Translation of Bird Literature: A Translation Study Focusing on the Translation of Attributive Adjectives and Bird Terminology

Abstract: This study investigates how best to solve difficulties that may arise when translating bird literature from English into Swedish. The focus of the study lies on the translation of attributive adjectives and bird terminology. The text chosen for the translation, which serves as the basis for the analysis, is the section on general habits of the Turdidae-family in the comprehensive work Handbook of the Birds of the World. Translation theory that proved helpful in the translation process and in the subsequent analysis was primarily that of Vinay and Darbelnet (1995, 2004), Nida (1964a) and Newmark (1981). In most cases a literal translation could be perfonned, both in regard to attributive adjectives and bird tenninology, however, in some cases other translation procedures, such as transposition and equivalence, proved useful. Attributive adjectives that could not be translated literally, or that were preferred not to be translated literally, were translated through the use of transposition, into for instance: compound nouns, prepositional phrases, relative clauses and that-clauses. Bird terminology for which no suitable corresponding terminology could be found in the target language, was translated non-literally through the use of equivalence, into structures maintaining the equivalent semantic meaning in a natural way.