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1. Introduction

This diploma thesis deals with interjections in literary translation. It compares the use

of interjections in original English texts, in their translation and in original Czech texts. This

theme was chosen because though interjections are quite important means of expression no

attention is paid to them in linguistic or translation theory literature. And also because I was

interested in what happens with interjections in the process of translation.

The thesis is conceived as a corpus study because in this type of study the use of interjections

in the texts and translators´ attitude to translation interjections can be manifested with the greatest

clarity. For the purpose of the thesis I have chosen four English texts and their translations from

the Kacenka corpus and found four original Czech texts for comparison. Kacenka (Korpus

anglicko-cesky – elektronicky nastroj Katedry anglistiky) is a parallel corpus that was created at

the Department of English and American Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno

(www.phil.muni.cz/angl/kacenka2/). This corpus contains mainly literary texts in English and

their Czech translations.

In this thesis I hope to show differences or correspondences in the use of interjections in

English and Czech texts, determine what the difference is and why it is there. I would also like to

point out the difference and correspondence between the translators´ attitude to translation of

interjections and their translating strategies and connection of these translating strategies to the

Czech use of interjections. I want to find out whether there is any difference in both languages in

expressing various emotions by an interjection, for example whether joy is expressed by an

interjection more often in English than in Czech. This is explored in the second part of the study.

The first part of the study is more theoretical. In this part the secondary literature, mainly

linguistic, from which the information on interjections was derived, is introduced and evaluated

and the methodology of the corpus study is described and clarified. Also the information on

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interjections gained from the secondary literature is given and classification that was adopted

from the secondary literature and used in this thesis is introduced and explained.

The second part of the study is the corpus study itself. To the English texts and their

translations that were chosen from the Kacenka corpus Czech texts are added to form four triplets

in which the interjections are looked up, classified and compared. Each triplet has its own chapter,

where the tables with the occurrences and emotions expressed are given and analysis of the

specific features of that particular text is offered.

In the final section of the thesis the corpus study is reviewed from a more general point of

view. In this section I try to determine the differences between the use of interjections in Czech

and English and attempt to explain why there are differences. Here I also summarize the

translators’ attitudes to translation of interjections and their translating strategies. In the

concluding part of this section all the findings will be summarized and evaluated.

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1.1 Secondary Literature

Secondary literature was mainly used to get information about interjections, and also to create

a list, a corpus, of interjections that were looked up in the primary literature.

The most important and most comprehensive information on interjection in the Czech language

can be found in works of Františel Trávníček. Trávníček (1888-1960) was a professor at the

Masaryk University; his field was linguistics and Czech studies. His Neslovesné věty v češtině, díl

1. Věty interjekční, published in 1930, are a basis of the other authors´ writing on interjections and

to the authors of grammars. He introduces a classification of interjections, a division to several

groups; he explains the origins of those words that became interjections by a change (loss) of

meaning. In his 1958 publication Nauka o slovní zásobě he discusses the communicative values

and meaning of interjections in the sentence.

Bohuslav Havránek in his 1981 Česká mluvnice sums up Trávníček´s findings, takes the most

important information about the interjections from him and briefly defines what is an interjection.

Miroslav Grepl and Petr Karlík in their Skladba spisovné češtiny, published in 1986, discuss the

interjectional, vocative and exclamatory sentences and the similarities between

a vocative and an interjection and the process by which a noun becomes an interjection.

Two parallel diploma theses from the Faculty of Arts, Russian Studies Department, written in

1987 by Zdeňka Uhrová - Slovesa a citoslovce vyjadřující zvuky jejichž původcem je člověk - and

Dana Kamenická - Slovesa a citoslovce vyjadřující zvuky, jejichž původcem je zvíře, popř.

neživotná substance - give some information on the interjections, mostly derived from

Trávníček´s works, and a basic list of interjections produced by humans and by animals or

inanimate subjects.

Information on the interjections in English can be found in many grammars but the most

exhaustive is, in my opinion, in Curme´s A Grammar of the English Language. More specifically,

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in volume 2, Parts of Speech and Accidence, general definition of an interjection is given, and in

volume 3, Syntax, more specific information is offered on an interjection and its position in the

sentence.

Vladimir. Z. Jovanovic, a Serbian scholar, gives more precise information about English

interjections and also offers an extensive list of them. He discussed the meaning, position and

usage of interjections. His article, “The Form, Position and Meaning of the Interjections in

English”, was published in 2004 in Linguistics and Literature.

Jiří Zbořil´s minor thesis from 1998, (Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of

Arts, Brno), Translation of Interjections, is a predecessor of this thesis; it served as an inspiration

and offered some methodological solutions.

From the popular Internet encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, information on interjections, on the novels

and on the authors of the novels was derived. The information it gives is brief and reliable.

Besides these texts a number of dictionaries was used, apart from Oxford Advanced Learner’s

Dictionary and Anglicko-český, česko-anglický slovník edited by SPN, I consulted online

dictionaries; those were Slovník Seznam, which offers only basic translations of interjections, and

OneLook Dictionary which provide reference to the other online dictionaries, like Cambridge

Dictionary (dictionary.cambridge.com). Another online dictionary that was consulted is Merriam-

Webster Dictionary (www.m-w.com). For inspiration and for interjections of a very recent origin

(sometimes even with the author of the coinage) I looked in the Rap Dictionary

(www.rapdict.org/Category:Interjections).

The primary literature, the novels that were studied - Lucky Jim, Šťastný Jim, Muži v offsidu,

The Cool World, Prezydent Krokadýlů, Hovno hoří, The Confederacy of Dunces, Spolčení hlupců,

Černí baroni, The Jungle Book, Knihy džunglí and Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce - are introduced

at the beginning of each chapter.

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I.2 An Interjection

Interjection literally means “thrown in between” from Latin “inter” (between) and “iacere”

(throw). As a part of speech it belongs to the independent elements - words, phrases or clauses

without any grammatical relation to the other parts of the sentence (Curme II 104). An interjection

is defined as “an outcry to express pain, surprise, anger, pleasure or some other emotion […]

interjections belong to the oldest forms of speech and represent the most primitive type of

sentence” (Curme II 105). “Interjections are generally uninflected function words and have

sometimes been seen as sentence-words, since they can replace or be replaced by a whole

sentence (they are holophrastic)” (Wikipedia). Linguist consider them as phonemic clusters

without any meaning which convey various messages. These messages are no longer ideas or

thoughts but rather emotions, feelings and attitudes. Because of their expressiveness and

simplicity they might have been the first utterances and words used by humans (Jovanovič 18).

They are still useful because of “need for varied expression” (Curme 8). If they were of no use

they would have been eliminated from the language.

The position of the interjection in the sentence is at the beginning, in the middle, or, less

frequently, at the end of the sentence, always separated by comma, forming a clause on its own.

The interjections are often found as single sentences ended with an exclamation mark or a full

stop.

1.2.1 English Interjection

There are over 550 interjections in English, and still new ones appear, mainly as a product of

pop-culture - young urban population is the most productive in creating new interjections “as a

part of their unique linguistic identity” (Jovanovič 20). Pop music also creates new expressive

interjections, for example rap music is really productive in this area - boo-yaa, fuckadelo - both

expressions for feeling of comfort, triumph and happines (Rap Dictionary). New interjections

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come to existence either by creativity of the speaker or by borrowing from other languages (the

above mentioned rap, for example, borrows from patois or Spanish).

This leads some linguist to the opinion that any word can become an interjection if exclamated,

expressed with force and emotion, but Jovanovič argues that a word should be considered an

interjection if it is “inherent to language, the basic or natural exclamations that are produced

almost involuntarily, without making an attempt at producing any value judgment” (Jovanovič

19).

Jovanovič creates his own division based on the usage and meaning of interjections. The

basic division is to interjections proper which are “one or two syllables segments with no

particular referent in ELR (extralinguistic reality), but with indisputable purpose in language

communication” (Jovanovič 20). The other group is formed by interjections which have their

origins in the other parts of speech, predominantly in nouns and adjectives.

These have more word-like or phrase-like forms with identifiable referents

outside language or figurative meaning and are clearly suggestive of emotional

reactions to linguistic or non-linguistic stimuli [...] their repeated use in particular

situational context and with corresponding prosodic features and intensity

qualifies them for classification in this word class

(Jovanovič 21).

