Uma leitura tradutória de “A family supper”, de Kazuo Ishiguro

Abstract

The present work consists in the analysis of the translation and the retranslation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s A Family Supper (1995) in the light of the theories of Descriptive Translation Studies. Ishiguro's tale addresses an amount of family issues that stem from the breakdown of cultural patterns of behavior due to the actions - and their consequences - of the characters and their plot in the East Asian context. In a veiled form, the text indicates the possible consequences of the domestic tensions after death and the trauma experienced by the characters who recall events through flashbacks throughout the text. The translation process in A Family Supper will be analyzed on two levels: the systemic and the linguistic. Regarding the systemic level, the theory which will guide this analysis is the theory of the polysystems of Itamar Even-Zohar, although it has been dialogued with other theorists who also have established their macro-structural postulates such as Susan Bassnett, Hendrik Van Gorp and Jose Lambert. In relation to the linguistic level, the present research corroborates the analysis the work of Antoine Berman, Lawrence Venutti and Rafael Lanzetti, which focus on more pragmatic and structural aspects of the translation processes. It is an interest of this work to verify the maintenance of the cultural aspects and traces of the uncanny and the memory - which often are in its subtext - in the translation into the Brazilian Portuguese language in its two versions: in the first translation published in the year of 1995 by Professor Brunilda Reichmann and the retranslation of the story, proposed by the researcher of this work.