instances is thus the only
constant, although you might argue that “kunstsilke” is a somewhat specialised term in Danish
and therefore more reminiscent of a neologism in terms of effect. If Lützen had simply used the
word “nylon”, the TT reader certainly would not have thought about it twice.
But the inconsistency displayed here could be an indicator that the translator was unsure of what
“coal-silk” was supposed to refer to and hence, how she should translate it. That would explain
why she ignored and omitted it the first time it is mentioned and then, after figuring out from the
context that it was supposed to be the word for “nylon”, made that explicit to the TT readers
using various, more or less well-known, Danish equivalents to “nylon”. It is difficult to say why
Lützen did not choose to simply imitate Pullman’s neologism in the TT from the first time it is
mentioned and henceforth consistently, e.g. “kul-silke” (“coal-silk”). The TT readers would then
have had the same pleasure in figuring out for themselves and from the context that “kul-silke” is
what nylon is called in Lyra’s world, and Lützen would have conveyed this effect to the TT in
accordance with her skopos. She may, again, have judged it to be a minor detail and, pressed for
time, chosen to prioritise other problems in the process.
Another neologism that has been translated inconsistently by Lützen is “photogram”. In Lyra’s
world, a “photogram” is the equivalent of a photograph, but, depending on how it is developed, a
“photogram” may be a regular photo you can hang on the wall, or a slide you project onto a
screen using a special kind of projector. Pullman seemingly uses “photogram” as a kind of
hypernym akin to “picture”, and he has used the term consistently as just that in all three novels.
61
Book + Page
references
1- 21/28
1- 241/245
2- 76/84
2- 106/115
ST
TT
“a photogram”
“a huge
photogram”
“a photogram”
“She had seen
projected
photograms”
“et dias”
“en mægtig fotostat”
2- 123/132
“photograms”
3- 230/230
“the photograms”
Table 5 "Photogram" (Appendix I.2)
”en fotostat”
”Hun havde før set
fotogrammer vist på
lærred”
”fotogrammer”
”fotogrammer”
TT (backtranslation)
(a slide)
(a huge
photostat)
(a photostat)
(In the past, she
had seen
photograms
projected onto a
screen)
(photograms)
(photograms)
Microstrategy
Substitution
Substitution
Substitution
Danicization
Danicization
Danicization
Table 5 shows how Lützen varies her translation of the term over the course of the three novels.
Her initial use of the substitution strategy is perhaps best explained by the fact that Pullman’s
first mention of “photograms” is in connection with slides and projectors. But Lützen’s
translation here, “dias”, normalises the situation and removes the foreignness added by Pullman
with his neologism. Later on in the first novel, where “photogram” refers to a picture on a wall,
Lützen translates it as “fotostat”, which, although it is a real Danish word, presumably rings
slightly more exotic in the ears of the TT-readers than “dias” did. However, for those TTreaders, who know what a photostat is, the exotic touch is lost in translation due to Lützen’s use
of the substitution strategy. Lützen uses “fotostat” again in the beginning of the second novel
before she settles on the danicization “fotogram” for the remainder of that and throughout the
third novel. This last solution preserves the foreign touch but still allows the TT reader to be able
to guess what it refers to, partly from the context, but also because it is so reminiscent of the
Danish term “fotografi” (“photograph”).
The fact that Lützen does not revert to either “dias” or “fotostat” in the third novel, but rather
continues to use “fotogram” consistently, indicates that this is the solution she prefers. Since she
probably came up with it midway through the second novel, it was too late to change anything in
the first novel for obvious reasons, but it is hard to say why she did not change it in the second.
Perhaps time pressure did not allow for her to intensely check for inconsistencies such as this
one.
One final, but rather comprehensive, example of inconsistent translation on Lützen’s part is the
case of “anbaric” and its different variations throughout the trilogy. As a shining example of
Pullman’s ingenuity in terms of renaming conventional objects and phenomena, the neologism
“anbaric” actually just means “electric” or “electrical” in Lyra’s world. The word “electric” itself
62
being derived from the Greek word for “amber”, Pullman39 decided to borrow the Arabic word
for “amber”, “anbar”, as the root for the different forms that appear in the trilogy: e.g. “anbaric
lights”, “anbarology”, “anbaromagnetic”, “anbarograph”, etc. Throughout the first novel, the ST
readers are left with nothing but the context to help them deduce the meaning of the term, which
also appears quite frequently. In the Danish translation of the first novel, however, Lützen has
consistently used the substitution strategy on “anbaric” and its variations, eliminating the exotic
effect for her TT readers, as Table 6 below demonstrates.
Book + Page
references
1- 21/28
1- 36/42
ST
TT
”the Anbaric
Park”
“anbarographs”
”kraftværket”
“anbarology”
“anbaric wires”
“anbaromagnetic
readings”
Table 6 "Anbaric" (Appendix I.2+3)
1- 38/45
1- 99/105
1- 140/146
”kontormaskiner”
”fysik”
”elektriske kabler”
”elektriske målinger”
TT (backtranslation)
(the power
station)
(office
machinery)
(physics)
(electrical wires)
(electrical
readings)
Microstrategy
Substitution
Substitution
Substitution
Substitution
Substitution
In the second novel, when Lyra encounters the boy Will, who is from the ‘real’ Oxford where the
term “anbaric” makes little or no sense, the two children inevitably confront each other with the
differences of their respective parallel worlds and end up having an enlightening conversation40
about Lyra’s “anbaromagnetism”. The dialogue reveals the etymology of “anbar” to the reader
who, for the first time, gets an unambiguous explanation for the term through the conversation
between the two characters. The problem for Lützen then, of course, is the fact that she has used
the ‘normal’ Danish equivalent of “electric” or “electrical” (“elektrisk”) up until this point in the
trilogy.
At this point, however, she chooses to translate Lyra’s “anbaromagnetism” and “anbaric” into
“ambaromagnetisme” and “ambarisk”, using the danicization strategy, and thereby giving
Pullman’s neologisms the same effect in the TT as they had in the TT. Lützen actually continues
to use those terms and variations of them in the remainder of the second novel and in the third
novel, as the examples in Table 7 below show:
According to the entry “Anbaric current” in Srafopedia: His Dark Materials Wiki, this is how Pullman coined the
term anbaric.
40
“The Subtle Knife”: 57-58
39
63
Book + Page
references
2- 83/92
3- 187/188
3- 278/276
3- 338/342
ST
TT
“where some
kind of
complicated
anbaric
machinery stood
in silence”
“anbaric forges”
“the anbaric
cables”
“great anbaric
generators”
“hvor der stod
nogle avanceret
udseende,
ambariske
maskiner”
”ambariske esser”
”de ambariske
kabler”
”de store
ambariske
generatorer”
TT (backtranslation)
(where some
sophisticatedlooking anbaric
machinery stood)
Microstrategy
(anbaric forges)
(the anbaric
cables)
(the great anbaric
generators)
Danicization
Danicization
Danicization
Danicization
Table 7 "Anbaric" (Appendix I.2+3)
What must necessarily strike the TT reader, though, is this sudden appearance, 64 pages into the
second novel, of odd terminology, seemingly coming out of nowhere and continuing until the
end of the trilogy. It seems clear that this above-mentioned conversation between Lyra and Will
forced Lützen to deal with ‘the anbaric problem’, since that particular piece of dialogue would
have made little or no sense had she continued to translate Lyra’s “anbaric” and
“anbaromagnetism” into “elektrisk” and “elektromagnetisme”. Lützen could of course also have
omitted the conversation and thereby avoided the problem, but that would also have meant
omitting a sequence that establishes both the difference and the similarity between Lyra’s world
and Will’s world – a crucial point in Pullman’s trilogy.
The solution she finally chose is, in my opinion, in excellent accordance with her skopos, but
since she used the normalisation strategy on this neologism in the first half of the trilogy, the
sudden introduction of “ambarisk” into the TT could seem confusing to the TT reader. At this
point, Lützen was obviously not able to go back and change her translations of “anbaric” and its
variations in the first novel - that would require extensive editing and a costly re-issue. But the
situation here demonstrates how a translation-strategic decision made during the early stages of
translating a series can suddenly cause problems at a later stage. If Lützen had used one of the
four preservation strategies on “anbaric” from the beginning, she would have never been forced
to translate inconsistently like this, unnecessarily confusing her readers.
These examples of inconsistent translation could be regarded as indicators that Lützen was too
pressed for time to thoroughly research every single neologism and to keep check of how she
had translated each of them over the time-span of the whole process. The above examination also
shows that when Lützen settled on a translation that matched her skopos, she stuck to it
64
throughout the rest of the trilogy, and this substantiates the assessment that Lützen was aware of
the effect of neologisms and strived to retain or imitate the exotic feel in the TT.
Overall, Lützen’s frequent use of preservation strategies, most prominently the microstrategies of
direct translation and adaptation, has resulted in many creative solutions to this particular
translation problem of neologisms and she therefore, generally, produces a TT that is
functionally equivalent in that it entertains on a similar or equivalent level in the target culture.
However, Lützen has also made use of normalisation strategies, especially the substitution
microstrategy, and thereby reduced the effect of neologisms in the TT.
5.2.2 Non-standard language
As described above, one of the characteristic features of Pullman’s trilogy is his use of nonstandard language in direct speech and dialogue passages. Translating this non-standard
language is however problematic, both linguistically, due to structural differences between the
source and target languages, and text-specifically, because of Pullman’s use of archaic
progressive forms and phonetically rendered utterances which require some degree of creative
thinking on the translator’s part.
The examples of non-standard language that I have chosen to focus on are listed in Appendix II
below in ST-TT pairs, and only smaller extracts of these examples will be given here. As
mentioned above, Schjoldager’s taxonomy of microstrategies (Table 2) will serve as the tool for
this microanalysis of Lützen’s translation of various kinds of non-standard language in the ST.
5.2.2.1 Spoken language and dialect
The two groups of characters whose manner of speech is most prominently represented in the
form of spoken language and colloquial dialects are Lyra, Roger and their street urchin friends
on the one hand and the siblings, Angelica and Paolo, from the Ci’gazze world on the other.
Even though both groups share this trait, there are noticeable differences in the way Pullman
chooses to manifest it in writing; in other words, in addition to the problem of translating spoken
language in the ST there even seems to be a dialectical difference between the English spoken in
the two parallel worlds respectively.
65
Table 8 below is a ST-TT comparison of a conversation between Lyra and her friend Roger, the
kitchen boy at Jordan. The underlined elements in the ST quote constitute examples of spoken
language; that is: contractions (“don’t”, “’em”, “en’t”, etc.), false concord (“this guest who
weren’t polite”) and ungrammatical use of tense (“what my uncle done”, “I seen him”, etc.).
ST
TT
“You don’t know what they do. They might not
do that at all.”
“You’re afraid of ’em,” she said. “I can tell.”
”Det gør de i hvert fald ikke. Hvordan kan du
vide, hvad de gør?”
”Du er bare bange for dem,” sagde hun, ”det kan
enhver se.”
”Nej, jeg er så ej. Og desuden tror jeg slet ikke på
Snapperne.”
”Men det gør jeg altså,” sagde hun bestemt, ”og
jeg er ikke spor bange for dem. Jeg gør nemlig
bare, ligesom min onkel gjorde sidste gang han
var her på Jordan. Jeg så det selv. Han sad i
Herreværelset, og så kom der en gæst, der ikke
kunne opføre sig ordentligt, og min onkel stirrede
på ham, til han faldt død om på stedet – med
skum af fråde om munden endda.”
”Er det virkelig rigtigt?” sagde Roger tvivlende.
”Det er der ingen, der har talt om nede i
køkkenet. Hvad lavede du ellers i Herreværelset;
du må jo slet ikke gå derind.”
”Næ, men jeg gjorde det alligevel. Og desuden er
der altså noget, som bliver holdt hemmeligt for
tjenerne.”
“I en’t. I don’t believe in ‘em, anyway.”
“I do,” she said decisively. “But I en’t afraid
either. I’d just do what my uncle done last time he
came to Jordan. I seen him. He was in the Retiring
Room and there was this guest who weren’t polite,
and my uncle just give him a hard look and the
man fell dead on the spot, with all foam and froth
round his mouth.”
“He never,” said Roger doubtfully. “They never
said anything about that in the Kitchen. Anyway,
you en’t allowed in the Retiring Room.”
“Course not. They wouldn’t tell servants about a
thing like that. And I have been in the Retiring
Room, so there.”
Table 8 Example of spoken language and dialect (Appendix II.1).
Contractions in informal writing are a normal and perfectly acceptable consequence of spoken
modern day English (Swan 2002:132). Pullman arguably uses it to convey Lyra and her friend
Roger the kitchen boy’s colloquial manner of speech and to underscore the fact that Lyra’s, who
lives with scholars and academics at Jordan College, still spends most of her time with the
children of servants and the street urchins. One quite noteworthy contraction here, though, is
“en’t”; an almost characterising trait for Lyra, who uses it constantly throughout the trilogy. It
sets her apart from other characters and functions as a reminder of her background and place of
origin, even as she moves around in other parallel worlds. “En’t” is most likely the phonetic
rendering of the more common non-standard negating contraction “ain’t”, since it replaces the
same negative verb forms as “ain’t” does: “am not”, “are not”, “is not”, “have not” and “has not”
(Swan 2002:134). The servants at Jordan and the gyptians also use the “en’t”-form, which could
indicate that it is part of a regional sociolect, spoken by people of a lower social class or from a
certain milieu, which Lyra has simply picked up.
66
Similarly, Lyra and Roger’s use of false concord between subject and verb and their use of
ungrammatical tense also function as indicators of spoken language and of a dialectical, nonstandard vernacular. According to her skopos, Lützen’s task should thus be to transfer the
function of the non-standard language and to recreate the effect of it on her Danish readers. The
problem, however, is that Danish does not allow for these kinds of contractions nor are
grammatical errors in tense and number generally considered an indicator of a dialect or
sociolect in the Danish language as it is in English.
As Table 8 shows, Lützen has therefore been forced to translate into Standard Danish without the
use of contractions or subject-verb disagreement to indicate a sociolect or dialect. She has
however employed the permutation strategy in her translation of this little piece of dialogue,
recreating the effect of spoken colloquial language through her choice of words: “til” (“till”)
which in standard Danish should be “indtil”, and “Næ” (“Nope” or “Well, no”) which is also
colloquial Danish, and through two Danish colloquial, and somewhat childish, fixed expressions:
“Det gør de i hvert fald ikke” (“Oh no they don’t”) and “Nej, jeg er så ej” (“No, I am not”). The
effect may not be as strong as in the ST, but in the light of the linguistic limitations Lützen’s was
under, permutation seems to be the best way to convey the intended effect. She could also have
used the adaptation strategy and given these speakers a genuine dialect, made explicit via
phonetic spelling and vocabulary, but that would have meant employing a specific Danish
variety, and thus placing these characters in that specific Danish region, removing them from of
Lyra’s Oxford. Since Lützen has not otherwise attempted to move other “British” aspects of the
trilogy to Denmark, for example by translating “London” into “København” (Copenhagen), it
would arguably seem rather quaint to have Lyra speak like a person from Southern Jutland for
example.
As mentioned above, the children in the Ci’gazze world are also portrayed with a similar manner
of speech which does, however, deviate somewhat from that of Lyra and her friends. Table 9
below exemplifies contractions used by the Ci’gazze children, in this case the girl Angelica:
ST
TT
But then Angelica’s voice came clearly: ”You ain
Men så brød Angelicas stemme igennem tavsheden:
from here! You ain from Ci’gazze! You didn’ know
“Du kommer ikke herfra! Du er ikke fra Ci’gazze! Du
about Spectres, you don’ know about cats either. You
ved ikke noget om Genfærdene, og du ved heller ikke
ain like us!”
noget om katte. Du er ikke som os andre!”
Table 9 Example of spoken language and dialect (Appendix II.1)
67
The children in this parallel world consistently drop the “t” in negating contractions in general
(didn’, don’, wasn’, etc.), unlike Lyra, who uses “didn’t”, “don’t and “wasn’t”. They also
consistently drop both the “t” and the omission marker (‘) on the non-standard negation “ain”.
The latter contraction replaces the same negative verb forms as “en’t” does in Lyra’s vernacular
(“am not”, “are not”, “is not”, “have not” and “has not”), but is evidently pronounced rather
differently in the Ci’gazze world. It seems to be a deliberate choice on the author’s part and
could indicate that Pullman has used these passages of direct speech and dialogue to further
underscore the difference between the parallel worlds of his trilogy by making these children
speak another dialect of English, however subtle the difference may be. He could also have made
Angelica and Paolo speak Italian for instance, but that would of course have had a negative
effect on readers’ comprehension.
Lützen mainly uses direct translation in the example in Table 9 and the result is correct Standard
Danish. Lützen has simply not been able to transfer the dialectical difference to the TT, because
Danish does not use contractions on negative verb forms. Pullman’s subtle way of linguistically
distinguishing Lyra’s milieu from that of Angelica through different pronunciations of “ain’t” is
therefore lost in translation.
Angelica and her brother Paolo’s manner of speech is also characterised by subject-verb
disagreement as Table 10 shows:
ST
TT
”Yeah,” said the red-haired girl, in the garden of the
“Ja,” sagde den rødhårede pige i det forladte kasinos
deserted Casino. “We seen her, me and Paolo both
have. ”Vi har set hende, mig og Paolo. Vi har begge