Jovanovič then groups the interjections according to their “pragmatic value”. This division is

probably more important for the purpose of this thesis, because of employing pragmatic

equivalence in the translation of interjections. The translator only has to know in what situation

that particular interjection is used. His most numerous group are “more situation oriented

interjections with restricted pragmatic purpose”(Jovanovič 24). They are used in certain social

situations and rituals – greetings, toasts, wishing luck, etc. The next group is formed by the

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onomatopoeic interjections. This group can grow endlessly, the only restriction is the ability of

language to imitate the sounds from the natural world. The next largest group he lists is “oaths or

rather mild oaths and euphemistic expressions […] used to suggest vexation, surprise or

disappointment on the part of the speaker” (Jovanovič 26). Another group which is, in my

opinion, culturally bound is composed of “various commands, orders or calls to domestic

animals”(Jovanovič 27). I call this group culturally bound because it contains a great number of

orders used during hunting, and I think that hunting is not as popular here in Czech republic as in

Great Britain. The two remaining small groups are attention-seeking interjections and

encouragments, mainly for sportsmen.

1.2.2 Czech Interjection

Czech linguist František Trávníček devoted part of his work to interjections and divided them

in several groups. He also discusses the meaning of interjections. He argued that an interjection

has an ideational meaning because it communicates emotions and will (Trávníček 1958, 31).

Trávníček grouped interjections as follows – subjective and objective and original and non-

original. The objective ones are those that immitate various sounds except sounds produced by

humans. These are called onomatopoeic. Their original meaning was indicative in present or past

tense. These interjections appear in children speech and are sometimes used in literature for

specific purpose. Subjective interjections are those which express emotions and will of the

speaker (Trávníček 1930, 11).

The other distinction he makes is between the original and non-original interjection. Original

(primary) interjections are partly the above mentioned, non-original or secondary interjections

form a group of fossilized inflected words (various swear words), of nominal exclamation (good

God) and of imperatives which lost their original meaning. Some of the interjections are

borrowings from other languages - halo (French), sakra, krucifix (Latin), himl, hergot (German).

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These groupings, made by Trávníček, are based on the origin of the words. Interjections, in his

view, can stand in place of various parts of speech. For example, ugh (brr in Czech) says

“disgust”, “disgusting”, “it disgusts me”, thus it is in place of a noun, an adjective and a verb.

Trávníček points out another interesting phenomenon and that is verbalisation of interjections,

sometimes even those interjections which were originaly verbs (fossilized imperatives) are

verbalised (Trávníček 1930, 219).

One of the problematic groups of interjections is the group formed by empty vocatives (Bože,

Kristepane, panečku, páni, marjápano). The vocative itself only serves as attention seeking and

addressing word and thus has minimal communicative value and it is very similar to interjection

by its position in the sentence. The line between a vocative and an interjection is very thin, the

vocative tends to lose its addressing function and gets “emptied” and “inert” and becomes an

interjection (Grepl, Karlík 193-195). That is why I consider these empty vocatives (Bože, božínku,

páni, panečku), and their English counterparts, interjections. English dictionaries do not name

them as interjections but say that they express surprise, joy or fear and they are included in

Jovanovič´s exhausting list of interjections. In my opinion, there is no striking difference between

what is considered interjection in English and in Czech. The features that differentiate them are

more frequent occurrences in the English language and better information on them in Czech

linguistic literature.

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1.3 Methodology

This thesis concentrates on the translation of interjections in the literary texts and is conceived

as a corpus study. Suitable texts for the corpus and for the comparison of the translation of

interjections had to be chosen. Two criteria were applied to the choice of the texts. The first one

was that the books that are available in the electronic form. So the English originals and their

translations were retrieved form the parallel corpus available at the Department of English and

American Studies at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno. The original Czech texts

were gained from the Internet, also in the electronic form. The electronic form of the novels was

very important because automatic computer search was used to look the interjections up.

The second criterion was the number of interjections in the texts, their frequency of

appearance. Presupposing that the greatest number of interjections is found in comic novels and in

literature for children, representatives of these genres were selected. From the English literature

available in electronic form Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, translated by Jiří Mucha as Šťastný Jim,

John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces with Jaroslav Kořán´s translation Spolčení

hlupců, Warren Miller’s The Cool World, translated by Josef Škvorecký as Prezydent Krokadýlů,

and Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book with translation by Aloys and Hana Skoumal Knihy

džunglí were chosen. Because the thesis deals with the comparison of the translations with Czech

original texts representatives of the same genres had to be picked from the Czech literature. The

requirement here was that the novels are not very far from each other by the year of publication

and that the style is at least not strikingly different. In the end these texts were chosen - Karel

Poláček´s Muži v offsidu (paired with Amis’s Lucky Jim), Miroslav Švandrlík´s Černí baroni

(with Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces), Petr Šabach´s Hovno hoří (with Miller’s The Cool

World) and Josef Čapek´s Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce (paired with Kipling’s The Jungle Book).

The English originals and their translations were found, as was said above in the Kačenka corpus,

created at the Department of English and American Studies. The original Czech texts were gained

from online databases of e-books www.e-kniha.webovastranka.cz and from go.to/eknihy.

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Before I started working with the selected texts I needed a preliminary list of both English and

Czech interjections to have a basic idea what to start with. This list of interjections to be looked

up was retrieved from a number of novels and stories and also from Jovanovic´s article and

Kamenická´s and Uhrová´s diploma theses.

All the electronic texts I worked with were in the doc. or rtf. format so the interjections were

looked up with help of Microsoft Word processor function Find (ctrl+f). This method is reliable

but the interjections cannot be looked up as whole words. This function does not distinguish

between normal letters and characters like inverted commas or an exclamation mark. So it would

not find an interjection at the beginning of direct speech if the box “search for whole words” is

ticked. The search is slower than looking up whole words, because it will find the cluster of letters

as parts of the other words, but it is more reliable. For example, if oh is looked up as a whole word

in Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, the result is 24 occurrences of oh in the whole text which

represents only 17% of the real number, because if oh is not looked up as a whole word the

function will find 142 occurrences. This method of searching the interjections is also quite

demanding in terms of one’s attention and concentration. Interjections that can be found with this

method are the usual ones, the primary interjections.

If there are other, unusual interjections, onomatopoeic in particular, it is better to search for

clusters of the same letters (search for ooo will find booom or voooom (as in Cool World)). This

method, searching only for clusters, also helps with some common interjections, like uh. If uh is

written into the search box the function will find also huh, so it is useful to pay attention to the

clusters of letters common to several interjections because it can save work.

Compared with this method the manual searching (close reading) is more reliable. I tried to

look up the interjections in the first seven chapters of Warren Miller’s The Cool World and found

out that with the help of the automatic search only 80% (compared with reading) of the

interjections that are in the texts was found. The interjections that were not found by the automatic

search were mainly the onomatopoeic ones. The reliability of the automatic search is better (92%)

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with the interjections that are not onomatopoeic and which appear more frequently in the text.

Those that appear only once or twice are found either by chance or by close reading.

Organising the interjections according to the emotions they express

Having found the interjections in the texts I tried to organize them to tables according to the

emotions they express and frequency of their occurrences. This helped me to compare the usage

of interjections in the original texts and in the translations. At the beginning of each chapter in the

corpus study there are tables with the interjections found in the texts with frequency of their

occurrence. Within the chapters the interjections are organised into the tables depending on the

emotions they express and on the translating method the translator employed.

For classification of the interjections into the tables it was necessary to find such emotions that

are more general, otherwise the classification of the interjection and their comparison would be

impossible. Some of the emotions I chose are clear, like anger or fear, but it is necessary to say

that these emotions might range from a mild excitement to rage or from a pleasant chill to terror

and still be called anger and fear. Surprise, for example, does not stand only for a pleasant feeling

but also for unpleasant surprise. In short, most of the emotions listed in the tables are summary

names for a larger number of emotions, but this generalization was necessary for the purpose of

this thesis.

There were cases when I could not decide which emotion that particular interjection expresses.

I either decided from the context or, when that did not help me to decide, listed that interjection as

unspecified emotion. For example, no was one of the Czech interjections and oh one of the

English that were often listed as expressing unspecified emotion.(For example “Oh, he was

charmingly frank about it, James.” (Lucky Jim), or “Oh, we’ll be very serious.” (A Confederacy of

Dunces, without signs of objection), or “No tak ten Ferdinand se jednou sebral a jel do Francie na

práci.” (No is quite frequently used in this sense - as a part of narration), “No, a nešťastná láska se

končí slavnou svatbou” (both Muži v offsidu).

