Lysistrata in Dialect of South Bahia and in the Dialect of Pernambuco

Abstract

This study presents the translation of the Aristophanes’s play Lysistrata to the Brazilian dialects of South Bahia and Pernambuco (Recife). Both dialects in the translation aim to reproduce the diatopic linguistic variation present in the original text. The idea for the study emerged from the finding that we need translations which take into account Brazilian Portuguese, spoken by the majority of the population in the various contexts of social interaction. In the translation, consideration has been given to the speaking situations, the social status of characters in the play, the subjects and the communicative purposes of the wordings. Based on a strong theoretical background, the author conceives translation as linguistic recreation. Therefore, he tries to recreate the play in question, reproducing the linguistic diversity and the style of Aristophanes’s text. On top of that, the theoretical and methodological choices of the study aim not only to overcome the challenges of translation as a linguistic recreation but also to make easier the staging of the play in a fluent language with which spectator can identify himself, enjoying the text to the maximum. The translation is accompanied by an introductory study with the description of the dialects of South Bahia and Pernambuco, commentaries and explicative notes placed in the footnotes.