LINGUA E TRADUZIONE INGLESE - I semester

As regards the first branch of this course, the one focusing on academic writing, here follows a tentative list of
the main topics we are going to address and tackle:

ü Argumentation: nature of arguments and argumentative texts; how rhetoric dealt with texts whose goal is
meant ultimately to persuade an audience about a certain argument. Material and quotations from Perelman
and Tyteca, Mortara Garavelli, Walter Nash and other rhetoricians will be made available by the teacher and
discussed in classroom.
ü What a LSP (language for specific or special purposes) is characterized by, upon which grounds it differs
from LGP (language for general purposes), its main stylistic and broadly linguistic features, and its
distinctive organizational patterns. Reference books for this part will be Approaches to Academic Reading
and Writing by Martin Arnaudet and Mary Ellen Barrett and Dal saggio breve alla tesi di dottorato. Manuale
di scrittura argomentativa by Carmen dell’Aversano and Alessandro Grilli.
ü Not few classes will go under the heading of ‘Tips for writing EAP (English for Academic Purposes) papers’
and will have a strong focus on academic vocabulary, cohesive devices, grammar and syntactical patterns
typical of academic argumentative texts; error analysis of texts (papers, examination papers, dissertations)
written by past Italian students of English and amendment of wrong sentences; paraphrasing techniques; use
of transition and linking items. These classes will be based on R.R. Jordan’s Academic Writing Course,
MAK Halliday’s Cohesion in English, John Peck and Martin Coye’s The Student’s Guide to Writing,
Geoffrey Leech’s An A-Z of English Grammar & Usage, and, above all, the written papers by students who
attended my courses and graduated with me during the last 17 years (which is a lucky number, by the way,
in China and India, the coming of age for wizards in Harry Potter and the percentage of alcohol content in
Baileys. So, please don’t complain).
ü Reading and writing critical reviews, thus taking part in the contemporary cultural, linguistic and literary
debates, and recognizing why, where (sites shifting from print journals, magazines and newspapers to blogs,
websites and social media) and around which issues such debates are unfolding; developing a sober, not
necessarily obsessed with self-promotion (as is often the case with contemporary intellectuals) and yet
authoritative stance as the author of critical essays and reviews: argumentative balance, hedging,
effectiveness of statements.
ü Focus on your dissertation, also called ‘elaborato finale’: norms and rules; subjects and supervisors; what a
table of content should contain; how to quote, how to mention, how to refer to previous works, how to avoid
plagiarism; different stylesheets and guidelines, and the importance of coherence throughout your work; the
value of proof-reading and a careful editing; how to compile a list of works cited.
ü Only we are going to have time for this: classes on the use of corpora for writing.

SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

Differences between written and spoken language (speech) are marked and account for a significant latitude of
variability in language use. The variation due to the use of a different channel or medium is said to be diamesic.1
Among the differences between the context of oral communication and the written one,2 there is the presence of
the speaker and the listener(s), which in turn implies a range of pragmatic consequences, including the possibility
to rephrase a sentence (several times), to check for the listener’s reaction, to ask for their feedback, to ascertain
how the communicative exchange is getting through (and whether its full sense is really getting across).

1
Variability in language is due to time – diachronic variation; place / geography – diatopic variation; social type (class,
milieu) – diastratic variation; socio-cultural context and levels of formality/politeness – diaphasic variation; medium of
communication - diamesic or medium-related variation. The medium chosen and employed in our communication
exchanges inevitably results in some kind of variation. In other words, the medium changes the communication itself.
2
The notion of ‘context of communication’ encapsulates the matter being dealt with, the interlocutors and the more or
less formal relationships among them.
 In written communication, the senders of a message don’t have all these opportunities and therefore need to
be more precise, often straightforward and certainly explicit. This is even more the case in scientific written texts,
where explicit formulations are as necessary to them as the air we breathe is to us, because nothing should be left
to the personal interpretation of the readers / receivers of such texts. In socio-linguistic terms, writing solicits
linguistic behaviours and social relations different from those of speaking.

Moreover, while oral exchanges are likely not to be so well-organized and planned – which obviously entails
hesitations, interruptions (anacolutha), repetitions, mistakes of any kind and self-adjustments, ongoing changes
and formal carelessness at large – written texts have to be adequately planned and provided with cohesion,
thoroughly structured according to syntactical and inter-phrastic compactness, repetitions must be avoided and a
specific (pertinent, topical, updated) lexicon should be preferred.

There exist several classifications of text typologies that are based on the text’s main functions and goals.
According to Cerruti and Cini’s Introduzione elementare alla scrittura accademica, text typologies can be
classified into five groups, each corresponding to a different purpose which supposedly prevails over the others:

1. those texts whose main function is to provide their receivers with instructions are said to be prescriptive or
normative texts;
2. descriptive texts are of course primarily meant to describe something;
3. texts wherein the predominant purpose is to provide their receivers with information are called informative
texts;
4. texts which are supposed to tell a story in the first place are said to be narrative;
5. argumentative texts are those by means of which an idea, an argument, or a thesis is being proposed,
questioned and posited. Scientific texts, essays, critical, conference and academic papers, scholarly research,
dissertations and academic writing in all its forms fall into this group. (Cerruti and Cini, p. 9)

Even though featuring aspects typical of other text typologies, academic texts are therefore grouped as
argumentative, as they aim to either confirm or refute an idea by articulating relevant arguments, and, in so doing,
also aim to convince the audience or readership to adopt such view.

ME, MYSELF AND I IN ACADEMIC WRITING

Important considerations should be made about the level of explicitation of the author, who in this case
matches the figure of the arguer. Very different opinions are given in this respect and not few university teachers
hold it as a sign of academic etiquette to write papers from a completely objective standpoint, i.e. without using
any first person personal pronoun or adjective such as ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘me’, ‘us’, ‘my’, ‘our’, ‘mine’, or ‘ours’. Students
writing their dissertations are often suggested that they should adhere to this basic tenet and this is also a very
common opinion among editors working for newspapers, magazines, publishing houses and the publishing
industry in general. At all rates, other, more moderate positions are also shared. There is in fact quite a general
agreement as so the bad taste of putting everything forward as a personal creation, decision or just thought.
However, in certain, key places of an argumentative text – such as, for instance, in connection to a crucial
reference in the introduction, a logical progression in the discussion or a pivotal argument in the conclusion – it
is not only legitimate but actually honest and even genuine not to disguise the very personal source of it under
the pretense of an objective intelligence. A sober, balanced and therefore confident authorial persona is pleasant
to read and should not necessarily be always covered by constantly framing the discourse through – actually fake
– impersonal terms.

CROSS-CULTURAL COMPONENT OF GENRES AND STYLES

The authorial persona and its different degree of explicitation chosen according to conventionalised attitudes is
one example out of many we are going to make in this course, which just go to show how fundamental the
criterion of adequacy or appropriateness is in academic writing. Actually, this criterion is crucial to the whole
tradition of rhetoric, whose discrimination of beauty has been centred for centuries on the notion of standardness,
its theorization and the consequent recognition and characterization of stylistic variation, which in turn amounts
to an individual departure from such social standard as it has been theorized. According to Aristotle, we owe the
 rhetorical concept of ‘appropriateness’ (kairós) to the Sicilian philosophers known as Pythagoreans, who first
linked the opportunity of any discourse to the circumstances, the interlocutors involved. By politropia, they
meant precisely this capacity to address different types of discourses to different audiences.3

A most severe difficulty with the subject of this course then arises from the fact that not one but two stylistic
traditions are involved, the Italian and the English ones, which only sometimes conform to each other. This
course will accordingly sharpen the focus on how these systems relate to each other. And at the core of it lies the
biggest of difficulty. Much of the knowledge about which this course revolves, or even better, much of our
knowledge of language and linguistic processes, revolves is unconscious knowledge. Human beings are not
aware of the many linguistic rules they nonetheless comply with and easily master. Speakers of any natural
language use norms in a perfect way and to their full, even creative potential but would never be able to put their
finger on those very norms. Actually we most often do not even suspect their existence. Along similar lines,
Caterina Donati argued:

[M]io figlio […] conosce delle regole che gli consentono di dire e di comprendere tutti gli enunciati
che vuole. Questa caratteristica del linguaggio umano (inteso come sistema di conoscenza), che lo
distingue nettamente da altri linguaggi, come quello del mio computer o del mio gatto, è detta
generatività: un essere umano parla come parla, in maniera sempre nuova e creativa perché conosce
delle regole generative, in grado cioè di generare un numero non finito di enunciati. […] Il
linguaggio è un tipo di conoscenza molto particolare: è una conoscenza inconsapevole (si parla a
questo proposito anche di competenza). Suona un po’ come un paradosso: siamo in grado di usare
delle regole ma non abbiamo accesso alla loro formulazione. (La sintassi. Regole e strutture, p. 11)

An interesting book in this respect is Harrie Ritchie’s, English for the Natives: Discover the Grammar You
Don’t Know You Know and Nick Hornby’s tales about a hard period when he decided to teach English to
foreigners and first found out the difference between present perfect and simple past, that is between two tenses
he had always mastered while having no idea they even existed.

GLOSSARY, PHRASES, CONJUNCTIONS AND LINKING ADVERBS TYPICAL OF ACADEMIC WRITING IN ENGLISH

Mind the lexical specificity of EAP (English for Academic Purposes) and of any other LSP (Language for Specific
Purposes). In writing a paper, a dissertation or just an assignment, you are supposed to use an exact vocabulary, which is
that of your field of study. Accordingly, please avoid the improper use of either not suitable or imprecise terms: e.g.
‘aspects’ differs from ‘notions’; ‘domestication’, ‘equivalence’ and ‘accommodation’ are notions, concepts, theoretical
categories and may even be practical tools if you like, but certainly not aspects. The same occurs with ‘problem’, ‘idea’,
‘things’, ‘to do’, etc., which you should use only when you really mean them. In particular, please be careful with
generalizations which may arise from the use of a vague terminology. Vagueness is your worst enemy! More focused
terms are necessary to avoid confusion and indeterminacy.

Avoid expressions like, “but to do this in a better way”; here the sentence would gain much in terms of intelligibility and
beauty if both the verb “to do” and the adverb “better” were replaced by more appropriate terms, as in “but to carry this
out in a more effective way”; the phrase “my message will be perceived in a stronger way” is inconsistent because
‘perceive’ and ‘strongly’ are at odds, they do not form a common collocation. At least one of these two items has therefore
to be changed, so as to make sense out of the whole phrase, as in “my message will be more clearly perceived”, or “more
strongly agreed on”.

A construction which also lacks stylistic adequacy for similar reasons is “there is + noun + to remember”, as in the
definitely too imprecise formulation which follows: “In Pearson’s opinion, there are three important things to
remember”. “Three + specific noun + should be borne in mind” is what you want to write. As regards agreement and
cohesion in a text, consider the following sentence: “The concept of loyalty is a crucial notion in Translation Studies”.
Here, the variation by means of a synonym (notion for concept) triggers an awkward redundancy and to some will sound
confusing. A better reformulation would be: “The notion of loyalty is a crucial one in Translation Studies”, or “The notion

3
According to Treccani, ‘politropo’ means “che ha ingegno versatile, multiforme; astuto, scaltro (è l’epiteto omerico di
Ulisse).” https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/ricerca/politropo/ (last visit 12/10/2020)
of loyalty is crucial in Translation Studies”. In conclusion, cohesion and preciseness are your goals: use precise terms and
phrasal constructs, and avoid unusual and shallow collocations.

WHAT YOU WRITE WITHIN ACADEMIC AS WELL AS SCHOLARLY CONTEXTS IS A CULTURAL PRODUCT TYPICALLY
CALLED AS FOLLOWS, DEPENDING ON THE AUDIENCE AND ITS PURPOSE:

paper (intervento a un convegno a una conferenza, contributo in un’antologia o raccolta, saggio, articolo, lavoro scritto
in genere)
study (generico)
survey (indagine, inchiesta, intervista, questionario, ricerca, panoramica, studio che dà uno sguardo di insieme)
essay (saggio in una collettanea, rivista o in un raccolta; soggetta a sviluppo)
reader (collettanea, raccolta)
article (in una rivista [academic journal; online magazine] o anche su un quotidiano [print and not printed or online
newspaper])
work (very broad, it fits an informal register)
research (better used as uncountable; whenever you can, please avoid its plural form, ‘researches’)
review (rivista, rassegna, esame, recensione; from ‘to review’ = passare in esame, in rassegna, recensire)
report (resoconto, rapporto, studio)
investigation / analysis (plural ‘analyses’)
exploration (sometimes to stress that your work is being framed by the Humanities)
discussion
dissertation (corresponding to the Italian ‘tesi’; more frequently employed to refer to MA and PhD theses)
thesis, broader than ‘dissertation’, as it also refers to an idea, a concept, an argument
chapter
section (meglio di ‘part’)
excerpt (significa brano, passaggio, estratto, ed è appropriato in EAP, certo meglio del meno specifico e assai goffo,
‘passage’)
table of content(s) or simply contents which refers to our ‘indice’ (which is NOT index)

ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES - INTRODUCING ARGUMENTS

Phrases
This paper / dissertation / article / chapter / report / analysis / discussion / section / etc.
focuses on / deals with / will deal with
This dissertation proposes / presents /analyses / gives an account of / provides an overview of / considers / describes /
(critically, closely, thoroughly) examines / investigates/ discusses (the case / the impact of) / suggests / argues /
investigates / questions / explores (the ways in which) / describes / addresses / tackles / faces / compares / reports on ....
The main / one of the main concern(s) of this chapter / essay / paper is (that + verb phrase / noun phrase)

What follows is …
What this paper is mainly concerned with is ...
What this paper is faced with is ...
What is at stake(s) here is …

THE PREVIOUS 4 FORMULAE ARE TOPICALISATIONS AND AIM AT STRESSING THE SUBJECT. TOPICALISATIONS ARE MUCH
MORE FREQUENT IN EAP THAN IN ACADEMIC ITALIAN, WHERE ANY AMOUNT OF THEM WOULD SOUND HEAVY. CAREFUL
WITH THEIR USAGE. SEVERAL STUDENTS REPEAT PERSONAL PRONOUNS EVEN WHEN THE SUBJECT OF A VERB (OF A
SENTENCE) HAS ALREADY BEEN EXPRESSED, AS IN “WHAT IT IS BEING PROPOSED HERE”. IN THIS CASE, IT IS PLEONASTIC
AND THEREFORE WRONG.

Connectives
As regards ... / Regarding … / In regard to / With regard to …
MIND!! ‘In regards to’ is WRONG!!
Consider, for example,

Transition to a new, MORE SPECIFIC and still pertinent thought

In this regard / regarding this / in this respect / in some respects
With respect to
MIND!! ‘respecting’ is WRONG
With reference to ... // in relation to …
As for …
As to …
Let us (now) turn to …

INTRODUCING INTENTIONS IN ACADEMIC TEXTS

The aim (finalità, scopo, obbiettivo)/ goal / ( specific) objective / intent (finalità, intento, intenzione/ anche verbo) /
purpose (scopo)

of this paper is /was to

propose / present /analyse / suggest / describe / examine / focus on / discuss / find out / detect / demonstrate / show/
check / test / ascertain / assess / investigate / question / explore / address / tackle / face ....

This paper aims to / attempts to / sets out to / seeks to…

This paper is intended (meant / supposed) to analyse ….
e.g., In order to demonstrate that a relationship exists between social background and educational success this paper is
intended to assess …

THE PASSIVE FORM IS MUCH MORE FREQUENT IN EAP THEN IN ITALIAN FOR ACADEMIC AND/OR SCHOLARLY PURPOSES.
REASONS FOR THIS ARE DIVERSE – AND TO SOME EXTENT PSYCHOLINGUISTIC IN THEIR NATURE – AND HOWEVER RELATED
TO A DEEP-SEATED STYLISTIC TRADITION. THE PASSIVE FORM, FOR INSTANCE, IS PREFERRED TO THE ACTIVE FORM WHEN
THE PERFORMERS OF THE ACTION ARE EITHER NOT KNOWN OR NOT TO BE IDENTIFIED (AS IN POLITICAL SPEECHES, IN THE
DESCRIPTION OF PROCEDURES AND PROCESSES).
MORE ON ACTIVE VERSUS PASSIVE VERB FORMS CAN BE READ IN JORDAN, ACADEMIC WRITING COURSE, PP. 14-25;
ARNAUDET AND BARRETT, APPROACHES TO ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING, PP. 73-75.

It is my intention to …
I will attempt / have attempted to check / detect / assess etc.
We set out to analyse / investigate etc.

AS REGARDS THE USE OF FIRST-PERSON PRONOUNS, THESE ARE NOT SO MUCH WELCOME BY SEVERAL READERS, INCLUDING
MUCH OF THE ACADEMIC READERSHIP, THAT IS YOUR READERSHIP. PARTICULARLY IN THE HUMANITIES THERE IS A BIAS
AGAINST THE USE OF ARGUMENTATIVE ‘I’, AND IN GENERAL THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE DOES NOT ENCOURAGE THE USE OF
UNDEFINED, IMPERSONAL ‘WE’, WHILE, ON THE CONTRARY IMPERSONAL ‘NOI’ IS VERY FREQUENT IN ITALIAN. DO NOT
FORGET THIS DIFFERENCE AND REMEMBER THAT DECISIONS REGARDING THE PERSONAL PRONOUNS SHOULD BE MADE BY
CONSIDERING CAREFULLY YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE.

STYLISTIC REQUISITES OF ACADEMIC WRITING

According to most academic writing textbooks and handbooks, writers of academic texts must:
1) be conversant with the subject
2) express themselves properly
3) involve the audience and be convincing.
In order to achieve this goal, Marco Santambrogio argues, “a scientific contribution has to be composed of a set of
1) true, 2) interesting and therefore original 3) legitimate and therefore evidence-based assumptions. By mixing these
suggestions, one can observe that the following three requisites must be met:
1. to know the topic of your dissertation well (which primarily means to know as much as possible about the
perspectives employed by other people on the same topic) while this very topic also must not be banal. It is a common
practice to avoid subjects that have been over-exploited by scholarly research.
2. to express oneself through exact and coherent terms. Beware: this entails two different types of clarity: of mind
and of language.
3. to be convincing; to persuade the reader that a) there is a point in the thesis being presented, there is a central
and somehow concluding matter; b) what is communicated does not amount to so much a mere opinion as to
evidence-based knowledge.

KEY ARGUMENTATIVE ELEMENTS IN ACADEMIC WRITING

According to Martin Arnaudet and Mary Ellen Barrett, in written academic prose “[t]he controlling idea is the
author’s most general statement”, one which “controls and limits which ideas and information the author will include in
the text, as well as the selection of rhetorical devices” (Approaches to Academic Reading and Writing, p. 2). In other
terms, the controlling idea affects both the content and the style of academic texts. The controlling idea is not always
expressed in one sentence only, even though it should be delivered to readers as clear and plain as possible. In fact, readers
often have to grasp the controlling idea of a paper with some hermeneutical effort. This should absolutely not be the case
of your dissertation where you should rather be focused, employ an unbiased perspective and acknowledge that the
reader’s consensus cannot ever be taken for granted. Such consensus will actually not be gained unless evidence and
justifications are correctly and clearly provided. As such, it is also a matter of style: being able to present and discuss
plausible, convincing and, within certain limits, impressive ideas through a dissertation, an essay or an article is highly
dependent on one’s stylistic skills which obviously account for the ultimate formal aspects of writing.