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The corpus study is then summarized in the final comparison, where the overall comparison of

original English, original Czech and translated texts is made as well as the comparison of the

translators‘ attitudes to the interjection translation. Here I counted and compared the overall

frequency of the interjections in the texts, discussed the differences between the numbers of

interjections used for various emotions and summed up the most frequent interjections in the texts

once more.

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2. Corpus Study

2.1 Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim, Jiří Mucha: Šťastný Jim and Karel Poláček: Muži v offsidu

These novels are both comic and both deal with a group of people with a common interest or

common profession. Poláček´s novel is older than Amis´s, but the time of publication, in my

opinion, does not really play role in case of these two authors. Lucky Jim was published in 1954,

the Czech translation was published in 1970. It belongs to so called “university novels”

(Universum I, 168). It tells a story of Jim Dixon, a history teacher at a provincial university in

England. The author’s work is characterized as “satirical novels about problems of Britain being

modernized” (Universum I, 168). Poláček´s Muži v offsidu was published in 1931, Poláček´s

work can be described as “trying to characterize the common Czech man”, his novels range from

rather mild irony to satire, which also aims at Czech men - at the middle class and their behaviour

(Universum VII, 366). Muži v offsidu is a story about fans of a Prague football club Viktorka,

father and son Habásko. Their comic adventures are in a way always connected with football and

the other football fans.

As far as interjections are concerned, there are more of them (they have greater density) in

Muži v offsidu and they have a more varied use. In Muži v offsidu the most often used interjection

is no, followed by jojo, jejej, etc. There are also some onomatopoeic interjections - sounds of

singing, laughing. The interjections in this novel give liveliness to the characters, they partly

depict their personalities (for example father Habásko´s frequent nostalgic sighs jojo), the

interjections are also often used ironically.

Amis in his Lucky Jim does not use any special or unusual interjections. The most frequent

one was oh, which appeared alone or in phrases like oh (my) God, oh dear, etc. Other interjections

which appeared often were - ah, eh, er, mm, the above mentioned phrases including God, dear

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and Christ and the onomatopoeic interjections - ha ha ha, etc. The interjections do not play as

significant a role as in Muži v offsidu.

Table 1: Interjections found in Lucky Jim and Šťastný Jim

Lucky Jim Šťastný Jim

interjection number interjection number

oh 155 empty vocatives 26

empty vocatives (oh God, dear)

33 aha 19

ah 24 hm 4

onomatopoeic* 18 ach 4

eh 15 a jéje 1

er 6 ehm 1

mm 4

alas 2

total 263 total 55

*Interjections listed as onomatopoeic were, in this case, not exactly onomatopoeic, according to

Trávníček´s classification, because they are sounds produced by a human being (sounds of

laughter, singing, imitating someone’s accent, etc.). But they were listed as such for the sake of

easier classification. These were: hallaher hallaher, fa-la-la-la, hohoho, hahaha, bahaha, a-ah,

hallo (each appearing several times).

Table 2: Interjections found in Muži v offsidu

interjection number no 72 é 4 jojo 19 hm 4 empty vocatives 12 pst 4 ach... 11 núú.. 4 jejej 8 nóó 4 nono (no, no) 7 hip 4 ó 7 cs cs 3 aha 7 hehe 2 o jé, a jé, ó je 5 hola 2 haha 5 šššš.... 2 hej 5 oj oj oj 2 total 222

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Tables 1 and 2 show that the variety of interjections is greater in Muži v offsidu than in Lucky

Jim. Poláček uses more interjections because the speech of his characters is more colloquial and

the characters tend to be more emotive than Amis’s. The tables also show that though Amis’s use

of interjections is not very varied, the translator, Jiří Mucha, uses even fewer interjections and in

lesser numbers. His translation strategy will be explored next.

Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim, Jiří Mucha: Šťastný Jim

Table 3: What interjections express in Lucky Jim

used to express number translated or substituted surprise 45 22 agreement 37 13 understanding 35 20 hesitation, thinking 26 13 disagreement, objection 22 7 attention seeking 18 9 onomatopoeic 18 17 disgust 11 9 resignation 10 7 beginning the sentence, addressing 9 0 remembering 8 2 sorrow, pity 6 4 joy 5 2 fear, worry 5 5 anger 4 1 impatience 4 4 total 263 135 (51%)

Oh

Oh, as by far the most often used interjection in the text, was employed to express every

possible or necessary emotion and feeling. Its use is very wide also according to the dictionaries –

“oh ... expressing surprise, fear, joy, etc....used for emphasis or to attract sb´s attention” (Oxford

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Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 858). In the text oh is most often used to express agreement,

surprise, disagreement or objection, and hesitation (see table 5). Oh often appeared as oh yes, oh

no, as an expression of agreement or remembering or objection and are dealt with as single

interjections. Oh also appeared as a part of address (“oh, Dixon”), these were dealt with as

attention seeking interjections.

Phrases with oh that were separated are oh dear, oh God, oh my goodness, etc. I consider these

different interjections than oh. In Czech grammars these phrases are classified as “empty

vocatives” (Grepl-Karlík, Trávníček), words that used to be nouns but their meaning got lost, and

oh (ó) is very often used as a part of a vocative in English literary texts.

Mucha in his translation avoids using equivalents for oh (ach, ó) and prefers to omit it

altogether or to use a different part of speech or a different interjection (mainly aha) instead of it.

He uses an equivalent only in three cases, once as a sigh (“ach Jime”) and twice in a phrase

expressing remembering or realisation (“ach tak”). In other cases Mucha uses another interjection

(aha), a different part of speech or a different method of translation - for example instead of

emphasizing oh in “oh, no” he puts “ne, ne”, doubles the negation and emphasizes it as well.

Generally speaking, Mucha prefers to use the part of speech that oh stands for. For example he

uses verb in “oh, Dixon”- “poslyšte, Dixone”, etc.

Table 4: Methods of translating oh in Lucky Jim by Jiří Mucha

method of translation number % of the total

equivalent 3 2% ach, other interjection 22 14% aha, a jéje, Bože other part of speech 37 24% poslyšte, kdepak, tak, omission 93 60% total number 155

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Table 5: What oh expresses in Lucky Jim

used to express number % of the total translated or substituted agreement 30 19% 23% (7) surprise 28 18% 46 % (13) understanding 27 17% 55% (15) disagreement, objection 19 12% 32% (12) hesitation, thinkinng 18 12% 44% (8) attention seeking 13 8% 7% (1) resignation 10 6% 30% (3) remembering 8 5% 25% (2) sorrow, pity 1 1% 100% (1) joy 1 1% 0% (0) total 155

This table shows how frequently oh was used to express the emotions listed in the table. The first

percentage is worked out from the total number of occurrences oh (155). The numbers in the third

column show the percentage worked out from the number of occurrences of oh expressing one

emotion and the number of translated or substituted cases (for example 7/30 in the first line).

Phrases oh (my) God, my God, God

These phrases are usually used in to express fear, joy, disgust or anger. I deal with these

phrases separately also because Mucha employs a completely different strategy in translating

them. He prefers to use equivalents or approximate equivalents; he does not translate my God as

“můj Bože” but with empty vocatives like proboha, panebože, kristepane. Mucha also uses these

empty vocatives to translate other interjections like oh dear, dear dear, for which Czech does not

have any “direct” equivalents. (As a probable deviated or abbreviated form of “dear God” it could

be translated by some of Czech deviated forms of vocatives like jemine, jemináčku, krindapána,

etc. but these would hardly be convenient for the text.)

Similar interjections like Christ, my Goodness and the already mentioned dear are translated by

the same method. Mucha uses different, sometimes deviated, forms of empty

vocatives/interjections like “bože, proboha, prokrista”.

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These interjections express mainly fear (5), disgust (8), impatience (4), surprise (6), anger (2),

hesitation (2), joy, agreement, resignation and objection (each once).

Table 6: Methods of translating (oh) (my) God, (oh) dear, Christ, etc. in Lucky Jim by Jiří Mucha

method of translation

number % of the total

equivalent 20 61% not exact equivalents other interjection 7 21% proboha (christ), bože bože (dear),

etc. other parts of speech 3 9% ale, ale, ani za nic, samozřejmě,

na mou duši omission 3 9% total number 33

Ah

This interjection has a more limited use than oh. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary says

that it expresses “surprise, delight, admiration, sympathy, etc.”(24). Ah thus expresses more

positive and pleasant emotions and feelings than oh. Amis uses this interjection to express

surprise and understanding, less frequently for joy and consent or agreement. Ah appears usually

together with “there” or “here” (“ah, there you are”) and again with names. Ah usually expresses

surprise, agreement, understanding and joy.