seen her. She come through here days ago.”
set hende. Hun kom her forbi for nogle dage siden.”
Father Gomez said, “And do you remember what she
Fader Gomez spurgte: ”Kan I huske, hvordan hun så
looked like?”
ud?”
“She look hot,” said the little boy. “Sweaty in the face,
”Hun så ud til at ha’ det varmt,” sagde den lille dreng.
all right.”
”Svedte i hele ho’det, gjorde hun.”
Table 10 Example of spoken language and dialect (Appendix II.1)
In this particular example, both children use ungrammatical tense and number, much like Lyra
and Roger did in the above example (Table 8). Lützen again uses the permutation strategy to
transfer the effect of spoken language, but in this example she does it by phonetically rendering
spoken language in Danish: “ha’”, which is how the vast majority of Danes pronounce the verb
68
“at have” (to have), and “ho’det”, which is the common pronunciation of “hovedet” (the face) in
most Danish dialects. Lützen thus eloquently recreates colloquialism by using the permutation
strategy, but without committing to a specific Danish dialect. This was perhaps also a solution
she could have used in the examples discussed above (Tables 8 and 9) in order to convey spoken
language in Danish. Lützen has however elected not to follow this approach on direct speech in
Lyra’s case, which is perhaps understandable when you consider how much dialogue involves
Lyra in the trilogy.
5.2.2.2 Archaic language
Pullman’s gyptians are primarily characterised by their Dutch ancestry, which is expressed
through their individual names (e.g. “Benjamin de Ruyter”, “Roger van Poppel”, “Dirk Vries”,
etc.) and their vocabulary (e.g. “the Zaal”). But their distinctive use of an archaic progressive
verb form is also used by Pullman as a means of setting them apart from other characters, since
the gyptians are the only characters who use this peculiar verb form. The underlined words in the
ST extract in Table 11 are examples of their tendency to use the archaic “a- + Verb + -ing”-form
on verbs in the progressive:
ST
TT
”Now, Lyra,” said John Faa, ”I’m a-going to tell you
“Hør nu, Lyra,” sagde John Faa. ”Jeg vil fortælle dig
something. Farder Coram here, he’s a wise man. He’s
noget meget vigtigt. Farder Coram her er en meget vis
a see-er. He’s been a-follering all what’s been going
mand. Han er seer. Han har fulgt med i alt, hvad der er
on with Dust and the Gobblers and Lord Asriel and
sket i forbindelse med Støv og Snapperne, med Lord
everything else, and he’s been a-follering you.
Asriel og alt andet, og han har fulgt med i, hvad der er
sket med dig.
Table 11 Example of archaic language (Appendix II.2)
The “a- + Verb + -ing”-form is a relic from Middle English which has lingered on in some form
in certain English dialects (Denison 1993:386-389), and Pullman probably uses it in the
gyptians’ manner of speech to illustrate their linguistic and cultural isolation from other peoples,
the gyptians being boat-dwelling nomads. The construction is used with quite a few verbs
throughout the trilogy, e.g. “a-paying”, “a-taking”, “a-hunting”, etc. (see Appendix II.2 for
further examples), but only from gyptian speakers.
Lützen’s translations of these progressive verbs seem to be following a strategy of direct
translation, since she has translated them into their Standard Danish equivalents with correct
69
Danish inflections, as the underlined words of the TT-example in Table 11 also show: “Jeg vil
fortælle” (“I am going to tell”) and “Han har fulgt med i” (“He has been following”). The effect
of the “a- + Verb + -ing”-form is therefore not transferred to the TT and the gyptians are
somewhat reduced to speakers of Standard Danish with little or no linguistic distinctiveness in
relation to other characters.
The problem here of course is that in order to distinguish the gyptians from other characters
through their manner of speech, Lützen would either have to give them a Danish dialect, which
would lead to the same problem as discussed above, or attempt to use some form of archaic
Danish in those passages of direct speech and dialogue, using the adaptation strategy. The latter
option would in all likelihood also soon become too time-consuming a task, which is probably
the reason why Lützen chose to simply standardise these archaic verb forms in the TT.
5.2.2.3 Broken English
The non-native speakers of English in Pullman’s trilogy are among others the barbaric Tartars of
Central Asia and the Samoyed hunters from Northern Scandinavia. Both constitute good
examples of non-fluent speakers of English, and this is conveyed to the ST-reader through
passages of direct speech and dialogue and characterised by means of grammatical errors and
ellipsis of words. Broken English in “His Dark Materials” thus functions as a reminder to the
reader of the descent and heritage of these non-fluent speakers and helps contrast them with
other characters.
70
ST
TT
”You name?”
“Dit navn?”
(…)
(…)
”Lizzie Brooks,” she said.
“Lizzie Brooks,” sagde hun,
“Lissie Broogs,” he said after her. “We take you nice
”Lissie Broogs,” gentog han. ”Nu skal du med os til et
place. Nice peoples.”
rart sted med rare folk.”
“Who are you?”
”Hvem er I?”
“Samoyed peoples. Hunters.”
”Samojeder. Jægere.”
“Where are you taking me?”
”Hvor tager I mig hen?”
“Nice place. Nice peoples. You have panserbjørn?”
”Rart sted, rare folk. I har en panserbjørn?”
“For protection.”
”Han beskytter os.”
“No good! Ha, ha, bear no good! We got you
”Duer ikke! Ha, ha, bjørn duer ikke! Vi fik dig
anyway!”
alligevel!”
Table 12 Example of broken English (Appendix II.3)
As the underlined TT elements in Table 12 show, the broken English of the ST is partially
transferred to the TT. The phrase “No good! Ha, ha, bear no good!” for example has been
translated using calque and direct translation which, in this case, means, that the utterance in
Danish bears those same markers of abrupt, non-fluent speech and word-ellipsis and in fact
mirrors something a non-native speaker of Danish might say. However, other similar elements
have been translated by means of paraphrasing and therefore become Standard Danish: Lützen’s
translation of “We take you nice place. Nice peoples” thus reads “Now you are coming with us
to a nice place with nice people”41 in the TT.
Lützen could have made the direct speech of this particular Samoyed hunter in the TT appear as
broken Danish to a larger extent than she does, for example by calquing “You name?” into the
ungrammatical “Dig navn?” as opposed to the paraphrased solution she did choose: “Dit navn?”
(“Your name?”). This would still have been understandable to a Dane and it would have been
clear to the TT-reader that the person speaking was a foreigner within the context.
ST
TT
“Observatory up there. You walk now. Path too
”Observatoriet er deroppe. Du må gå herfra. Stien er
crooked for sledge. You want go back, I wait here.”
alt for stejl til slæden. Hvis du vil tilbage, kan jeg
vente.”
Table 13 Example of broken English (Appendix II.3)
41
My back-translation
71
The same tendency to standardise the TT utterances by means of paraphrasing is evident in the
example in Table 13 above, where the broken language of the Tartar speaking is especially
characterised by ellipsis of function words such as the definite article and auxiliary verbs in the
ST. Lützen’s translation however reads as Standard Danish (“The observatory is up there. You
will have to walk from here. The path is much too steep for the sledge. If you want to go back, I
can wait.”42), and fails to convey the fact that the speaker is far from fluent in English.
It is hard to say why exactly Lützen would choose to mostly standardise these passages of
broken English, when she relatively easily could have used a broken style in the form of
ungrammatical Danish and function word ellipsis. It appears as if she has prioritised translating
them into an immediately understandable target language, perhaps out of consideration for
younger and less competent readers, and thereby deemed the function of broken language less
important in that context.
5.2.2.4 Spelling
In this last category of non-standard language in “His Dark Materials” we are also dealing with
non-native speakers of English but of a whole different calibre. The Mulefa’s own language
requires the use of a trunk and is consequently very different from any human language both in
Lyra’s world and in ours. When these alien creatures first encounter an English-speaking human,
in the form of Mary, the scientist from Will’s world, they therefore mimic her by repeating her
words the way they hear them. Pullman has thus spelled the Mulefa reiterations phonetically
without spacing in between the individual letters, as Table 14 below shows, simultaneously
adding a little humour to this piece of dialogue:
42
My back-translation
72
ST
TT
Mary pointed to herself and said, ”Mary.”
Mary pegede på sig selv og sagde: “Mary.”
The nearest creature reached forward with its trunk.
Den nærmeste skabning rakte sin snabel frem. Hun
She moved closer, (…) and she heard her voice
gik nærmere, (…) og hun hørte sin egen stemme som
coming back to her from the creature’s throat:
et ekko fra skabningens strube: ”Mæri.”
“Merry.”
”Hvad er du?”
“What are you?” she said, and, “Watahyu?” the
”Vadærdu?” svarede skabningen.
creature responded.
Hun kunne ikke gøre andet end at svare. ”Jeg er et
All she could do was respond. “I am a human,” she
menneske,” sagde hun.
said.
”Jajeretmenske,” sagde skabningen, og så skete der
noget, som var endnu mere mærkeligt: Dyrene lo.
“Ayama human,” said the creature, and then
something even odder happened: the creatures
laughed.
Table 14 Example of non-standard spelling (Appendix II.4)
Lützen has chosen to recreate the effect, using the adaptation strategy, by doing the exact same
thing in the TT, namely phonetically rendering the Mulefa reiterations in Danish and thereby
spelling these reiterations the way they actually sound. This TT dialogue would still have made
sense had she used direct translation and simply let the Mulefa repeat Mary’s words, spelled the
same way, but the humour of the encounter and the challenge in figuring out exactly what e.g.
“Vadærdu” means, would have been lost.
While Lützen is clearly aware of the function these different passages of non-standard language
serve and manages to successfully transfer the effect of many of them, partially or fully, to the
Danish translation, she is also understandably prevented from transferring much of it due to
Danish conventions. Her only option for fully conveying Lyra’s dialect and the gyptians’ dialect
would be to adapt them into some sort of specific Danish regional dialect, and this would be both
a very time-consuming task and a solution that would eventually contradict with the source
culture being the referent to the real world. It is however difficult to say why Lützen would
choose not to transfer the effect of broken English by using broken Danish in the TT.
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5.2.3 Names
I will now continue with the results of the analysis of the translation of personal names in ”His
Dark Materials”, all of which are listed with book and page references in Appendix III below. I
will be using Anne Schjoldager’s taxonomy of microstrategies (Table 2) as the main tool in my
examination of Lützen’s choices in her translation of the personal names featured in the ST. I
will begin with names that carry semantic meaning, then names that contain signs, and finally
names that carry an intertextual reference, before I conclude with an examination of names that
have been translated inconsistently.
5.2.3.1 Semantic meaning
“Lyra”, “Will”, “Mrs Coulter” and “Sir Charles Latrom”, which are all major characters in the
trilogy, are the only personal names which also carry rather subtle semantic meanings: “Lyra” is
reminiscent of “liar”, which points to her story-telling skills and tendency to lie, “Will” connotes
a person who is strong-willed and able, a “coulter” is a sharp blade used on a plough and the
name “Latrom” is actually the word “mortal” spelled backwards. These four words have all been
translated by means of direct transfer and it is therefore unlikely that the TT readers will catch
these underlying meanings behind the names. There does, however, seem to be little Lützen
could have done to change this. Changing the names to Danish-sounding names with similar
connotations, if that is even possible, would have involved moving these four very central
characters to a Danish context; something Lützen is apparently and understandably not interested
in doing, as discussed above. Furthermore, the characteristics conveyed in Lyra, Will and Mrs
Coulter’s names are all characteristics which are also conveyed through the context of the novels
and the characters’ actions. The only semantic content that is actually lost here is therefore the
foreshadowing effect of Sir Charles Latrom’s last name; a curious little detail which every ST
reader would probably not even pick up on.
Personal names with less subtle semantic meaning include, among others, “Silvertongue” and
“the golden monkey43”, which have both been translated by means of direct translation:
“Sølvtunge” and “den gyldne abe”. The TT reader is thereby equally informed of the semantic
meaning behind these names. The only example of a personal name carrying obvious semantic
meaning which Lützen has chosen to transfer unchanged is “No-Name”. The character is
Mrs Coulter’s dæmon ”the golden monkey” is the only dæmon that has no actual name. He goes by this name
throughout the trilogy and I have therefore chosen to include it under personal names.
43
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apparently called No-Name because she is a Harpy in the world of the dead, and her function
there does not require her to have an actual name. Lyra renames her Gracious Wings – which
Lützen has translated into “Nådevinge” (“Gracewing”) – after the Harpy has saved Lyra’s life. It
seems peculiar, that Lützen has translated only one of this Harpy’s names and not the other,
especially since they both carry semantic meaning. It is of course possible, that she judged her
readers capable of understanding such simple phrases of English as “no” and “name” and
decided to leave it unchanged on that account, but it would have been relatively easy to translate
“No-Name” using the direct translation strategy, giving us “Intet-Navn” in the TT.
5.2.3.2 Signs contained in names
Pullman involves many different nationalities and ethnicities in his trilogy, and even though the
majority of these characters stem from a world that is different from the one we know, it is often
possible to identify the nationality or ethnicity of a given character through their name. The
gyptians bear names that sound Dutch (e.g. “Benjamin de Ruyter”, “Frans Broekman”, “Nellie
Koopman”, etc.), the witches of the North have Finnish names (e.g. “Serafina Pekkala”, “Juta
Kamainen”, etc.), the Panserbjørne of Svalbard all have Icelandic names (e.g. “Raknison”,
“Eisarson”, “Hjalmurson”, etc.) and the children of the Ci’gazze world (“Angelica”, “Paolo”
and “Tullio”) bear names which appear to be of Italian origin. Furthermore, many of the
characters from Lyra’s Oxford and from Will’s Oxford of course have common British names
such as “Elaine Parry”, “Mary Malone”, ”Mrs Lonsdale” and “Mr Cawson”, placing them in the
‘real’ Oxford and the parallel Oxford respectively.
The diversity in name origins has been maintained by Lützen, who consistently transfers these
foreign names unchanged without any attempts at normalising or domesticating characters on the
level of personal names. The TT readers are thus able to experience Pullman’s exotic and
multinational gallery of characters on equal terms with the ST readers for whom, one must
assume, these names would appear equally foreign.
Similarly, the personal names featured in the ST often indicate gender, occupation and social
class, most often through various titles preceding the actual name or names – an almost
characteristic trait of the personal names in “His Dark Materials”. The commonplace titles “Mr”
and “Mrs” have consistently been translated by means of direct translation, giving us for
example “fru Coulter”, “fru Lonsdale” and “hr. Cawson” in the TT. These titles help underline
the distance between Lyra, the petulant child, and, for instance, Mrs Coulter, the adult in
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authority44, even though you could argue that “hr.” and “fru” have become antiquated forms of
address in Denmark, used mostly in Parliament and in formal letters these days, and therefore
might appear slightly unusual to younger Danish readers. The particular case of “Mrs Coulter”,
however, arguably requires the “fru” designation in the TT seeing as Pullman seems to make
such of point of letting the character be referred to as “Mrs Coulter” by everyone but Lord
Asriel, her former lover and Lyra’s father, who also calls her by her given name, “Marisa”.
Names which include titles of nobility and occupational titles have generally been transferred by
means of direct translation: “Count Belacqua”, “Princess Postnikova”, “Father MacPhail” and
“Captain Hudson” thus become “Grev Belacqua”, “prinsesse Postnikova”, “Fader MacPhail” and
“Kaptajn Hudson” in the TT. “Lord” and “Lady” titles, however, have been transferred almost
consistently unchanged to the TT (e.g. “Lord Asriel”, “Lady Salmakia”, “Lord Roke”, etc.).
Since there are no unambiguous equivalents to “Lord” or “Lady” in Danish, Lützen has probably
chosen this approach in order to preserve these markers of both gender and social class in the
TT. Most Danes will arguably be relatively familiar with the English terms “Lord” and “Lady”
and the associations created in the TT readers should therefore be identical to those of the STreaders.
The only exception to Lützen’s consistency in translating these “Lord” and “Lady” titles is the
case of “Lord Faa”, who is the lord of the gyptians. In both the ST and the TT, Lyra is
specifically told that she should address John Faa as “Lord Faa” once she meets him, and the
Lyra of the ST obeys this order whereas the Lyra of the TT simply addresses him as “John Faa”
and continues to do so.45 Lützen continues to alternate between direct transfer and substitution in
her translation of this name throughout the trilogy, but she most frequently substitutes “Lord
Faa” for “John Faa”, and consequently normalises the social status of this character somewhat in
the eyes of the TT-readers. It is possible that she has prioritised minimising the number of
foreign words in the TT over being consistent with this particular name, but that assertion does
seem to conflict with her consistent direct transfer of the name of the equally central character,
Lord Asriel.
Another exception to consistent direct translation of names containing a title is Lützen’s
translation of the names of the two police officers, who appear in Dr Malone’s lab in the second
44
Even though Lyra, in the course of the first novel, discovers that Mrs Coulter is in fact her biological mother, she
continues to refer to her as “Mrs Coulter” most of the time; presumably because of Mrs Coulter’s actions and
questionable allegiance.
45
”Northern Lights”/”Det gyldne kompas”: 118-130/123-135
76
