Giving the past a voice: Oral History on Romanian Communism in Translation

The aim of this thesis is to develop a theoretical framework that could account for the problems arising in the translation of oral history interviews. While focusing on literary, economic and technical texts, Translation Studies has neglected the examination of Oral History. In order to fill in this major lacuna in the research literature, I ask two fundamental questions: Which are the linguistic problems and challenges (if any) of such texts in translation? How do these translated oral history interviews articulate the communist experience? I do so to call attention to the mutual benefits that can be gained from such an intersectional approach. To instantiate the case, I translate from Romanian into English transcribed interviews given by three categories of people: those involved in the anti-communist armed resistance in the Carpathian Mountains (extracted from the book Memorialul Durerii: Întuneric şi Lumină, by Lucia Hossu-Longin), political prisoners (Supravieţuitorii: Mărturii din temniţele comuniste ale României, by Raul and Anca Ştef) and King Michael I of Romania (Convorbiri cu Mihai I al României, by Mircea Ciobanu). Importing Portelli’s theoretical framework from the field of Oral History allows me to identify the features of historical interviews (orality, narrative, subjectivity, performativity) and account for their difficulties in translation. However, since the Italian researcher negates the orality of transcribed interviews, I manage to solve this problem by proposing the term ‘fictive orality’ (Koch&Osterreicher) and the triad ‘vividness (repetitions/imagery), immediacy (direct speech), fragmentation (ambiguity/ellipsis)’. Defining thus the orality of my written data, I map out the translational problematics of oral testimonies on communism and contend that fragmentation presents the most difficult challenges in translation. Additionally, my results point at the copious use of repetitions, visual/kinaesthetic/organic images, and direct speech. The findings also confirm the effectiveness of a literal translation given the emphatic role acquired by the linguistic strategies previously mentioned. Conclusively, recommendations are made for proximity to the source text as the translational processs assumes the form of a ‘dialogue’ that the translator has to establish with the original, so that he/she could hear all the participants talking. Hence, I rely on foreignization as an over-arching method, demonstrating its compatibility with Oral History on communism. On the one hand, this strategy captures the cognitive and emotive dimensions of the interviewees’ language of suffering and trauma. On the other hand, it preserves the foreignness of the original, by bringing into focus the distinctively Romanian communist experiences.Doctorat en Langues, lettres et traductologie