Mucha employs the same translating strategy as with oh and prefers to omit it, he uses the

equivalent only once (ach), which is none of the possibilities the bilingual dictionary offers (it

gives “á, och, ó”) (Krámský et al. 27). Again the choice is quite understandable; ach is better

suited for this type of text than och or ó. Sometimes he chooses another interjection, namely aha

instead of ah. When he uses different parts of speech he translates ah by “jo”, “ano”, or by a word

ah stands for, like “poslyšte”.

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Table 7: Methods of translating ah in Lucky Jim by Jiří Mucha

method of translation

number % of the total number

equivalent 1 4% ach other int. 2 8% aha other part of speech 6 25% ano, jo, verbs omission 15 63% total number 24

Table 8: What ah expresses in Lucky Jim

used to express number % of the total number

translated or substituted

surprise 7 29% 29% (2) agreement 5 21% 60% (3) understanding 3 12,5% 33% (1) joy 3 12,5% 33% (1) anger 1 4% 0% (0) attention seeking 1 4% 100% (1) disagreement 2 8% 0% (0) pity, sorrow 2 8% 50% (1)

Eh

This interjection is “used to express surprise or doubt, to invite agreement, or to ask for sth to be

repeated” (OALD 387). The same use it has in Lucky Jim. Eh usually appears at the end of an

interrogative sentence and “invites agreement” as the dictionary puts it. The translator again does

not use any interjection, but functionally similar words like “co, cože, viďte” or omits it. There are

no equivalents. Mucha uses other parts of speech in 10 cases and omission in 5 cases.

Er

The same translating strategy is used with er, which expresses hesitation and appears six times in

the text. Mucha uses different part of speech (4) “jakž takž, všelijaké, totiž...” or omits it

altogether (2).

20

The last remaining interjection is mm, which expresses thinking, hesitating or agreement. It

appears at the beginning of the sentences (4) and in all cases Mucha translates it with an

equivalent as hm.

There is another group of interjections which, I think, do not express any emotions but sounds, but

I would not call them onomatopoeic. They imitate sound of laughter (ho ho ho, ma ha ha), singing

(fa-la-la-la...) and then there is hallo, hallaher (used when phoning). All these interjections are

either transferred (ho ho ho) or translated with exact equivalent (tra-la-la, ha ha ha, haló).

To sum this overview up, I would say that Jiří Mucha translated those interjections that have

approximately the same frequency in Czech as in English (God, Christ, etc). Those that are not

used so often he usually omitted or substituted with other interjections or parts of speech.

Karel Poláček: Muži v offsidu

As was said above, Poláček uses more interjections (not in numbers but in proportion) in the

text than Amis and their use is more varied and livelier. The most often appearing one is no. Some

people may argue that no is not an interjection but the use of it suggests that it should be

considered an interjection, for example because, as an interjection, it can be removed from the

sentence and no change will happen with the meaning or syntax of the sentence. Czech no as an

interjection will be written in italics as the other interjections are and so it will be easily

distinguishable from English “no” as negation, as all the other parts of speech it will appear in

inverted comas.

Another interjection which I decided to list even though some scholars may say that it is not an

interjection is jojo. “Jo” as such is a colloquial expression of agreement but it appears also as an

expression of joy and pleasure and when it is doubled it expresses right the opposite - sorrow, pity

or melancholy. This way it works in Muži v ofsajdu where it is used 16 times. The other

interjections which are to be found in the text are, in my opinion, indisputable.

21

Interjections that were found in Muži v offsidu, those that appear more than once, are in the table

in the beginning of this chapter.

There are other interjections which appear only once or which are onomatopoeic - hahá,

bohorodičko, ejchuchu, ouvejs, ajajaj, hihihi, chichichi, ochochocho, o, mankote, prr, fuj fuj,

hurá, mtadadádá mtádadádá, la-la-la, houk, tradá, tfiú, vauvauvau, kristapána.

The interjections used in the novel are very often part of a person´s speech, they form a part of

character´s idiolect (jojo used by one, ach used by women characters).

Table 9: What interjections express in Muži v offsidu

used to express number % of the total number of int. (222)

sorrow, pity 41 18% anger 23 10% disagreement 21 9% hesitation, thinking 17 8% attention seeking 16 7% unspecified emotion 12 5% invitation 12 5% joy 12 5% fear 9 4% contempt 8 4% surprise 6 3% worry 6 3% understanding 5 2% agreement 5 2% encouragement 5 2% total (with other interjections) 222

Usage of no in Muži v offsidu

Poláček uses no to express almost every emotion and feeling necessary, sometimes also uses it

only as a beginning, an introductory word which has no other meaning, no other message,

sometimes as a part of an address. Sometimes it was difficult to decide what exactly no expresses

in the novel, but that is a problem with many other interjections, the process of deciding is

described in chapter on methodology.

22

Table 10: What no expresses in Muži v offsidu

used to express number % of the total % of other int. expressing the same anger 10 14% 50% sorrow, pity 6 8% 18% agreement 4 6% 80% disagreement 12 17% 57% hesitating, thinking 10 14% 59% invitation 12 17% 100% unspecified emotion 12 16% 100% other uses 5 7% total number 72

Ach, ó

Ó appears in prayer, as a part of “ó Bože” (oh God) and as an expression of surprise or joy but

that only in two cases. Ach is used in addressing either God or other characters (Richarde), and

once or twice in a nostalgic sigh - “ach, ta láska” (oh, that love).

Bože and other empty vocatives

Bože, kristapána, bohorodičko, ježíšmarjá, ježíš and panenko milostná were used as exclamations

expressing various emotions - sorrow, fear, joy, worries. Those that were in the text as part of a

prayer were not included. I do not consider these vocatives empty but real nouns (these have

addressing and naming function).

Having explored the texts separately I would like to compare them now in terms of frequency of

the use and occurrence of interjections.

23

Comparison

Table 11: What interjections express in Lucky Jim, Šťastný Jim and Muži v offsidu

used to express Lucky Jim Šťastný Jim (only int.) Muži v offsidu surprise 45 10 7 agreement 37 3 6 understanding 35 15 4 hesitation, thinking 26 3 19 disagreement 22 1 27 attention seeking 18 0 16 contempt, disgust 11 7 8 resignation 10 5 0 remembering 8 2 1 sorrow, pity 6 2 41 fear 5 4 5 joy 5 2 12 anger 4 1 21 total 263 55 222

From table 11 the translator’s tendency to fit the usage of interjections to Czech standards can be

seen and also his strategy to avoid using interjections in translation even though Czech uses them

in a given situation. For example, joy, anger or sorrow is expressed by an interjection quite often,

as table 11 shows. Avoiding interjections may lead to reduction of the colour, the style and the

variety of expression of the original. Mucha partly compensates for this by using Czech

interjections when translating other words and phrases - “I see” is translated by aha, intensifiers

like “what on earth”, “what the hell” or “for God’s sake” he translates by kruci and proboha (see

table 12 below). By adding these interjections Mucha compensates for reduction of interjections

that express understanding or agreement (aha) and hesitation (no). He adds interjections

expressing anger by translating intensifiers by interjections.

Table 12: Translation of interjections by Jiří Mucha in Lucky Jim

Lucky Jim - Šťastný Jim number

% of the total in the source text (263)

interjection - interjection 55 21%

interjection - no interjection 208 79%

no interjection - interjection 33 13% aha (10), proboha (11), no (11), kruci (1)

24

Table 12 sums up Mucha´s use of interjections. It shows how many interjections were translated,

omitted and added in his translation. His dealing with interjections is very interesting: he

translated 21% of the interjections from the source text and added more than half of the number of

the translated ones. Even with the added interjections his translation has the fewest interjections of

the texts explored here.

Oh and no

These interjections appear most often in Lucky Jim and Muži v offsidu. Oh is used 155 times in

Lucky Jim, no is used 72 times in Muži v offsidu. Mucha translates oh by its equivalents only three

times, and uses other interjections only 22 times. On the other hand he uses no only 12 times in

the whole novel, only once as a translation of an interjection (ooh), the other instances are usually

translations of “well”, “anyway”, “anyhow”. Jiří Zbořil in his minor thesis found out that no is

used to translate oh quite often, especially when it expresses hesitation or agreement. Mucha does

not adopt this strategy; he prefers omission, other parts of speech or other interjections.