In Arnaudet and Barrett’s understanding, supporting ideas simply “represent smaller parts of the entire subject” (3).
They are more specific, that is less general and sometimes less abstract than the controlling idea, even though they still
have somehow to relate to it for the sake of the unity of the text and the coherence of the argumentation within it.
Coherence is definitely a ‘must’ – perhaps the most important one – in any academic writing and can only be obtained by
paying very careful attention to the structure and organization of the text. Supporting ideas are, in Arnaudet and Barrett’s
terms, “kinds of clues” (5), whose function is to corroborate a more general thesis on a range of different levels, while
always referring back to the main point. Accordingly, supporting ideas are most needed and crucial when the controlling
idea alone can hardly gain any easy consensus in the audience.
An important issue in academic writing is the role and place controlling and supporting ideas respectively cover in
the overall structure of the argumentation. Several organizational patterns are generally available which all make it
necessary to locate controlling and supporting ideas in very precise places within academic texts. Here follows a brief
and not comprehensive list of the most simple and frequently used of these organizational patterns:

1) Deductive method or organizational pattern:

When the deductive method is employed, the controlling idea is stated at or near the beginning of an academic text
or any other texts where an argument is posited. The supporting, less general, ideas – these being facts, opinions and
quotations from other texts – then follow and clearly refer to an already known point of reference, the initial idea, whose
position they try to strengthen. This is also called the deductive organizational pattern:

CONTROLLING IDEA
SUPPORTING IDEA
SUPPORTING IDEA
SUPPORTING IDEA

2) Inductive method or organizational pattern:

Induction is the exact opposite of deduction: it is typical of a reasoning process which moves from more specific
and sometimes more concrete considerations to a more general and sometimes more abstract idea. When the deductive
method is employed, supporting ideas are given first and eventually followed by the general statement – the controlling
idea – somewhere towards the end of the text. In this case, the organizational pattern is also said to be inductive and can
therefore be graphically re-arranged as follows:

SUPPORTING IDEA
SUPPORTING IDEA
SUPPORTING IDEA
CONTROLLING IDEA

There is a third organizational pattern, actually the most commonly used in your III-yr final dissertations, which we are
going to illustrate below after presenting how and through which linguistic practices you are supposed to deal with ideas
and arguments.

INTRODUCING CONTROLLING IDEAS

The thesis being proposed here is …
The hypothesis being tested (here / in this dissertation/paper/work) is …
In this dissertation / paper etc. it is / will be argued /suggested /proposed that ...
e.g. In this essay the existence of a relationship between social background and educational success is / will be analysed
/ described / examined / discussed etc.
What follows is to be read as …
What I am proposing here is … [Never use contracted forms such as “I’m”, “can’t”, “they’ll”, “they’ve”, “she’s”, or
“isn’t” in EAP]
The point I am trying to make (here / in this dissertation/paper/work) is …
What I am trying to question/address/argue (here / in this dissertation/paper/work) is

TO INTRODUCE ISSUES (PERHAPS SUPPORTING IDEAS)

WHICH YOU FEEL HAVE BEEN NEGLECTED IN PREVIOUS, SIMILAR WORKS
(Unfortunately / As such / Surprisingly / For some reason/s,)
What has not been (fully) taken into (full) account …
It has been often / frequently / sometimes neglected / disregarded / overlooked/ downplayed that …
What has not been fully articulated is …
Prior to the work of Auerbach, the role of mimesis was largely unknown.

Previous/ Most studies on/ subject x has/ have failed to address

Research/ Researchers of subject x has/ have not treated subject x in much/ full / great/
complete/ specific detail(s)
The existing accounts/ research literature /criticism
has/ have only focused on subject y rather than subject x

has/ have paid scant attention to

Subject x tended / tends to be (rather / widely / unfairly / necessarily) overlooked

What is likely to be neglected / downplayed / overlooked / is …
Very little is currently known about subject x
(Too) Little attention has been paid so far / hitherto to…
It still remains to speak of …
Much remains to be understood / explored / investigated about …
To date, there has been no detailed investigation of…

Trump’s analysi(e)s / study / research / critique does not take account of…, nor does he/she/they
examine…

fails to resolve the contradiction between subject x and

subject y

has been mostly restricted to…

It is (thus / therefore) necessary / essential to gain insights into…

to gain a better understanding of …

to draw on systematic research into subject x

to investigate in a systematic way…

IN ORDER TO HIGHLIGHT THE IMPORTANCE OF SO FAR /HITHERTO NEGLECTED ISSUES AND TOPICS
The present research/ This study aims to offer/ provide/ generate new/ important/ fresh insight(s) into…
The present research/ This study contributes to a deeper understanding of
The findings of the present research/ this study should make an important/ major contribution to the field/ area/
discipline/ theorization of ….
The present research/ This study explores, for the first time,

IN ORDER TO STRESS
It must /should be stressed that … (avoid ‘underline’)
It should be emphasized that ...
What must be emphasized is + noun phrase
The (very) first point to be made (about …) is …
I/ One cannot stress too greatly (enough) … that… (this is almost an overstatement, be careful)
Goldsmith was correct to stress… (e.g., the importance/ relevance of)

IN ORDER TO STRESS THE IMPORTANCE OF A TOPIC

X is fundamental/ essential to …
Biden plays/ may play/ has a pivotal/ crucial/ key/ vital/ critical/ role in …
X is fast/ increasingly becoming a key tool/ powerful strategy/ effective analytical paradigm for …
X is essential for/ has become a central issue for/ is among the most important factors for …
A growing body of literature acknowledges the importance of …
In recent years, there has been an increasing amount of literature on …
A key aspect/ dominant feature of X is …
X is a key aspect/ dominant feature of …
A primary concern of X is …

TO RECALL WHAT HAS JUST BEEN MENTIONED (DEICTIC FUNTION):

Such … (subject)
Such … (subject) then ... (verb)
This …
Said …
The above mentioned / afore mentioned …
The already quoted / cited (mind the difference between quoting, which should imply the use of direct quotations
between inverted commas, and a simple citation, which is only a mere reference; see more on this issue in the following
pages)
Such literature on multilingualism in modernist authors has highlighted several …
This range of theories regarding women’s perspective on 19th century urbanization…
A considerable amount of the above mentioned literature on hybridity in postcolonial drama was mainly published in
the wake of the post-structuralists’ attempts to…

IN ARGUMENTATIVE TEXTS SUCH AS ACADEMIC ONES, ANY IDEA, AND ALL THE MORE SO OPINIONS, ARE LIKELY TO BE
CONTROVERSIAL AND THEREFORE SHOULD ALWAYS BE POSITED WITH CONFIDENCE AND IN THE AWARENESS THAT
CONTRARY POSITIONS WILL ARISE. IN RHETORIC, IDEAS, DATA AND OPINIONS WHICH AGREE WITH THE RATIONALE OF A
PREVIOUS STATEMENT OR REASONING ARE MEANT TO CARRY OUT A CONFIRMATION OF IT. ON THE OTHER HAND, THOSE
IDEAS WHICH DO NOT AGREE WITH A PREVIOUS STATEMENT OR REASONING BY CONTRADICTING IT OR SIMPLY SHEDDING
LIGHT ON ITS DRAWBACKS OR FALLACIES CARRY OUT A REFUTATION OR CONFUTATION OF IT.

TO MENTION RELEVANT STUDIES WE AGREE WITH

Research into Cervantes’s familiarity with Aristotle’s Poetics has a long history.
Several lines of evidence / previous research / a number of studies / surveys such as Northrop Frye’s has or have argued
/ established / suggested / shown that …
Traditionally, it has been argued that / demonstrated that …
Over the past decade(s), most research in neo-rationalism in Racine has emphasized /stressed /directly addressed …
It is now well established from a range of works / essays / critiques that …
It has conclusively been shown by literary scholars/ semioticians / critical discourse analysis scholars that…
Data from several sociolinguistic investigations showed / identified / determined
There is general/ broad/ scientific/ widespread/ overwhelming/ unanimous/ consensus among linguists…

was quickly emerging that…

prevailed

Rough / growing / clear / scholarly / has gradually emerged from these surveys about…
universal consensus
is emerging / growing on the need, role, importance…

seem(s)(ed) to be that…

HOW TO EXPRESS SUPPORTING IDEAS MEANT TO RATIFY WHAT HAS JUST BEEN ARGUED
(RHETORICAL CONFIRMATIO) AND TO DEVELOP IT:
Accordingly, …
Indeed,
This being the case,
Consistent with this, …
It may therefore be argued that …
This is precisely why …
This is exactly the case with / of / in + titles of books, works …
Is this not the case with / of / in …?
(subject) … will then logically enough … (verb):
[…], allowing /enabling us to …

Taking one’s / its cue / inspiration from … /

Drawing from XXX’s observation that/ categories … / conceptualization of etc.
Similarly, / In the same vein / fashion, Jameson found that X / noted / argued that / maintained that / suggested that /
claimed that / proposed / pointed out / argued for …
As the word itself / her statement / his observation / this remark / such an event / this episode / these anecdotes /
(anything in the previous discussion) suggest(s), …
This view was already supported by Jameson who wrote / argued / observed that …
Jameson already supported Eagleton’s view that …

This brings with it that ...

At this point it becomes clear that …
It will therefore not be surprising that …
Small wonder that … (only informal register; such register is typical of a discursive phrasing where a pragmatic,
concrete attitude wants to be felt)
Undoubtedly, / Unquestionably, …
Certainly, / To be sure, / Sure enough, / And no doubt (only with an informal register; ‘sure enough’ is
particularly informal)
It goes without saying that … (you hereby assume, rightly or not, that nobody will disagree)
All of which becomes more obvious when …
What we must ask ourselves is … (again, careful with 1st person pronouns)
In order to spin further the thread of this / the discussion on …

TO CONFIRM A THESIS THROUGH THE EXPLANATION OF SOME OF

ITS FACTORS, ELEMENTS, FEATURES, ASPECTS:
The case for .. THESIS A .. depends on ....
It is appropriate to discuss .. THESIS A .. in terms of …
In order to (fully) appreciate (fully) the .. THESIS A .. , it is necessary to … / it is essential that ... / it seems crucial that /
one should ...
This case/ aspect/ feature has shown that /supports the view that / illustrates / confirms the importance of…
This has been seen in the case of …
The analysis of these factors supports the idea that…/ demonstrates that… / supports the hypothesis that…/ shows the
necessity for…/ reveals the need for…
Robert Frisk is (certainly in the) right where he argues /claims / points out/ advocates...
I agree with Stanley Fish where (wherever/ whenever) he argues /claims / points out ...

TO EXPRESS GENERAL CONTRAST BETWEEN FACTS OF REALITY,

BETWEEN ARGUMENT AND REALITY, BETWEEN OPINIONS
In contrast,
On the contrary,
On the other hand,
By (way of) contrast,
Conversely, (relationship of inversion)
Instead, (relationship of contradiction)
Unlike … (NEVER USE “DIFFERENTLY FROM”, it really sounds awkward)
 INTRODUCING DIFFERENCES
X differs from Y
There are a number of (huge, big, marked, noticeable, significant, substantial, subtle, slight, minor) differences between
X and Y
Stuart Hall found / observed / argued for the existence of (adj.) differences between X and Y

TO PAVE THE WAY FOR A REFUTATION (RHETORICAL REFUTATIO OR CONFUTATIO):

Connectives
However,
In fact,
In actual fact,
Yet,
At any rate,
In any case,
Still, (informal, colloquial)
Anyway,
Nevertheless / Nonetheless,
Notwithstanding
In spite of this (that) / despite this (that),
For all that, (rather informal)
After all, (rather informal)
But (either with a low register or to deliberately express earnestness)

Concessive
Though …
Although ...
(Even) Though ...
If ....
Albeit ... (especially within the clause)
Whereas ...
While ...

EXEMPLIFICATION
That is / i.e. / that is to say
In other words … in other terms …
To put it more simply, ...
What happens is that ...
, viz., (contracted form for ‘videlicet’) / , namely,
, e.g. ...
... , say, ... (very colloquial)
For instance, for example, such as, including, included
The following list includes examples of...
Following are examples of how ...
A well-known/ telling / useful / crucial / notable / classic example (that speaks volumes) is that..
This is exemplified in the work undertaken by …
This is evident in the case of …
This is certainly true in the case of…

1) Deductive plus restatement method or organizational pattern:

Here the author states his / her controlling idea from the very beginning and supporting ideas then follow, like
in any other text arranged according to a deductive reasoning process. The distinguishing feature of this method or
organizational pattern is that the controlling idea is finally restated at the end, often from a sometimes slightly, sometimes
very different perspective, one that should heavily rest on the supporting ideas expressed throughout the text and is
therefore perceived as a stronger statement and is more likely to win the audience’s consensus.

CONTROLLING IDEA
SUPPORTING IDEA
SUPPORTING IDEA
SUPPORTING IDEA
CONTROLLING IDEA RESTATED

MORE ON ORGANIZATIONAL PATTERNS CAN BE READ IN ARNAUDET AND BARRETT, APPROACHES TO ACADEMIC READING
AND WRITING, CHAPTER ONE.

REFORMULATION OF PREVIOUS STATEMENTS IN ORDER TO

EITHER AVOID POTENTIAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS
OR TO EXPRESS THE REFUTATION OF A PREVIOUS REFUTATION
Better,
Rather,
It / This rather meant that ... / (In this chapter, section, essay) I have meant to
I have rather meant to ...
I wanted to argue that … / What I wanted to argue was that …
Nor should … (in question) be thought of as ...
The argument here is not that …
This is not to be read as …
That / This is (very) far from suggesting / telling / arguing / asserting that ...
I am (very) far from arguing /suggesting that …
I mean ... (rather informal)

PROMISES OF A SCHOLAR: TO ANTICIPATE FURTHER EXPLANATIONS

OR SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENTS
As it will be outlined in the following pages ...
(SUBJ.) … will be argued in Chapter 2
Suffice it to say / remind the reader of ... / to awaken the reader to ...
Suffice it for the moment / for the time being to anticipate a point that will be discussed …
I will return to this argument / point / it later / below / at the close of the essay /towards the end of this paper.
Below / Later, it will be suggested that …
This point will be further discussed …

TO MAKE LINKS AND CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THESIS / CONSIDERATION A

AND THESIS / CONSIDERATION B CLEAR
It has already been observed that …
A relates to B
A is most often related to B
A may be associated with ... B
A bears a strong / some / a weak resemblance to B
A reminds of B
A resonates in B (e.g. elitist ideas clearly resonate in Pound’s poetry)
A is / are at one with B
A/ This is consistent with B (e.g. ‘this idea is definitely consistent with the previous analysis’)
A matches B
As is the case with A, B ...
A / This may have something to do with B
An isomorphism can be traced between A and B
A (ideas, theories, opinions) resonate(s) with B
One should bear in mind / What should be borne in mind

QUOTATION AND ATTRIBUTION

Direct as well as indirect quotations (or citations) from and attribution (or crediting or referencing) to other
scholars’ works are long-established and very important features of academic writing and of all scholarly research in
general. These quotations may fulfil several functions. For instance, they can be effectively employed to summarize an
argument at the end of one or more paragraphs which have focused on it in a way that adds a sense of completion to the
whole. Accordingly, quotations are frequently used to ratify a thesis (quotations are used as evidence) as well as to refute
it and even to raise some new kind of implication, including uncertainty and doubts. References to ideas, opinions and
statements by an expert, one who is generally acknowledged as an authority within you field of enquiry, is not only meant
to legitimate your own work, it also shows your readers that you studied the relative literature and are conversant with
the object of study. So, you can select the relevant statements and opinions about it. Moreover, one should not forget that,
as explained by Hunston, “attribution is a resource to indicate alliances and attitudes”. This resource enables a writer to
“cast a personal slant on information that is being given”. In this understanding, attribution is an important socio-rhetorical
tool in the construction of consensus and conflict regarding one’s opinion and position within the academic circuit.
Accordingly, writers make their way through a tradition and negotiate their position within it. This provides legitimacy
to their work and contribute to shape their identity as a scholar and a member of a discourse community. It is a matter of
identity formation and scholar affiliation. ATTENTION: those who read your paper will also judge it according to whom
you quote. It is worth bearing the old adage in mind: tell me with whom you go and I’ll tell you who you are.

Whatever the reasons for quoting other people, attribution or crediting is a must: the original source must always
be acknowledged through a statement – just a brief phrase, such as ‘according to’ – which makes it clear to the reader that
ideas and/or words are not by the current author. The risk is that the author is accused of plagiarism, one of the most
terrible crimes within academic contexts. To plagiarize means to take words and ideas from other authors without
mentioning them and therefore pretending that those words and ideas are actually yours. It amounts to the uncredited use
of somebody else’s words. In several educational institutions, plagiarism accounts for the expulsion of its writer. More
on plagiarism can be read in Arnaudet and Barrett, p. 102; in Jordan, p. 101.

Two most common methods to cite are: 1) footnoting, which is more traditional and commonly used in liberal
arts writing, and 2) citation within a text or in-text citation, which is more used in scientific writing, though increasingly
accepted also in all other academic areas, including literary studies and linguistics. Both methods should be used in a way
that offers information and references adequate for the complete identification of the exact source. There is an array of
referencing systems, all with their own conventions and norms. Chicago and MLA styles are just two examples.
Regardless of the referencing system or style-sheet one decides to follow it is important to be consistent throughout the
work. More on quotation and attribution is to be found in Arnaudet and Barrett, p. 96-103; in Jordan, pp. 98-105.

Students should use quotations (theses without quotations are simply regarded as not scientific, not academic)
but not exaggerate with them. They should in fact use the most appropriate ones, those which are more synthetic
concerning the concept they want to report on. Accordingly, when they read they should always make signs on books and
notes and whenever they come across an assertion, a scheme, a definition, an hypothesis or other that might be useful,
they should somehow mark it (for instance, they may write “cit.” on the side of the page). Then, when they are writing
down personal notes on somebody else’s work, they should always remember to make it clear by some graphic means
that that is not ‘their own stuff’. This will help them avoid plagiarism!
 ATTRIBUTION

In (XXX)’s opinion (view)

According to XXX, (Mind: ‘According to what XXX pointed out / observed’ or ‘according to XXX’s opinion’ or
‘according to me’ are SO BAD!)
According to a definition provided by Linda Hutcheon, postmodernism is…
Chomsky refers to x as…/ For Chomsky, X means…/ Chomsky uses the term X to refer to…
As XXX has observed / pointed out / noticed / suggested / noted / indicated
XXX argued /asserted / affirmed / claimed / stated that
XXX explains it as follows:
To quote XXX:
Roland Barthes wrote that grammar is…
As XXX would have it, ...
As XXX would put it, ...
XXX has shown / demonstrated /
It seems to XXX / me that …

CAUTIOUS LANGUAGE WHEN REPORTING ARGUMENTS

YOU DON’T WANT TO BE IDENTIFIED WITH

Modal verbs = will [certain], should, would, may, might, can, could.

Lexical verbs = seem, appear, know, appreciate, believe, suggest, imply, argue, indicate, assume, presume.