novel, looking for Lyra. “Sergeant Clifford” and “Inspector Walters” have been translated into
“sergent Clifford” and “politi-inspektør Walters” using the calque strategy and the substitution
strategy respectively. Since this encounter takes place in Will’s world, which is identical to our
world, it would perhaps have been more suitable to use direct translation here as well, and give
the two police officers the corresponding Danish ranks to “Sergeant” and “Inspector” in the TT –
“politiassistent” and “vicepolitikommisær”. “Sergent” in Danish is a military rank and does not
correspond to any current police rank in the Danish police, whereas “politi-inspektør”
corresponds to the British “Chief Superintendent” which is a much higher rank than
“Inspector”.46
5.2.3.3 Intertextual references
Since Pullman’s multiverse encompasses parallel worlds which are either very similar to or
identical with our world, the trilogy also contains personal names stemming from historical,
mythological and biblical people and characters.
The three historically well-known personalities mentioned in the trilogy – “John Calvin”,
“Keats” and “Plato” – have all been translated using different strategies. Lützen has transferred
“Keats” unchanged since that is also the name this English eighteenth century poet goes by in
Danish. “Plato” has been translated as “Platon” using direct translation in accordance with the
European tradition for naturalising the names of prominent figures from classical Greece and
Rome (Newmark 1988b:214-215). The “John Calvin” of the trilogy, however, is a whole other
matter.
He is referred to as “Pope John Calvin” in the first novel and was apparently, in Lyra’s world,
the last Pope before the Papacy was abolished and the Magisterium seized power 47. The
historical “John Calvin” was of course never Pope, but Lützen’s translation – “Pave Johannes
Calvin” – substitutes “John” for “Johannes” as is commonly done with Popes in Denmark, where
for example “Pope John Paul II” was usually referred to as “Pave Johannes Paul II”. Lützen
thereby risks that her TT readers miss out on the reference to the historical figure “John Calvin”,
who is normally referred to as “Jean Calvin” in Danish, because she has substituted a historical
personality placed in a fictional context in the ST with a fictional Pope in the TT.
Mythology is also represented in the trilogy in the form of, for instance, “Bigfoot”, who is
mentioned briefly in the second novel. Lützen has chosen the strategy of oblique translation here
46
47
Forum for billedmedieoversætteres vidensbank (Oversættelse til engelsk/tysk af grader i politiet)
”Northern Lights”: 31
77
and rendered the name as “den afskyelige snemand” (“the abominable snowman”) in the TT. She
has probably considered “den afskyelige snemand” to be a more familiar character to Danes than
“Bigfoot”, who is more of an American phenomenon. Even though the two may not be the exact
same mythological creature, this translation creates functional equivalence by transferring the
effect of the name to a more Danish context.
Due to the biblical intertextuality of the trilogy, biblical names are also represented in plenty; e.g
“God”, “Adam”, “Eve”, “Satan”, “Jesus”, “Moses”, etc. Here, Lützen has consistently used the
strategy of direct transfer on names which are the same in the Danish Bible as they are in the
English (e.g. “Jesus” and “Moses”) and translated the names which are not the same in Danish
into their corresponding counterparts (e.g. “God” – “Gud”, “Eve” – “Eva”) using direct
translation. The result of translating some of these historically, mythologically and biblically
well-known names using various microstrategies is thus a TT which is more legible and
understandable to the Danish readers and at the same time functionally equivalent.
5.2.3.4 Inconsistencies
Finally, two peculiar cases of inconsistent translation on Lützen’s part also deserve to be
mentioned since both shed light on some of the considerations Lützen has had in the process of
translating personal names.
The first example is “the Authority” who is the false God of Pullman’s multiverse. He goes
under many names48, but “the Authority” functions as the most frequently used designation for
this character in “His Dark Materials”. Lützen begins by adapting the name in the second novel
into “Den Højeste” (“the Highest” or “the Supreme”), but apparently changes her mind in the
third novel, where she consistently uses direct translation, giving us “Autoriteten”. It is not until
the beginning of the third novel, that the reader realises that the Authority is a false God and a
liar, and this may be the reason, why Lützen changed her initial translation. “Den Højeste” is
arguably more reminiscent of an all-powerful, awe-inspiring, and yet benevolent God, whereas
“Autoriteten” connotes power, a strict rule and maybe even oppression; connotations which fit
better into the context. Lützen was, like the reader, unaware of the real nature of “the Authority”
before the publication of the third novel and could therefore not have known about the direction,
that Pullman was about to take the character in. It is however problematic, that the same
48
See Appendix III
78
character goes under two very different names in the TT, and the question is, whether or not it
would have been more practical to remain consistent.
The other example is the character “Fra Pavel” who is the alethiometrist of the Church, working
with Mrs Coulter. Lützen adapts his name into “Frah Pavel” in the second novel, but then
consistently uses direct transfer in the third novel, copying the ST name unchanged into the TT.
Her initial choice could perhaps stem from the resemblance of the word “Fra” to the Danish
words “fra” (“from”) and “far” (“father”). Lützen wanted to avoid confusion with this name and
therefore elected to add the silent “h” to the end of the name, which effectively distinguishes
“Frah” from other Danish words without deviating too far from the ST. However, Lützen
apparently forgot about this minor alteration by the time she began working on the third novel,
and the character is therefore represented through two slightly different first names in the TT.
The overall tendency in Lützen’s treatment of personal names leans towards the strategy of
direct transfer, which she has employed on almost 75 percent of the collected examples logged in
Appendix III. This clearly shows Lützen’s intention to not move the story to a Danish location,
but rather to maintain the British flavour of some names and the international flavour of others in
the TT. Pullman’s trilogy in its Danish translation therefore bears the same marks of foreignness
in the form of international names and, to the TT reader, an additional level of foreignness in that
the ‘real world’ of the trilogy is inhabited by people with names that are also foreign to them
because they sound British. When necessary, and with the exception of a few inconsistencies,
Lützen has recreated the effect of the names that convey semantic meaning in the ST, mainly by
using direct translation, and the meaning of the various titles in the ST has also been conveyed
by means of direct translation. Lützen has therefore arguably been aware of the different
functions that various names serve in Pullman’s trilogy and translated accordingly.
To sum up, Lützen’s choices in translating these three micro-level aspects – neologisms, nonstandard language and names – show that she was aware of the functions they serve in the ST
and the effect that Pullman intended to produce in his readers. Lützen’s skopos was to entertain
the TT readers on an equal or similar level as the ST entertained its readers; an aim that should
be achieved by means of an overall instrumental macrostrategy, while elements that pertained to
the source culture should be translated using an overall documentary macrostrategy. The result
of this comparative analysis of intratextual factors shows, that Lützen, to a large extent, has
translated in accordance with these macrostrategic considerations.
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The majority of the neologisms have been transferred by means of the preservation strategy in
various creative ways, resulting in TT solutions that are equally or similarly foreign, effective
and entertaining for the reader. However, the TT data also reveals, that Lützen has normalised
some neologisms and translated others inconsistently. These solutions conflict with the overall
instrumental strategy because they change the function of the neologisms in question by either
normalising the text world or confusing the reader unnecessarily.
The effect of different types of non-standard language has also largely been recreated by Lützen
in the TT to the extent possible in accordance with the Danish language and in relation to the
secondary aim of retaining the source culture as the ‘real’ world referent in the trilogy. There are
however examples of standardisations that conflict with the primary aim of transferring the
function of non-standard language to the TT.
Names contained in the trilogy have generally been transferred unchanged, and the names that
have been changed in the TT have been translated in a way that enables the TT reader to
understand the semantic, signifying or intertextual meaning that Pullman is conveying. Lützen
has thus followed both a documentary strategy, by transferring names that refer to the source
culture unchanged, and an instrumental strategy, by transferring to the TT the function of names
that, in the ST, convey semantic, signifying or intertextual meaning.
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6. Conclusion
At first glance, ”His Dark Materials” is a gripping tale that takes the reader along for the ride on
two children’s quest through parallel worlds, which include talking polar bears, a truth-telling
alethiometer and many other fantastical beings and objects. However, underlying religious
motifs, a great deal of intertertextuality, and the presence of many neologisms throughout the
story, add both to the complexity of Pullman’s narrative and to the challenge inherent in
transferring this piece of science fantasy or high fantasy literature into another language. I
therefore chose to investigate how the Danish translator, Hanna Lützen, had gone about this task
in her translation of Pullman’s trilogy, and to do so within the skopos-theoretical and
functionalist framework of Christiane Nord.
In a comparative analysis of extratextual factors, I determined that Lützen’s skopos must have
been to provide her readers with a TT that was entertaining and exciting to read on an equal or
similar level as the ST was for its readers, and that this skopos could be achieved by means of a
heterofunctional instrumental macrostrategy. The primary goal then, was to give the TT readers
the same experience of being in a magical and fantastical universe, by enabling the author to
elicit the same or a similar effect in the TT readers as he did in the ST readers. Since the source
culture functions as the ‘real’ world referent in the ST, an entirely instrumental translation would
mean replacing this referent with the target culture in the TT. However, because the TT receivers
have previous knowledge of the source culture and the source language, Lützen could employ a
documentary macrostrategy on source culture references and stay more loyal to the author by not
moving the setting of the trilogy to Denmark.
This result confirms the fact that literature is often multifunctional and underscores the
difficulties inherent in applying functionalism to literary translation in terms of macrostrategies.
But I would still argue, on the basis of this analysis, that Nord’s functionalist framework and the
skopos theory can be very useful conceptual tools in literary translation as well as in other areas
of translation.
The three micro-level aspects, that I chose to examine, were all features that are characteristic of
Pullman’s trilogy and interesting in terms of translation microstrategies. Lützen’s translations of
neologisms were of particular interest, and I therefore categorised all neologisms alongside their
translated counterparts and applied an adapted taxonomy of microstrategies to the data, to be
able to see how Lützen had translated them. The results showed that Lützen has made use of
81
both preservation strategies and normalisation strategies in her translation of neologisms. The
preservation strategy was most prominently represented in the form of the microstrategies of
direct translation and adaptation, and this overall tendency indicates that Lützen must have been
aware of the effect and function of neologisms in the ST and transferred it to the TT. As
exemplified in the analysis, Lützen has clearly spent quite a bit of time on coming up with
creative solutions that would imitate or match the effect of Pullman’s inventive terminology, and
the TT data also reflects her efforts to a large extent. There are however also many examples of
normalisation, most noticeably the substitution microstrategy, which arguably changes the
function of ST foreignness to one of TT ‘normalcy’. Examples of inconsistencies also indicate
that Lützen has struggled with the translation of neologisms, and the fact remains, that she has
not always managed to transfer the function of them to the TT, even though this was part of her
skopos.
Non-standard language, which is represented in various forms in the ST, was mainly transferred
using microstrategies that reproduced all or some of the effect of it, as Lützen was bound by the
limitations of the target language. Furthermore, since her intent was to not replace the source
culture referent with the target culture, Lützen did not replace British dialects with Danish
dialects, but rather imitated colloquial and spoken language in the TT without committing to a
specific regional dialect. As a consequence, the distinction between dialects in the ST is lost in
the TT. The overall result of my analysis of this particular feature shows, that the language in the
selected passages of the TT is more standardised than it was in the TT, especially in the
examples of broken English, but certain other passages have been kept equally non-standard,
most notably the phonetically rendered speech of the mulefa. The function of non-standard
language has thus been transferred to a certain extent, but not fully, because of the conflict
between achieving ST functions in the TT while still retaining the ST culture as the real world
referent.
The results of the analysis concerning translation of names revealed a trend of direct transfer in
Lützen’s treatment of this aspect. She thereby retained the function of the variety of international
names, while changing the function of names that refer to the source culture by leaving them
unchanged. The TT readers, compared to the ST readers, thus experience an extra layer of
foreignness through the TT names, in that no names refer to the target culture. The entertaining
and informative function of names with semantic meaning, signifying content or intertextual
references was largely transferred to the TT by Lützen, in accordance with the skopos.
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These results paint a picture of micro-level solutions that, generally, correspond quite well with
the skopos and macrostrategies that were determined in the analysis of extratextual factors. The
problems with some of Lützen’s choices in her translation of neologisms, which I have pointed
out in my analysis above, should therefore not be regarded as criticism of Lützen’s abilities as a
translator, but rather as observations of exceptions to what, from a functionalist perspective,
would be considered the rule. The fact is, that literary translation places high demands on the
individuals who dare pick up the gauntlet, and Pullman’s neologisms certainly pose a creative
and time-consuming challenge. Whether or not normalisations and inconsistencies were due to
time pressure, a need to prioritise other problems, or simple slips, Lützen’s overall representation
of neologisms in the TT shows, that she translated them with their entertaining effect in mind
and a resolve to convey that effect to her readers.
Certain examples of normalisation of neologisms and standardisation of broken language in the
TT could also indicate that Lützen, to some extent, has translated with younger readers in mind.
Her tendency to sometimes clarify difficult terminology and avoid misspelling and incorrect
syntax could be interpreted as a sign, that she estimated her target audience to be younger than
my analysis estimated them to be. In other words, Lützen, and presumably also Gyldendal,
initially envisioned the Danish translation of “Northern Lights” as a children’s book and
therefore translated accordingly, resulting in a few TT solutions which, in my humble opinion,
take away from the feel of the original.
The continuing wide popularity in the general public of best-selling fantasy novels such as “His
Dark Materials”, “The Lord of the Rings” and the Harry Potter series will hopefully encourage
more research in this exciting field of translation of the fantasy genre. This thesis was an attempt
to gain insights, from a functionalist perspective, into Hanna Lützen’s macro- and microstrategic
choices in translating a complex and fascinating fantasy trilogy; insights which, hopefully, shed a
little bit of additional light on the actual work carried out by the literary translators, who try their
hand at the fantasy genre.
83
List of tables
Table 1 Model of neologism types ................................................................................................ 38
Table 2 Schjoldager's model of microstrategies (Schjoldager 2008:92) ....................................... 40
Table 3 My model of microstrategies............................................................................................ 42
Table 4 "Coal-silk" (Appendix I.2) ............................................................................................... 60
Table 5 "Photogram" (Appendix I.2) ............................................................................................ 62
Table 6 "Anbaric" (Appendix I.2+3) ............................................................................................. 63
Table 7 "Anbaric" (Appendix I.2+3) ............................................................................................. 64
Table 8 Example of spoken language and dialect (Appendix II.1). .............................................. 66
Table 9 Example of spoken language and dialect (Appendix II.1) ............................................... 67
Table 10 Example of spoken language and dialect (Appendix II.1) ............................................. 68
Table 11 Example of archaic language (Appendix II.2) ............................................................... 69
Table 12 Example of broken English (Appendix II.3) .................................................................. 71
Table 13 Example of broken English (Appendix II.3) .................................................................. 71
Table 14 Example of non-standard spelling (Appendix II.4) ........................................................ 73
84
List of references
Data:

Pullman, Philip (2007) Northern Lights (The Golden Compass). London: Scholastic.
(First published, 1995)

Pullman, Philip (2008) Det gyldne kompas. 4. udg. På dansk ved Hanna Lützen, 1996.
Gyldendal.

Pullman, Philip (2007) The Subtle Knife. London: Scholastic. (First published, 1997).

Pullman, Philip (2008) Skyggernes kniv. 4. udg. På dansk ved Hanna Lützen, 1997.
Gyldendal.

Pullman, Philip (2007) The Amber Spyglass. London: Scholastic. (First published,
2000).

Pullman, Philip (2008) Ravkikkerten. 4. udg. På dansk ved Hanna Lützen, 2001.
Gyldendal.
Literature:

Abildgren, Michael Padkjær (1999) Forude har vi Brideshead In: Hjørnager Pedersen,
Viggo & Vibeke Appel (eds) Oversættelse af litteratur II DAO 8. København: Center
for oversættelsevidenskab, Københavns Universitet.

Bird, Anne-Marie (2001) ”Without Contraries is no Progression”: Dust as an Allinclusive, Multifunctional Metaphor in Philip Pullman’s ”His Dark Materials”.
Children’s Literature in Education, 32: 2.

Bjerg, Anne Marie (2007) På dansk ved… Et essay om litterær oversættelse. Forlaget
Bindslev.

Cabré, M. Teresa (1999) Terminology. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.

Dalgaard, Niels (2000) Guide til fantastisk litteratur. København: Fremad.

Denison, David (1993) English historical syntax. New York: Longman.

Feral, Anne-Lise (2006) The Translator’s ’Magic’ Wand: Harry Potter’s Journey
from English into French. Meta 51:3, pp. 459-481.

Halskov, Jakob & Frank Holdt (2003) Gibson i maskinen: Et korpusbaseret studium af
oversættelser af science fiction. (DAO10) Center for Oversættelse, Københavns
universitet.
85

Harder, Thomas (1995) Litterær oversættelse i praksis. In: Florentsen, Peter ed.
Oversættelse af litteratur DAO 6. København: Center for oversættelsevidenskab,
Københavns Universitet.

Hasselbalch, Iben red. (1999) Glas kaster skygge - om litterær oversættelse.
København: Gyldendal.

Jackson, Rosemary (1993) Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. London/New York:
Routledge.

Jentsch, Nancy K. (2006) Harry Potter and the Tower of Babel: Translating the
Magic. In: Lathey, Gillian (ed.) The translation of children’s literature: A reader.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Klingberg, Göte (1986) Children’s fiction in the hands of translators. Lund: CWK
Gleerup.

Köneke, Kirsten (1999) Vi trænger til en ny oversættelse af J.R.R. Tolkiens The Lord
of the Rings! In: Hjørnager Pedersen, Viggo & Vibeke Appel (eds) Oversættelse af
litteratur II DAO 8. København: Center for oversættelsevidenskab, Københavns
Universitet.

Munday, Jeremy (2001) Introducing translation studies. Theories and applications.
New York: Routledge.

Newmark, Peter (1988a) A textbook of translation. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.

Nord, Christiane (2001) Translating as a purposeful activity. Manchester: St. Jerome.

Nord, Christiane (2005) Text analysis in translation. Theory, methodology, and
didactic application of a model for translation-oriented text analysis 2nd edition.
Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Schjoldager, Anne (2003) Understanding translation, Internt Undervisningsmateriale
O nr. 83. Århus: Aarhus School of Business.

Schjoldager, Anne; with Henrik Gottlieb & Ida Klitgård (2008) Understanding
translation. Århus: Academica.

Smith, Karen Patricia (2005) Tradition, Transformation, and the Bold Emergence:
Fantastic Legacy and Pullman’s His Dark Materials. In: Lentz, Millicent & Carole
Scott eds. (2005) His Dark Materials illuminated: critical essays on Philip Pullman’s
trilogy. Michigan: Wayne State University Press.

Swan, Michael (2002) Practical English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
86

van der Plas, Caroline B. (2005) Harry Potter og oversætterens univers. En
skoposteoretisk analyse af Hanna Lützens oversættelse Harry Potter og fønixordenen
med fokus på proprier og opfundne ord. MA thesis; Aarhus School of Business.

Vermeer, Hans J. (1989) Skopos and commission in translational action. Translated
by Andrew Chesterman. In: Venuti, Lawrence (ed.) (2000) The translation studies
reader. New York/London: Routledge. 221-232

Vinay, Jean-Paul & Jean Darbelnet (1995) A methodology for translation. Translated
by Juan C. Sager & M.-J. Hamel. In: Venuti, Lawrence (ed.) (2000) The translation
studies reader. New York/London: Routledge. 84-93

Walsh, Clare (2003) From ‘capping’ to intercision: metaphors/metonyms of mind
control in the young adult fiction of John Christopher and Philip Pullman. Language
and Literature 12:3.