In Muži v offsidu equivalents of oh, ach and ó appear 11 and 7 times, respectively. They are

part of an address or a prayer; sometimes they express surprise, agreement or disagreement. It is

difficult to compare it with three instances of ach in Šťastný Jim, with no case ó in the text, but it

seems that Mucha was right to avoid exact equivalents, the more so when we realize that some of

the achs and ós in Muži v offsidu are used ironically.

Aha

This interjection appears only 7 times in Muži v offsidu, but Mucha uses this interjection very

often; as was said above he uses it when translating oh, ah, “I see”, making it the most frequent

interjection in his translation (33 cases) which is unusual and may seem unnatural because in

originally Czech texts these rarely appear more than ten times (for example, once in Šabach´s

Hovno hoří and Švadrlík´s Černí baroni, 5 times in Čapek´s Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce).

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2.2 John Kennedy Toole: A Confederacy of Dunces, Jaroslav Kořán: Spolčení hlupců and

Miroslav Švandrlík: Černí baroni

These two novels are both comic, they are closer to each other by time of both writing and

publication than Poláček´s and Amis’s novels. Toole’s novel A Confederacy of Dunces was

published in 1980, but it was written in 1969. Švandrlík´s Černí baroni was published in 1990

though he started writing it in 1962. They also share a critique of society hidden under the comic

tone. A Confederacy of Dunces takes place in 1960s in New Orleans and tells a story about a lazy

but intelligent college graduate Ignatius Reilly and his adventures during his search for work, and

about people from the back quarters of New Orleans. Švandrlík´s Černí baroni takes place in

1950s in the army, in one of the “working” battalions for those not fulfilling the regime’s ideas

about true communist soldiers (priests, gentry, rich farmers together with thieves and criminals

and reliable communists who are not able-bodied).

As far as interjections are concerned, Toole´s novel has a greater number and variety of them,

ranging from the classic ones (oh) to dialect or idiolect ones (Jones’s whoa). One of the most

frequent ones is again oh; alone or in phrases like oh Lord, oh my God. There are also vulgar

interjections (shit). The interjections in this novel have a similar function to the interjections in

Poláček´s Muži v offsidu. The interjections in A Confederacy of Dunces also form an important

part of a dialogue; they help to create a feeling of a real, lively, colloquial speech of common

people and sometimes also help to characterize the personalities of the heroes of the novel.

Švandrlík in Černí baroni uses fewer interjections, usually rather vulgar, sometimes not only

Czech ones but also Slovak ones (or rather Czechoslovak, coined by major Terazky). Again there

is a great number of empty vocatives (ježišmarjá). The small number of interjections in the text is

caused by the ironic, elevated style of the novel and by the less important role of the dialogue in

the novel.

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Table 13: Interjections found in A Confederacy of Dunces and Spolčení hlupců

A Confederacy of Dunces

number Spolčení hlupců number

oh 147 empty vocatives 123 empty vocatives 122 kurva 83 hey 77 ach 75 whoa 73 aj vaj (varied) 27 aw 38 onomatopoeic 21 huh 34 hej 18 ooo wee 25 no 17 onomatopoeic* 21 doprdele 12 shit 16 achich 7 ho hum 7 aha 4 whoo 5 ó 4 aha 1 žú 2 uh huh 1 ouvej 2 hovno 2 au, jauva 1 eh, ech 1 uhm, huhmmmm 1 páni 1 juchúúú 1 halo 1 a jeje 1 total 560 total 404

*Onomatopoeic interjections are: hoho, ho hum, aarf, braah, woof woof woof, oof, whoo, shh

(each appearing several times).

Table 14: Interjections found in Černí baroni

interjection number no 87 sakra 12 proboha 8 boha jeho 7 doprdele 6 bože môj 5 hm 5 ježíšmarjá 5 he 3 jo, jo (jó) 3 fuj 3 ha 2 ajajaj 2 hergot 2 once appearing 25 total 175

27

Tables 13 and 14 show the difference between the original novels, the density of interjections

in Černí baroni is smaller, the interjections in the text form only 0,150% of all words, compared

with 0,429% in A Confederacy of Dunces. As was said above, interjections do not play as

important a role in Černí baroni as in A Confederacy of Dunces. They are used only to make the

dialogue more natural. Table 14 shows that Švandrlík employs almost none of the primary

interjections in his novel, which suggests that his characters are not as emotive or emotively

acting as Toole´s and that Švandrlík uses other methods to express the characters´ emotions

(ironically serious utterances). Table 13 also shows Kořán´s creative attitude to translation of

interjections. His methods will be explored below.

John Kennedy Toole: A Confederacy of Dunces, Jaroslav Kořán: Spolčení hlupců

Table 15: What interjections express in A Confederacy of Dunces

used to express number translated or substituted anger 111 99 disagreement, objection 63 45 surprise 62 60 address, att. seeking 47 40 joy 39 38 sorrow, pity 33 31 fear 31 27 inviting agreement 29 21 excitement 25 24 onomatopoeic 21 21 agreement 18 13 disgust 17 17 remembering 14 13 pain 14 14 understanding 12 12 emphasis 10 9 misunderstanding 5 5 resignation 4 4 unspecified emotion 4 3 hesitation, thinking 1 1 total 560 497 88,75%

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Oh

Oh is again the most often used interjection. Oh is not used for any particular emotion but is

quite evenly distributed among more of them (see table 17). Oh appears 142 times in the text.

Though Kořán prefers translating interjections to omitting them, with oh he uses omission

frequently, almost for quarter of the ohs (see table 16). To translate oh he employs direct

equivalents (ach, ó, och), sometimes mocking the emotion with achich. Achich is also sometimes

used to translate oh uttered by the homosexual character in the novel. Kořán uses other

interjections less frequently, for example sakra, žú, no. Sometimes he also translates oh by other

parts of speech, like “ale”, “jen”, “tak”. Oh again appears as a part of phrases like oh my God, oh

dear, etc. I will deal with these phrases separately again because of the reasons given in the

previous chapter and because of the great variety of expressions Kořán used to translate them.

Table 16: Methods of translating oh in A Confederacy of Dunces by Jaroslav Kořán

method of translation

number % of the total

equivalent 83 58 ach, ó, och other interjection 13 9 žú, sakra, no other parts of speech 12 8 tak, ale omission 34 24 total number 142

Table 17: What oh expresses in A Confederacy of Dunces

used to express number % of the total number translated or substituted objection 21 15% 52% (11) joy 18 13% 100% (18) anger 17 12% 35% (6) surprise 15 11% 93% (14) remembering 14 10% 93% (13) address 14 10% 86% (12) understanding 12 8% 100% (12) fear 10 7% 60% (6) agreement 8 6% 50% (4) sorrow, pity 7 5% 100% (7) unspecified emotion 4 3% 75% (3) pain 2 1% 100% (2)

29

(First percentage worked out from the total number of oh in the text, the second from the

particular emotion, for example 11/21 in the first line)

Sometimes the boundaries between feelings and emotions are not clear and it is a question of

personal choice or personal interpretation to which column the interjection will be added. For

example “oh, my valve” can be seen as expressing fear, pain or anger. I listed it as fear.

Whoa

This interjection is used mainly by Jones, the black vagrant, the only one who seems to see things

clearly and who has the tendency to comment on things using rather vulgar expressions. This one

is problematic. The dictionaries I consulted offer two possibilities - “command to a horse to stop

or stand still” or “request to a person to slow down speaking or acting” (OALD 1458,

dictionary.cambridge.org). From the translator’s attitude to this word (72 times translated as kurva

and once omitted) it seems that he sees it as mispronounced “whore”, or that he translates this

interjection which is used without any specific meaning with regard to the character that uses it

and translates it with a vulgar word. The use of this interjection (table 18) shows that Kořán´s

interpretation of this word was right.

Table 18: What whoa expresses in A Confederacy of Dunces

used to express number % of the total translated anger 31 42% 100% (31) excitement 25 34% 96% (24) surprise 8 11% 100% (8) joy 5 7% 100% (5) agreement 3 4% 100% (3) sorrow, pity 1 1% 100% (1) total 73

30

Ooo-wee

Discussing the character of Jones I will continue with his other favourite interjection and that is

ooo-wee. This interjection is used to express sorrow, pity (10), surprise (6), anger (5), emphasis

(4), joy (1) and is translated either by aj-vaj (jaj-vaj), sometimes varied in the number of syllables,

or by aj-jaj, oj-oj, again varying in the number of syllables.