Lexical verbs are frequently used in impersonal constructions:

It appears / it would appear (to me, to most people, to contemporary critics) that / it is generally agreed that / there is a
tendency to/for .. to / some of the evidence shows that

These are also often used with a passive voice, as in Darwin’s theory is assumed to be crucial; such parameters are
known to affect the overall outcome (traduci: si ritiene che il romanticismo abbia rivoluzionato la concezione del poeta)

Modal adverbs = seemingly, apparently, arguably, perhaps, probably, possibly, conceivably (See Jordan, Academic
writing course, 68)

Modal adjectives = probable, presumed, (un)certain

Modal nouns = assumption, conjecture, hypothesis, claim, assertion, evidence, estimate, possibility, likelihood

TO INDICATE SIMULTANEITY

On (the) one hand …. (.) (;) (,) On the other hand, ...
By contrast,
At much the same time
(Subject) is also at one and the same time …
Meanwhile, …
While some might … , others might …

ENUMERATION OR LISTS (within the same sentence)

From … and … through … all the way to … and …
From Leavis and the American New Criticism all the way to Adorno and the Frankfurt School
… along with
…, but also / as well as
 ENUMERATION (through more sentences)

First, … furthermore, … finally (lastly)

First(ly), … second(ly), … third(ly)
One, … two, … three,
The first point is …. The second point is …
To begin with,
In the first place .... (;) (.) In the second place ...
Then, next, afterwards,
In addition, also, besides (WARNING: ‘besides’ means ‘in addition to’ and differs from ‘beside’ which
means ‘next to’, ‘at the side of’)
Furthermore, moreover, what is more, ...
Again, ...
Yet again, …
Lastly, / Finally,

INTRODUCING CAUSAL CLAUSES

Verbs and phrases:

X can / may / is likely to result in / lead to / give raise to / Y intended as the consequence

contribute to / affect / shape /

exert a (positive vs negative, major, decisive, enormous, Y intended as the

undue pervasive, tremendous, profound, significant) affected topic
X can / may / is likely to
influence on

X can / may / is likely to severely directly, significantly, dramatically, drastically, impact on Y intended
substantially profoundly, heavily, greatly as the affected topic

X can / may / is likely to Stem from / result from / be caused by / arise from Y intended as the cause

Nouns:

X is a key/ major / important / critical factor in….

X is a crucial/ key/ major/ critical determinant of … and as such was investigated/ examined by Jameson…
The main/ A (most creditable) reason why …
The major/ exact/ leading/ cause of/ Has been tackled/
probable/ likely/ addressed/ examined /
cause underlying/ X
preventable diagnosed/ determined /
cause justifying pinpointed/ ascertained

cause accounting for

The influence /effect / impact/ of X on Y was reported/ pointed out/ by Jameson

Conjunctions:
Because
Since
On account of / Because of / in that
Due to (should only be used as adjectival as it should be preceded by forms of ‘to be’ and refer to a noun)
Owing to (should only be used as adverbial, i.e. it should refer to a verb)
As
For

Often with a positive semantic prosody:

Thanks to ...
By virtue of ...

CONSECUTIVE CLAUSES (that often turn into confirmations)

Hence, … (high register)
So (low register)
Therefore,
Thus / … thus …
Thereby
Accordingly, / Consequently,
IN THIS RESPECT, I HAVE OBSERVED THE REPEATEDLY INCORRECT USE OF “CONSEQUENTLY”. IN FACT, YOU MUST USE
“CONSEQUENTLY” ONLY WHEN SENTENCE B IS SOMEHOW REPORTING THE CONSEQUENCE OF REASONS EXPLAINED IN
SENTENCE A.

READ THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES: “AUTHORS WORKING IN THIS FIELD REFER TO VERY SPECIFIC READERSHIPS, WHOSE
LANGUAGE VARIETIES THEY SHOULD ALWAYS TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION. CONSEQUENTLY, SWALES POINT OUT THE MAIN
CHARACTERISTICS OF A DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ..”

“EVERY WRITER WANTS TO ACHIEVE A SPECIFIC GOAL THROUGH THE CONTENT OF HIS TEXT. CONSEQUENTLY, THE TARGET
READER HAS TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT ...”

IN BOTH SENTENCES, CONSEQUENTLY WAS NOT PROPERLY USED BECAUSE NO CAUSE-EFFECT RELATIONSHIP WAS MADE
EXPLICIT BETWEEN SENTENCES A AND SENTENCES B. THE AUTHOR CERTAINLY FELT A LINK BETWEEN THE TWO
STATEMENTS BUT SUCH THE LINK WAS NOT MADE EXPLICIT AND TEXT CONSEQUENTLY – YES, HERE IT WORKS – LACKS
COHESION.

As a result, / As a consequence,
The result is ... / The consequence is ...
Now / then
Because of this / that
For this / that / these reason(s)
This could bring us to believe that
This might lead one to ...

INTRODUCING AN ADVERSATIVE CLAUSE

(Al)though …
Although it may be
Even though (warning: this is much, much better than the informal ‘even if’)
Whereas …
While ...

HYPOTHETICAL STATEMENTS
If… then …
(past verb) + subject (e.g., ‘were she in the same situation’; ‘Had Milton considered’)
Should you be interested in ...
 MORE CAUTIOUS STATEMENTS MEANT TO AVOID OVERSTATEMENTS

AND PARTIALLY STAND OUT FROM WHAT IS BEING STATED (THIS ATTITUDE, QUITE COMMON IN
ACADEMIC AND SCHOLARLY WRITING IS CALLED HEDGING)

In general, it is estimated /assumed / believed that

X (subject) is (generally) assumed / supposed to (verb) ...
X (subject) is likely to (verb) ...
There is a tendency to ...
Some of the evidence shows that ...
In general terms, this means …
It (would) seems / appears to / that ...
It has been suggested that ...
Jameson’s observation here appears to support the assumption that..
It may be conceded that ...
Presumably, / Supposedly / Arguably, / Allegedly, / seemingly / likely / Approximately, / Apparently, / Conceivably, /
Possibly / Perhaps
I would be tempted to claim that …
In general, this requires …
One possible implication of it is…

TO EXPRESS SCEPTICISM

It is doubtful whether ...

There is no (general) agreement as to (about) ...
It is rather unlikely that ...
It is quite uncertain / unclear whether ...
Much of the research carried out up to now / Much criticism in this respect has been descriptive in nature / is
problematic in that / is controversial because …
Jameson’s masterpiece work has been met with / received / attracted mixed reactions / feelings
Researchers / Previous studies of Gothic literature have not treated the ‘grotesque’ in much detail.
Most studies / Such approaches are limited / restricted to… / not consistent / unsatisfactory in that they fail to address
…, nor do they examine …
One may want to challenge the widely-held view that …
One may contest the claim that…

VERBA DICENDI, VERBA SENTIENDI, REPORTING VERBS

acknowledge add affirm agree argue assert

assume believe claim comment conclude confute conjecture
consider contend contradict deduce demonstrate
deny describe determine disagree discern discuss
disprove dispute emphasize enumerate estimate explain
find hypothesize illustrate imply indicate infer list
maintain note notice observe point out postulate
query question recognize recommend refute reject remark
report repudiate say suggest stipulate stress view

CONCLUSION

In conclusion,
What has been argued is ...
To sum up briefly, / In short / In brief /
To conclude (rare and not so nice, perhaps too cheap)
To summariz(s)e / to recapitulate
This study/ The investigation of… has identified / shown / confirmed/ revealed/ found out that …
A major / relevant / a most meaningful finding of this study / to emerge from this study was …
This thesis has provided a deeper insight into…
These results add to the expanding field of Corpus Linguistics
Jumping to conclusions, (the markedly pejorative connotation of ‘jumping’ in this collocation implies
that the analysis or the assessment presumably lacks the necessary knowledge, clarity and awareness; as a consequence,
the conclusion achieved is deemed to be hasty and thoughtless; it should only be used ironically, possibly in order to point
out that hasty conclusions should be avoided)

TIPS AND SUGGESTIONS BASED ON THE ERROR-ANALYSIS

OF A CORPUS OF STUDENTS’ DISSERTATIONS

GERUNDIVE GENERALLY DO NOT STAND ALONE:

Investigating the circulation of money during a credit crunch crisis, Arnold observed that ...
By investigating / In his investigation of / into the circulation …, Arnold …
In an attempt / endeavour /effort to …. the circulation …, Arnold …

Considering Bacon’s rhetorical strategies one realizes that

When / Upon considering Bacon’s rhetorical strategies, one realizes that

Bauman came to the conclusion that ..., analysing ...

After analysing / Through his analysis of / By means of his analysis of ... Bauman came to ...

I examined the marketing reports comparing the figures from 2011 and those from 2014
I examined the marketing reports by comparing the figures from 2011 and those from 2014

They often do not introduce a topic starting from a low level of …

They often do not introduce a topic by starting from a low level of …

It is enacted by speakers dealing with interlocutors

It is enacted by speakers when dealing with interlocutors

MODAL AND AUXILIARY VERBS ARE MEANT TO DO THE JOB

You are not so quick as you should be

You are not so quick as you should

She is not so quick as you would be

She is not so quick as you would

The world would thus go round a good deal faster than it actually goes round
The world would thus go round a good deal faster than it actually does

As procedures and understanding change, so news reporting changes

As procedures and understanding change, so does news reporting

Mind the construction “do + ‘the’ + -ing verb”:

e.g. “Why don’t you help her? She’s the one who always does the washing”;
“If you are tired, I can do the driving”;
“I’m afraid you will have to do the cooking tonight”.
CORRECT AND WRONG ELLIPSES

David Marcus investigated this phenomenon and / but he did not contextualise it properly
David Marcus investigated this phenomenon and / but did not contextualise it properly

Benjamin addressed music as well as her (only informal)

Benjamin addressed music as well as she did

They carried out this research while they were working in Trento
They carried out this research while working in Trento

!! They were so confident with their results that published them without any peer-review.
They were so confident with their results that they published them without any peer-review.

She would not acknowledge their help and she would claim that hers was a work in its own
She would not acknowledge their help and claim (that) hers was a work in its own

Such introduction will be appreciated and it will not be questioned by many

Such introduction will be appreciated and not questioned by many

The same theme and the same manner

The same theme and manner

... the original text and the target text

... the original and (the) target texts

Several reasons foster the implementation of a diversification strategy. Some reasons are internal while others external
or related to market opportunities
Several reasons foster the implementation of a diversification strategy: some are internal, some external and related to
market opportunities

Some of these methods are extreme and some of them are moderate
Some of these methods are extreme and some moderate

The shorter is the break, the greater its effect is

The shorter the time interval, the greater its effect

The longer the distance is, the lower the degree of intimacy between interlocutors becomes
The longer the distance, the lower the degree of intimacy between interlocutors
Collocations are being studied today more than they have always been.
Today, collocations are being studied more than ever.

The papers I listened to this morning were more interesting than they usually are.
The papers I listened to this morning were more interesting than usual.

Variations were higher than we would have expected

Variations were higher than expected.

McGahern read Joyce in the early 1950s and his understanding of the contemporary world changed since he read it.
McGahern read Joyce in the early 1950s and his understanding of the contemporary world changed ever since.

It is impossible to disentangle Ford’s corrections from Lewis’s ones

It is impossible to disentangle Ford’s corrections from Lewis’s

AGREEMENT

For political economy the starting point are the state and all the other ruling forces.
For political economy the starting point is the state and all the other ruling forces.

Mass media are what enable the communication …

Mass media are what enables the communication …

The first example of mass communication are the newspapers

The first example of mass communication is the newspapers
The first examples of mass communication are newspapers

Media permeates contemporary societies.

Media permeate contemporary societies.

Have you heard the morning news. They are interesting

Have you heard the morning news. It is interesting4

Contemporary British politics are complex (relates to activities and affairs of a government)
Contemporary British politics is complex (relates to the political science and the philosophical area which focuses on the
art of government)

Linguistics are getting through a period of amazing discoveries

Linguistics is getting through a period of amazing discoveries5

Neither of these opinions are available

Neither of these opinions is available

My answer (and those of not few translators) are no

My answer (and those of not few translators) is no

If everybody minded his own business, there would be no problem altogether

4
Other nouns ending in ‘s’ that must be used in the singular are ‘kudos’, ‘elevenses’ (brunch), ‘wits’, ‘topos’, such
games as ‘darts’, ‘cards’, ‘bowls’, ‘billiards’ and such diseases as ‘rabies’, ‘measles’, ‘mumps’, etc. . Also such
toponyms as ‘Brussels’ and ‘United States’ are used in the singular. Please, be careful with ‘means’ and ‘species’, as
they can be both singular and plural.
5
The names of several disciplines, subjects or fields of studies end with ‘s’ and are used in the singular form: physics,
economics, mathematics, electronics, etc.
If everybody minded their own business, there would be no problem altogether (to avoid sexist language)

A translator should take a distance from his own experience and work around the author and his style
A translator should take a distance from their own experience and work around the author and their style
Translators should take a distance from their own experience and work around authors and their style

A flock of birds were alighting here and there around the field (when you want to stress the amount of birds, their
individuality, the diversity or heterogeneity within the group)
or A flock of birds was alighting here and there around the field (when you want to stress the idea of unity of the
group)

Manchester is one of the greatest soccer clubs in English sport history

Manchester are playing well this year

UNRELATED PARTICIPLE AND INFINITIVE

Running the device for seven days, the temperature in the room increased
To locate the syntactical patterns, analyses were carried out
Using a completely different approach, it was actually found out how
The above formulations – typical of third-person or impersonal writing where the passive voice is also likely to be used
– fail to relate the subject to the verb and are therefore wrong though by now increasingly accepted, not only in informal
reports and essays. However, bear in mind that academic writing standards hold that the present participle (running, using)
and the infinitive (to locate) should have a subject to agree with and that such subject should be the agent performing the
action.

The volume can be increased by turning the blue knob

You can increase the volume by turning the blue knob
or The volume can be increased if you turned the blue knob

DO NOT FORGET EITHER / WHETHER / SO

The two possibilities are the foreignization or the domestication of the source text
The two possibilities are either the foreignization or the domestication of the source text

Any linguists, old or young, will have to face it

Any linguists, whether old or young, will have to face it

Eliot’s style is not difficult as the language one meets in contemporary critics
Eliot’s style is not so difficult as the language one meets in contemporary critics

MIND THE POSITION OF ADJECTIVES BEGINNING WITH ‘A’ Commentato [EG1]: Una cosa che si sa poco, che spesso si
traduce in errori negli elaborati scritti dei non-madrelingua. È
A group of two-syllable adjectives which begin with prefix ‘a-’ and have stress on the second syllable, including adrift, una cosa che viene in maniera istintiva.
afraid, aghast, ajar, akin, alert, alight, alike, alive, alone, aloof, ashamed, asleep, awake, and aware, cannot occur pre-
Commentato [EG2]: non privativo
nominally, i.e. in pre-nominal (before a noun) position. Instead, these adjectives usually follow the verb be or other
linking verbs, such as become, feel, keep, seem, look, taste, and turn out, and can therefore be found in predicative Commentato [EG3]: the “normal” position, basically
position only: Commentato [EG4]: after the linking verb

trade-unionists seem afraid of the strike;

our guest is still asleep;

your kids are very alike.

These adjectives – which often focus on only temporary conditions – are also called predicative-only adjectives and,
when necessary, other synonymic adjectives should be used in pre-nominal position:
 “aware use of audience design” should be rephrased as “conscious/mindful use of audience design”.

“afraid, asleep, alike children” should be rephrased as “frightened, sleeping, similar children”.

“she is an alone woman” should be rephrased as “she is a lonely woman”

Other similar adjectives (e.g., able) are also resistant to the attributive construction and therefore very seldom come
before the noun.

MIND YOUR USE OF THE PRESENT PERFECT. YOUR TEACHERS TOLD YOU THAT IT RESEMBLES OUR
PASSATO PROSSIMO. ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE!!! ENGLISH AND ITALIAN HAVE DIFFERENT TENSES
AND DIFFERENT TEMPORAL ORGANIZATIONS. WHEN YOU WRITE IN ENGLISH YOU HAVE TO THINK
IN ENGLISH

Avoid the use of the present perfect when reporting the investigations and works carried out in a past which finished and
no longer holds any direct linkage with the present: e.g. “Chomsky has attacked corpora studies” (wrong! That happened
back in the 1960s and 1970s!). Obviously, this is also the case of everything ‘done’ by dead people, as in “Italo Calvino
has conducted several studies on”; “In his study on the population of New York, Labov has explained”. These sentences
are sooooo wrong. Of course, the simple past should be used instead, “Chomsky attacked”, “Calvino conducted”, and
“Labov explained”.

Moreover. Read the following sentence: “Robert Ballagh’s work is open to interpretation since its publication”. As the Commentato [EG5]: irish visual artist
reference to the past makes it clear, the action being reported evidently started in the past and is still ongoing. The only
tense you can use in this case is the present perfect:

“Ballagh’s work HAS BEEN open to interpretation since its publication”.