Wood, Naomi (2001) Paradise Lost and Found: Obedience, Disobedience, and
Storytelling in C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. Children’s Literature in Education 32:4.
Internet references:
 Aarhus Teater website http://www.aarhusteater.dk/nyheder.asp?AjrDcmntId=395 (05.03.09)
 BridgetotheStars.net ”His Dark Materials” Wiki Encyclopaedia
http://www.bridgetothestars.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page (12.02.09)
 Forum for billedmedieoversætteres vidensbank http://www.fbo-dj.dk/sw2105.asp
(Oversættelse til engelsk/tysk af grader i politiet – Word-document) (03.05.09)
 Gyldendal website http://www.g.dk/ (12.05.09)
 Gyldendal website: Skyggernes kniv http://www.g.dk/bog/skyggernes-kniv-philippullman_9788702062526
 HisDarkMaterials.org http://www.hisdarkmaterials.org/ (10.05.09)
 Intelligent Life article: ”An interview with Philip Pullman”, by Robert Butler
http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/697 (10.04.09)
 Metroxpress article: “Sådan bliver dæmon til daimon”, by Line Felholt
http://www.metroxpress.dk/dk/article/2007/12/04/09/0300-66/index.xml (24.03.09)
 Philip Pullman website http://www.philip-pullman.com/ (10.05.09)
 Random House Q & A with Philip Pullman
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/pullman/author/qa.html (12.05.09)
87
 Saxo website http://www.saxo.com/dk/ (12.05.09)
 Scholastic UK Ltd. website http://www.scholastic.co.uk/ (12.05.09)
 Srafopedia: His Dark Materials Wiki
http://www.hisdarkmaterials.org/srafopedia/index.php/Main_Page (03.01.09)
 Surefish article: “A dark agenda?”, by Susan Roberts
http://www.surefish.co.uk/culture/features/pullman_interview.htm (18.05.09)
 Wikipedia article: Hanna Lützen http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_L%C3%BCtzen
(10.05.09)
 Wikipedia article: Harry Potter fandom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottermania (02.03.09)
 Wikipedia article: Harry Potter in translation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_in_translation (12.03.09)
 Wikipedia article: His Dark Materials http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_dark_materials
(04.03.09)
 Wikipedia article: His Dark Materials (play)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials_(play) (04.03.09)
 Wikipedia article: His Dark Materials terminology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials_terminology (10.02.09)
 Wikipedia article: List of highest-grossing films
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films (02.03.09)
 Wikipedia article: The Golden Compass (film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Compass_(film) (04.03.09)
 Wikipedia article: The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy#Public_and_critical_re
sponse (02.03.09)
88
Abstract
This thesis is concerned with Hanna Lützen’s Danish translation of British author Philip
Pullman’s fantasy trilogy “His Dark Materials”. The trilogy is defined as belonging to the subgenres of science fantasy and high fantasy and is characterised by being set in different parallel
worlds, which introduce a variety of fantastical beings, objects and occurrences. The trilogy also
distinguishes itself by its use of unusual terminology in the form of newly coined words,
renamings of countries and objects, borrowed words from other languages and alternatively or
archaically spelled words. These neologisms, alongside personal names contained in the trilogy
and passages of non-standard language, serve as the primary data.
This thesis aims at determining: Lützen’s skopos and macrostrategy for translating the trilogy,
how she has solved specific translation problems, which microstrategies she has employed to do
so, and how Lützen’s micro-level solutions relate to the macrostrategy.
The analysis is conducted within the theoretical and analytical framework of Christiane Nord,
whose functionalist approach to translation is based on Vermeer’s skopos theory. Lützen’s
skopos and macrostrategy is determined through a comparative analysis of extratextual factors,
whereas the analysis of the three specified micro-level aspects is carried out on the basis of two
taxonomies of microstrategies: One is a model developed by me for this purpose, which is
applied to neologisms and the other is a model of microstrategies developed by Schjoldager,
which is applied to the data of non-standard language and names.
Lützen’s skopos is to convey, to the target text readers, an enjoyable, exciting and entertaining
story which will affect them in much the same way as the original affected its readers; a skopos
that can be achieved by means of an overall instrumental macrostrategy, supplemented by the
use of a documentary macrostrategy applied to elements that refer to the source culture.
Generally, Lützen’s approach to the three micro-level translation problems corresponds with the
identified macrostrategies. Neologisms have mainly been transferred in a way that preserves
their function in the translation and thereby transfers their effect onto the target text readers,
especially by means of creatively adapted solutions. But the translation also reflects a tendency
to sometimes normalise neologisms, which reduces the exotic effect, and a tendency to translate
certain problematic neologisms inconsistently, which confuses the reader.
Non-standard language has been transferred to the extent possible in accordance with the rules
and conventions of the Danish language and without committing to a specific Danish regional
89
dialect. The effect of dialect and broken English from the original is therefore reduced or gone in
the translation, whereas the effect of colloquialisms and phonetically rendered utterances has
been reproduced in the translation.
The names featured in the trilogy have mainly been transferred unchanged. The names that have
been changed in the translation are generally the ones that carry semantic or signifying meaning,
or which contain an intertextual reference. Lützen’s translation of names reflects both a desire to
retain the function of international and exotic names, and to transfer the functions of underlying
meanings which can only be conveyed through translation.
90
Appendix I
Data: Neologisms
Abbreviations:
Abbreviations for microstrategies:
N1: Non-translation (I)
D: Danicization
DT: Direct translation
A: Adaptation
N2: Non-translation (II)
E: Explicitation
S: Substitution
O: Omission
Black: Preservation strategies
Red: Normalisation strategies
Abbreviations for types of neologisms:
C: Compound of existing words
E: Existing word with new sense
S: Spelling
A: Acronym
P: Portmanteau
Ep: Eponym
N: Neoclassical borrowing
T: True borrowing
Ar: Archaic
?: (Unable to categorise)
1. Institutions
Book + Pages
ST/TT
1- 10/18
1- 21/28
2- 116/125
2- 120/129
2- 122/131
1- 30/37
2- 46/53
3- 58/63
1- 30/37
1- 91/96
2- 279/288
3- 70/74
1- 31/38
2- 35/42
2- 42/48
3- 58/63
1- 35/42
1- 68/75
1- 329/333
3- 367/364
1- 128/134
1- 146/152
Source text
(ST)
the Cabinet
Council
the Academy in
Berlin
the Berlin
Academy
the Imperial
Muscovite
Academy
the Imperial
German
Academy
the Consistorial
Court of
Discipline
the Consistorial
Court
the Consistorial
Court of
Discipline
the Oblation
Board
the General
Oblation Board
The Oblation
Board
the Oblation
Board
the Magisterium
the Magisterium
the Magisterium
The
Magisterium
Concilium
the Royal Arctic
Institute
the Royal Arctic
Society
the Royal
Society
the Office of the
Inquisition
the Ministry of
Theology
Type of
neologism
E
Target text (TT)
Microstrategy
Rigsrådet
DT
E
Berlinerakademiet
DT
E
Berliner akademiet
DT
E
det Moskovitiske Akademi DT/O
E
det Kejserlige Germanske
Akademi
DT
E
Den Kirkelige Domstol
S
E
Den Kirkelige Domstol
S
E
Den Kirkelige Domstol
S
E
Disciplinærkommisionen
S
E
Disciplinærkommisionen
S
E
Disciplinærkommisionen
S
E
Disciplinærkommisionen
S
E
E
E
E
Den Teologiske Øvrighed
Øvrigheden
Den Teologiske Øvrighed
Den Teologiske Øvrighed
A
A
A
A
N/E
E
D
DT
E
konciliet
det Kongelige Arktisinstitut
det Kongelige Arktisinstitut
Det Kongelige Selskab
E
inkvisitionsmyndighederne A
E
Det Teologiske
Ministerium
E
A
DT
DT
1- 170/176
1- 240/244
2- 29/36
2- 81/89
2- 83/92
3- 441/438
2-135/143
2- 145/154
2- 173/182
2- 252/260
3- 58/63
the Northern
Progress
Exploration
Company
the
Experimental
Station
the
experimental
station at
Bolvangar
the North
American
Arctic Survey
Station at
Noatak in
Alaska
Dark Matter
Research Unit
the Dark Matter
Research Group
the
philosophers’
Guild of the
Torre degli
Angeli, the
tower of the
angels
the Guild
the Guild
the Department
of Physical
Sciences
the Society of
the Work of the
Holy Spirit
E
Nordisk Udvinding &
Udvikling
A
E
Eksperimental Stationen
DT
E
eksperimentalstationen
Bolvangar
DT
E
Den Arktiske
Forskningsstation i
Noatak, Alaska
DT/O
E
Undersøgelsesafdelingen
for Mørkt Stof
Undersøgelsesafdelingen
for Mørkt Stof
Filosofferne der holdt til i
Torre degli Angeli,
Engletårnet
DT
E
E
E
filosofferne i tårnet
Kredsen
instituttet for fysisk
forskning
O
A
DT
E
Helligåndsselskabet
A
E
E/T
DT
O/N1
2. Science &Technology
Book + Pages
ST/TT
1- 11/19
1- 12/20
1- 21/28
1- 241/245
2- 76/84
2- 106/115
2- 123/132
3- 230/230
1- 21/28
1- 272/276
2- 42/52
2- 122/131
3- 75/78
1- 31/38
2- 57/64
3- 71/74
3- 175/176
1- 35/42
1- 67/74
1- 74/81
2- 27/34
3- 11/18
1- 357/361
3- 64/68
1- 5/13
1- 89/95
1- 178/184
2- 29/36
Source text (ST)
the projections
a projecting
lantern
a photogram
a huge photogram
a photogram
She had seen
projected
photograms
photograms
the photograms
philosophical
instruments
philosophical
work
all the
philosophical
details
natural
philosophers
the philosopher
theologians
an experimental
theologian
the experimental
theologians
experimental
theologians
experimental
theology
the alethiometer
an alethiometer
the alethiometer
the alethiometer
the alethiometric
trance
the alethiometrist
the Aërodock
an aëronautical
accident
an aëronaut
the Texan
aëronaut
Type of
neologism
E
E
Target text (TT)
Microstrategy
optagelserne
et projektionsapparat
A
A
E
E
E
E
S
S
S
D
E
E
E
et dias
en mægtig fotostat
en fotostat
Hun havde før set
fotogrammer vist på
lærred
fotogrammer
fotogrammer
filosofisk apparatur
E
filosofisk forskning
DT
E
alle de filosofiske
detaljer
DT
E
natur-filosoffer
DT
E
E
E
filosoffen
teologer
en med speciale i
eksperimental teologi
de
eksperimenterende
teologer
eksperimentalteologer
eksperimental teologi
DT
DT
DT
alethiometeret
et alethiometer
alethiometeret
alethiometeret
den frugtbare
alethiometer-trance
alethiometristen
lufthavnen
en flyulykke
D
D
D
D
DT
en luftskipper
den texanske
luftskipper
S
S
E
E
E
N/C
N/C
N/C
N/C
N/C
N/C
C/S
S
S
S
D
D
A
DT
DT
DT
D
S
S
3- 42/48
the Texan
aëronaut
a Chthonic
Railway Station
rolls of cahuchuccovered cable
that photo-mill
the Maystadt
Process
intercision
S
intercision
the hideous
process of
intercision
several sprays of
cloud-pine
cloud-pine
her branch of
cloud-pine
the right piece of
cloud-pine
sky-iron
the spy-fly
the spy-fly
the clockwork
spy-fly
the spy-fly tin
a coal-silk curtain
the nurse dressed
herself in coalsilk
N
N
1- 265/269
1- 293/297
1- 293/297
3- 147/148
coal-silk anoraks
coal-silk
coal-silk fibres
spider-silk reins
C
C
C
C
1- 221/226
1- 224/229
1- 314/318
a fire-mine
fire-mines
developing the
fire-mines
the fire-mines
the fire-mines
armourers came
up from the firemines
C
C
C
1- 100/106
1- 102/108
1- 149/154
1- 171/177
1- 171/177
2- 199/208
3- 345/342
1- 175/181
1- 175/181
2- 29/36
3- 308/306
1- 196/201
1- 221/226
3- 164/166
1- 229/234
1- 235/240
1- 239/244
1- 256/261
1- 317/321
1- 323/327
1- 342/346
S
T
den texanske
luftskipper
den Ktoniske
jernbanestation
store kabelruller
C
Ep
den der foton-mobile
Maystadt-processen
A
DT
N
intercision, altså
gennemskæring
intercision
den modbydelige
proces som kaldes
intercision
en samling koste af
himmelfyr
himmelfyrkostene
sin kost af himmelfyr
det rigtige bundt
himmelfyr
himmel-jern
spion-insektet
spion-insektet
urværksdjævlen
E
djævleæsken
et forhæng
sygeplejersken
hentede sin egen
forede
kunstsilkedragt
polaranorakker
kunstsilkeanorakker
kunstfibrene
tøjler af
edderkoppesilke
et vulkankrater
smedjerne
udvikler en
mineindustri
ildminer
minerne
Smedebjørnene
forlod deres esser
A
O
S
N
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
DT
O
N1
N1
A
A
A
A
DT
A
A
A
S
S
S
DT
S
S
S
DT
O
S
1- 360/364
1- 36/42
1- 38/45
1- 83/89
1- 140/146
2- 57/64
1- 272/275
2- 83/92
3- 187/188
3- 211/212
3- 330/328
3- 338/342
3- 59/64
3- 240/240
3- 64/68
3- 199/200
3- 334/331
the fire-mines
anbarographs
anbarology
anbaromagnetic
charges
anbaromagnetic
readings
anbaromagnetism
the Maystadt
anbaric scalpel
some kind of
complicated
anbaric
machinery
anbaric forges
an anbaric
locomotive
they set some
anbaric work in
motion
great anbaric
generators
by means of the
lodestone
resonator
that speakingfiddle
No.2 Squadron of
gyropters
The Intention
Craft
the resonating
chamber
C
T/S
T/S
T/C
S
S
S
S
T/C
minedriften
kontormaskiner
fysik
elektromagnetiske
bølger
elektriske målinger
T/C
Ep/T
ambaromagnetisme
Maystadt-skalpellen
D
O
T
nogle avanceret
udseende, ambariske
maskiner
D
T
T
ambariske esser
et ambarisk
lokomotiv
satte de et ambarisk
maskineri i gang
D
D
T
T
E
S
D
de store ambariske
D
generatorer
ved hjælp af en
DT
magnetstensresonator
C
den der snakke-fiol
DT
P
A
E
gyrokoptereskadron
no. 2
Intentionsaerostaten
E
resonanskammeret
DT
A
3. Light & Energy Sources
Book + Pages
ST/TT
2- 57/64
1- 34/41
1- 113/119
2- 35/42
3- 309/307
1- 186/192
2- 119/128
2- 296/305
2- 295/303
3- 7/14
3- 57/61
3- 370/367
1- 10/18
1- 63/70
1- 115/121
1- 389/393
2- 44/51
3-57/62
3- 259/257
3- 277/275
1- 44/51
3- 333/330
3- 381/378
Source text
(ST)
atomcraft
atomcraft-works
witch-oil
witch-oil
witch-oil
coal-spirit
rock-oil
naphtha
a kind of
naphtha blended
with potash
the naphtha for
the stove
a flow of
naphtha
the taint of
naphtha-fumes,
kerosene-fumes,
whatever they
were
naphtha lamps
lighting the
naphtha lamps
The hall was lit
by naphtha
lamps
by the flame of
a naphtha lamp
Type of
neologism
T/S
T/S
C
C
C
C
C
E
E
Target text (TT)
Microstrategy
atomkraft
atomkræftværker
hekseolien
hekse-olie
hekseolie
kulsprit