Empty vocatives - Lord, Christ, my God, etc.

Toole employs a great number of empty vocatives in his novel. It is probably caused by the

chattiness of the characters and by the effort to make the dialogue as vivid as possible. The most

numerous interjection in this group is oh, my God (44 occurrences) translated as ach Bože in 43

cases and once as panebože. None was omitted. In A Confederacy of Dunces oh, my God

expresses these emotions: anger (16), disgust (9), fear (8), pain (5), surprise (3), disagreement (2)

and joy (1). This phrase has a fixed translation, fixed equivalent, which cannot be said about the

other phrases:

Table 19: Translations of the empty vocatives in A Confederacy of Dunces

oh (my) dear božíčku, ach jejda jémine, jemináčku (3), jémine (2), propána oh my God ach Bože (43), panebože (1) (oh) Lord božíčku, bože božíčku, prokristáčka (2), mankote (7), ale děte, ó

pane, můj ty bože, pánbíčku an nebi, dobrotivý bože, panebože (2), krindapána (2), prokrindáčka,, ježíšku na křížku, šmarjá,

oh (my) goodness ach ta má hlava, ach propánajána, ach má ty dobroto, ach jouvej, ježíšmarjá, ach bože na nebi, ach můj ty bože, achich jémine

oh (my, good) heavens

panenko skákavá, pro Kristovy rány, ach probůh, jémine, dobrotivá nebesa (6), spravedlivá nebesa

good grief panenko skákavá, pro pět ran božích, můj ty smutku (6), oh, my ach božíčku, jemináčku good God dobrotivý bože my God probůh, bože (4), můj ty bože, můj ty smutku

Christ kristepane (3), Ježíši Kriste

Jesus Christ, Christ awmight

Ježíši Kriste (3)

31

The variety of expression in the translation is great as is manifested in table 19. There is no

special use of any of these interjections for particular emotions in the original or the translation.

Kořán in his translation uses many of deviated forms of Jesus Christ (jémináčku, jémine,

krindapána, prokristáčka), of God (propána, Czech Pán Bůh), of German for my God (mankote,

mein Gott) and once of Virgin Mary (šmarjá, from Ježíš Maria).

Table 20: What the empty vocatives express in A Confederacy of Dunces

used to express number examples surprise 23 (oh) Lord, oh my, oh dear, oh heavens, oh my

goodness... anger 14 oh dear, good grief, oh my goodness, my God... fear 13 Lord, oh dear, good heavens, Christ disgust 8 my God, good God, oh my heavens objection, disagreement

7 good grief, (oh) Lord

sorrow, pity 5 Lord, oh my goodness joy 5 oh my dear, Lord, oh my goodness pain 4 good grief, oh Lord resignation 1 oh my dear remembering 1 oh my emphasis 1 Lord total 82

Tables 19 and 20 are organized differently than the other tables because I want to show the

translator’s creativity in translating this group of interjections.

Aw

This interjection expresses “mild disappointment, gentle entreaty, or real or mock sympathy or

sentiment” (www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary, Merriam-Webster Dictionary). In the novel it is

used as an expression of objection, sorrow and pity, joy and agreement. It is usually translated by

“ale” (“aw, come on” - “ale děte”, “aw, Santa” - “ale di ty, Santo”) or by other interjections like

no (see table 21). It is quite difficult to find out which of the Czech interjections could be used as

an equivalent for this word, I would suggest probably ó, ach - equivalents of oh. Table 22 shows

32

that Kořán did not prefer equivalents but other parts of speech which are in these situations used

in Czech.

Table 21: Methods of translating aw in A Confederacy of Dunces by Jaroslav Kořán

method of translation number % of the total equivalent 1 3% ach omission 7 18% other interjection 11 29% no, eh, ech other parts of speech 19 50% ale, heleďte, jo total 38

Table 22: What aw expresses in A Confederacy of Dunces

used to express number % of the total translated or substituted objection, disagreement 23 60% 83% (19) sorrow, pity 8 21% 75% (6) joy 4 11% 75% (3) agreement 3 8% 100% (3)

Hey

According to the dictionary, this interjection is “used to call attention or express surprise or

inquiry” (OALD 585). In the novel it is used to attract attention in a great majority, but it also

expresses anger, objection or surprise. This interjection is translated by its equivalent (hej), by

other interjections (no, a jeje, aj-vaj, kurva) and by other parts of speech: verbs - “počkejte”,

“heleďte”, nouns - “darebáci” (“‘Hey!’ he heard Santa Battaglia shout”,“‘Darebáci!’slyšel křičet

Santu...”), “hochu” (“hey, boy” - “hochu, hochu”) and other: “cože”, “kamto”, “ahoj”,

“zdravíčko”, “tak to prrr” (“‘Erran? Hey! I thought this a sweepin and moppin job.”’ -

“‘Pochůzku? Tak to prr! Já jsem najatej na zametání.”’).

33

Table 23: Methods of translating hey in A Confederacy of Dunces by Jaroslav Kořán

method of translation

number % of the total

equivalent 19 25% hej other interjection 28 36% jauva, kurva, hergot, no other part of speech 18 23% kamto, heleďte, co je, cože, darebáci omission 12 16% total 77

Table 24: What hey expresses in A Confederacy of Dunces

used to express number % of the total translated or substituted

attracting attention 33 43% 85% (28) anger 18 23% 94% (17) objection 9 12% 56% (5) surprise 6 8% 83% (5) agreement 3 4% 67% (2) sorrow, pity 3 4% 100% (3) joy 3 4% 100% (3) greeting 2 3% 100% (2)

Tables 23 and 24 show that Kořán again translated hey according to the emotion it is used for.

Hey in this novel has much wider use than the dictionary suggests and Kořán, in reaction to this,

uses many interjections and also other parts of speech to translate it.

The remaining interjections that appear more frequently are huh, shit, whoo and ouch. On the

whole, Kořán uses a greater variety of interjections to translate them, he tries to use those

interjections that expresses these emotions in Czech.

Huh is, according to the dictionary, “used to express scorn, disgust, enquiry, etc.” (OALD

607). In the novel huh is used to invite agreement or as an expression of enquiry. It is also

translated as such. Kořán uses the other parts of speech to translate it. When huh invites

agreement (29 cases), it is translated as “co”, “viď”, words that invite agreement in Czech (21

cases). Huh also expresses misunderstanding (5 times) and is translated as “cože”or “prosím”.

34

Shit is a word used mainly to express anger and is translated as doprdele or kurva. Shit is also

twice expresses objection, in those cases Kořán translates shit as “pěkný hovno”, which is

equivalent of shit and which is also used in Czech to express objection.

Whoo “is an expression of delight” (www.onelook.com). In the novel it expresses mostly

positive emotions. It appears 5 times and each time is translated differently. When it expresses joy

it is translated as juchúúú and žúúú, when it is used to express surprise it is translated as páni,

resignation is expressed by hergot and objection by chacha. Also ouch gets different treatment

every time it appears, it is translated as ouch, auvaj, auu.

The interjections that are left are onomatopoeic or have mixed usage, like ho hum which

express sorrow (ach ouvej), anger (hoho), objection (hoho), or imitates yawning (huáááá) twice

and once unindetifiable sound (áááhumm). The others are onomatopoeic - woof woof arf for dog´s

barking, oof for fall, braah, aarff, hoho, ssh.

Miroslav Švandrlík: Černí baroni

The most numerous interjection in this novel is again, as in Muži v offsidu, no. It is followed by

empty vocatives like sakra, proboha, boha jeho. I did not include commands (halt), these could be

considered interjections because commands to animals are interjections (Jovanovic), but I think

that these are not important for the purpose of this thesis, even if they were interjections, because

their use is very specific and limited.

Interjections that appear in the novel are listed in table 14 at the beginning of this chapter.

Those that appear only once were - hej, eh, prisámboh, aha, ej, nu, prokristapána, ach, bašta,

haló, prima, ježíši kriste, kruciprdel, pane bože, urá. There are also onomatopoeic interjections -

hu ha ha urá urá urá, ha ha ha ura ura ura, la-la-la, lala, la la la, jupajdis jupajda (all refrains of

songs), aaaa....oh....jajaja, búúú....kak....ááá, éééé...jujuju...huhuhu, hau jeje ááá (babbling of one

of the soldiers).