MORE TIPS

1. Do not forget the comma after the linking adverbs that go first in a sentence: “However,” “Moreover,” Commentato [EG6]: ce la stiamo inculando meno per
“Nevertheless,” “In addition,”. This usually applies also to adverbs in front position expressing a comment, an via dei social media (cit)
attitude, or a viewpoint: “Strangely,” “Officially,” “Arguably,” “Accordingly,”.
2. “Like” is acceptable but informal. “As” is preferable in academic writing. “He carried out his duties (NOT LIKE)
as he had always done.”
3. For numbers below ten, words are generally preferred to numerals or figures, i.e. numbers not written as words:
‘eight’ is preferred to ‘8’, four is preferred to ‘4’. Words are also preferred when referring to round estimates as
in ‘3 million words’ and ‘two hundred Euro’. Numerals, moreover, cannot be used at the beginning of a sentence.
Replace them with the relative words or, if you find it clumsy given the length of the word, just rephrase the
sentence as in the following examples. “300,000 people took to the street and demonstrated against the
government cuts” is WRONG. “Three-hundred thousand people took to the street and demonstrated against
the government cuts” is CORRECT. “Reportedly, 300,000 took to the street and demonstrated against the
government cuts” is also correct a reformulation. Finally, two numerals cannot be used in succession: ‘twenty
12-egg cartons’. When a numeral is joined up to a noun through a hyphen the cluster has adjectival value and
does not take the plural: e.g. seven-day period, five-star hotel. Commentato [EG7]: “la strana forma mentis inglese
per cui se tutti vanno a destra loro devono andare a
4. As for numbers, never forget the right-go-wrong principle whereby you need a comma in Italian where you need
sinistra” cit
a full stop in English, and viceversa: so, for instance, 3,14 in Italian is written 3.14 in English, and 1.000 in
Italian is 1,000 in English. Commentato [EG8]: ha il significato di rilevante,
pertinente, quindi comunque molto brutto; quando il
senso è proprio di emblematico, simbolico,
rappresentativo, meglio meaningful, è il termine che un
LEXICAL MISTAKES madrelingua userebbe in maniera più istintiva
Significant NOT significative Self-referential NOT autoreferential
Commentato [EG9]: “orribile”
Studies NOT researches Unlike NOT Differently from
To differ from NOT To be different from To enable NOT To allow [when it does not mean to give Commentato [EG10]: “imbarazzante” cit
permission] Commentato [EG11]: “wrong from an aesthetical
viewpoint” cit
The name of the author NOT Our author
And so forth NOT And so on
Currently NOT Actually
To one’s astonishment NOT With one’s surprise
Whether NOT Or
Discourse NOT discorse. //
Maintain NOT mantain
Justified NOT justificated
Sufferance NOT sufference
Manifold NOT Multifold
Corresponding NOT Correspondent
Faithful and useful NOT Faithfull and usefull
Multilingual NOT plurilingual
Accommodate NOT Accomodate
Awkward NOT akward or awkard
Eighth NOT Eigth
Repeatedly NOT More than once Commentato [EG12]: frequente nella saggistica
By chance NOT Casually italiana, soprattutto di 20-30 anni fa, non lo si usa più
To experience NOT To live granchè neanche in italiano ma in inglese proprio nada
non si usa “si ripete il nome dell’autore fino alla morte,
To occur NOT To be present non dà fastidio” cit
To make it explicit NOT to explicit IT
Commentato [EG13]: totally a mistake, si dice solo “by
chance”, vuol dire “per caso, per coincidenza”
SPELLING MISTAKES
Overall NOT overhaul if you mean the adjective ‘complessivo’ Commentato [EG14]: false friend
Moreover NOT more over Commentato [EG15]: to be featured is also una
Rhetoric NOT rethoric modalità corretta
Responsibility NOT responsability
Mystery NOT mistery
Strength and strengthen NOT strenght and strenghten
Until NOT untill
Suspense NOT Suspence
Acknowledge NOT aknowledge
Disease NOT desease
Rhythm NOT rythm

THESE ARE DIFFERENT

Device IS NOT devise practice IS NOT practise advice IS NOT advise
Logic IS NOT logical criticism IS NOT critique altogether IS NOT all together
Agree to IS NOT agree with compare to IS NOT compare with who’s IS NOT whose

VERY FREQUENT GRAMMATICAL MISTAKES

Each IS NOT any: e.g. “… should be extended to any kind of communication”.
Contribution to (in) the sociolinguistic field
To deal with, not to deal in
“In particular”, “Particularly”, not “In particularly”!
“According to”, “Accordingly”, not “accordingly to”!
Adjectives cannot form the plural!!
Verbs should follow the subject, except in hypothetical sentences: “I wonder how one could go so far as to say…” and
not “I wonder how could one go so far as to say…”

ORDER OF ADJECTIVES

According to Geoffrey Leech a common order of adjectives is as follows: 1) adjectives describing or expressing feelings,
attitudes or opinions (e.g., beautiful, happy, interesting, nasty), describing the size (e.g., tall, short, big, thin, slender), the
age (old, young, fresh), the colour (red), and defining or restrictive ones, i.e. those adjectives which give essential
information in order to identify the subsequent term (Indian, medical) and therefore define what we are talking about.

Another, slightly more complex ordering which is frequently pointed out by teachers – you can easily locate this pattern
in online grammar annotations – is generally called “O sash.com” in order to bear it in mind more easily. In it, the former
O stands for opinion, S for size, A for age, SH for shape, C for colour, O for origin and the ending M for material. Main
differences between this and Leech’s orderings are the insertion of ‘shape’ between ‘age’ and ‘colour’, and the distinction
between ‘origin’ and ‘material’, probably corresponding to ‘defining’. However, I believe, Origin and Material together
do not encapsulate all that is encapsulated by ‘defining’.

Semantic prosody

Semantic prosody as a linguistic concept is not so dissimilar to connotation. Roughly speaking, connotation can
be regarded as a semantic surplus of either social or personal nature which adds to the denotative meaning of a term or
expression. For instance, the denotative meaning of the term ‘mountain’ is reported in any dictionary. I would define it a
natural feature of the earth where its surface is characterized by elevation. On the other hand, connotative meanings of
‘mountain’ are necessarily relativistic and therefore diverse: to many people ‘mountain’ may simply mean home; to others
the same term may convey the surplus meaning of the place I love for its skiing resorts; to several people in Trentino, it
connotatively means work; to me ‘mountain’ is mainly my favourite place for a bit of hiking. To lorry drivers by trade,
mountains can be an occasion to hate their job, especially in snowy winter time.

Like connotation, semantic prosody also conveys a semantic surplus of an evaluative nature and yet differs from
connotation in that it spreads such surplus over whole sentences or phrases and not just on single words. In fact, apparently
neutral formulations are actually not so neutral once you analyse their actual usage and this is most difficult to handle for
language learners, as they often do not find any indication as to the semantic prosodies of terms and phrases in
vocabularies and grammar books. Nevertheless, recent work with concordancing software within the field of Corpus
Linguistics has enabled scholars and lexicographers in particular to better investigate these non-neutral, hidden semantic
nuances which are termed semantic prosodies.

It goes without saying that full awareness and knowledge of semantic prosodies is essential for translators (J.
Morley and Alan Partington, “A Few Frequently Asked Questions about Semantic – or Evaluative – Prosody,”
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 14:2 (2009), 139-58; Dominic Stewart, Semantic Prosody: A Critical
Evaluation (London/New York: Routledge, 2010) as well as for ESL (English as a Second Language) learners who have
to write a dissertation or any other type of academic paper.

Examples of positive versus negative semantic prosodies which can easily be explored by means of free online
corpora such as Glowbe and Sketch Engine are ‘quite’ vs. ‘rather’; ‘broadly’ vs. ‘largely’ (Tognini Bonelli, Corpus
Linguistics at Work, 34-39). A more complex case in point is the range of semantic prosodies entailed in the use of ‘to
cause’ vs. ‘to lead to’ vs. ‘to provoke’ vs. ‘evoke’ vs. ‘to provide’ (Michael Stubbs, “Collocations and Semantic Profiles”,
Functions of Language 2:1 (1995), 23-55).

Numbers, data, table, figures

Between the 1950s and the 1970s, McKinsey & Company and other consulting companies
 TRANSLATION WORKSHOP 1 - EVELINE by DONAL RYAN
Commentato [MB16]: if we think to Joyce’s Eveline the
main difference is that the gender of the protagonists is
inverted. Ryan is updating the original text by showing
that even if the society has changed, the influence of a
Eveline – Donal Ryan parent can still paralyze someone’s freedom
Commentato [MB17]: Che ci faccio qui? / A che serve? /
qual è il senso di tutto ciò?
Anche “e adesso” poteva essere una traduzione bella,
What good is this? Mother asks nightly, and gestures about her. What good is any of it, with nobody per quanto abbastanza libera
MAI FARSI IPNOTIZZARE DAL SENSO DELLE
SINGOLE PAROLE, si traduce ciò che si legge
(altrimenti verrebbe una merda). Il traduttore prende
to share it? Oh, Augustine, she wails, my Augustine! And brandy slops from her bulbous glass onto her l’intera frase, e poi prende la frase all’interno dell’intero
contesto del racconto.
Commentato [MB18]: Mia madre: si poteva mettere
monstrous lap. anche solo “Madre”, comunque di sicuro non “mamma”
perché “mother” non equivale a “mom”, è più distanziato
Commentato [EG19]: Chiede. Non essendoci di fatto
nessuno a cui lo chiede, si rivolge al marito, in realtà;
A portrait of my father hangs apologetically above the living room fireplace; she sits at an angle from it in a forse il vero obiettivo di questo atto comunicativo è il... [1]
Commentato [MB20]: Verso sera ... [2]
hard-high-backed chair and contorts her neck backwards and upwards to regard him censoriously. I nursed Commentato [EG21]: “Allargando le braccia”, poteva
essere tradotto in altro modo. L’obiettivo di Binelli era di
... [3]
Commentato [EG22]: A che serve tutto questo ... [4]
you through three illnesses, she says, and my reward is to be here, alone. My oil-on-canvas father avoids her Commentato [EG23]: “dividerlo” ... [5]
Commentato [EG24]: piange. ... [6]
eyes, preferring to gaze balefully at the crumbling cornice. She swings her eyes toward me and allows her Commentato [EG25]: Bulbous nella percezione di un
madrelingua veicola l’idea di forma ma anche di un ... [7]
Commentato [MB26]: Correlativo oggettivo. ... [8]
pupils to dilate, as though to focus on me would be to acknowledge my existence, diluting her argument with
Commentato [EG27]: Bicchierone: a lui premeva far
vedere che questo bicchiere è grosso così come è ... [9]

my father’s image. Commentato [MB28]: enorme/mostruoso/massiccio/posse

nte grembo. ... [10]
Commentato [EG29]: In inglese lo spazio e il tempo
vanno o a inizio frase o alla fine, soprattutto nell’inglese
... [11]
Commentato [EG30]: (con severità nella traduzione di
Binelli) può essere svolto privilegiando altri aspetti ...
di[12]
Commentato [EG31]: Ti ho fatto da infermiera. Poteva
Mother’s friend Reeney organised the first Welcome Night. She booked a medium-sized conference essere anche ti ho curato, ti ho accudito, ti ho badato, e
... [13]
Commentato [EG32]: Mio padre, quello in olio su tela.
Elemento ironico dell’originale che deve essere ... [14]
room at the Radisson Hotel and nobody came. I think Reeney forgot to distribute her leaflets at the reception Commentato [MB33]: Cornice scrostata, ammuffita,
consunta ... [15]
Commentato [EG34]: potenza immaginifica, di
centres. Mother and Reeney and her blank-faced sisters and Reverend Black and a group of press-ganged costruire le immagini e presentarle davanti al lettore.
... [16]
Commentato [EG35]: Dilute è pertinente con il livello
lessicale figurativo, con la linea di significato, di ... [17]
dancers and musicians sat before a table of apple tarts and sandwiches and assorted cordials and Reeney tutted
Commentato [MB36]: Opposite to her mother, kind
Commentato [MB37]: Festa di Benvenuto, notte di
and sighed and pinked and reddened and eventually gave up and instructed the surly serving staff to clear benvenuto.
Commentato [EG38]: sguardo vuoto, vacuo, assente

everything away, there had obviously been some misunderstanding. Mother was ecstatic, she was replete, Commentato [MB39]: Polisindeto = a long sentence
with lots of conjuctions. ... [18]
energized, on the drive home. The. Whole. Thing. Disastrous! Not one foreigner! How would they even have Commentato [EG40]: rinvigorita, energizzata, piena di
energia, galvanizzata
Commentato [MB41]: Spesso associato ai cattolici
gotten out there from the city? And the shrill glee in her laugh made my eardrums vibrate. dagli irlandesi, questo desiderio di edulcorare senza
successo le situazioni negative.
Commentato [MB42]: Il modo in cui ne parla tradisce
mancanza di empatia, una distanza, elemento decisivo
per la caratterizzazione.
Commentato [MB43]: Il gioioso stridore della sua risata
mi fece vibrare i timpani.
Mother organised the second Welcome Night. In the Protestant Young Men’s Association hall on

Athlunkard Street. People came, of various shades. She counted and catalogued and licked her lips, almost

curtseying to the more regal Africans. She unwittingly inverted people’s names, addressing them by their Commentato [MB44]: Polisindeto + esigenza del
narratore di far capire che non è d’accordo con il
personaggio – la madre che però nonostante il suo
essere grossolana e tranchant subisce il fascino di
surnames. Reeney gently, discreetly corrected her and Mother thanked her through gritted teeth. She poured questi africani regali.
Commentato [MB45]: Ringrazia a denti stretti, è
imbarazzata, stizzita.
tea and tepid coffee into mugs from giant "asks, and words into the embarrassed silence. She asked whether

they were Christian or … otherwise. What is otherwise? a man asked. Oh, you know, Islamic or some such,

Mother replied. What is sumsuch? The man asked. I think he was ribbing her, in a playful way, but it was hard

to read his face, the stony blackness of it. He reached out a massive hand for Mother’s proffered tea, to stop

the terrible rattling of cup against saucer, I think. He sang a keening song of long, unwavering syllables at the

end of that night, and clapped and hooted wildly at our Irish dancers, and Mother declared herself his friend,

and declared her night a victory. There were people there, at least. Real live refugees. That was the first night

I saw Hope.

Hope travelled from France to England on the Eurostar in the summer of 2008 in a car with a man to

whose friend she had given three thousand pounds. She was told she still owed seven, and would have to work
it off. She travelled across England and Wales in a lorry driven by a silent man, lying on his narrow curtained

bunk, and to Ireland across a stomach-churning sea, and to Dublin in the back of a white van with flowers

painted on the side. When her trafficker slid the panel door back she kicked him in the testicles with all the

force she could muster in her half-starved, dehydrated state. Force enough to dump him on the pavement,

moaning. He sounded like a dog about to die of thirst, Hope said. Mweeeeh, mweeeeh, mweeeeh, she mimicked

softly, and laughed, and looked in my eyes and through them and into the centre of me and I laughed with her.

Work THAT off, she said to him, and stepped over him and ran away. I fell in love with her as she told me

that story.

Evelyn. You have a girl’s name, she said. I laughed and told her how as a teenager I considered my

mother’s naming of me to be an act of violence. My schoolmates needed no nickname for me, just a chanted

elongation to keep time with their blows: E-ve-line, E-ve-line. I never fought back, just curled myself tightly

on the ground. I didn’t tell Hope that part. I asked my mother once why she’d called me Evelyn. Waugh, she

said. The humourist. Waugh was a man, you know. Anyway, it was your father’s idea. Her raised eyebrows

and downturned mouth said that was an end to it; the matter was not to be raised again. She knew I knew the

truth.
 I told Hope I would support her application for asylum. She thanked me and told me there was no way Commentato [EG46]: “Andai in ricognizione a Galway,
in cerca di nascondigli: ostelli o pensioncine dove per
un soggiorno lungo accettavano tranquillamente i
to do so. She knew the system, it was almost the same in every European country: form-filling, refusal, appeal, contanti, senza fare domande o chiedere nomi.”
This passage is important for 2 reasons:
- there is a kind of irony conveyed by the author, which
we could only understand if we are conversant with a
refusal, deportation. Except here there is more welcome nights, yay! And she raised her arms in mock certain literary genre
- there is another irony which we, as readers, can only
understand if we are familiar with Irish literature and
culture.
celebration and laughed and looked in past my eyes and I sat rigid, priapic, praying she wouldn’t notice. Her
As for the former level of irony, you understand how
ironical the beginning of the paragraph is if you are
familiar with hard boiled novels, detective novels, and
legs stretched sweetly out from her, creamy brown, viciously muscled. Her firm breasts strained the fabric of you can associate the context of hostels, cheap hotels,
cash being accepted, and besides the images, which
are elements of content, you can also perceive the
her light summer dress. I wondered how it would feel to be kicked in the balls by her. reference to that literary genre if you can locate the
register of “scope out”, which is absolutely typical of that
kind of writing.
How can I reproduce that in Italian, to make my reader
able to appreciate this level of irony? What you have to
do as a translator is to be consistent with the register
and to pick up words which resonate, remind the reader
of detective novels in Italian:

I drove to Galway and scoped out hiding places; hostels and cheap hotels where cash would be
Commentato [EG47]: “Contai cinquanta banconote da
venti sopra una mano piena di calli e mi sentii
ringraziare in irlandese. Frugai invano nella memoria in
unquestioningly accepted, where longterm arrangements could be easily, namelessly made. I read ads in the cerca delle parole per dire prego.”
The second level of irony is more complex and more
subtle, and that is the clause “I doled fifty twenties
(which means 1000 €) and was thanked in Irish”. The
Advertiser, for cottages on the coast, in the mountains, in the cracked and cratered Burren. I found a renovated use of the Irish language, which in the traditional
understanding of what is culture is associated with rain,
the catholic religion and the identity of the Irish people
(which is particularly important in the Irish culture
cottage thatched with reeds and daub on the midway of a boreen that led to a tiny sheltered bay. I doled fifty because they went through a colonization process ...that [19]
Commentato [EG48]: Nella sua traduzione Binelli ha
cambiato la sintassi della frase; in linguistic we say that
twenties into a callused hand and was thanked in Irish. I vainly searched my ancient memories for the words in the original, bladder is in a “strong” position; la
posizione forte è l’inizio o la fine di un periodo. Perdere
la posizione forte, per vescica, Binelli non sa se sia
for You’re welcome. I drove home filled with a feeling of lightness, of freedom, a taste in my mouth of stata effettivamente una buona idea; lo è dal pov del
ritmo, gli piace arrivare con l’immagine della vescica
alla fine perché è comunque una posizione forte. Non lo
rinnega del tutto, ma l’inizio del paragrafo forse
delicious exile. Hope was sitting cross-legged, absorbing the sunlight, on the steps of the reception centre. I meritava una migliore tutela e forse la frase avrebbe
dovuto opportunamente iniziare con “la vescica di
mamma”. Tra l’altro: non è più “mia madre” come
all’inizio, ma è “mamma”: in inglese non c’è questa... [20]
don’t know, she said. What about your mother? I cannot love a man who will mistreat his mother.
Commentato [EG49]: caparbiamente indifferente
Traduce con questi due termini il personaggio in
generale, non solo il “deliberate oblivion”, che gli
sembra essere il risultato ultimo di tutte le scelte
linguistiche di Ryan in tutto il testo. La caratterizzazione
del personaggio gli sembra proprio quella di un
personaggio in deliberate oblivion of a lot of things. She
is totally characterized as a woman in deliberate
Mother’s bladder loosened itself as she climbed the stairs that evening. She made her way onwards in oblivion of what’s around her, of her son, of her good
friends, of asylum seekers, almost everything around
her. Sembra proprio quasi testardamente,
coriaceamente intenzionata a non considerare, a non
deliberate oblivion, leaving an acrid trail of thin wetness on the cream stair carpet. What message was there guardare, a non vedere, ciò che la circonda. “in ... [21]
Commentato [EG50]: umidità / bagnato
for me in that haughty pissing? She turned from the landing and her swollen cheeks were dissected by tear
tracks. All of her was leaking. You go, she said, and leave me here, and you may stay gone, my fine boy. Oh,
she could see me now. I had told her I was going on a speaking tour with my father’s books. Ha! she said. Who
would want to hear about that … flimflam! That … weasel’s … pornography! It’s all arranged, I told her.
Well, and a sob flew wetly from her, unarrange it. Please, Evelyn, I need you here. I almost believed her.
Commentato [EG51]: “pisciata sprezzante”. Pissing è
traduzione sicura (poi simona è intervenuta dicendo che al di
là del denotativo “pisciata”, le veniva in mente anche
“pissed”, quindi scocciato, quindi andando verso quel campo
semantico lì, e binelli ha ammesso di non averlo proprio
minimamente preso in considerazione. In irlanda apparently
si dice molto “to take the piss” per dire “to mock at the
expense of others, or to be joking”, without the element of
offence; è lo short for “taking the piss out of”, which is an
expression meaning to mock, tease, joke, ridicule, or scoff),
haughty può avere diversi significati: da oxford “behaving in
an unfriendly way towards other people because you think
that you are better than them; SYNONYM arrogant” quindi
poteva essere anche arrogante, supercilioso (mai sentito
tbh).