klippe-olie
små lysbomber
en brandfarlig væske
S
S
DT
DT
DT
DT
DT
S
S
E
petroleum til primussen S
E
strømmen af petroleum
S
E
den rest af nafta- eller
petroleumsdampe
DT
E
E
petroleumslamper
fik tændt samtlige lys
S
O
E
Hallen var oplyst af
petroleumslys
S
E
S
in the glow of a
naphtha lamp
a naphtha lamp
lit by naphtha
lamp
in the smoky
light of the
naphtha lamp
in the hissing
naphtha light
In the naphtha
lamplight
the warm
naphtha light
E
oplyst af en
dynamodreven lampes
spinkle stråle
petroleumslampen
en petroleumslampe
oplyst af en
petroleumslampe
i petroleumslampens
uldne skær
S
S
E
E
E
E
E
E
S
S
i lyset fra de spruttende S
petroleumslamper
i
S
petroleumslampeskæret
petroleumslyset
S
skinnede med et varmt
skær
3- 56/61
2- 57/64
2- 58/65
1- 21/28
3- 334/332
1- 10/18
1- 192/197
1- 236/240
3- 396/392
1- 235/240
2- 34/40
3- 160/162
3- 212/213
1- 76/83
3- 277/275
1- 95/100
1- 317/321
1- 99/105
3- 278/276
the little naphtha
flare
anbaric
Anbar
the Anbaric
Park
The hydroanbaric
generating
station
lit by anbaric
light
the fizz and
crackle of some
ancient anbaric
lights
an anbaric light
(…) like a
searchlight
the beams of
anbaric searchlights
a row of high
poles, each
carrying a
glaring anbaric
light
illuminated with
anbaric
bulkhead lights
the cold anbaric
gleam from the
zeppelin’s
floodlights
the anbaric
lights
anbaric lamps
the anbaric lamp
the beam of an
anbaric lantern
in the light of an
anbaric lantern
anbaric wires
the anbaric
cables
E
det lille petroleumsblus
S
T
T
T
ambarisk
Ambar
kraftværket
D
D
S
C/T
Det hydro-ambariske
kraftværk
D
T
S
T
brugte man som
elektrisk lys
de ældgamle lamper og
elinstallationer sydede
og hvæsede
T
en projektør
S
T
lyskeglerne fra de
ambariske projektører
D
T
to rækker høje
metalpæle med
elektriske stormlys i
toppen
S
T
elektriske lysstofrør
S
T
det kolde ambariske lys D
fra zeppelinernes
projektører
T
de ambariske lys
D
T
T
T
lampetter
den ambariske pære
en lyskegle
S
D
S
T
i det blafrende
lanternelys
elektriske kabler
de ambariske kabler
S
T
T
S
S
D
1- 186/192
3- 207/208
3- 334/332
1- 254/259
3- 71/74
3- 74/77
1- 275/279
2- 94/103
3- 334/332
1- 361/365
1- 388/392
1- 92/98
a wire fence
(…) filled with
anbaric force
a powerful
anbaric spark
a series of
anbaric pulses
a slight anbaric
current
with points for
anbaric current
a powerful
anbaric current
past rooms
humming with
anbaric power
anbaric, I mean
electric power
The anbaric
power
anbaric
spotlights
an anbaric bulb
Mrs Coulter
seemed to be
charged with
some kind of
anbaric force
T
et elektrisk hegn
S
T
et stærkt ambarisk stød
D
T
D
T
en serie ambariske
strømninger
en meget svag strøm
T
elektriske installationer
S
T
D
T
en kraftig ambarisk
strøm
forbi rum der
brummede af alskens
apparater
ambarisk, jeg mener
elektrisk kraft
Ambarisk energi
T
el-lysrør
S
T
T
en elektrisk pære
Fru Coulter var
nærmest sitrende af
højspænding
S
S
T
T
S
S
D
D
4. Drinks, Stimulants and Medicinal Products
Book + Pages
ST/TT
1- 4/12
1- 19/26
1- 5/13
2- 42/48
Source text (ST)
poppy-heads
poppy
Tokay
the golden tokay
Type of
neologism
C
E
S
S
3- 314/312
1- 30/36
1- 43/50
2- 75/83
3- 53/57
Tokay
brantwijn
chocolatl
chocolatl
a bar of chocolatl
S
T
T
T
T
3- 56/61
the mug of
chocolatl
little glasses of
jenniver
jenniver
crocks of
genniver
smoke-leaf
the smoke-leaf
Smoking-leaf
a load of New
Danish smokeleaf
bloodmoss
bloodmoss
Marchpane
T
1- 119/124
3- 260/259
3- 506/501
1- 19/26
3- 56/61
1- 57/65
1- 242/246
1- 353/357
2- 116/125
3- 444/441
T/S
T/S
?
C
C
C
C
C
C
Ar
Target text (TT)
Microstrategy
løgknolde
løgknolde
tokayer
den gyldne
tokayer
tokayer
brandy
khakhoa
khakhoa
en
chokoladestang
et krus varm
khakhoa
genever i de små
glas
genever
Geneverdunke
A
A
DT
DT
røgelse
nogle rygeblade
tobak
et stort parti
tobaksblade fra
Ny Danmark
blodplantemasse
blodmos
Marcpanc
S
A
S
S
DT
DT
A
A
S
A
A
A
A
A
DT
A
5. Geography, Peoples & Creatures
Book + Pages
ST/TT
1- 10/18
2- 200/209
1- 26/33
1- 35/42
1- 142/148
2- 134/143
2- 200/209
1- 34/41
1- 112/118
1- 169/175
1- 224/229
2- 52/59
1- 26/33
2- 51/58
1- 26/33
2- 119/128
2- 213/221
2- 134/143
3- 263/261
3- 506/501
3- 506/501
1- 40/47
1- 77/84
3- 395/391
1- 170/176
2- 48/55
3- 37/43
1- 170/177
1- 10/18
2- 49/56
2- 208/216
1- 37/44
Source text (ST)
Type of
neologism
Muscovy
E
“the Soviet Union E
– We know it as
Muscovy”
New Denmark
C
New France
C
High Brazil
C
Brasil
S
Brasil
S
Brytain
S
Anglia
N
Eastern Anglia
N
Nova Zembla
Nova Zembla
the Tungusk
Tungusk
The lands of the
Skraelings
Beringland
Beringland
from Eireland
and Corea
Cathay
the mines of
Sveden
Corea
the German
Ocean
The Great
Northern Ocean
the Peaceable
Ocean
Lake Enara
Lake Enara
Lake Enara
the Norroway
government
the Tartars
the Tartar-tribe
An old Siberian
Tartar
the gyptians
Target text /TT)
Microstrategy
S
A
Ep
Ep
S
Rusland
“Sovjetunionen –
det vi kender som
Moskovia”
Ny Danmark
Ny Frankrig
Brasilien
Brasilien
Brasilia
Anglia
Anglia
det sydøstlige
Anglia
Novaja Zemlja
Nova Zembla
Tungusk
Tungusk
Skrællingernes
territorium
Beringsland
Beringland
Irland og Korea
Ar
S
Kinesiens Land
de svenske miner
A
S
S
T
S
A
E
Korea
det germanske
ocean
Polarhavet
E
Rolighedshavet
A
S
S
S
S
Enarasøen
Enara-søen
Enarasøen
den norske
regering
tartarerne
tartarerne
En gammel
sibirsk tartar
jypsierne
A
A
A
S
T
T
S/E
S/E
T
S
S
S
P
DT
DT
S
S
S
A
N1
DT
S
N1
D
N1
A
D
N1
S
A
D
D
D
D
1- 36/44
2- 35/42
3- 40/46
1- 41/48
2- 123/132
1- 41/48
1- 89/95
2- 123/132
3- 38/44
1- 178/184
1- 178/184
2- 210/218
2- 58/65
2- 59/66
1- 205/210
1- 205/210
2- 218/225
3- 118/119
1- 27/34
1- 3/11
2- 20/27
3- 2/10
1- 108/114
1- 108/114
1- 108/114
3- 295/293
1- 163/169
2- 75/83
1- 224/229
1- 319/323
2- 44/50
the gyptian
families
the gyptians
the gyptians
Skraeling
a Skraeling
Lascar
a Muscovite
Muscovites
a force of
Muscovites
a New Dane
P
jypsifamilierne
D
P
P
T
T
E
E
E
E
D
D
DT
DT
N1
DT
DT
DT
Lee Scoresby,
from the country
of Texas
“I’m from the
country of Texas”
Ci’gazze
Cittàgazze
the Sibirsk
regiments
sixty Sibirsk
rifflemen
troops of the
Imperial Guard of
Muscovy
a battalion of the
Swiss Guard
the panserbjørne
dæmon
dæmon
dæmon
the Nälkäinens
the Windsuckers
the Breathless
Ones
ghost-people
Lapland witches
ghasts
cliff-ghasts
E
jypsierne
jypsierne
skrælling
skrælling
lascar
en moskovit
moskovitter
en styrke
moskovitter
en mand der
netop var
ankommet fra Ny
Danmark
Det var en
texaner ved navn
Lee Scoresby.
“Jeg er texaner”
Ci’gazze
Cittàgazze
Sibirskregimentet
tres Sibirskkrigere
et regiment af
Moskovias
elitetropper
en bataljon af
schweizergarden
panserbjørnene
daimon
daimon
daimon
Nälkäinerne
Vindslugerne
De Åndeløse
N1
N1
DT
DT
DT
A
A
the cliff-ghasts
a group of cliffghasts
C/S
C/S
åndemennesker
laplænderhekse
levende døde
klippegaster,
Nords dødsengle
klippegasterne
en flok
klippegaster
C
E
T/S
T
S
S
E
E
T
T
T
T
T/E
C
C
C
C
E
C/S
A
S
S
A
A/O
DT
N2
A
A
A
D
DT
DT
DT
DT
2- 268/277
3- 40/46
3- 58/62
3- 90/93
3-126/128
2- 59/66
3- 12/19
2- 136/144
2- 279/288
2- 137/145
3- 124/126
3-126/128
3- 124/126
3-130/131
3-131/132
3- 277/275
3- 290/288
3- 378/375
a cliff-ghast
cliff-ghasts
the Gallivespians
Mulefa
The mulefa
the Spectres
a Spectre
the Spectres of
Indifference
the Spectres of
Indifference
bene elim
zalif
the zalif
he-zalif and shezalif
Tualapi
the tualapi
The Harpies
the harpy
flights of spyangels
C/S
C/S
C/N
?
?
E
E
E
en klippegast
klippegaster
Gallivespianerne
Mulefa
Mulefaerne
Genfærdene
et Genfærd
Genfærdene
DT
DT
D
D
D
DT
DT
DT/O
E
Søvngængergenfærdene
bene elim
zalif
zaliffen
en hun-zalif og en
han-zalif
Tualapi
tualapierne
Harpyerne
harpyen
grupper af spionengle
A
N
?
?
?
?
?
E
E
C
N1
N1
D
N1/D
N1
D
DT
DT
DT
6. Miscellaneous
Book + Pages
ST/TT
1- 22/28
2- 21/28
3- 31/38
1- 89/95
Source text (ST)
2- 84/93
2- 88/96
Rusakov Particles
shadow-particles,
Shadows
sraf, or sarf
the sraf
the Gobblers
the Gobblers
They gobble’em
up
Ep
C/E
the child-cutters
a severed child
the half-boy’s
hand
the little halfchild
a night-ghast
C
E
C
C/S
C/S
3- 222/222
3- 430/426
1- 110/116
1- 112/118
1- 113/118
a night-ghast
the world of
night-ghasts
“Like you was a
night-ghast or
something.”
a make-like
a night-picture
a Roping
Byanplats
a Byanroping
1- 113/119
the landlopers
T
1- 116/121
1- 114/119
landlopers
the Zaal
T
T
1- 114/120
2- 135/143
the Zaal
the wire-strung
mandarone
the subtle knife
T
S
3- 223/223
3- 224/224
1- 46/53
3- 165/167
1- 57/64
2- 30/37
1- 22/29
1- 215/220
1- 216/220
1- 51/58
1- 148/154
1- 214/219
2- 25/31
2- 173/182
Type of
neologism
Dust
E
Dust
E
Dust
E
Rusakov Particles Ep
?
?
A
A
A
C
C/S
C/S
C
C
?
?
?
E
Target text (TT)
Microstrategy
Støv
Støv
Støv
Rusakovpartiklerne
Rusakov-partikler
’skygge-partikler’,
eller bare Skygger
sraf eller sarf
sraf
Snapperne
Snapperne
de snapper
børnene og sluger
dem
børne-skærerne
et skåret barn
halv-drengens
hånd
den lille halvdreng
en
spøgelseskomite
kollegiespøgelser
mareridtets
åndeverden
“Vi troede du var
et genfærd eller
sådan noget.”
et som-om
et nat-billede
en Rådssamling
Byanplats
samling på
Byanplats
man/de
omkringboende
landkrabber
den kæmpestore
træhal
hallen
mandolinspillernes
strengemusik
Skyggernes kniv
DT
DT
DT
DT
DT
DT
N1
N1
A
A
A
DT
DT
DT
DT
A
A
S
S
A
DT
S
N1
S
S
S
S
S
S
A
2- 183/192
2- 254/263
2- 273/282
3- 328/326
2- 311/320
3- 28/34
3- 32/38
3- 86/89
3- 126/127
3- 276/275
3- 432/428
3- 225/225
3- 334/332
This is a subtle
knife
Æsahættr
god-destroyer
E
A
E
E
Det er en kniv så
fin som skyggerne
Æsahættr
Den gode
ødelægger
gudedræberen
teleutaia
makhaira, den
ultimative kniv
Stridsvognen
Skyernes Bjerg
the god destroyer
teleutaia
makhaira, the last
knife of all
The Chariot
the Clouded
Mountain
Seed-pods
the seed-pod
wheels
in the world of
the wheel-pod
trees
a stand of wheeltrees
the sap-lacquer
the BarnardStokes heresy
E
N
C
C
Frøkapsler
frøkapselhjulene
DT
DT
C
i frøkapslernes
verden
A
C
en klynge
hjulkapseltræer
plantelak
Barnard-Stokeskætteriet
A
T
C
C
Ep
N1
A
DT
N1
DT
A
A
DT
Appendix II
Data: Non-standard language
1. Spoken language and dialect
1.1 Lyra & Roger
ST (Book 1 – pp. 46-47)
TT (Book 1 – pp. 53-54)
”How d’you play that?”
“Hvordan leger man det?”
“You hide and I find you and slice you open, “Du gemmer dig, jeg finder dig og sprætter dig
right, like the Gobblers do.”
op, ligesom Snapperne gør.”
“You don’t know what they do. They might not ”Det gør de i hvert fald ikke. Hvordan kan du
do that at all.”
vide, hvad de gør?”
“You’re afraid of ’em,” she said. “I can tell.”
”Du er bare bange for dem,” sagde hun, ”det
kan enhver se.”
“I en’t. I don’t believe in ‘em, anyway.”
”Nej, jeg er så ej. Og desuden tror jeg slet ikke
på Snapperne.”
“I do,” she said decisively. “But I en’t afraid ”Men det gør jeg altså,” sagde hun bestemt, ”og
either. I’d just do what my uncle done last time jeg er ikke spor bange for dem. Jeg gør nemlig
he came to Jordan. I seen him. He was in the bare, ligesom min onkel gjorde sidste gang han
Retiring Room and there was this guest who var her på Jordan. Jeg så det selv. Han sad i
weren’t polite, and my uncle just give him a Herreværelset, og så kom der en gæst, der ikke
hard look and the man fell dead on the spot, kunne opføre sig ordentligt, og min onkel
with all foam and froth round his mouth.”
stirrede på ham, til han faldt død om på stedet –
med skum af fråde om munden endda.”
“He never,” said Roger doubtfully. “They never ”Er det virkelig rigtigt?” sagde Roger tvivlende.
said anything about that in the Kitchen. ”Det er der ingen, der har talt om nede i
Anyway, you en’t allowed in the Retiring køkkenet.
Room.”
Hvad
lavede
du
ellers
i
Herreværelset; du må jo slet ikke gå derind.”
“Course not. They wouldn’t tell servants about a ”Næ, men jeg gjorde det alligevel. Og desuden
thing like that. And I have been in the Retiring er der altså noget, som bliver holdt hemmeligt
Room, so there. Anyway, my uncle’s always for tjenerne. Min onkel kan sådan noget, og han
doing that. He done it to some Tartars when har også gjort det mod en flok tatarer, der havde
they caught him once. They tied him up and taget ham til fange. Han var bundet, og de skulle
they was going to cut his guts out, but when the lige til at skære hans mave op, men da den
first man come up with the knife my uncle just første kom hen til ham med sin kniv, kiggede
looked at him, and he fell dead, so another one min onkel bare på ham, til han døde. De
come up and he done the same to him, and prøvede alle sammen på at skære i ham, men
finally there was only one left. My uncle said ingen af dem kunne, og de faldt døde om
he’d leave him alive if he untied him, so he did, undtagen én. Min onkel sagde, at han ikke ville
and then my uncle killed him anyway just to stirre ham ihjel, hvis han løsnede rebene. Da
teach him a lesson.”
den sidste tatar så havde befriet min onkel, blev
han alligevel stirret ihjel som en lærestreg.”
1.2 Lyra & street urchins
ST (Book 1- pp. 59-60)
TT (Book 1- p. 67)
”Is Jessie Reynolds disappeared?”
“Er Jessie Reynolds forsvundet?”
”Yeah. Why?”
“Ja, og hvad så?”
“’Cause a gyptian kid disappeared today and ”Det er bare, fordi en jypsidreng forsvandt i
all.”
dag!”
“They’re always disappearing, gyptians. After ”Jypsier forsvinder sgu hele tiden. Efter hvert
every Horse Fair they disappear.”
eneste hestemarked er der nogen, der er løbet
deres vej.”
“So do horses,” said one of his friends.
”Det er ligesom hestene,” sagde en af hans
venner.
“This is different,” said Lyra. “This is a kid. We ”Denne gang er det anderledes,” sagde Lyra.
was looking for him all afternoon and the other ”Det er et barn, der er forsvundet. Vi har ledt
kids said the Gobblers got him.”
efter ham hele eftermiddagen, og de andre børn
siger, at Snapperne har taget ham.”
“The what?”
”Hvad for nogen?”
“The Gobblers,” she said. “En’t you heard of ”Snapperne,” gentog hun. ”Har i aldrig hørt om
the Gobblers?”
Snapperne?”
(…)
(…)
“Gobblers,” said Lyra’s acquaintance, whose ”Snappere,” sagde Dick, som Lyra kendte. ”Det
name was Dick. “It’s stupid. These gyptians, er fjollerier. De jypsier finder altid på sådan
they pick up all kinds of stupid ideas.”
nogen sære ideer.”
“They said there was Gobblers in Banbury a ”Jeg har fået at vide, at Snapperne var i Banbury