35

Table 25: What interjections express in Černí baroni

used to express number % of the total number (175) anger 28 16% unspecified emotion 26 15% hesitation, thinking 18 10% agreement 18 10% joy 14 8% fear 13 7% sorrow, pity 10 6% surprise 6 3% disagreement, objection 5 3% disgust 5 3% understanding 4 2% invitation 4 2% resignation 4 2% impatience 2 1% misunderstanding 2 1% attracting attention 1 1% total 175

No

No is the most frequent interjection in the text. It often appears as an uncertain, unidentifiable

expression, for example, “No, nad tím by se snad dalo přimhouřit oko” or “No, já tě k tomu nutit

nebudu”. These occurrences are difficult to decide and are listed as unspecified emotion.

Sometimes context helps to decide the emotion the interjection expresses but not in all cases. (for

example “‘No vidíte,’ radoval se Troník” was listed as joy).

36

Table 26: What no expresses in Černí baroni

used to express number % of the total ( 87)

% among other int. expressing the same

unspecified emotion, address

25 29% 89%

agreement 16 18% 89% hesitation, thinking 13 15% 72% joy 7 8% 50% anger 5 6% 19% disagreement, objection 4 5% 80% invitation 4 5% 100% surprise 3 3% 50% fear 2 2% 15% impatience 2 2% 100% understanding 2 2% 50% sorrow, pity 2 2% 20% disgust 1 1% 20% resignation 1 1% 25% total 87

Sakra and other empty vocatives

Sakra is also an empty vocative, this time from Latin “sacra(mentum)” it probably has its

origin in sacred rituals or oaths and sakra is altered, deviated because of the taboo (Holub-Lyer

430). Today this meaning is completely lost, by contrast, it is considered quite rude. Sakra

appears mostly as an expression of anger (11 cases, to this number was counted two instances of k

sakru, inflection of sakra) and once it expresses sorrow and pity.

Proboha is used 8 times, mostly for fear (4 cases), then for anger (2) and once for disgust and

surprise.

Boha jeho is quite specific for this novel, it is a Slovak interjections but characters speaking

Czech use it as well (probably after major Terazky). It appears 7 times in the novel and expresses

anger (2 cases), disgust (2), joy (1), fear (1) and sorrow, pity (1).

Bože moj is used by the character of major Terazky, who speaks a strange mixture of languages

which resembles Slovak. It is used 4 times for sorrow, pity (2), anger (2)

and joy (1).

37

Ježíšmarjá is written with varied diacritic (jéžišmarjá, ježišmarjá). It appears 5 times and

expresses fear (4 cases) and sorrow, pity (1).

Hergot was used twice, for joy and anger. Those that appeared once were ježíši kriste (fear), pane

bože (sorrow, pity), prokristapána (fear) and prisámboh (joy).

From those interjections that appear more than once none is used unusualy. Hm is used for

hesitation and thinking (4 cases) and once for agreement, doprdele (written both together with the

preposition and with a pause) for anger (5 cases) and once for fear, he for misunderstanding (2)

and for surprise (1), fuj for disgust, hej to attract attention, etc. There is one interjection I would

like to attract attention to as an evidence of the author’s creativity, at least I think so, and that is

kruciprdel, used once to express anger.

Comparison

To sum up, the use of interjections in both original texts differs significantly, in A Confederacy

of Dunces the interjections are used frequently and form an inherent part of the characters´ speech.

Švandrlík in Černí baroni does not use so many interjections and creates his characters´ idiolect

and personalities by using other methods. Kořán as a translator tries to catch the colourful speech

of Toole´s characters by using even a greater variety of interjections than Toole.

Kořán employs a completely different translating strategy from Mucha (Šťastný Jim). He

translates oh by its equivalents (ach, ó), he creatively translates the empty vocatives, he rarely

uses omissions. He makes use of “ale” as a very flexible word which can suggest not only

objection but also surprise, anger, sorrow, pity (ale, ale) and even joy.

Kořán also uses no in his translation, it is the most numerous interjection in Černí baroni, as it

was in Muži v offsidu. Kořán does not use it as much for translation of interjections as for

translation of other parts of speech, sometimes he simply adds it to make the dialogue more vivid,

natural. For example he adds it to rhetoric questions like “Ain´t that terrible?”- “No, není to

38

hrůza?” No is added to these questions in 10 cases. He also sometimes translates invitations or

pacifying “okay” and “come on” by no tak (13 cases), sometimes also “well” and implied

hesitation is translated by no (12 cases) (see table 27).

Table 27: Translation of interjections in Spolčení hlupců by Jaroslav Kořán

A Confederacy of Dunces - Spolčení hlupců

number % of the total in the source text (560)

interjection - interjection 404 72% interjection - no int. 156 28% no interjection - interjection 50 9% no (40 occurrences),

proboha (2), kruci (3) hergot (2) and other empty vocatives)

Table 27 shows that Kořán uses as many interjections as possible, because A Confederacy of

Dunces is written in a relaxed, colloquial language of which the interjections are an inseparable

part and Kořán wants his translation to have the same effect. Also, he did add as many

interjections as Mucha in Šťastný Jim did. The most often added interjection is no which, as this

study shows, is very frequently used in Czech. What can be a little unnatural in this translation (as

far as interjections are concerned) is quite a large number of achs and also achich, which does not

appear very often but is marked.

39

2.3 Warren Miller: The Cool World, Josef Škvorecký: Prezydent Krokadýlů and Petr Šabach:

Hovno hoří

These two novels differ from each other quite significantly by the year of publication, there is

fifty years difference between them. The Cool World was published in 1959 and Hovno hoří in

1999. The stories are both written in the first person narrative, in a colloquial language which

resembles spoken language but direct speech is not used very often. Both novels were

cinematized – Miller´s novel into a movie with the same name and Šabach´s into Pelíšky and

partly also into Pupendo. Both movies are more famous than the novels, which can be proved by a

simple search on the Internet, which, especially in case of Miller’s novel, will show that the text is

not much written about.

Miller’s The Cool World is told by Duke Custis, a young black gang member from Harlem. The

novel is written in a black dialect with many grammatical errors. It is conceived as a confession of

a young criminal. It tells a story of Duke’s pursuit of a gun and his fall when he gets it. The story

may be sometimes funny but the overall impression is not funny at all. It is a story of a poor boy

with a very small chance to escape the life of a criminal.

Interjections that can be found in this novel are partly the common ones - oh, Christ, uh - and

partly quite special ones like Man or shitman. Škvorecký as a translator employs very peculiar

language that nowadays may seem sometimes unintelligible, especially to the young generation.

In Šabach´s Hovno hoří there are three persons from whose point of view the stories are

written. The main theme is the relationship between men and women and their different

perception of the world around them (see various reviews on the Internet, for example short

reviews on www.milosnemec.cz). The language of the stories is colloquial and relaxed. The most

often used interjections are again empty vocatives and no. The novel lacks primary (subjective)

interjections like ach.

40

Table 28: Interjections found in The Cool World and Prezydent Krokadýlů

The Cool World number Prezydent Krokadýlů number man 57 páni, pánove 77 oh 39 onomatopoeic 29 onomatopoeic* 31 doprdele 17 uh 23 empty vocatives 15 oh man 21 ach 14 shitman 20 hm 5 empty vocatives 17 no 4 uh (un) huh 7 hovno 3 ah 4 I.I.I.I. 3 total 255 total 178 (with other

interjections) *Onomatopoeic interjections are: slump, slump slump, boom, boom boom boom, whish, eeeeyuh,

thum, thum thum, whoooom, voooom, thic thic..., bam, thuck, chomp, whack (some appearing

more than once).

Table 29: Interjections found in Hovno hoří

interjection number no 28 proboha 14 panebože 5 do prdele 4 ježíšmarjá 2 do háje 2 onomatopoeic* 6 once appearing 13 total 74

*Onomatopoeic interjections: ááách (breathing), škyt, pssst (breathing), hrrrr, klapity klap (some

appearing more than once).

Tables 28 and 29 show that both authors do not employ such a great variety of interjections in

their texts. Miller’s novel has a higher density of interjections than Šabach (Miller 0,469% and

Šabach 0,232% of all words). One of the reasons for this difference is that Miller uses

interjections outside direct speech, which Šabach does not. Šabach also, as Švandrlík in Černí

baroni, uses other parts of speech to express emotions.