Commentato [EG52]: guance carnose. “Carnose” è un

termine che si presta alla lettura morbosa di cui
dicevamo prima
Commentato [EG53]: strange formulation
Commentato [EG54]: molto ironico, very patronizing,
Hope didn’t like the car I had hired. Why not a Mercedes? Everyone drives a Nissan. My mouth dried condescending attitude. Verrebbe da dire quasi
paterna, più che materna
Commentato [EG55]: sono tante cose. Intanto è un
as I drove and no amount of water would moisten it. We need to be low-key, I explained, to meld with the riferimento alla prima scena, in cui c’era ma non lo vedeva.
Non solo quello, però: lui a lei ha detto che va a fare delle
conferenze sui libri del padre, ma lei ha capito
background. Meld! she spat, Ha! We stopped in Spiddle for petrol and food. The counterman was gruff and perfettamente che è tutta una scusa e che in realtà lui se ne
sta andando, quindi she could see me now significa anche
che lei lo ha finalmente scoperto. In inglese ci sono entrambi
i significati dentro il “see”, in italiano lo stiamo perdendo.
regarded Hope darkly. You see, she said as we drove away, everywhere I am watched, suspected, hated. She
Commentato [EG56]: sempre la liquidità
Commentato [EG57]: “Unarrange it” deve essere tradotto
stood still before the cottage, looking at the mottled thatch. What is this? A hut. She turned and pierced me con qualche verbo costruito da un privativo (dis, a, in,
insomma un qualche prefisso privativo) à disorganizzalo

with her eyes and I felt my desert-dry mouth open and close again soundlessly. The low wooden door was Commentato [EG58]: That is the kind of relational
dynamic which keeps Evelyn tied to a certain place,
bound to it. That’s the very parallelism that we can
observe with the original story.
stiff; she sighed as I struggled and pushed past me, entering the dark cottage with an exaggerated stoop. She She doesn’t want her son to go away, although this
grown-up man should go (like Eveline, in Joyce’s story)
and seems to be able to go, to drive away, to step out of
unbuttoned her coat and stood in the kitchen and said It will do. his home and to “cut the umbilical cord” with his mother
... [22]
Commentato [EG59]: “quasi quasi le credetti” andava
bene anche come “ci mancava poco che le credessi”, o “per
poco non le credetti” o “fui sul punto di crederle”. ... [23]
Commentato [EG60]: La similitudine tra la donna di cui
lui (non a caso) si innamora, e sua madre, l’abbiamo già
osservate, è estremamente significativa, e qua viene
... [24]
Do you think I will let you touch me, because you have brought me here, hidden me away? Do you Commentato [EG61]: Nice perché è “la negazione
dell’isotopo della liquidità”
Commentato [EG62]: “Cos’è? Un rifugio”. Michelle
think I’m your slave? No, no, I whispered. I just love you. You don’t have to do anything. I cooked a stir-fry metterebbe proprio “baracca”, sprezzante: Binelli ha
commentato con compassione ridacchiando “carina…” e ha
proceduto a spiegare che non è sicuro sia lei a dirlo, perché
... [25]
and she sat silently across from me, looking past me through the window at the darkening sky. My throat Commentato [EG63]: Lui è proprio un po’ debole, un
“passerotto dolce e fragile” vistosamente schiacciato
dalla personalità di Hope.
constricted, my stomach clenched. My cutlery rattled against my plate. I’m sorry, I whispered. For what, she
Commentato [MB64]: il dovere che lasciavo
incompiuto, incompleto (con un sottotesto erotico
dell’incompletezza). “Venendo meno” ha valenze
whispered back. I didn’t know. morali, ma in questo caso funziona. Possiamo anche
usare un gerundio (stavo lasciando…).
NB: “Stare” come ausiliare è odiato dalle redazioni, è
visto come uno spagnolismo, un dialettalismo, ed è
spesso tagliato.

Questo passaggio c’è, esattamente così, nella versione

di Joyce. Come ci comportiamo in questo caso? Nella
traduzione degli intertexts, soprattutto nel caso di uno
I lay that night on the broken springs of a musty sofa-bed and thought of Mother and the duty I was importante e celebre come questo? We can decide to
behave in two ways:
- the most important outcome of yours has to be to
leaving undone. To care for her into old age, to see her to the end of her path. I imagined her lying prone and enable the readers to realize that this is a Joycean
reference, echo. To do so, we can keep the most
important Italian translation of that text. It is called
“principium auctoritas”.
buckled at the foot of the stairs, soaked in brandy and blood. The sound of Hope’s soft, long breaths floated - the translation may be faulty, and that can happen (we
refer to texts that we don’t particularly like, translations
that we don’t appreciate), and in that case we can
translate with our own words, but we shouldn’t depart
from the bedroom. I imagined the warmth of her body, the nakedness of it, feet from me. I imagined her anger too much from the original translation if we really want
our readers to realize that there is a quote, so we give a
hint to the reference. Joyce should somehow be called
if I appeared at her bed and woke her. I imagined her softening in the sunlit morning, walking hand in hand in reference anyway.
La traduzione nostra qui sarà “Pensai a mia madre e al
dovere che avevo lasciato indietro, incompiuto”. ... [26]

with me through the salty breeze to the sandy cove at the end of the boreen and saying Yes, this is good, we Commentato [MB65]: Curare, starle vicino, prendersi
cura di lei attraverso la vecchiaia, non durante.
Commentato [MB66]: A frame is a specific
will stay here a while. I imagined her lips on mine, our mingled breaths. I said a childish prayer and wondered discourse of reality with its own script, lexicon, and
we have to be familiar with it in order to talk about
it. It is our duty to recognize that frame and make it
evident so that th reader can recognize and
if my father could see me, and what he would think of me now. If he would say Go home to your mother, you appreciate it. “Path”, here, symbolises a strong,
religious, moral feeling, as well as Eveline’s duty (that is
subjective). ... [27]
fool. Or, Well done, my son, now you’re a man. What had I done, really, but fall stupidly into unrequited love Commentato [MB67]: Torniamo all’immagine della
liquidità: abbiamo ancora il drink e la caduta, anche in
senso più religioso. Tutti i termini che veicolano la
liquidità vanno mantenuti tali. Nell’originale la liquidità si
and make a promise to save a woman from deportation that I couldn’t possibly keep? My money would be esprime con il mare: l’uomo che ama improvvisamente
diventa quello che la sta per affogare.
La traduzione deve andare di pari passo con questa
immagine di panico: il desiderio di emancipazione e di
gone inside six months. Hope thought I was rich. I let her think it. I thought of Mother at her best, laughing, libertà rischia di affogare in queste debolezze. ... [28]
Commentato [MB68]: Ripetizione retoricamente
motivata – da lasciare.
calling me Ev, her blue-eyed son, before she fell to drink. Fell.
Commentato [MB69]: “Fool” è ambiguo, ed è stato
tradotto come sciocco – nella traduzione originale di
Joyce era stato tradotto con “scema”.
Ingrato, funziona benissimo, anche se non è una
traduzione letterale, ma esplicita la questione del
dovere.
Commentato [MB70]: Eveline has two problematic
The rent for the cottage was paid for a month. I left a small bundle of notes on the trestle table before options: he assumes that he has to choose between
being a fool (according to an oppressing moral duty, a
self-obliterating moral obligation) and being a “real
man”, according to a patriarchal ideology. There is no
the fireplace. The heavy door, swollen from the damp air, scraped again on the threshold and shrieked as I room for hope (Hope) and happiness – but the reality is
that there ARE other options (and this is the message of
Ryan)
pulled it open; Hope stirred, then appeared at the bedroom doorway, silhouetted in moonlight. My breath

caught in my throat, the shape of her. She saw the money and knew I was leaving her. I set my face to the dark

world outside, to the moaning wind. Evelyn, she cried behind me as I started the engine, Evie, please.

Some more random facts che non abbiamo riportato sul documento

Differenza palese rispetto all’Eveline di Joyce: il genere dei personaggi è invertito. Che tipo di messaggio (sarà decisivo
in fase di traduzione) si vuole dare? È un’inversione volta a una differenziazione fondamentalmente di dettaglio, di
contenuti, di atmosfera, o probabilmente c’è un ordine sociologico, una riflessione di ordine sociologico, un importante
significato che in questo modo Donal Ryan vuole trasmettere ai suoi lettori in merito al fatto che sono passati 100 anni
dall’originale, e ad oggi, se proprio devo andare a presupporre un adattamento, vado a segnalare il fatto che dei ruoli, ad
oggi, forse possono invertirsi?

Nella scelta di Ryan c’è una volontà di update; che tipo di aggiornamento sta osservando nella società qui
rappresentata?

Binelli non crede che Ryan stia dicendo “attenzione, nel suolo subalterno e che in ultimo deve rinunciare alla propria
realizzazione, alla propria felicità e alla propria emancipazione prima c’era la donna, ragazza soggiogata dalla cultura
patriarcale, e ad oggi c’è l’uomo soggiogato dalla figura matriarcale”. Piuttosto, sta semplicemente dicendo che la
società è cambiata, non può non cambiare (insomma non sta dicendo “l’Irlanda ha superato il problema del
patriarcato”); sta dicendo che in realtà il problema può anche verificarsi su un’altra direttrice. Gli stessi o simili
meccanismi di morbosità e di schiacciamento di identità da parte dei genitori, lo stesso tipo di paralisi nei confronti dei
figli, può essere indotta da un padre come da una madre che esercitano una presenza eccessiva, invadente, ossessiva,
nell’esistenza dei figli, al punto da recluderli in uno spazio, da precludergli una ricerca di una loro felicità individuale –
tant’è che il protagonista del raccolto di Ryan non cercherà di prendere una nave, cercherà di negoziare un tragitto verso
la propria felicità ed emancipazione molto diverso, appunto riscritto e ritrattato rispetto a quella che è l’Irlanda della
contemporaneità. Lui, in maniera del tutto simbolica, non riuscirà a prendere la sua nave. La scena finale del racconto è
equivalente perfettamente a quella joyciana: simbolicamente c’è un treno che parte, e il protagonista non riesce a salire
su quel treno; nel caso specifico, è lui a prendere la macchina ed andare via, non ce la fa ed è richiamato al suo ruolo di
figlio nei confronti di una mamma che, al pari del padre joyciano, amputa la libertà del figlio. Il padre joyciano era un
ubriacone violento, qua abbiamo una madre che beve altrettanto e che esercita un tipo di violenza non fisica ma
psicologica, più sottile ma altrettanto deleteria. Per Binelli è questo il messaggio di Donal Ryan che come traduttori noi
dobbiamo cercare di produrre. Questa invadenza, questa violenza non fisica ma psicologica, resa molto evidente dalla
prima scena: una madre che si chiede cosa ci fa tutta sola anche se c’è suo figlio lì, si rivolge al marito e gli chiede
come mai lui l’ha lasciata tutta sola proprio mentre in realtà è di fronte al figlio à azzeramento dell’identità del figlio,
che deve essere riproposto nelle modalità discorsive che Ryan

ha scelto, appunto, non per dire “in Irlanda il patriarcato l’abbiamo superato, siamo tutti femministi e con pari diritti”,
ma per dire che alcuni meccanismi si verificano anche in direttrice opposta (mamme possessive, invadenti, che
senz’altro non volendolo, possono con la loro personalità schiacciante arrivare a precludere un percorso di felicità ai
figli maschi).

Bisogna che in italiano si riesca a veicolare la stessa sensazione trasmessa al lettore inglese; in questo caso, deve esserci
una sorta di elemento “alla Gozzano”, decadente, crepuscolare; c’è tristezza, un setting quasi piccolo-borghese, malato,
sofferente, di nostalgia. La creazione dell’atmosfera deve avere questo come obiettivo in mente, in modo che la frase
scivoli nello stesso modo, con la stessa caratterizzazione che ha la sintassi dell’originale.
In tutto il testo il figlio viene caratterizzato soprattutto come figlio della madre, più che come persona autonoma in sé
stessa: di sicuro non ci viene detto che lavoro fa, si mantiene e in tutto quello che fa appare più come un’ombra della
madre che come qualcuno che faccia una sua vita, tant’è che non è nemmeno in grado di portare fino in fondo una
relazione che ha avviato, sebbene i binari siano quelli segnati molto dalla relazione con la madre (appare subito il
fascino di questa donna forte, molto simile alla madre, “ma Freud per ora non lo scomodiamo”).

There is another important aspect we have not talked about yet in class: whenever you translate, you understand step-
by-step how certain topics are expressed, in a language, and completely neglected in another. For instance, when there
is movement, in English, you are very likely to make clear what kind of vehicle you are using, and how you are getting
to some place.

Where Italians say “vado in stazione”, without specifying how, English people are likely to say, “I am walking to the
station”, for example.

Beside this aspect, there are many more topics which are frequently made explicit in english and not in Italian, and vice
versa. For example, the verb “to stand”: the naïve translator translates “era in piedi”, but there actually is no necessity to
make it clear: of course, if you are in a room, in a garden, anywhere, unless it is made explicit that you are sitting down,
you are in piedi.

Nel testo abbiamo pornography, abbiamo una madre morbid (morbosa), che addirittura fa un haughty pissing (sempre
linguaggio porno, dice Binelli, comunque “benissimo che qualcuno si diverta così, un giorno magari provo pure).
Quindi le swollen cheeks? In italiano avremmo il termine turgido, che spesso ha connotazione sessuale: non è che sta
esplicitando qualcosa di disfunzionale dal quel pov? una mamma appunto morbosa? quindi a livello di connotazione
starebbe buttando anche qualcosa di questo elemento. Binelli vorrebbe tradurre mantenendo la semantica di qualunque
termine che tuteli il riferimento liquido, che ritiene importantissimo per i riferimenti che prende. Al tempo stesso però
percepiva anche una connotazione di morbosità. Ryan gli ha detto che va bene, che non lo aveva preso in
considerazione ma in realtà è evidente rileggendo il testo (ci rendiamo conto che questo rompe le palle anche agli
autori?). Quindi l’ha tradotto come ha poi fatto. La risposta di Ryan trova un’equivalenza anche con quello che scrive
Umberto Eco in Dire quasi la stessa cosa.
 TRANSLATION WORKSHOP 2 – CORDS by ELSKE RAHILL

Cords – Elske Rahill

INTRO: This story was quite startling and ground-breaking because it deals with the experience of a young girl by
describing quite frankly themes like sexuality (with particular references to sexual practices that are quite difficult to
translate into Italian), abortion… The captivating collection of short stories, “In White Ink” (that features the essay
‘Cords’) hasn’t been translated into Italian yet. Its author, Elske Rahill, was born in Dublin and she lives in Burgundy,
France. She was a young student when she got pregnant for the first time, thus having to experience motherhood and
student life at the same time. This experience possibly accounts for her strong feminism, that transpires from her
passionate texts with quite urgent and relevant social issues, including that of pregnancy, social welfare of young couples
or unmarried mothers, and others. It might be helpful to point out that Abortion was not legal in Ireland until very
recently, and there were many demonstrations on this matter at the time when this story was conceived and written.
Therefore, Elske Rahill is part of those writers who problematize social issues and try to give a new sense to social roles
by protecting them from the quite oppressive presence of the Catholic Church, that has always been a quite present and
vocal participant of historical and cultural matters in Ireland.

Elske Rahill wrote ‘Cords’ in 2015 and with a captivating style that conveys information in a direct and engaging way. Commentato [MB71]: While possiamo tradurlo con
The language is characterized by colloquial expressions, and Dublin slangs, especially in dialogues. The social message mentre, ma non è indispensabile. È più importante che
hidden in the text is very strong, which makes the work of the translator even harder. There are references that cannot be il nome sia in posizione iniziale o nelle vicinanze
understood unless you are familiar with the Irish culture. immediate.
Commentato [MB72]: Pensa ai suoi piedi ed al
In reading, concentrate your attention of the following aspects:
pavimento sotto di sé – qui la traduzione italiana
sostituisce con una sineddoche il corpo ai piedi,
- The description of the Doctor. evidenziando la connessione fra il corpo e la realtà.
- All the references to London (NB. London was culturally – and historically – the first place where Irish people
used to go when they were looking for a job, but it was also a place where abortion was legal at the time. Irish Commentato [MB73]: Si sforza di – enfatizza la fatica
women unfortunately had to travel to London to have an abortion in a private clinic. It was a painful process che sta facendo
both from a physical and mental point of view: they felt like they were doing something wrong, because it was Commentato [MB74]: Ancorato (per la coerenza
illegal). semantica dell’elemento di ricercar di un equilibrio fisico
- The differences within implied information and explicit information. e simbolico)
Commentato [MB75]: Rimanere concentrata –
The context in which the action takes place somehow mirrors the mental reality experienced by the main character. We l’inciso viene eliminato perché probabilmente era troppo
have some sort of exchange between the mind of the main character and the physical reality that she is perceiving through ripetitiva
her body. Consequently, the body becomes some sort of threshold between these 2 realities. Something we understand Commentato [MB76]: Tradurlo con mentre è un po’
quite early in the story is that the main character is not trustable: you get the sense that she doesn’t even trust herself that debole, possiamo sostituirlo con (almeno) fino a che,
much. The fact that she seems very frail, weak, is firstly understood by the reader when the people in the cue and the oppure quanto basta, fintantoché…
woman at the reception react in a quite disturbed way to her behavior. It’s like a tricky mirror game. In the end, we will Commentato [MB77]: Dettagli necessari – necessari
understand her true strength. distoglie un po’ l’attenzione dalla donna che compie
l’azione, ma in italiano la ridondanza sarebbe risultata
estranea al testo.
Commentato [MB78]: Porte scorrevoli – va aggiunto
While Diane stands in line she thinks about her feet and the floor beneath them. She tries to keep herself in italiano
Commentato [MB79]: Richiudersi scivolando
planted steadily on the squeaky lino, to fix herself there, in focus, long enough for the lady to get all the details she lentamente indietro – indietro è una piccola aggiunta
poetica.

needs. The registration booth is beside the pedestrian entrance and there must be a fault with the doors, because they Commentato [MB80]: Il semicolon inglese non è un
punto e virgola italiano. Può corrispondere ai due punti
o ad un punto fermo.
keep snapping open unprompted and sliding slowly closed, admitting the night air every time; a gust of frost to relieve
Commentato [MB81]: Refolo – è un termine ricercato
come gust
the frowzy vacuum of bleach and instant coffee and tired, unwashed bodies. Commentato [MB82]: Candeggina – adorata da
Binelli
Commentato [MB83]: Caffé delle macchinette
Commentato [MB84]: Tematica portante della storia: il
corpo.
Here we first see her lack of concentration, she is distracted by the surroundings, the outer reality, but she is really trying
to focus. The words that refer to the condition of being in focus (planted, steadily, in focus) in this context are meant to
tell us what her goal is, but also what she (hasn’t) achieved. She would like to be focused, but she is not. Shortly after we
will understand that the lack of concentration is caused by trauma: she knows she was in LDN for an abortion while her
brother tried to commit suicide.

Quella che segue è la prima descrizione effettiva fornita dall’autrice. L’uso così sapiente e dettagliato della prossemica
di questo personaggio secondario dimostra senza dubbio la qualità eccellente del suo stile.