couple of weeks ago,” Lyra insisted, “and there for et par uger siden,” insisterede Lyra. ”Og der
was five kids taken. They probably come to blev fem børn bortført. Nu er de kommet til
Oxford now to get kids from us. It must’ve been Oxford for at hente børn herfra. Det er sikkert
them what got Jessie.”
dem, der har taget Jessie.”
“There was a kid lost over Cowley way,” said ”Der forsvandt også en dreng ovre fra
one of the other boys. “I remember now. My Cowleygaden,” sagde en af de andre. ”Jeg kom
auntie, she was there yesterday, ‘cause she sells lige i tanke om det. Min tante var derovre i
fish and chips out a van, and she heard about forgårs, hun sælger nemlig fisk og chips fra sin
it… Some little boy, that’s it… I dunno about lastvogn, og hun hørte nogen tale om det. Det
the Gobblers, though. They en’t real, Gobblers. var vist nok en lille dreng, selvom det ikke er
Just a story.”
sikkert at Snapperne har taget ham… det var
bare noget, hun hørte.”
“They are!” Lyra said. “The gyptians seen ‘em. ”Det var Snapperne!” udbrød Lyra. ”Jypsierne
They reckon they eat the kids they catch, har selv set dem. De siger, at børnene bliver ædt
and…”
og…”
1.3 Ci’gazze
ST (Book 2 – p. 109)
TT (Book 2 – p. 118)
But then Angelica’s voice came clearly: ”You Men så brød Angelicas stemme igennem
ain from here! You ain from Ci’gazze! You tavsheden: “Du kommer ikke herfra! Du er ikke
didn’ know about Spectres, you don’ know fra
about cats either. You ain like us!”
Ci’gazze!
Du
ved
ikke
noget
om
Genfærdene, og du ved heller ikke noget om
katte. Du er ikke som os andre!”
1.4 Ci’gazze
ST (Book 3 – p. 120)
TT (Book 3 – p. 122)
”Yeah,” said the red-haired girl, in the garden of “Ja,” sagde den rødhårede pige i det forladte
the deserted Casino. “We seen her, me and kasinos have. ”Vi har set hende, mig og Paolo.
Paolo both seen her. She come through here Vi har begge set hende. Hun kom her forbi for
days ago.”
nogle dage siden.”
Father Gomez said, “And do you remember Fader Gomez spurgte: ”Kan I huske, hvordan
what she looked like?”
hun så ud?”
“She look hot,” said the little boy. “Sweaty in ”Hun så ud til at ha’ det varmt,” sagde den lille
the face, all right.”
dreng. ”Svedte i hele ho’det, gjorde hun.”
“How old did she seem to be?”
”Hvor gammel så hun ud til at være?”
“About…” said the girl, considering; “I suppose ”Sådan cirka…” sagde pigen og tænkte sig om:
maybe forty or fifty. We didn’t see her close. ”Jeg regner med fyrre eller halvtreds år. Vi så
She could be thirty, maybe. But she was hot, hende ikke så tæt på. Hun var måske tredive.
like Paolo said, and she was carrying a big Men det er rigtigt hvad Paolo siger: Hun svedte,
rucksack, much bigger than yours, this big…”
og hun bar en stor rygsæk, den var meget større
end din, så stor…”
Paolo whispered something to her, screwing up Paolo hviskede noget til hende, mens han
his eyes to look at the priest as he did so. The skævede op på præsten. Solen skinnede ham
sun was bright in his face.
direkte i ansigtet.
“Yeah,” said the girl impatiently, “I know. The ”Ja ja,” sagde pigen utålmodigt, ”jeg ved det
Spectres,” she said to Father Gomez, “she wasn’ godt. Genfærdene,” sagde hun til Fader Gomez,
afraid of the Spectres at all. She just walked ”hun var slet ikke bange for Genfærdene. Hun
through the city and never worried a bit. I ain gik bare gennem byen uden at bekymre sig. Jeg
never seen a grown-up do that before, all right. har i hvert fald aldrig set en voksen gøre det før,
She looked like she didn’ know about them, forstår du. Hun så ud, som om hun slet vidste
even. Same as you,” she added, looking at him noget som helst om dem. Ligesom dig,”
with challenge in her eyes.
tilføjede hun og så udfordrende på ham.
2. Archaic language
2.1 Gyptians
ST (Book 1 – p. 121)
TT (Book 1 – p. 126)
”Now, Lyra,” said John Faa, ”I’m a-going to tell “Hør nu, Lyra,” sagde John Faa. ”Jeg vil
you something. Farder Coram here, he’s a wise fortælle dig noget meget vigtigt. Farder Coram
man. He’s a see-er. He’s been a-follering all her er en meget vis mand. Han er seer. Han har
what’s been going on with Dust and the fulgt med i alt, hvad der er sket i forbindelse
Gobblers and Lord Asriel and everything else, med Støv og Snapperne, med Lord Asriel og alt
and he’s been a-follering you.
andet, og han har fulgt med i, hvad der er sket
med dig.
2.2 Gyptians
ST (Book 1 – p. 147)
TT (Book 1 – p. 153)
They hadn’t been in but a minute when we Der var knap gået et minut, før vi hørte et skrig
heard a cry of fear, and Benjamin’s dæmon af rædsel og så Benjamins daimon komme
came a-flying out and beckoned to us for help flyvende ud, mens den kaldte på hjælp. Så fløj
and flew in again, and we took our knife and ran den ind igen, og vi løb efter hende med vores
after her; only the place was dark, and full of kniv løftet. Der var helt mørkt derinde, og vi
wild forms and sounds that were confusing in kunne fornemme tumulter og høre forfærdelige
their frightful movements; and we cast about, lyde. Det var skrækkeligt og forvirrende. Vi
but there was a commotion above, and a fearful sneg os rundt uden at finde noget, indtil vi hørte
cry, and Benjamin and his dæmon fell from a larm ovenfra og derefter et skrig. Nu så vi, at
high staircase above us, his dæmon a-tugging Benjamin og hans daimon faldt ned fra en høj
and a-fluttering to hold him up, but all in vain, trappe. Hans daimon hev og trak i ham for at
for they crashed on the stone floor and both forhindre faldet men forgæves. De ramte gulvet
perished in a moment.
med et brag og døde på få sekunder.
3. Broken English
3.1 Samoyed Hunters
ST (Book 1 – pp. 233-234)
TT (Book 1 – p. 239)
”You name?”
“Dit navn?”
(…)
(…)
”Lizzie Brooks,” she said.
“Lizzie Brooks,” sagde hun,
“Lissie Broogs,” he said after her. “We take you
”Lissie Broogs,” gentog han. ”Nu skal du med
nice place. Nice peoples.”
os til et rart sted med rare folk.”
“Who are you?”
”Hvem er I?”
“Samoyed peoples. Hunters.”
”Samojeder. Jægere.”
“Where are you taking me?”
”Hvor tager I mig hen?”
“Nice place. Nice peoples. You have
”Rart sted, rare folk. I har en panserbjørn?”
panserbjørn?”
“For protection.”
”Han beskytter os.”
“No good! Ha, ha, bear no good! We got you
”Duer ikke! Ha, ha, bjørn duer ikke! Vi fik dig
anyway!”
alligevel!”
He laughed loudly. Lyra controlled herself and
Han lo højt. Lyra beherskede sig og sagde intet.
said nothing.
“Who those peoples?” the man asked next,
”Hvem er de folk?” spurgte han så og pegede
pointing back the way they had come.
bagud, hvorfra de kom.
“Traders.”
”Handelsfolk.”
“Traders… What they trade?”
”Handelsfolk? Hvad slags handel?”
“Fur, spirits,” she said. “Smoke-leaf.”
”Pelsværk, sprit, tobaksblade…” sagde hun.
“They sell smoke-leaf, buy furs?”
”De sælger tobak, køber pels?”
“Yes.”
”Ja.”
3.2 Tartars
ST (Book 2 – p. 121-122)
TT (Book 2 – p. 130)
”This happen before, this thing.”
“Det er sket før, dette her.”
“What, the sky opening? That happened ”Hvad, at himlen åbnede sig? Hvad er sket før?”
before?”
“Many
thousand
generation.
My
people ”Mange tusinde generationer siden. Mit folk
remember. All long time ago, many thousand husker det. For lang, lang tid siden, mange
generation.”
tusinde generationer.”
“What do they say about it?”
”Hvad fortæller de om det?”
“Sky fall open, and spirits move between this ”At himlen åbnede sig, og ånderne bevægede
world and that world. All the lands move. The sig mellem denne verden og den anden verden.
ice melt, then freeze again. The spirits close up Alle landene begyndte at rykke sig. Isen
the hole after a while. Seal it up. But witches smeltede og frøs igen. Ånderne lukkede hullet
say the sky is thin there, behind the northern efter et stykke tid. Lukkede det helt til. Men
lights.”
heksene siger, at himlen er tynd på det sted bag
ved nordlyset.”
“What’s going to happen, Umaq?”
”Hvad tror du, at der vil ske, Umaq?”
“Same thing as before. Make all same again. ”Det samme som før. Det samme vil ske. Men
But only after big trouble, big war. Spirit war.”
først efter store katastrofer, stor krig, åndernes
krig.”
(…)
(…)
“Observatory up there. You walk now. Path too ”Observatoriet er deroppe. Du må gå herfra.
crooked for sledge. You want go back, I wait Stien er alt for stejl til slæden. Hvis du vil
here.”
tilbage, kan jeg vente.”
4. Spelling
4.1 Mulefa
ST (Book 3 – pp. 89-90)
TT (Book 3 – pp. 92-93)
Mary pointed to herself and said, ”Mary.”
Mary pegede på sig selv og sagde: “Mary.”
The nearest creature reached forward with its Den nærmeste skabning rakte sin snabel frem.
trunk. She moved closer, and it touched her on Hun gik nærmere, og den berørte hendes bryst,
the breast, where she had pointed, and she heard hvor hun havde peget, og hun hørte sin egen
her voice coming back to her from the stemme som et ekko fra skabningens strube:
creature’s throat: “Merry.”
”Mæri.”
“What are you?” she said, and, “Watahyu?” the ”Hvad er du?”
creature responded.
”Vadærdu?” svarede skabningen.
All she could do was respond. “I am a human,” Hun kunne ikke gøre andet end at svare. ”Jeg er
she said.
et menneske,” sagde hun.
“Ayama human,” said the creature, and then ”Jajeretmenske,” sagde skabningen, og så skete
something even odder happened: the creatures der noget, som var endnu mere mærkeligt:
laughed.
Dyrene lo.
Their eyes wrinkled, their trunks waved, they Der kom rynker omkring deres øjne, deres
tossed their heads – and from their throats came snabler svingede, de kastede med hovederne –
the unmistakable sound of merriment. She og fra deres struber kom der en lyd, der
couldn’t help it: she laughed too.
umiskendeligt udtrykte morskab. Hun kunne
ikke lade være med også at le.
Then another creature moved forward and Så kom endnu en skabning frem mod hende og
touched her hand with its trunk. Mary offered rørte hendes hånd med sin stridbørstede snabel.
her other hand as well to its soft, bristled, Mary rakte hånden frem for at gengælde den
questing touch.
blide, prøvende berøring.
“Ah,” she said, “you’re smelling the oil from ”Åh,” udbrød hun, ”du kan lugte olien fra
the seed-pod…”
frøkapslen…”
“Seepot,” said the creature.
”Frøkapslen,” sagde skabningen.
Appendix III
Data: Names
Abbreviations:
DTF: Direct transfer
C: Calque
DTR: Direct translation
O: Oblique translation
P: Paraphrase
A: Adaptation
S: Substitution
D: Deletion
Category
Book +
ST/TTpage ref.
Name
Semantic
meaning
Signs
contained
in name
Intertextual
reference
Translation
Microstrategy
Lyra
1-3/11
Lyra
-
-
Lyra
DTF
1-101/
107
1-179/
185
1-234/
239
1-346/
350
Alice
Reminiscent
of “Liar”,
which
supports
Lyra’s skills
in making
up stories.
-
-
-
Alice
DTF
Lyra
Belacqua
Lizzie Brooks -
-
-
-
-
Lyra
DTF
Belacqua
Lizzie Brooks DTF
Silvertongue
-
-
Sølvtunge
DTR
2-67/
75
Lisa Ransom
-
-
Lisa Ransom
DTF
Alludes to
Lyra’s skills
in making
up stories.
-
Will
Mrs
Coulter
John
Parry
The
Authority
2-1/7
Will
Name
connotes
that the
character is
strongwilled.
-
-
-
Will
2-67/
75
2-71/
79
3-98/
100
Mark
Ransom
William
Parry
Will
Ivanovitch
1-66/73
Mrs Coulter
1-392/
396
Marisa
1-120/
125
2-10/16
2-113/
122
2-120/
129
DTF
-
-
Mark Ransom DTF
-
-
-
William Parry DTF
-
-
-
Will
Ivanovitch
DTF
“Coulter”
also means
”sharp
blade” and
this could
refer to her
being in
charge of
intercision.
-
Gender
-
fru Coulter
DTR
-
-
Marisa
DTF
Stanislaus
Grumman
John Parry
Major Parry
-
-
-
DTF
-
-
Jopari
-
Occupation
-
Stanislaus
Grumman
John Parry
Major Parry
-
Jopari
DTF
2-45/52
the Authority
-
-
-
Den Højeste
A
3-31/38
3-31/38
3-31/38
3-31/38
3-31/38
3-31/38
3-31/38
3-31/38
3-31/38
3-31/38
the Authority
God
the Creator
the Lord
Yahweh
El
Adonai
the King
the Father
the Almighty
-
-
The Bible
The Bible
The Bible
The Bible
The Bible
The Bible
The Bible
The Bible
The Bible
Autoriteten
Gud
Skaberen
Herren
Yahweh
El
Adonai
Kongen
Faderen
Den
Almægtige
DTR
DTR
DTR
DTR
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTR
DTR
DTR
DTF
DTR
Panserbjørne
1-27/34
1-172/
178
1-355/
359
1-356/
360
Gyptians
1-41/48
1-54/61
1-56/64
1-104/
110
1-104/
110
1-104/
110
1-110/
116
1-117/
122
1118/124
1-117/
123
1-119/
125
1-134/
141
1-135/
141
1-135/
142
1-136/
142
1-136/
142
1-137/
143
1-137/
143
1-137/
143
1-137/
143
Iofur
Raknison
Iorek
Byrnison
Hjalmur
Hjalmurson
Søren
Eisarson
-
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
-
Iofur
Raknison
Iorek
Byrnison
Hjalmur
Hjalmurson
Søren
Eisarson
DTF
Tony
Makarios
Ma Costa
Charlie
Tony Costa
-
-
-
DTF
-
Tony
Makarios
Mutter Costa
Charlie
Tony Costa
-
Gender
-
Jaxer
-
-
-
Jaxer
DTF
Kerim
-
-
-
Kerim
DTF
John Faa
-
-
-
John Faa
DTF
Lord Faa
-
-
Lord Faa
DTF
Lord Faa
-
-
John Faa
S
Farder Coram
-
Class,
gender
Class,
gender
-
-
Farder Coram
DTF
Billy Costa
-
-
-
Billy Costa
DTF
Nicholas
Rokeby
Dirk Vries
-
-
Nicholas
Rokeby
Dirk Vries
DTF
Raymond van
Gerrit
Ruud
-
Raymond van
Gerrit
Ruud
DTF
Nellie
Koopman
Michael
Canzona
Adam
Stefanski
Roger van
Poppel
Simon
Hartmann
-
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nellie
Koopman
Michael
Canzona
Adam
Stefanski
Roger van
Poppel
Simon
Hartmann
DTF
-
-
-
-
-
-
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTR
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
Witches
1-137/
143
1-138/
144
1-139/
144
1-145/
151
1-146/
151
1-147/
152
1-147/
152
1-147/
152
1-158/
163
1-165/
171
Benjamin de
Ruyter
Adriaan
Braks
Margaret
-
Nationality
Nationality
-
-
Jacob
Huismans
Peter Hawker
-
-
-
Nationality
-
Gerard Hook
-
Frans
Broekman
Tom
Mendham
Jack
Verhoeven
Jerry
-
1-169/
175
2-49/56
Serafina
Pekkala
Ruta Skadi
-
2-53/60
Juta
Kamainen
Ieva Kasku
-
Reina Miti
-
Lena Feldt
-
2-59/66
Paolo
-
2-59/66
Tullio
-
2-59/66
Angelica
-
2-132/
141
2-173/
182
Joachim
Lorenz
Giacomo
Paradisi
-
3-57/62
Lord Roke
-
2-271/
280
2-271/
280
2-308/
317
Ci’gazze
Gallivespians
-
-
-
-
-
Benjamin de
Ruyter
Adriaan
Braks
Margaret
DTF
DTF
-
Jacob
Huismans
Peter Hawker
-
-
Gerard
D
Nationality
-
-
DTF
Nationality
-
-
Frans
Broekman
Tom
Mendham
Jack
Verhoeven
Jerry
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
-
Serafina
Pekkala
Ruta Skadi
DTF
DTF
-
Juta
Kamainen
Ieva Kasku
-
Ieva Kasku
DTF
-
Lena Feldt
DTF
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
-
Paolo
DTF
-
Tullio
DTF
-
Angelica
DTF
-
Joachim
Lorenz
Giacomo
Paradisi
DTF
Class, gender
-
