Stylistic Approaches to Translation: an Overview

Abstract

As argued by Jean Boase-Beier (2006; 2011), who realized the first systematic studies on stylistic approaches to translation, Stylistics has had a relatively small role in translation theory. Yet, the study of style is one of the main linguistic tools scholars of Translation Studies are given to understand the “textual-conceptual functions” (Jeffries 2014) and to be able to recognize them in translation. That is, to be able to analyse (and explain) how linguistic resources are used to produce meanings and how these meanings are recontextualized through translation. Drawing on these premises, the article aims at presenting an overview on stylistic approaches to translation. In particular it aims at exploring the origins of the interaction between Stylistics and Translation Studies and looking at its current developments. In this perspective, narrowing the focus from a general introduction to Stylistics to the application of the stylistic framework to literary translation, the article highlights the necessity to reach a more organic synergy between Stylistics and Translation, the latter intended as both a theoretical discipline and a professional practice.  Finally, a comparative linguistic analysis of textual excerpts taken from Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s novel Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun (2016) and from its Italian translation, Storie della mia città (2020), offers an insight on the interaction between Stylistics and translation, showing how their synergy can be used to unveil the social and political implications that sometimes are concealed in, or disguised through, the creation of a fictional world.