The lady sits behind a yellowed plastic screen that has scratches and smears on it, and a little cluster of round

holes for her to talk and hear through. She leans back, twirling a pen between her fingers, pulls her chin into her neck

and peers at Diane over small glasses, ‘Right what’s the patient’s name?’ Commentato [MB85]: Traduciamo con esamina,
scruta. Sbirciare sembra insufficiente
Commentato [MB86]: Prossemica
As Diane tries to speak the lady squints, turns her head to the side and pushes her ear closer to the screen:
Commentato [MB87]: È un attacco tipico di Dublino.
Possiamo tradurlo con allora, dunque, o persino
insomma.
‘Sorry you’ll have to speak up. He’s how old?’
Commentato [MB88]: Nome del paziente? – il
traduttore sceglie di “sgrammaticare leggermente”
questa frase perché quella successiva (he’s how old?)
Capiamo che all’apparenza Diane appare distratta, forse addirittura fatta. Tenta di parlare, in realtà parla molto piano,
non aveva un corrispettivo altrettanto sgrammaticato. È
mormora, non si capisce cosa dice. Si esprime in questo modo incerto perché è in difficoltà, visibilmente. Inizia a sentirsi una strategia di compensazione
un po’ intorpidita (le mani, anche qui parte di quel corpo che abbiamo messo come punto di contatto tra interno ed
Commentato [MB89]: Importante per mantenere la
esterno). Abbiamo una isotopia figurativa, tutta una serie di termini che vanno a definire i “contorni” del corpo di Diane continuità delle due azioni
ed appartengono al campo semantico della terminalità o finitudine. Questa caratteristica delle parti del corpo descritte
Commentato [MB90]: Prova a/cerca di
è importante perché è ciò che permette loro di essere connesse con l’esterno, che è il fil rouge tematizzato. Domandarsi, rispondere/parlare
sentire questo tipo di sensazioni, è sintomatico della condizione fisica dello sdoppiamento, riferito a quel processo che
Commentato [MB91]: Quanti anni ha il ragazzo? –
di lì a poco darà vita, darà al mondo esterno un altro corpo anch’esso esterno, che però è stato formato all’interno di
importante qui l’aggiunta perché va a sostituire il
quei “confini” corporei da lei tracciati. Questo preannuncia la sensazione magnifica che deriverà dalla gravidanza e la pronome personale inglese che ci dà già il sesso
conseguente scelta di tenere il bambino. È proprio questo, infatti, il momento in cui viene meno la sicurezza che aveva
mentre andava a Londra, probabilmente anche a causa del gesto disperato del fratello, che le permette di capire e sentire
con urgenza il senso della fragilità di questa vita. Dall’altra parte, però, la descrizione della sua situazione di vita
(genitori assenti, nonna malata, nonno allettato, fratello suicida, lei giovane e senza lavoro) ci forniscono tutta una serie
di motivi che legittimerebbero anche la sua scelta di interrompere la gravidanza. La sua disperazione è palese.

A blurring feeling is starting in Diane’s hands. She touches the tips of her thumb and forefinger together. She thinks

about the border of her body – the outline of her hair, the scuffed toe of her trainers – the points where she ends and Commentato [MB92]: Contorni del suo corpo
Commentato [MB93]: Estremità dove finisce lei e
the space around her begins. She has to repeat the things – his name, the spelling of their surname... and she stumbles inizia lo spazio intorno
Commentato [MB94]: Importante l’uso dei pronomi
over his date of birth, never very good with remembering numbers. There is a couple standing behind her with a limp, possessivi che ci dicono per la prima volta che tra i
soggetti c’è un legame di parentela (their surname)
Commentato [MB95]: Here she is talking to herself
and of herself
pink-faced child in the father’s arms. Instead of her own words, Diane can hear only the man saying ‘Ridiculous.

There’s people here with kids. Ridiculous standing here.’ Commentato [MB96]: È una vergogna. Ci sono dei
bambini qua. Questa fila è una vergogna.

Dopo questa ennesima digressione – ovviamente simbolo della sua incapacità di rimanere concentrata – Diane risponde,
e deve ripetere tutto. Capiamo che c’è una relazione di parentela e abbiamo altri indici di questa distrazione: sta
letteralmente pensando ad altro, e questo ci viene mostrato attraverso una specie di monologo interiore, un flusso di
coscienza (anche molto tipico se ci pensiamo dello stile Joyciano).

La voce del personaggio dietro di lei la distrae ancora, lamentandosi perché lui è lì in coda con i bambini e trova ridicola
questa attesa. È importante perché di lì a poco Diane si renderà conto di essere colpevole lei stessa di questa situazione
ridicola.

When the lady is finished with her, Diane turns to go. As she passes the couple, the mother rolls her eyes at

her, and the father shakes his head. It is only then that Diane realises it is she who is ridiculous. It is she who was Commentato [MB97]: Questa è una prossemica molto
tipica degli irlandesi. È una comunicazione per sguardi
che indica il fastidio.
standing there.

The following lines contain an important assumption about doctors in Ireland, that can be taken for granted by the target
readers: Diane notices how young the doctor is, not because it makes any difference, but because it is something extremely
unusual. For some reasons, many doctors in Ireland are old. And quite often they are black Africans. In the late nineties,
when the colonies were doing particularly well and some people had enough money to study medicine. In Ireland, instead,
some people had enough funds to support the health systems (improving the condition of the Irish health sector, which
was considerably less developed if compared to the European standards), but there was an impressive shortage of doctors.
This is why several doctors were called from African countries. It is important to state that because this characteristic
would be quite unusual for an Italian audience.

The doctor’s smooth, clean hands are younger than his eyes. A single frown line cleaves his forehead; ‘You Commentato [MB98]: Le mani del medico, lisce e
pulite, sono più giovani del suo sguardo. – oltre
all’accento sulla sua giovinezza, qui ci sta dicendo
don’t have the name for what he took?’ anche che il medico è un uomo di colore. Ovviamente
solo un traduttore molto esperto può capirlo.

‘Sleeping tablets I think, but—’

‘— but you don’t know which ones, and you don’t know what else. Yes?’

Diane nods but she has missed a beat, the response coming too late; a ridiculous nod to no one. The doctor has already

turned to her brother. Words come loud and distinct from his sturdy chest:

‘What did you do here?’

When there is no response the doctor leans over him: ‘We are going to clean your stomach okay?’ Her brother closes

his eyes and Diane wonders at his eyelids; a metallic mauve sheen on them – were they always that colour? And the

skin so thin. She remembers a punctured butterfly dropped from the cat’s mouth, the way the wings had dulled to dusty

flakes, the ugly rind of its centre, black blister eyes. She wonders at how bodies keep so well intact; how eyelids don’t

tear with wear, how all the liquid and heat of insides stay ordered and contained beneath the skin.

‘What is his name?’ asks the doctor.

‘Kyle’

‘Kyle, we are going to give you a blood test to see how much damage you have done. We are going to put some

charcoal into your stomach now to clean it and you will feel sick. Okay? Kyle would you like us to do that? You will

feel sick and then you will feel better.’

Kyle rolls his head.

‘Say yes Kyle,’ Diane says. She talks loudly, as though speaking on the telephone, trying to communicate over a long

distance call with a crackle in the line.

‘He has to accept treatment,’ says the doctor, ‘Otherwise I can’t ─’

‘Say yes, Kyle. The doctor has other people to see.’

Sore sounds strain through from far back in his throat: ‘Fuck you,’ then, his lips barely moving, ‘slut.’ Commentato [MB99]: Qui vediamo ancora una volta
l’ambiguità nel rapporto tra i due fratelli. Probabilmente
non lo dice con cattiveria, ma non è comunque carino
He turns his head on its stiff neck, in the doctor’s direction, his voice easing out ‘Yep —’ he opens his eyes, ‘— I’ll da dire a tua sorella.

have the black stuff.’

The doctor asks Diane to leave them. She leans to kiss her brother but there is the nausea again, burning up into her

throat, so she has to stand up straight and exhale. She goes into the corridor and pulls the curtain behind her.

*
 This is a makeshift ward because the hospital is full up tonight. There are three other beds in the corridor,

separated by sheets of green plastic hung from rails on wheels. Strips of milky light run vertical along the ceiling. There

is no traffic outside, only the occasional whine of an ambulance.

Diane rubs the small of her back and walks up and down and the rhythm of it soothes the urge to vomit. There

is a woman in an oversized jacket pacing outside the curtain opposite. She is talking quietly into her phone, hand

cupping her mouth. When the call ends Diane makes eye contact. She needs the lady to smile but her eyes slide away. It

is the force of the vomit that knocks her down, or the force of suppressing it; a thud from the base of her spine, filling

her throat, stopping her breath and she can hear, past the drumming of her pulse, the lady’s irritation, her posh accent

‘Do you need a nurse? Here have some water... oh for Jesus’ sake... hello can you fetch me a nurse please for this girl?’

When she can speak again Diane says sorry, ‘Sorry. I just need to get sick. I’m a bit pregnant.’ She didn’t Commentato [MB100]: Sono un po’ incinta – qui
viene indicata la precarietà della sua condizione, come
se Diane volesse sottolineare di essere ancora in tempo
mean to say that. The woman is kneeling beside her. She has kinked hair held up in a scrunchie, and a down-turned per cambiare questa situazione. La sua frase è una
excusatio non petita, un tentativo di mettere le mani
mouth. avanti e di poter rinunciare a quel peso.

‘Put your head between your knees. Will I get a nurse for you?’

‘I’ll go to the toilet. I’ll be fine once I’ve been sick.’

‘Do you want a ginger biscuit?’

‘No no. Thank you.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Eighteen.’

‘You look younger. You with that boy?’

‘My brother. I’m alright now. Thanks.’

‘Well. Congratulations.’

*
 The doctor is still there, his hands sheathed in a thin white sheen, holding a bucket to Kyle’s chin. Kyle

wretches weakly, and tongues out the last strings of charcoal. Commentato [MB101]: Il fratello era andato in
overdose con delle pillole, o sonniferi. Qui ha subito la
lavanda gastrica e sta finendo di vomitare.
‘He has done this before?’ Commentato [MB102]: L’anticipazione del soggetto
nella forma interrogativa è uno strumento tipico della
parlata dublinese, l’abbiamo già visto sopra. è molto
‘Yes.’ difficile da tradurre.

‘Do you know why?’

‘I’m going to London. I was supposed to leave today. My granddad’s not well and stuff so, you know... it’s only me

and Kyle and my grandma really and he doesn’t think I should go.’

Qui ovviamente si usa going to (presente progressivo) perché era un impegno programmato ma non certo. Qui quello
che dobbiamo tradurre non è solo il senso letterale, ma anche il senso di colpa che lei prova (e lo vediamo perché inizia
la sua risposta con I).

‘He has had help?’ Commentato [MB103]: L’ha mai aiutato qualcuno? –
ritorna quella formula interrogativa che è tipica di
Dublino, il che potrebbe stupirci visto che viene da un
‘He was in Pat’s for six months last year.’ medico di colore, ma Diane ci ha detto che lui è
giovane, quindi probabilmente è nato qui.
Commentato [MB104]: Pat – è il St. Patrick’s Mental
‘Maybe you should call them. Let them know anyway. It would be good, I think. They may have advice for you.’ He Hospital di Dublino
Commentato [MB105]: Espressione molto irlandese,
peels the gloves off, revealing hands the colour of milky tea, pink nails. The latex fingers hang shrivelled in his grip. con un forte carico semantico sui sostantivi. I consigli
sono il centro della frase.
La noun centered syntax è una delle caratteristiche
del gaelico che si sono trasmesse nell’uso della lingua
Her brother has collapsed back down on the bed. There is a thick silicone tube coming from one of the machines beside inglese.
Commentato [MB106]: Qui finalmente ci dice che il
him. It is draped over his face and disappears under the blue blanket. There are other, smaller wires tangled about the dottore è un uomo di colore, come abbiamo visto.
Tradurlo con “color thé allungato con il latte” sarebbe
poco idiomatico nella nostra lingua, per mantenere lo
sheets and stuck at his wrists. stesso senso dovremmo cambiare il significante e dire
“caffelatte”.

‘We will get the results in an hour or so,’ says the doctor, ‘you should go home now. You are no use to him here.’

There is no chair. After the doctor has left, Diane squats beside the hospital bed, hands gripping the metal

frame, cheeks pressed on her arms.

‘I’ll go so… Will I go Kyle?’

When he doesn’t reply she stands over him.

‘Answer me. Will I go? Is that okay? I’ve missed the flight now so... I’ll go home.’

‘Fuck you,’ he says. Commentato [MB107]: Questo “fuck you” = “fanculo”

probabilmente non è detto con cattiveria. È solo un
modo di liberarsi da una terribile situazione
emotivamente carica. Probabilmente Kyle si sta
pentendo.

Qui ricomincia la sintassi della concitazione, del coinvolgimento, che ci presenta si da un lato quella persona molto
lenta, riflessiva, che infastidisce gli altri, ma dall’altra è molto forte e che nei momenti importanti, quando deve capire,
capisce. È importante rendere tutto questo. Nelle righe successive abbiamo la piena espressione di quelle 'cords’, fisiche
e mentali, che danno il titolo al testo. È qualcosa di molto viscerale, che ci riporta a quell’ancoraggio che avevamo
trovato nelle righe iniziali. Siamo di nuovo nella mente di Diane:

Her brother’s mouth twists into a wry sneer. She has been a fool. There was no need to panic the way she did. There Commentato [MB108]: La bocca di suo fratello si
contrae/contorce in una smorfia / ghigno beffardo –
è un elemento caratterizzante del fratello, che sembra
never is. There is no need for their grandmother’s lips to wash livid, for her old hands to tremble, and her face drop into dire alla sorella “ora sei qui, ci sei cascata di nuovo”
Commentato [MB109]: Fool può essere tradotto come
palms full of breath and tears. Kyle has never been as close to death as he would like. Their mother did it quietly sciocca, mentre cretina sembra un po’ troppo forte.
Tradurre to panic con ‘lasciarsi prendere dal panico’
and efficiently and only once; she did not feel the tug of life’s cord, anchoring her here beyond purpose. sottolinea la passività di Diane, vittima di questa
situazione.
Diane è evidentemente arrabbiata con il fratello, ma
anche con sé stessa. Non c’era un vero motivo per
Kyle is not made the same way. Like Diane, he is compelled to follow each breath with another; like her he is preoccuparsi perché il fratello non faceva sul serio, mai,
cercava solo attenzioni.

wired with alarms and trip switches and can never make the leap to meet their mother where she left them. Diane is the Commentato [MB110]: Drop invoca un movimento
dall’altro al basso, ma nella traduzione è stato reso con
nascondere, che invece invoca il movimento contrario.
only one who knows it. She can see how shallow his wrist scars are, and in the wrong direction. Per mantenere il senso originario potremmo mettere
sprofondare.
Commentato [MB111]: Conferma che tutti I suoi
tentativi sono stati vani ma disperati appelli per cercare
This last line is extremely telling: he cut his wrists in the wrong direction. He probably cut horizontally, as many self- di ricevere attenzioni.
harmers do, but Diane is implying that there is a correct way (vertically, more deeply, even more seriously) to do it if you Commentato [MB112]: Andamento polisindetico con
are really trying to take your life. This means that the brother was probably just desperately seeking attention, and he doppia congiunzione (and … and), ma la costruzione
del climax è molto potente: la loro mamma si, l’ha
was not really suicidal. Or, if he was, he didn’t have the courage to complete what he started. She’s “the only one who fatto in silenzio, con efficienza e una volta sola.
knows it” hints at the presence of some sort of secret. She’s telling us something, but we still cannot grasp it. What we
Commentato [MB113]: Questo paragone ci permette
can understand is that she knows that her brother is faking it because she probably tried to do it “the right way”, like her di stabilire che il fratello non è stato l’unico ad avere
mother, or at least she thought about it. questo tipo di pensieri, a soccombere – almeno
mentalmente – a quella realtà così difficile che stavano
vivendo.
La madre si è suicidata, e le è servito un solo tentativo,
La madre non ha sentito lo strattone della corda della vita, che la lega a questa vita, la ancora ‘qui’. Mentre Kyle e Diane mentre Diane e il fratello non hanno ceduto perché
la sentono e sono costretti a continuare a vivere questa loro vita nonostante il dolore esistenziale che entrambi provano. sentivano il legame di quelle corde che li ancoravano
alla vita di cui il testo porta il titolo.
Gli ‘interruttori salvavita’ che vengono nominati sono ciò che impedisce ad entrambi di fare quel salto che li separa
dalla loro madre, come ci dice Diane.
‘Do you have any money?’ says Diane, ‘I left everything at home.’

Kyle closes his eyes.

‘Kyle answer me. Do you have a phone?

Her cousin Ailbhe will be on her way to the airport to pick her up already. She will watch everyone filing in from the

Dublin flight and when there is no one left she will think Diane has backed out of the abortion, remembering the

placards of dead babies they saw that time on Grafton Street; mangled corpses with putty limbs. There was one she Commentato [MB114]: È la strada dei negozi di
Dublino, quindi un luogo molto frequentato, un ottimo
posto per farsi vedere, ma anche un posto
would remember often; a human shape with a red pit for a mouth, belly purple and veined and a jelly tube winding out
costodissimo.

into a meaty blossom. It was a woman her Grandma’s age who held that picture, mouth closed, cheeks puckered as

though dissolving holy paper, one hand gripping a splintered stick while rosary beads worked like ants through the Commentato [MB115]: Ostia

fingers of the other. Commentato [MB116]: Questa è una tipica

rappresentazione di quell’Irlanda Cattolica del passato,
quella da cui gli autori moderni cercano di sradicare o
‘It’s not what they made us think,’ said Ailbhe, ‘It’s fine Diane. It’s really fine. It’s like a heavy period – not even. And comunque modificare.

the ladies are so nice. They understand...’

Commentato [MB117]: Porta una mano al ventre, -

Kyle’s hand twitches. The tube that was across his face has caught in his mouth and he opens and closes his lips slowly, qui abbiamo il ventre come traccia semantica del corpo
| gonfio e duro come per un’infiammazione –
interessante il continuo riferimento ad un lessico
trying to make them meet. He frowns through the drowse and his taut cheeks crinkle, as though he might cry. Diane medico-scientifico.
Commentato [MB118]: Nella traduzione il soggetto è
leaves him struggling weakly. She can feel how blank her face is. stato spostato avanti – l’inerzia ottusa/cieca […] è la
stessa.
Commentato [MB119]: Il corpo sta pulsando attorno
She puts her hand to her belly; a hard swell like something inflamed. With the same dumb compulsion that makes her a un piccolo involucro di liquidi e tessuti – questa è
la primissima descrizione del bambino, che ancora non
ha una sua identità neanche metaforica perché è
brother breathe in and out, makes his heart suck and spew; somewhere in the dark of her insides, her body is throbbing descritto in termini prettamente scientifici.
Commentato [MB120]: quel suo corpo continuerà a
at a little capsule of fluid and tissue, bringing it blood and protein and whatever else is keeping it growing. If she stays ritmo serrato, avanzando e sbuffando lungo i binari
su cui si è avviato, finché non avrà completato un
altro essere. Vivo. – nella traduzione proposta, Vivo
here, her body will keep chugging steadily along its track until it has filled another being into life, and the thought of diventa (per compensazione) uno stilema che isola la
parte centrale del concetto: Diane non ha abortito,
quindi quello che cresce dentro di lei è vivo.
that secret mutiny, tucked away with something like pleasure in her womb, makes a laugh bubble up into her throat, but
Commentato [MB121]: quell’ammutinamento
invisibile, custodito/nascosto nel proprio grembo
then no sound comes. come qualcosa di piacevole – questo è un segnale:
alla fine avercelo è un piacere?
Commentato [MB122]: Nella traduzione passa da
verbo a sostantivo: incontra una bolla
Questo passaggio molto poetico dimostra il valore e la bravura di Elske Rahill come scrittrice, ed è il momento
Commentato [MB123]: Tuttavia […] non emette
fondamentale, in cui inizia ad insinuarsi in Diane l’idea di tenere questo bambino descritto come un insieme di cellule e
alcun suono – ricordiamo che l’inglese non può avere
tessuti. Sembra che le faccia rabbia il fatto che questo elemento estraneo si sia insidiato al suo interno, che il suo corpo una doppia negazione
lo stia nutrendo per inerzia e che lei non possa controllare (o interrompere) questo processo.