Lord Roke
DTF
-
-
-
-
-
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
3-58/63
Lady
Salmakia
Chevalier
Tialys
Madame
Oxentiel
-
Class,
gender
Class,
gender
Class,
gender
-
3-130/
131
3-232/
232
Atal
-
-
Sattamax
-
Angels
3-13/20
3-13/20
3-30/37
3-201/
202
Balthamos
Baruch
Metatron
Xaphania
Lyra’s
Oxford
1-5/13
1-11/19
1-12/20
1-40/47
3-59/63
3-377/
374
Mulefa
Lady
Salmakia
Chevalier
Tialys
Madame
Oxentiel
DTF
-
Atal
DTF
-
-
Sattamax
DTF
-
-
The Bible
-
Balthamos
Baruch
Metatron
Xaphania
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
the Master
-
-
Rektor
DTR
Wren
Mr Cawson
Dr Dee
-
-
Wren
hr. Cawson
dr. Dee
DTF
DTR
DTR
-
Simon
Parslow
Hugh Lovat
Johnny
Fiorelli
Jessie
Reynolds
fru Lonsdale
Cousins
Dame
Hannah Relf
Bernie
Johansen
Roger
Parslow
DTF
-
-
DTF
DTF
Simon
Parslow
1-56/63 Hugh Lovat
1-57/64 Johnny
Fiorelli
1-59/66 Jessie
Reynolds
1-64/71 Mrs Lonsdale
1-65/73 Cousins
1-66/73 Dame
Hannah Relf
1Bernie
125/130 Johansen
1-363/
Roger
367
Parslow
-
Occupation
Gender
Occupation
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Gender
Class,
gender
-
-
-
-
1-77/84
Dr Broken
Arrow
-
-
dr. Brækket
Pil
DTR
1-91/97
Professor
Docker
-
Nationality,
occupation
Occupation
-
professor
Docker
DTR
1-56/63
Scholars
-
-
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTR
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
1-169/
175
1-271/
274
2-82/91
Dr Lanselius
-
Dr Cooper
-
Dr Lister
-
2-84/93
Doctor Mary
Malone
Dr Oliver
Payne
-
2-253/
261
Dr Olive
Payne
-
1-52/59
Father Heyst
-
1-237/
242
Sister Clara
-
1-255/
260
Sister Betty
-
2-35/42
3-66/70
3-203/
204
3-68/72
Fra Pavel
Fra Pavel
Fra Pavel
Rasek
Father
MacPhail
-
3-69/73
Father
Makepwe
-
3-69/73
Sister Agnes
-
3-69/73
Sister Monica
-
3-235/
234
Father
Gomez
-
3-325/
323
Brother Louis
-
2-89/98
Church
-
-
Occupation
Occupation
Occupation
Occupation
Gender,
occupation
Gender,
occupation
-
dr. Lanselius
DTR
-
dr. Cooper
DTR
-
Dr. Lister
DTR
-
doktor Mary
Malone
dr. Oliver
Payne
DTR
-
Dr. Olivia
Payne
A
Occupation
Occupation,
gender
Occupation,
gender
-
-
Fader Heyst
DTR
-
Søster Clara
DTR
-
Søster Betty
DTR
-
A
DTF
DTF
Gender,
occupation
Gender,
occupation
Occupation,
gender
Occupation,
gender
Gender,
occupation
Occupation,
gender
-
Frah Pavel
Fra Pavel
Fra Pavel
Rasek
Fader
MacPhail
-
Fader
Makepwe
DTR
-
Søster Agnes
DTR
-
Søster
Monica
DTR
-
Fader Gomez
DTR
-
Broder Louis
DTR
-
DTR
DTR
Nobility
1-5/13
Lord Asriel
-
1-78/85
Lord Rukh
-
1-85/91
Lord Boreal
-
1-85/91
-
2-158/
167
Princess
Postnikova
Count
Belacqua
Sir Charles
Latrom
3-63/68
King Ogunwe -
3-375/
372
Emperor
K’ang-Po
-
1-77/84
Colonel
Carborn
Captain
Hudson
Sergeant
Clifford
Inspector
Walters
-
No-Name
Character
has no name
Connotes
that
character is
kind,
amiable and
has wings
1-89/95
Military
& Police
1-78/85
2-149/
158
2-149/
158
World of
the dead
3-292/
290
3-387/
383
Gracious
Wings
”Mortal”
spelled
backwards,
foreshadowing
the
character’s
death.
-
Class,
gender
Class,
gender
Class,
gender
Class,
gender
Class,
gender
Class,
gender
-
Lord Asriel
DTF
-
Lord Rukh
DTF
-
Lord Boreal
DTF
-
prinsesse
Postnikova
Grev
Belacqua
Sir Charles
Latrom
DTR
Class,
gender,
occupation
Class,
gender,
occupation,
nationnality
-
Kong
Ogunwe
DTR
-
Kejser K’ang- DTR
Po
Occupation
Occupation
Occupation
Occupation
-
Oberst
Carborn
Kaptajn
Hudson
sergent
Clifford
politiinspektør
Walters
DTR
-
-
No-Name
DTF
-
-
Nådevinge
O
-
-
DTR
DTF
DTR
C
S
Biblical
names
Historical names
Mythological
names
3-247/
246
3-260/
259
3-262/
260
3-264/
262
Dirk Jansen
-
-
-
Dirk Jansen
DTF
Peter
-
-
-
Peter
DTF
Martha
-
-
-
Martha
DTF
Magda
-
-
-
Magda
DTF
1-369/
373
1-369/
373
2-249/
258
3-63/67
3-63/67
3-63/67
3-328/
326
3-400/
396
3-400/
396
3-400/
396
3-444/
440
Adam
-
-
The Bible
Adam
DTF
Eve
-
-
The Bible
Eva
DTR
Satan
-
-
The Bible
Satan
DTF
Enoch
Jared
Mahalalel
Moses
-
-
The Bible
The Bible
The Bible
The Bible
Enok
Jared
Mahalalel
Moses
DTR
DTF
DTF
DTF
Kenan
-
-
The Bible
Kenan
DTF
Enosh
-
-
The Bible
Enosh
DTF
Seth
-
-
The Bible
Seth
DTF
Jesus
-
-
The Bible
Jesus
DTF
1-31/37
Pope John
Calvin
-
Occupation
Historical
figure
S
2-88/97
Keats
-
-
2-89/97
Plato
-
-
Historical
figure
Historical
figure
Pave
Johannes
Calvin
Keats
Platon
DTR
1-113/
119
Black Shuck
Colour of
character
-
Sorte Shuck
DTR
1-312/
316
Yambe-Akka
-
-
Yambe-Akka
DTF
2-113/
121
Bigfoot
-
-
den
afskyelige
snemand
O
Mythological
creature
Mythological
creature
Mythological
creature
DTF
Dæmons
Miscellaneous
1-3/11
1-4/12
1-12/19
1-42/49
1-49/56
1-49/56
1-49/56
1-66/73
Pantalaimon
Pan
Stelmaria
Ratter
Cerebaton
Zohariel
Musca
the golden
monkey
1-143/
149
1-185/
190
1-248/
253
1-266/
270
1-362/
366
2-51/58
2-139/
148
2-213/
221
3-53/58
3-300/
298
3-300/
298
3-300/
298
3-476/
472
1-49/56
1-49/56
1-49/56
1-78/84
1-85/91
1-91/97
1-125/
131
-
-
Pantalaimon
Pan
Stelmaria
Vipsen
Cerebaton
Zohariel
Musca
den gyldne
abe
DTF
DTF
DTF
P
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTR
Sophonax
A monkey
with fur that
is golden in
colour
-
-
-
Sophonax
DTF
Kaisa
-
-
-
Kaisa
DTF
Salcilia
-
-
-
Salcilia
DTF
Kyrillion
-
-
-
Kyrillion
DTF
Anfang
-
-
-
Anfang
DTF
Hester
Sergi
-
-
-
Hester
Sergi
DTF
DTF
Sayan Kötör
-
-
-
Sayan Kötör
DTF
Kulang
Sandling
-
-
-
Kulang
Sandling
DTF
DTF
Matapan
-
-
-
Matapan
DTF
Castor
-
-
-
Castor
DTF
Kirjava
-
-
-
Kirjava
DTF
Simon Le
Clerc
Francis Lyall
Ignatius Cole
Grimssdur
Erik
Andersson
Adèle
Starminster
Edward
Coulter
-
-
-
DTF
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Simon Le
Clerc
Francis Lyall
Ignatius Cole
Grimssdur
Erik
Andersson
Adèle
Starminster
Edward
Coulter
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
1-178/
184
1-245/
249
1-245/
249
1245/249
1-251/
256
1-270/
273
1-362/
366
2-1/7
2-2/8
2-4/10
2-71/79
2-111/
120
2-112/
120
2-112/
121
2-113/
122
2-114/
123
2-116/
125
2-116/
125
2-121/
130
2-197/
206
3-2/10
3-47/52
3-64/68
398/100
398/100
398/100
Lee Scoresby
-
-
-
Lee Scoresby
DTF
Annie
-
-
-
Annie
DTF
Bella
-
-
-
Bella
DTF
Martha
-
-
-
Martha
DTF
Bridget
McGinn
McKay
-
-
-
DTF
-
-
-
Bridget
McGinn
McKay
Thorold
-
-
-
Thorold
DTF
Mrs Cooper
Mrs Parry
Moxie
Alan Perkins
Nelson
-
Gender
Gender
-
-
fru Cooper
fru Parry
Moxie
Alan Perkins
Nelson
DTR
DTR
DTF
DTF
DTF
Jake Petersen
-
-
-
Jake Petersen
DTF
Johnny
-
-
-
Johnny
DTF
Elaine
-
-
-
Elaine
DTF
Matt Kigalik
-
-
-
Matt Kigalik
DTF
Sam Cansino
-
-
-
Sam Cansino
DTF
Yakovlev
-
-
-
Yakovlev
DTF
Umaq
-
-
-
Umaq
DTF
Carlo
-
-
-
Carlo
DTF
Ama
Padgzin tulku
Teukros
Basilides
Otyets
Semyon
Semyon
Borisovitch
Lydia
Alexandrovna
-
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
Nationality
-
Ama
Padgzin tulku
Teukros
Basilides
Otyets
Semyon
Semyon
Borisovitch
Lydia
Alexandrovna
DTF
DTF
DTF
-
-
DTF
DTF
DTF
DTF
3-447/
443
3-448/
444
Alfred
Montale
Tim
-
-
-
-
-
-
Alfred
Montale
Tim
DTF
DTF
Appendix IV
Summary of “His Dark Materials”
“Northern Lights”
In the first novel, we are introduced to Lyra Belacqua, who is a care-free and tomb-boyish
eleven-year-old girl, living as an orphan among scholars and servants in Jordan College, Oxford.
One day she overhears a conversation between the scholars and her Uncle Asriel about a strange
world in the aurora which has something to do with ‘Dust’. Her world is turned upside down,
when her friend Roger is kidnapped by the mysterious Gobblers, and she is taken into the care of
the beautiful and sophisticated Mrs Coulter in London. Lyra and her dæmon, Pantalaimon,
manage to escape, with her precious truth-telling alethiometer intact, as Lyra discovers that Mrs
Coulter is the head of the Gobblers, and she is rescued by the gyptians, who bring her on their
boat to help save Roger and all of the kidnapped children. Lyra learns that Mrs Coulter is in fact
her mother and that Lord Ariel, who is being held captive on the Island of Svalbard, is her father,
but this only strengthens her desire to rescue the children, bring the alethiometer to Lord Asriel
and learn the truth about the mysterious Dust. She is further aided by the Texan balloonist Lee
Scoresby, the witch Serafina Pekkala and the armoured bear Iorek Byrnison, who is the rightful
king of the panserbjørne of Svalbard. Lyra’s skills at telling lies and her relentless resolve help
her in rescuing the kidnapped children from the terrible fate of being severed from their dæmons
by the Gobblers and the Magisterium, who want to prevent Dust from settling on the children by
performing this terrible procedure; a fate which Lyra herself narrowly escapes as Mrs Coulter
appears and prevents it. In a perilous and bloody final stretch of the journey, Lyra helps Iorek
Byrnison to be reinstated as king of the bears before she and Roger finally find Lord Asriel in
Svalbard. Asriel’s determination to open a bridge to the world in the aurora claims Roger’s life
and Lyra, heartbroken but determined to learn the truth about Dust, crosses the bridge into the
parallel world in the aurora, with her dæmon and the alethiometer as her sole companions.
“The Subtle Knife”
The second novel opens with the introduction of the boy Will Parry, who has lived alone with his
mother ever since his father disappeared. Will stumbles upon a window into the strange parallel
world of Ci’gazze where he meets Lyra. The two children come from different worlds, but they
soon team up to help each other: Will wants to find his father and Lyra wants to learn the truth
about Dust. In Will’s world, Lyra and the scholar Dr Mary Malone discover, that Dust is dark
matter, or ‘Shadows’, that you can communicate with, but when Lyra is forced to escape from
the police, she is tricked by the mischievous Sir Charles Latrom, who steals her alethiometer. In
order to get it back, she and Will have to bring him the powerful ‘subtle knife’ in return. Will
wins the subtle knife in a bloody fight in Ci’gazze and the children manage to steal back the
alethiometer from Latrom, who turns out to be in cahoots with Mrs Coulter. Both of them
coveted the knife because it can cut through to other worlds and protect the bearer from the
vicious Spectres of Ci’gazze. Back in Will’s world, Mary learns from the Shadows that her
destiny is to play the serpent and that she should find Lyra and Will. She finds the window to
Ci’gazze and leaves her own world behind. Meanwhile, Lee Scoresby has located Will’s father,
John Parry, who has been living as the Shaman Stanislaus Grumman in Lyra’s world all those
years, unable to find his way back. The two venture out to find and help Lyra and Will on their
quest, but Scoresby is killed by Mrs Coulter’s soldiers. Serafina Pekkala and her fellow witches,
who know that Lyra is destined to become the next Eve and thereby a target to the Magisterium,
help Lyra and Will, and Will finally finds John Parry. Parry instructs Will to bring the subtle
knife to Lord Asriel, who is building an army to fight the Authority, the tyrant angel ruling the
multiverse as a false God, but just as Will realises, that Grumman is his long lost father, Parry is
killed by a scorned witch. When Will goes to find Lyra, he discovers that she has been
kidnapped, and he sets out to find Lyra, accompanied by the two angels Balthamos and Baruch.
“The Amber Spyglass”
The third novel finds Lyra in Mrs Coulter’s care kept in a drug-induced sleep, where she dreams
of Roger who, as a ghost, calls for her help from the world of the dead. Will and the two angels
are attacked by the evil angel Metatron and, while Baruch flies to Asriel for help, Will cuts
through to Lyra’s world where he and Balthamos set out to find Lyra. Will finds and befriends
Iorek Byrnison, who agrees to help. Lord Asriel sends the two Gallivespian spies, Salmakia and
Tialys, along with a small army to retrieve Lyra, and the Gallivespians, Will and Iorek manage to
save Lyra from both Mrs Coulter and the Magisterium. Meanwhile, Mary has entered the world
of the mulefa where she learns that the Shadows, or Dust, are conscious particles which flow in
all the worlds, but something has happened to make the Dust disappear. She constructs an amber
spyglass to be able to see the Dust and decides to somehow help the mulefa. Her mission as the
tempter has been discovered by the Magisterium and they send out Father Gomez to find and kill
her before she fulfils her role and tempts Lyra. Lyra and Will decide to go to the world of the
dead to find Roger and John Parry, and the Gallivespians reluctantly follow them there. Mrs
Coulter is captured by Lord Asriel, but escapes in the Intention Craft to the Magisterium in
Geneva, where the President steels a lock of Lyra’s hair from Mrs Coulter to use in a DNAbomb that will kill Lyra. Mrs Coulter, whose maternal instincts have finally pushed her into
siding with Lyra and Asriel, fails to prevent it, but Tialys and Salmakia receive warning of the
bomb in time to avoid disaster. Lyra and Will cut an opening from the world of the dead,
allowing Roger and the other ghosts to be free, whereas the ghosts of Scoresby and Parry go to
Lyra’s world to help Asriel’s forces in the battle against Metatron and the Authority. Mrs Coulter
and Lord Asriel sacrifice their own lives to kill Metatron and save Lyra, and Lyra and Will
release the Authority into the air where he dissolves. The children then join Mary in the mulefa
world, where Balthamos has managed to kill Father Gomez before he could kill Mary. Lyra and
Will realise they are in love after Mary has told them her own story. However, the angel
Xaphania informs them, that they can never be together because they would die if they remained
outside of their own respective worlds for much longer. All the windows between the worlds
must be closed, except for the one out of the world of the dead, since the flow of dust seeping out
of the many parallel worlds was caused by these openings. The children accept their fate and
after emotional goodbyes, everyone returns to their own worlds. In the final chapter, Lyra and
her dæmon conclude that the kingdom of heaven is over and that they now have to build the
republic of heaven by living their lives to the fullest; something she and Will would not have
been able to do if they had stayed together.