Rivista internazionale di tecnica della traduzione n.24 - 2022

Exploring language simplification and intralingual translation: insights, results and desiderata. Rivista Internazionale di Tecnica della Traduzione (RITT) The Rivista Internazionale di Tecnica della Traduzione – International Journal of Translation of the IUSLIT Department and Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori, University of Trieste aims at providing a forum of discussion for the multifaceted activity of translation and related issues.

The paper is devoted to an analysis of the Italian and English titles of Georges Simenon’s Maigret novels. As will be seen, the translated titles exhibit the typical features of title translation in that they are the result of either literal/quasi- literal translation (preservation of the semantic content of the source title, occasionally with minor modifications) or new creation (radical change of the semantic content). Particularly significant is the role played by retranslation: the 75 novels have been published under no fewer than 146 Italian titles and 168 English titles.

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the two main trends that have recently developed in the field of translation from Dutch into Italian. The first is that Dutch-language literature in Italy is flourishing in an unprecedented fashion, and the second is that since the 2010s there has been an increasing tendency to (re)discover certain authors considered ‘classics’ that have been included in the Canon of Dutch-language literature. On the basis of both quantitative and qualitative data, an attempt will be made to analyse the work of all agents which have revived titles and authors unfairly neglected.

The article deals with the lexicalisation preferences in German and Italian verbs referring to the modification of an object. It examines in more detail the subclass of drying and cleaning events. Based on the work by Talmy, by the Copenhagen TYPOlex group and by the IMAGACT ontology, an online survey was conducted involving 30 Italian- and 30 German-speaking subjects. They were shown nine short video scenes and animations in which a person was seen cleaning and drying various objects in different ways, and were asked to verbalise this event in a simple sentence. The data obtained prove that German prefers verbs that contain the manner component, while Italian prefers general verbs with the result component. In German, a higher variation in the choice of verbs as well as a stronger bundling of semantic features could also be observed.

This study concerns first language attrition among Greek immigrants in Germany, focusing in particular on the results of two German proficiency tests: a reading comprehension and a cloze test. The data collection took place both in loco, in the cities of Munich, Nuremberg and Augsburg, and during online interviews. The 66 participants of the study (41 female and 25 male participants) were selected based on the age at emigration (mean: 26.18 years; SD: 7.76), length of residence in Germany (mean: 16.23 years; SD: 9.7) and age (mean: 42.41; SD: 9.5). First of all, some data about the participants’ social background, education, L1 and L2 use and exposure will be presented. Then we will discuss the results of the German proficiency tests both with a quantitative approach and by focusing on errors and error categories in the cloze test. Finally, we will present some examples of mistakes made by the participants and draw some conclusions using a qualitative approach.