Nonostante il fatto che questo ammasso di cellule sia vivo la disturbi, intravediamo anche un anticipo di quella che sarà
poi la conclusione della vicenda: il fatto che questo segreto nascosto esista, è piacevole.

Il matrimonio tra scrittura e cultura politica in Irlanda – come in tante altre culture – è molto presente, ed è quindi
importante vedere come temi di questo genere e di questa portata (aborto, matrimonio tra persone dello stesso sesso…)
siano sviluppati nell’ambito letterario. Ricordiamo che l’Irlanda è passata in pochissimo tempo ed in modo quasi
traumatico da una sorta di modernismo sbiadito ad una contemporaneità molto coraggiosa in quello che riguarda le
scelte orientate verso la felicità degli esseri umani.

Her brother puffs, indignant at this small discomfort. She watches him snorting, his head swaying slowly, hand lying

still now under the glare of small wires thatched with the miraculous intimacy of veins over the wool blanket. He is

unable to identify the thing that is bothering him and his head rocks from side to side with increasing distress. She

stands over him and checks herself for any sympathy. Nothing. Only the backache, the weary ankles. Then she moves

the drip away from his mouth. The gesture takes effort.

Eccoci davanti ad un altro passaggio fondamentale. La famiglia, in Irlanda, così come nell’ambito di tutti gli altri paesi
cattolici, continua ad essere considerata come il nucleo in cui la felicità dovrebbe essere costruita e insegnata. Tuttavia,
non possiamo limitarci ad idealizzarla in termini positivi (es: Famiglia Mulino Bianco): la famiglia può essere anche
altro, può essere anche il luogo in cui si consumano i dolori più profondi, le frustrazioni più grandi e le difficoltà maggiori
legate alla nostra identità. Questo perché dove cresce l’affetto crescono anche le aspettative, arrivando quasi
all’esasperazione. Per anni, questo immaginario della famiglia come luogo santo e sacro atto a proteggerti dai pericoli
dell’esterno ha caratterizzato la letteratura (Irlandese e non), ma negli anni Sessanta alcuni autori hanno avuto il
coraggio di evidenziare un altro aspetto, identificando la famiglia come il luogo in cui si consumano delle violenze atroci,
purtroppo. Questa corrente in Irlanda ha preso il nome di Counter Revivalism: se il Revival gaelico-irlandese proponeva
un’immagine idealizzata e sacrosanta del nucleo familiare, il Counter Revivalism rovescia questa concezione con la
violenza inaudita di un realismo brusco e aspro di cui sembrano far parte anche Elske Rahill e Donal Ryan in linea di
eredità.

Nel caso di ‘Cords’ abbiamo un nucleo familiare altamente disfunzionale. Da una parte abbiamo la parte dolorosa della
madre che decide di togliersi la vita, ma dall’altra compare la nonna che ne prende il posto, e che sembra dirci
“Attenzione! La famiglia non è da buttare via!”. La presenza della nonna pone l’accendo sulla potenzialità infinita di
questo momento/luogo di umanità che è la famiglia, per quanto violenta possa essere. Questo ci dà la speranza che anche
le relazioni più tossiche possano essere smussate, e che i figli possano essere sé stessi liberamente e apertamente, e che
la genitorialità non sia vissuta come una forma di assenteismo o come una nuova droga, etc.

Eliminare le aspettative è quindi la chiave per realizzare il potenziale infinito che possiedono le persone che ci stanno
accanto. Ed è questo quello che succede qui a Diane mentre immagina di parlare a sua nonna della sua gravidanza
inaspettata.
Diane rests by the bed on her haunches, her head on her arms and the bars of the bed cold in her grip. She has missed it

now; the kindness of an adult woman with a dainty voice, the gentle efficiency of painkillers like her cousin described;

one tablet each end and a nice room to wait in while it happens. Ailbhe paid for the flight and booked the appointment.

She might refuse to pay for another one. She wants Diane to stay in London. ‘Granddad wouldn’t want you to throw

your life away now,’ she said ‘We’ll find you a job. Don’t stay in Dublin for Granddad. It’s not what he’d want.’ But Commentato [MB124]: Qui vediamo le aspettative di cui
abbiamo parlato. Una gravidanza inaspettata si inserirebbe
there was the time Granddad talked about the British throwing their half-baked children into buckets, there was the lady male nel disegno di vita pensato per lei (per lei ≠ da lei). È
per questo che la cugina si offre di aiutarla.

at the crisis pregnancy centre, whose voice sounded so wobbly with hurt. She said that if her granny threw her out

they’d sort something out – she could stay in a special house on Pearse Street until the baby was six months old.

Grandma wouldn’t throw her out. She would just heave more burden onto her shrinking frame, the same way

she had carried Diane and Kyle even after her hips were too old to be resting children on them and her lungs too wet

with grief. ‘Don’t do something you won’t be able to live with,’ said the lady on the help line, ‘Not unless you are Commentato [MB125]: Sua nonna non la butterebbe
fuori di casa. Si limiterebbe altro peso sulle spalle
sofferenti/già messe a dura prova… – ecco la
one hundred percent sure...’ A silly thing to say; when time is moving only towards one outcome. Every moment she is realizzazione dell’amore della nonna, la sua potenzialità
infinita di amare. Diane sa che la nonna ha preso su di
becoming more pregnant. She can already feel it washing in; a current steady and mesmerising and powerful as sé un peso sia fisico che morale, quando li ha accolti in
casa dopo la morte della madre. Ma sa anche che
nonostante lo sforzo immenso che questo richiedeva, la
the sea. She knows how easily it could loosen her grip on herself; the relief of surrender, the way it could wash nonna non ci penserebbe due volte a rifarlo anche per
lei.

through her and take her with it into a world of its own making. Commentato [MB126]: Parole sciocche – qui la
signora rimette la scelta a Diane, ma nel frattempo se
ne lava le mani. È ovvio che la scelta è solo sua, ma è
anche ovvio che lei per prima è consapevole qualsiasi
Her brother makes a spluttering sound and Diane pulls herself up on heavy legs. His face is expressionless. It’s his eye cosa scelga dovrà conviverci per il resto della sua vita.
Commentato [MB127]: Il sollievo della resa
sockets and his lips, when they’re sapped of everything like that and the skin eerily bright. That’s what’s reminding her potrebbe farle perdere facilmente l’autocontrollo –
qui Diane è combattuta dal dubbio, perché sa che la
scelta che deve compiere è rischiosa. Deve rimanere
of granddad. lucida nonostante la drammaticità della sua situazione.
Commentato [MB128]: Questo verbo richiama
l’immagine dell’aborto ancora desiderato a questo
DA QUI IN POI NON ABBIAMO PIU ANALIZZATO E NON PENSO CHE CI TORNEREMO punto, ma la conseguenza di questa azione sarebbe un
mondo creato da lei in cui lei stessa dice che finirebbe
per perdersi.
For years their grandfather has been hooked up to machines the way Kyle is now, his legs shrinking from disuse into the

skinny pegs of a boy. He can’t eat so they have unstopped his belly button and pegged a tube to it, pumping food into

him all day long. Every few hours a nurse comes in and pours grey liquid into a bag that hangs from a hook at the top of

a three-legged metal bar. The liquid sloshes into the plastic and it heaves about like an old cow’s udder. For two years

all he has tasted is his own mouth. The gums must be hollow where the teeth used to be. If he ever puts his tongue in
them he will feel little caves of scarred flesh; little hollows of stone-hard blood.

When Kyle was little Grandma sometimes wondered quietly who his father was, because of the alien cut of him, all

cheekbones and warm skin and the large blank eyes, and because he was so tall compared to the rest of the family.

Granddad didn’t let her talk like that – it was only alone with Diane that Grandma said, ‘You know I wonder,

sometimes... was it that boy with the tattoos...’ as though there might be clues written on his father’s biceps to could

help them with the riddle of Kyle. But now, his lips stiff and drooling, his body limp, surrounded by metal and flashing

lights, Kyle looks like their grandfather. It’s the shape of the bones with the skin scraped back, the muscles lax, the

terrible mixture of submission and concentration along the crinkle of the brows and, pumping him alive, the ugly cord

like the broken umbilical twist on that holy lady’s placard on Grafton Street.

Because of the stroke he couldn’t move at all for months. Then he learned to control his left hand, lifting his puffed

fingers slowly, one by one, like a heavy fan. These days he can hold them up for a moment, pointing his forefinger,

poised as though about to land one of his reassuring philosophical points, opening his mouth, taking a breath, gagging

to speak. Then he looks disappointed, and sighs, and his hand drops. In the jaundice of his eyes death makes its

undignified appeal.

Whatever Diane should feel for her grandfather has dissolved now into an abstraction of love; a duty. But her Grandma

is in love still. She spends her days sitting, massaging his arms, talking. Every morning he is dressed in a crisp white

shirt that she has washed and ironed. Every evening he wears matching cotton pyjamas. She irons those too. At the end

of her visits she packs his soiled clothes into a pillow case, plucks out the dead flowers from the vase, and puts his

favourite album on repeat.

Diane waits until day, crouched outside the curtain, rubbing her ankles. The morning light washes in through the plate

glass like a hospice watercolour; weak pink and pastel purple.

The woman comes out from behind one of the curtains, still wrapped in the large grey sports jacket. It reaches her knees
and is folded over itself at the front, pinned to her body by tightly crossed arms. Her face is stern, her lips straight. Tiny

red veins cover her face like filigree. She nods at Diane’s belly.

‘When are you due?’

‘Oh. No. I’m only thirteen weeks...’

‘That’s my son in there. He took an overdose.’

‘Oh. Same. My brother.’

‘It’s the third time. ’

‘Fifth time,’ says Diane, ‘He never takes enough…’

‘I remember being pregnant,’ she says, ‘you getting lots of kicks now?’

‘I don’t know. I think sometimes, maybe. Maybe I am imagining it.’

‘Enjoy it. You never forget your first pregnancy. I’ll never forget the first flutter. They’re so tiny aren’t they? They sort

of tumble in your tummy. I remember thinking it was like having a little fairy fluttering around in there.’

‘I saw the scan and it was curled up, scratching its head. The doctor said it was only that big.’

Diane shows her how big, making a two inch gap between thumb and forefinger.

‘I don’t love him,’ says the mother.

‘Your son?’

The lady nods; ‘Isn’t that terrible?

‘Yeah.’

‘I did though. Just not now.’

‘That’s okay,’ says Diane.

‘You don’t have to stay here. You should go home,’ she says, ‘It’s not good for your baby.’

‘Oh. No, well. I left my purse and phone at home. I panicked. I didn’t want my granny to wake up. The ambulance men

were really nice. They kept the sirens off and everything. My granny is asleep. She’ll be up at seven. I’ll find a phone

and she’ll come and get me when she’s up.

‘Oh. My phone has died,’ says the lady, ‘or you could use that.’ She roots in the pockets of the big jacket. Diane can

hear keys and hard things bumping each other, and bits of paper crackling. The lady produces a fifty euro note, and

folds it in half over one finger, as though this might make the gesture more discreet. She passes it to Diane silently, at

hip level, and disappears behind the green plastic curtain. Diane can hear a chair squeak, and wet sighs as she shifts

about.

Diane crouches on her heels and closes her eyes. She cannot go back behind the curtain to where her brother’s face

pulls her blood to watered milk.

There is a rustle as the mother opens a packet of something; crisps or crackers, Diane thinks, or ginger biscuits.

With her knuckles squished into her eyes, Diane sees yellow splotches and the veins in her eyelids like red tubes

winding into dancing shapes. She sees papery wings with bright holes like stars, and the crimson shadows of a fairy

child tumbling about the pink glow of somebody’s heart. She sees her grandfather lift his finger and open his mouth, the

big breath in and the toothless cavern, tongue heavy like a grey oyster: her grandfather about to make his last point.

-----
General considerations about modern Irish authors

We are going to work on several contemporary Irish authors during our course. The main focus will be that of highlighting
their social relevance. Among them, James Joyce is clearly the most important one, and he still is very important for Irish
writers nowadays: even unconsciously, many refer to him in their attitude towards their artistic path, that is somehow
haunted by the memory of Joycean works. Despite that, many authors feel the need to distance their selves from this
heritage for different reasons – none of them being they simply don’t like him. The need to represent the newer modern
Ireland and its society plays a crucial role in this framework, because in the past Ireland has suffered more than other
countries from the association with stereotypes and clichés that don’t tell the whole, complex story of the practicality of
the Irish context – which is absolutely more plural and nuanced, and possibly fascinating, than the way it usually is
depicted.

In the past, the countryside and its people played a relevant role in Irish literature, while contemporary authors are much
more focused on urban settings and stories which deal with cities and, basically, city-life. Another way to depart from
stereotypes and bring a new idea of Ireland and its people is the necessary separation from a Catholic understanding
life. The religious dimension is still there, clearly, but it is possibly questioned: it becomes complex and it is updated.
There is also a completely new attitude towards the use of the Irish Language, which used to be considered quite ironically
in the past.

Irish people have been depicted for ages as crazy, moody, weird, even belligerent, prone to violence – and this is obviously
connected to historical reasons such as what the Irish people perceived as the occupation by a foreign army, occupation
that still goes on in six counties of the northern part of Ireland, which is a component of the United Kingdome (for now,
at least) with particular consequences on the social and cultural habits.

Contemporary authors strongly feel the need and desire to renew our vision of Ireland, but this is not limited to authors:
we have movies, songs, tv series that are actively trying to do the same thing. It is a wide spread phenomenon. To
guarantee a successful outcome of projects and products in this context, translators are fundamental, because they have
to render this new and redeemed image of Ireland to a certain society and culture, in our case the Italian one. Even if the
role of translators is often neglected and disregarded, it is essential and crucial. The very idea and the stereotypes that
we have of Ireland nowadays are partly the product of the attitude adopted by Italian translators in approaching the Irish
texts that we have in our libraries. Frankly speaking, if we had to re-translate the most important books of Irish literature
that have been introduced in our culture, a completely new image of Ireland would emerge. New, younger translators,
with different ideas and references, would probably better grasp in these texts some paths and latent sematic meanings
that possibly Italian translators in the past were not able to see. And this would be true even in another 30 years. The
point of this consideration is that a meaning-making processes can and will be inadvertently but necessarily influenced
by all the information stored in our memory box about a certain topic. Translators strive for objectivity, but there is
always some degree of subjectivity that affects the text. As translators, we have to try to keep individuality and personalism
at bay.

This new Irish literary movement trying to depict Ireland in a new way can be seen as a form of realism, because authors
are making an effort to depict their motherland as they know it and see it, instead of how it had been depicted in the past.
Telling a story in Ireland and about Ireland is a process that will always be affected by an amazingly rich tradition of
storytelling. Social life in pubs was (and to some extent still is) arranged by sitting at a table and talking turns at telling
stories – sometimes they would also sing and play. The insistence on some of the topics or images that characterize these
kinds of social gathering in Ireland is also taken as a stereotype for Irish people. The attitude of speaking quite
rhetorically with a good capability of being captivating is referred to as paddywhackery (paddy = shortened version of
Patrick, often used to depict Irish people abroad), or staged Irishry, of course in a very stereotypical sense. This definition
often fails to depict the complexity and seriousness through which these stories (even the ones that dealt with ordinary
events) were addressed and composed. This is exactly what contemporary authors are trying to highlight. Nowadays, new
Irelands are emerging – and we use the plural because we are referring to a plurality of voices, images, topics, realities,
subjects... Even the female voice of Ireland has recently emerged and is presently in the spotlight, as we have seen with
Elske Rahill.
Pagina 25: [1] Commentato [EG19] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:08:00
Chiede. Non essendoci di fatto nessuno a cui lo chiede, si rivolge al marito, in realtà; forse il vero obiettivo di
questo atto comunicativo è il figlio, che sta ad ascoltare sebbene nel parlare lei quasi non lo consideri, come
se non esistesse. “Asks” quindi poteva essere “si chiede” ma Binelli ha ritenuto più corretto “chiede” senza
tradurre il riflessivo perché sottintende di più l’apertura di questa dinamica nei confronti anto del marito “su
tela” e tanto del figlio
Pagina 25: [2] Commentato [MB20] Maddalena Brentari 15/03/21 17:52:00
Verso sera
Idea che questa cosa accade la sera, italiano, perché la nostra notte (3-4) per loro sarebbe mattino. Molto
spesso per “night” dobbiamo tradurre “sera”. Parliamo di “notte” quando gli inglesi iniziano a scrivere “late
night”.
Pagina 25: [3] Commentato [EG21] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:10:00
“Allargando le braccia”, poteva essere tradotto in altro modo. L’obiettivo di Binelli era di veicolare in italiano
l’immagine stessa, ossia ha trovato una potenza immaginifica, visiva, cioè una capacità delle parole di
scolpire l’immagine, di suscitare nella mente del lettore un’immagine completa, di trasporre attraverso le
parole una proiezione quasi cinematografica di quello che sta accadendo.
Pagina 25: [4] Commentato [EG22] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:11:00
A che serve tutto questo
Una sorta di anafora, quindi guai a perderla; any = tutto perché è un’anafora potenziata
Pagina 25: [5] Commentato [EG23] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:11:00
“dividerlo”
Letteralmente “condividere”. Il problema dell’italiano è che se dici “condividere con qualcuno”, crea una
ridondanza allitterativa del suono “con”, e dal pov estetico per Binelli non si può tollerare, rendendo quindi
necessario di cambiare qualcosa. Un’altra modalità di traduzione poteva essere “assieme al quale
condividerlo”, ma era estremamente lungo quindi non per forza preferibile e legittimo.
Pagina 25: [6] Commentato [EG24] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:13:00
piange.
Non gli piaceva caratterizzarla come un gattino, non è un piagnucolio ma un pianto; questo donnone
secondo Binelli non piagnucola, non è questa la connotazione che si sente.
Pagina 25: [7] Commentato [EG25] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:13:00
Bulbous nella percezione di un madrelingua veicola l’idea di forma ma anche di un qualcosa che è cresciuto
(bulb flower).
Da Oxford Dictionary: having the shape of a bulb; round and fat in an ugly way; swollen; a bulbous red nose.
Questa mamma ha in mano un correlato oggettivo che è un bicchierone gonfio; è chiaro che l’ambiente parla
dei personaggi, nella stragrande maggioranza della letteratura.
Pagina 25: [8] Commentato [MB26] Maddalena Brentari 15/03/21 18:09:00
Correlativo oggettivo.
Nella caratterizzazione della mamma, concorrono il fatto che beve brandy da un bicchiere bello grosso, e la
signora in questo è simile al papà joyciano (“la mamma ryaniana trinca, dà giù di cognacchino” cito perché
stavo morendo), e forse la generosità di bevuta è in qualche modo collegata, se non in una relazione di
causalità diretta, con quel “monstrous lap”. La mamma è in carne, forse anche perché le piace il brandy, o
forse le piace il brandy perché è un modo di consolare il fatto che è in carne.
Pagina 25: [9] Commentato [EG27] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:13:00
Bicchierone: a lui premeva far vedere che questo bicchiere è grosso così come è grossa lei. Ha messo un -
one, suffisso che dà la misura, e aggiunto stracolmo. Stracolmo perché se ne esce vuol dire che è pieno, e
l’idea di bulbous glass che vuole dare l’autore è l’idea che questa tracanna “in assoluta libertà godereccia”.
Dire “bicchiere a forma di bulbo, di lampadina” erano tutte traduzioni che in italiano suonavano ridicole,
mentre in inglese sarebbe bello e non ridicolo.
A volte la traduzione del senso ti obbliga a delle soluzioni brutte esteticamente, e bisogna accettarle perché
quel senso è indispensabile, qua il senso lo veicoliamo in modo diverso anche se
questo vuol dire esplicitare quello che era implicito nell’originale; chiaramente le referenti denotative si
perdono, ma tutelandone la forma estetica ragionamento compensativo che i traduttori si trovano spesso a
fare.
Pagina 25: [10] Commentato [MB28] Maddalena Brentari 15/03/21 18:04:00
enorme/mostruoso/massiccio/possente grembo.
Monstrous: da oxford dictionary, “1. considered to be shocking and unacceptable because it is morally wrong
or unfair; SYNONYM outrageous; a monstrous lie/injustice; 2. very large; SYNONYM gigantic; a
monstrous wave”

