The Poor Mouth Analysis

The aim of this paper is to analyze the translation of The Poor Mouth written by Flann O’Brien and published under the pseudonym Myles na gCopaleen. The presented translation sample contains four chapters in total – in English and Croatian. We are in this paper focusing on Croatian translation sample and its literary quality, specific difficulties related to translation, morphology, syntax and word order, as well as interpretation itself. However, the content (and language structure) analysis will not be the only method used – we are also using comparative analysis as a steady method when comparing corpus written in two different languages. Moreover, what is also necessary for this paper is understanding of the cultural context and discourse

We can notice an improvement in style, spelling, punctuation, syntax, word order and vocabulary choice in the second part where translator shows a complete creative command of his or her mother tongue. This is not applicable to the first part of the sample where translator, even though trying to keep the style of the original text, is still not resolving certain choice of vocabulary or word order adequately. Not choosing an adequate word order brings difficulties to a reader and therefore a lack of interest for a written text. Some of the errors that can be found in the text are: sa običnom stokom/with the brute beasts, as form sa is used only when preceding a palatal č, ć, dž, đ, j, lj, nj, š, ž; mater or majka/mother, where mater is used as a dialectal and informal expression, especially in Chakavian dialect which is spoken in majority of the Croatian coast and islands. The translator has not followed the initially chosen word, but has used different synonyms in different places in the text instead. The English correspondence is mother. Furthermore, the adverb međutim or copulas as a, ali, nego, već which are characteristic for adversative sentences should always be divided by a comma. Nevertheless, copulas i (and) or pa (so, and, then) should not be divided by a comma, unless we use them as one of two or more statements in a row. Word Zemlja/Earth (originally written as world) was incorrectly written with a small capital letter at the beginning. Although these given examples do not give a different meaning to a sentence and the writer’s core