È importante capire che sfumatura dare; the focus is on the idea of being very great, excessive, e dovremo
tradurre di conseguenza. Grande, enorme, mostruoso, o altri termini che si collocano con un focus sulle
dimensioni, ma con un implicito connotato che fa l’occhiolino anche all’idea di anormalità, di mostruosità

Monstrous quindi sarebbe massiccio e potente? In questo caso no, perché parliamo di una donna e
“massiccio e potente è Zlatan Ibrahimovic, mica una donna. Massiccio e potente è Kobe Bryant, povera
creatura, sono i campioni dell’NBA, Federica Pellegrini è massiccia e possente ed è bellissima quella
ragazza, no? ma la figura di mamma tendenzialmente non è massiccia e possente” (cit).
Monstrous lap grembo enorme. Abnorme sarebbe un’altra opzione.
“Grembo” tira in ballo anche la questione della maternità

Pagina 25: [11] Commentato [EG29] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:14:00

In inglese lo spazio e il tempo vanno o a inizio frase o alla fine, soprattutto nell’inglese accademico; in
italiano in qualunque punto della frase. Questo vuol dire che se nel testo originale la posizione di “above the
fireplace” è vincolata, con la prassi stilistica inglese, non lo è in italiano. Ad esempio Binelli l’ha spostato
all’inizio (“sopra il caminetto del soggiorno”). Hangs vuol dire essere appeso, e fondamentalmente comunica
al lettore che stiamo parlando di un ritratto, di un quadretto. Hang, stand, sono verbi che molto spesso in
italiano in un testo letterario non traduciamo letteralmente, perché ci concentriamo su quello che è
importante (stare, trovarsi). In questo caso hangs è un verbo che non ha un equivalente in italiano: noi
quando parliamo di quadri non diciamo “stavo guardando il quadro appeso nella stanza”, è un’informazione
che aggiungeremmo. In questo caso appunto per questo motivo ci concentriamo invece su apologetically,
che ci dice tutto sul tipo di relazione che ci doveva essere tra questi due. “Sembra chiederle scusa”: un
uomo sottomesso, soggiogato alla personalità forte, che è quella femminile, che anche se lui è morto
continua a rivolgersi a lui quasi incolpandolo di averla lasciata sola.
Pagina 25: [12] Commentato [EG30] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:15:00
(con severità nella traduzione di Binelli) può essere svolto privilegiando altri aspetti di contenuto, abbiamo
una relativa libertà nello svilupparlo in altre direzioni.
Pagina 25: [13] Commentato [EG31] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:15:00
Ti ho fatto da infermiera. Poteva essere anche ti ho curato, ti ho accudito, ti ho badato, e altre perfettamente
funzionanti.
Pagina 25: [14] Commentato [EG32] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:14:00
Mio padre, quello in olio su tela. Elemento ironico dell’originale che deve essere riprodotto nella traduzione. Il
ritratto deve far sorridere, il padre viene presentato come il classico marito debole, sottomesso, tutto
sommato fragile.
Eyes: in inglese è molto più spesso usato come metonimia di “sguardo” che non come denotativo di “occhi”.
Pagina 25: [15] Commentato [MB33] Maddalena Brentari 15/03/21 17:52:00
Cornice scrostata, ammuffita, consunta
Tradotto così perché gli sembrava abbastanza il caso di sottolineare che non versa in buone condizioni. Non
è un dettaglio irrilevante: il padre se ne sta in una cornice rovinata, a sottolineare ancora qualcosa sulla
moglie, cioè il fatto che anche se si lamenta di quanto le manchi Augustine, comunque di dargli una cornice
nuova non ha voglia.
Pagina 25: [16] Commentato [EG34] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:16:00
potenza immaginifica, di costruire le immagini e presentarle davanti al lettore. Qua vale la pena di fare uno
sforzo in questo senso, di immaginarsi anche in italiano questa immagine. Lei fa roteare gli occhi verso di
me.
Pagina 25: [17] Commentato [EG35] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:17:00
Dilute è pertinente con il livello lessicale figurativo, con la linea di significato, di coerenza semantica di
liquidità (bulbous, slop), che è da mantenere dove possibile. In italiano, quindi, andrebbe bene liquidare la
discussione, o cose del genere. Lui ha usato smorzare, perdendo però così la liquidità.
Pagina 25: [18] Commentato [MB39] Maddalena Brentari 15/03/21 17:54:00
Polisindeto = a long sentence with lots of conjuctions.
È un caso di “sintassi valanga”, una struttura molto presente nella letteratura irlandese, con congiunzioni che
legano frasi principali. Bisogna accertarsi che questa costruzione, per stare in piedi, abbia un suo ritmo. Il
testo diventa ridondante. L’insistenza nella traduzione è sostituita da una serie di ausiliari. Un altro modo
sarebbe quello di tenere le congiunzioni e togliere gli ausiliari. Con i gerundivi e il sottinteso ausiliare si
ottiene un’altra forma di sintassi, anche questa corrispondente.
Pagina 28: [19] Commentato [EG47] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:22:00
“Contai cinquanta banconote da venti sopra una mano piena di calli e mi sentii ringraziare in irlandese.
Frugai invano nella memoria in cerca delle parole per dire prego.”
The second level of irony is more complex and more subtle, and that is the clause “I doled fifty twenties
(which means 1000 €) and was thanked in Irish”. The use of the Irish language, which in the traditional
understanding of what is culture is associated with rain, the catholic religion and the identity of the Irish
people (which is particularly important in the Irish culture because they went through a colonization process
that lasted hundreds of years, and part of the country is still controversially contended).

How to keep this irony? It is not easy. Of course, you don’t have to translate Irish with “Gaelico”, or perhaps if
you do, you should make it sound like Gaelico ma nel senso linguistico ma non solo, anche culturale, molto
complessa come cosa. The tendency in this case is to not just add one word, but to add something that
explains the symbolic, the cultural and political value of the use of Irish in this case.
Quindi lui nemmeno si ricorda come si dice prego, in irlandese. La sua lingua, quella di cui gli irlandesi sono
orgogliosissimi perché non è quella inglese, manco se la ricorda (e parliamo di prego, una parola semplice).
Binelli nella sua traduzione ha provato a tenere un livello ironico ma “non sa quanto ci sia riuscito”.

Molto del significato, per una platea italiana, è perso; il senso ultimo di questo passaggio lo potrebbe
esprimere soltanto una nota a piè di pagina, che però non possiamo mettere perché le case editrici non
vogliono (nella narrativa commerciale sono viste come il fumo negli occhi, sono una specie di disturbo e
quindi è meglio evitarle soprattutto in casi come questo, in cui c’è un elemento culturale che coglierà solo
qualcuno che ha una qualche dimestichezza con la cultura). Se fosse stato veramente indispensabile (e non
lo è, è semplicemente ironia), avremmo potuto aggiungere qualcosa.
Pagina 28: [20] Commentato [EG48] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:25:00
Nella sua traduzione Binelli ha cambiato la sintassi della frase; in linguistic we say that in the original,
bladder is in a “strong” position; la posizione forte è l’inizio o la fine di un periodo. Perdere la posizione forte,
per vescica, Binelli non sa se sia stata effettivamente una buona idea; lo è dal pov del ritmo, gli piace
arrivare con l’immagine della vescica alla fine perché è comunque una posizione forte. Non lo rinnega del
tutto, ma l’inizio del paragrafo forse meritava una migliore tutela e forse la frase avrebbe dovuto
opportunamente iniziare con “la vescica di mamma”. Tra l’altro: non è più “mia madre” come all’inizio, ma è
“mamma”: in inglese non c’è questa differenza, l’ha aggiunta Binelli perché gli è sembrato un passaggio così
scritti diversamente, stilisticamente, quasi da un altro autore, che ha cercato di tutelare quelle differenze,
segnalarle al lettore.

Mentre mamma saliva le scale, quella sera, le cedette la vescica.

Il “le cedette” letteralmente sarebbe più un “allentò”, “cedette” va bene, sembra quasi la descrizione di una
resa, di una persona molto orgogliosa e che sta calando qui tutte le sue carte, e inoltre “cedere” è anche in
isotopia, ossia in coerenza semantica, con quell’“all of her was leaking” che di nuovo vuole tradurre
mantenendo la liquidità ben visibile, caratterizzando questo paragrafo come molto liquido di modo che poi
nello stile, nel senso dell’esperienza di lettura questa liquidità verrà cognitivamente a caratterizzare tale
esperienza di lettura, anche se non necessariamente in un modo di cui sarà consapevole il lettore. Questo
“le cedette la vescica” gli sembrava preparare meglio il terreno alla traduzione del passaggio “faceva acqua
da tutte le parti”. Questo sembra quasi dire “sgocciola”, ma anche “essere alla frutta, starsi arrendendo”.
Pagina 28: [21] Commentato [EG49] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:26:00
caparbiamente indifferente
Traduce con questi due termini il personaggio in generale, non solo il “deliberate oblivion”, che gli sembra
essere il risultato ultimo di tutte le scelte linguistiche di Ryan in tutto il testo. La caratterizzazione del
personaggio gli sembra proprio quella di un personaggio in deliberate oblivion of a lot of things. She is totally
characterized as a woman in deliberate oblivion of what’s around her, of her son, of her good friends, of
asylum seekers, almost everything around her. Sembra proprio quasi testardamente, coriaceamente
intenzionata a non considerare, a non guardare, a non vedere, ciò che la circonda. “in deliberate oblivion” è
una costruzione nominale (preposizione, aggettivo, sostantivo) che ha reso con un “caparbiamente
indifferente” che invece è una costruzione aggettivale (avverbio modifier, aggettivo). Un “ostinatamente” o
“intenzionalmente” (o “con intenzionale indifferenza” ma l’allitterazione iniziale in “in” è pesante) al posto del
“caparbiamente” sarebbe comunque andato bene. C’è anche la parola “dimentica” usata come aggettivo,
che sarebbe andata bene, ma è linguaggio quasi “troppo” alto. È un passaggio aulico, con un linguaggio alto
che vogliamo segnalare, per carità, ma forse non così tanto. “Dimentico” è tipico del linguaggio letterario, nel
parlato non si sente molto.
Pagina 29: [22] Commentato [EG58] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:23:00
That is the kind of relational dynamic which keeps Evelyn tied to a certain place, bound to it. That’s the very
parallelism that we can observe with the original story.
She doesn’t want her son to go away, although this grown-up man should go (like Eveline, in Joyce’s story)
and seems to be able to go, to drive away, to step out of his home and to “cut the umbilical cord” with his
mother and to follow the path towards his own emancipation. At the end of the paragraph, in fact, he goes “I
almost believed her”. He doesn’t believe his mother, he understands that this is only a suffocating sense of
possession that doesn’t provide anything to his mother, and in a certain way prevents him from becoming
what he wants to become in his life.

If we are asked “what kind of language is implied in this paragraph”, would we find this language similar to
that of the rest of the short story, or are there differences that we can spot?
Nel passaggio precedente abbiamo visto inizialmente un linguaggio quasi poliziesco, divertente, con una sua
funzione all’interno dell’economia narrativa, ovviamente di ironia di un soggetto molto timido, dolce, quasi
uno “sfigato per eccellenza”, che si immagina l’andare a Galway quasi come un passaggio da romanzo hard
boiled, ed è il tipo di lingua appunto, oltre alle immagini, che ci comunica questo. Anche qua di nuovo la
lingua è adoperata in un modo che ci dice qualcosa:
- ritorno alla liquidità iniziale, ci sono molte cose che fanno ritornare in mente la liquidità;
- a livello di lessico, di vocabolario, la short story non è omogenea (non ogni paragrafo ha lo stesso registro
lessicale); questo paragrafo e il successivo, ad esempio, secondo Binelli sembrano scritti da autori diversi.
Nel successivo c’è un lessico molto più spesso, demotico, un registro molto colloquiale. In questo passaggio,
quasi a volerne segnalare l’importanza narrativa soprattutto da un’ottica psicologica di caratterizzazione dei
personaggi, il lessico è molto più complesso, raffinato, sottile, polisemantico ( = it triggers more than one
meaning), e dunque è possibile che abbia delle velleità simboliche.
The symbolic value that Binelli suggests taking into consideration in providing this passage with an overall
symbolic sense is probably the psychological one. There is a psychological frame by means which you can
possibly associate the very denotative level, the one that anyone can pick up, even a child, and the more
subtle, connotative and even symbolic level, which is absolutely related to a psychological domain, including
the isotopy of liquidity which we know is relating and strongly so to psychology. Language is the element of
water. Back in the early 20th century, when women had different kind of problems, they were told by
psychologists to look at water flowing by. There is an archetypal association between women and liquidity,
particularly focused on blood; this archetype is rather present in most cultures.
The mother has a problem with her bladder, e la sua pipì diventa haughty, cattiva. Lascia un segno, descritto
come “acrid trail of thin wetness”; è una rielaborazione quasi poetica, raffinata, complessa, e dunque da
rendere con particolare attenzione, con particolare premura. Anche la collocazione “deliberate oblivion” non
è un “couldn’t care less”, non è neanche un “inadvertently”, potrebbero starci alcune formulazioni, comunque
di registro alto ma non così quasi poetico, di fatto esplicativo di una condizione psicologica complessa e
probabilmente simbolica quale quella che stiamo analizzando.
This is kind of metaliterature: what we have is a message in the message of the author for us. This is in a
way a quite typical post-modern attitude of having a frame within a frame, which is also another way to
provide you with hints, signs and suggestions. This is important: the very character tells us that there is a
message (What message was there for me in that haughty pissing?). This becomes even more important
towards the end of the paragraph, where he says, “I almost believed her”, which is a litotes for “I didn’t
believe her”.

Pagina 29: [23] Commentato [EG59] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:29:00

“quasi quasi le credetti” andava bene anche come “ci mancava poco che le credessi”, o “per poco non le
credetti” o “fui sul punto di crederle”. L’importante è che ci sia un andamento litotico, la negazione del
credere, ma non ovviamente il “non credere”.

Pagina 29: [24] Commentato [EG60] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:30:00

La similitudine tra la donna di cui lui (non a caso) si innamora, e sua madre, l’abbiamo già osservate, è
estremamente significativa, e qua viene fuori. Fanno benzina, Hope viene guardata male in quanto ragazza
di colore.
Nemmeno il cottage piace a Hope.
Pagina 29: [25] Commentato [EG62] Ester Girardi 17/03/21 15:30:00
“Cos’è? Un rifugio”. Michelle metterebbe proprio “baracca”, sprezzante: Binelli ha commentato con
compassione ridacchiando “carina…” e ha proceduto a spiegare che non è sicuro sia lei a dirlo, perché
quando lei si gira e lo penetra con lo sguardo, sembra quasi farlo perché lui ha risposto “rifugio” con umiltà.

Pagina 30: [26] Commentato [MB64] Maddalena Brentari 15/03/21 18:31:00

il dovere che lasciavo incompiuto, incompleto (con un sottotesto erotico dell’incompletezza). “Venendo
meno” ha valenze morali, ma in questo caso funziona. Possiamo anche usare un gerundio (stavo
lasciando…).
NB: “Stare” come ausiliare è odiato dalle redazioni, è visto come uno spagnolismo, un dialettalismo, ed è
spesso tagliato.

Questo passaggio c’è, esattamente così, nella versione di Joyce. Come ci comportiamo in questo caso?
Nella traduzione degli intertexts, soprattutto nel caso di uno importante e celebre come questo? We can
decide to behave in two ways:
- the most important outcome of yours has to be to enable the readers to realize that this is a Joycean
reference, echo. To do so, we can keep the most important Italian translation of that text. It is called
“principium auctoritas”.
- the translation may be faulty, and that can happen (we refer to texts that we don’t particularly like,
translations that we don’t appreciate), and in that case we can translate with our own words, but we shouldn’t
depart too much from the original translation if we really want our readers to realize that there is a quote, so
we give a hint to the reference. Joyce should somehow be called in reference anyway.
La traduzione nostra qui sarà “Pensai a mia madre e al dovere che avevo lasciato indietro, incompiuto”.
“Indietro, incompiuto”: per vari motivi, al di là del senso e delle parole, prendiamo un attimo in
considerazione il tense: “I was leaving undone” è una cosa fatta in quel momento, è un progressive, mentre
la traduzione “avevo lasciato” fa più pensare che lui ha già preso la scelta di lasciare indietro, quindi questa
è una traduzione molto rischiosa. A Binelli non piace tanto usare la forma “stare+gerundio”, però forse in
questo caso questa traduzione avrebbe avuto un senso non banale.
Pagina 30: [27] Commentato [MB66] Maddalena Brentari 15/03/21 18:35:00
A frame is a specific discourse of reality with its own script, lexicon, and we have to be familiar with
it in order to talk about it. It is our duty to recognize that frame and make it evident so that th reader
can recognize and appreciate it. “Path”, here, symbolises a strong, religious, moral feeling, as well as
Eveline’s duty (that is subjective).
Sentiero non funziona. Cammino è più accurato, è già più religioso. Via e strada sono più generali.
Traiettoria è troppo specifico. Anche corso è molto laico, se non filosofico, fisico, rinascimentale. Percorso ha
moltissime valenze, psicologica, di guarigione. Viaggio, va bene.
Qui bisogna tradurre il senso, non la metafora.
Pagina 30: [28] Commentato [MB67] Maddalena Brentari 15/03/21 18:53:00
Torniamo all’immagine della liquidità: abbiamo ancora il drink e la caduta, anche in senso più religioso. Tutti i
termini che veicolano la liquidità vanno mantenuti tali. Nell’originale la liquidità si esprime con il mare: l’uomo
che ama improvvisamente diventa quello che la sta per affogare.
La traduzione deve andare di pari passo con questa immagine di panico: il desiderio di emancipazione e di
libertà rischia di affogare in queste debolezze. L’immagine torna nel rimorso di Ev. aver abbandonato la
madre. Questo è il frame del senso di colpa. Prima di partire con Hope ripensa alla madre e la immagina
affogata, senza di lui (ecco il ricatto morale).