41

Warren Miller: The Cool World, Josef Škvorecký: Prezydent Krokadýlů

Table 30: What interjections express in The Cool World.

used to express number translated or substituted emphasis 58 53 onomatopoeic 31 29 address 24 19 hesitation, thinking 23 21 anger 21 16 disagreement, objection 16 14 joy 16 16 sorrow, pity 13 13 fear 10 9 agreement 10 8 impatience 6 6 surprise 6 6 remembering 4 4 understanding 3 3 total 255 217 (85%)

Man, oh Man, shitman

These expressions appear very often in the text and are very specific for this novel. These

words are not usually classified as interjections but in this text they work so. Their meaning as

nouns and addressing and the naming function are lost. The meaning gets lost mainly in Duke’s

narration, outside direct speech. In indirect speech, in narration, Man is only an empty phrase;

Duke talks to the reader as the book is written as a confession, but he does not really address

anybody. In the dialogue the addressing function is preserved (that is why these were not included

into this group, they were also translated differently (“vole”), Škvorecký also felt the difference).

Man does not even express any particular emotion, it is used mainly for emphasis (34 cases), (for

example: “Man it was rough at Valley Forge an places like that” “Páni ve Valley Forge a při

takovejch průšvihách to teda bylo drsný”) and address (14), the rest is distributed among fear (2),

surprise (2), joy (2) and other emotions. Škvorecký uses omission and other interjections (ksakru,

namouduši) only twice, by far the most often he translates it by equivalents (mostly páni, pánové,

once appears člověče and chlape). He realizes that this interjection is a part of the boys´ speech,

42

and that it must be translated mostly by the same word because it is almost always used in the

same situation.

Oh Man expresses more emotions; it was used 21 times and expresses joy (6 cases, with o

Man), impatience (3 cases), surprise, anger, fear, sorrow, pity (2 cases each) and agreement,

disagreement, address and emphasis (1 each). It is translated as páni, pánové again.

Shitman is a compound of “shit” and “man”. It appears 20 times in the novel. The translator is

sensitive to the emotion it expresses. When it is used for anger, it is translated as doprdele (for

example: “Shitman I liven in places like that all my life”- “Doprdele celej život jsem bydlel v

takovejhle barákách”), when it expresses disagreement, it is translated as

hovno (“Shitman the reason headbreakers usen the Colt is because they dont know better”-

“Hovno. Pendrekáři nosej Colty poněvač sou pitomý”). Hovno is sometimes used in Czech to

express strong disagreement; it could also be considered closest to equivalent of shitman. Shitman

is used to express anger (9 cases), emphasis (5 cases), anger (3), surprise, fear and impatience

(each 1).

These interjections, these phatic addresses, are very specific feature of this novel. No other of

the novels I worked with has such a great number of them. In the original English texts “man” is

not used the way Miller uses it. Only in Lucky Jim by Amis, “old man” as an expression close to

an address appears three times. In the Czech texts similar words appear, but they are also closer to

real address than the expressions Miller used. In Švandrlík´s Černí baroni “člověče” (man)

appears 15 times and “vole” 13 times. In Šabach´s Hovno hoří “člověče” appears twice and “vole”

9 times. And in Muži v offsidu by Poláček “člověče” appears 8 times. None of the authors uses

“pane” or “pánove” (written without the diacritics in Prezydent krokadýlů) the same way

Škvorecký does. “Pane” appears as a real address in all four Czech texts.

43

Oh

Oh is the second most often used interjection in the novel. It appears 39 times and the translator

again prefers omission to other translating methods (see table 31 below).

Table 31: Methods of translating oh in The Cool World by Josef Škvorecký

method of translation

number % of the total example

equivalent 16 41% ach, ó other interjection 5 13% no, bože other part of speech 6 15% jo, ano, víš omission 12 31% total 39

Oh is mostly used for address, anger and disagreement, surprisingly often translated as ach. It

probably, in translator’s view, belongs to Duke’s style, to his way of expression, of writing.

Table 32: What oh expresses in The Cool World

used to express

number % of the total number

% among other int. expressing the same

translated or substituted

address 9 23% 38 77% (7) anger 6 15% 29 33% (2) disagreement 5 13% 31 60% (3) emphasis 3 8% 5 33% (1) sorrow, pity 3 8% 23 100% (3) agreement 3 8% 30 33% (1) remembering 3 8% 75 100% (3) understanding 2 5% 67 100% (2) fear 2 5% 20 100% (1) joy 1 3% 6% 100% (1) surprise 1 3% 17% 100% (1) hesitation 1 3% 4% 100% (1)

It is interesting that Škvorecký translated or substituted oh so frequently when it is used as a part

of an address, the other translators (except for Kořán) avoided translation or substitution in this

case. Another interesting feature is that the less frequently oh is used to express particular emotion

the more frequently it translated or substituted (see the last lines of table 32).

44

Uh

According to dictionaries, uh expresses either hesitation (Merriam-Webster), or request for

repetition when something is misunderstood or surprise, confusion or uncertainty (OneLook

Dictionary, www.onelook.com).

This interjection appears quite frequently, often it is several times repeated (uh uh uh - counted as

one), not really expressing any emotion, at least not for me. To me it seems more like urgent

difficulty or inability to express oneself when something is, as well urgently, needed. It is listed as

hesitation. Škvorecký translated it often as “teda” or “vole”. (For example: “Uh uh uh uh Duke

now Man uh uh.”- “Teda Duke koukni vole teda”). His choice of “teda” suggests that he also

understood the word as hesitation or inability to express oneself. It often used by Blood, a drug

addict, who utters the majority of the uhs in the text and it, in my opinion, helps to express his

compulsive behaviour.

Table 33: Methods of translating uh in The Cool World by Josef Škvorecký

method of translation

number % of the total example

equivalent 0 0 other interjection 6 26% hm, no, chachacha other part of speech 15 65% teda, prosim tě omission 2 9% total 23

These were the most often used interjections in the text. The other group of interjections that

appears often are the onomatopoeic ones. Škvorecký translates them either by the interjections

very similar to the original ones, he changes a vowel or a consonant to make the interjection

sound more natural in Czech - boom - bum, vooooom - zůůůůům, or he translates them by a

different interjection, also more natural in Czech - slump - klap, thic - cvak. Twice he also

translates it by a verb (“Harrison slam his book shut. It goes Thuck.”- “Harrison sklapne knihu až

to práskne.”). Onomatopoeic interjections found in the text were – boom (translated as bum),

45

slump (klap), whish (fít), bam (prásk), whack, thuck (by a verb), thic (cvak), thum (bum),

whooooom (huííí), voooom (zůůůůůůům), eeeeeyuh (áááách), chomp (chrup).

Empty vocatives

The remaining interjections are not very frequent. There are 17 empty vocatives, oh Christ, oh

dear, Jesus, oh God. Christ, Jesus and God are translated by their equivalents - kristepane, jéžíš,

panebože - oh dear is translated as ach kamaráde, bože and ach bože.

Table 34: What the empty vocatives express in The Cool World

used to express number % of the total

%among other int. expressing the same

translated or substituted

joy 6 35% 38% 100% (6) sorrow, pity 5 29% 38% 100% (5) fear 2 12% 20% 100% (2) impatience 1 6% 17% 100% (1) remembering 1 6% 25% 100% (1) anger 1 6% 5% 100% (1) emphasis 1 6% 2% 100% (1)

The rest of the interjections appear only a few times. The most frequent of these is uh (un) huh,

which is used 7 times and expresses agreement, it is translated by hm (1 case), hm no (5 cases)

and once by “helemese”. Its opposite, hunh uh is used once for emphasis of negation and is

translated as “fakt” (“No. Hunh uh.” - “Ne. Fakt”).

Ah appears 4 times as a part of an address and is three times translated as ach and once omitted. I.

I. I. I. is used three times, it probably an original spelling of ai, which expresses “pity, pain or

anguish” (www.onelook.com). Here it is used for surprise (unpleasant) or disbelief and is

translated by “namoutě, namoutě, namoutě” in all three cases. For example: “He shaken his head

at whut he readin. He say ‘I.I.I.I.’ Like that. ‘I.I.I.I’” – “Vrtí hlavou nad tim co čte. Řiká.

‘Namoutě namoutě namoutě’. Tohle. ‘Namoutě namoutě namoutě’”

46

Nah nah nah is an imitation of a woman´s refusal, and is translated as “depak, depak, depak”. Hey

attracts attention and is translated as “hele”, damn is used for anger and is translated by its

equivalent - sakra.

Petr Šabach: Hovno hoří

In Šabach´s text the most frequent interjection is again no. The next most numerous group is

the empty vocatives (namely proboha and panebože). The common, primary interjections (ach,

he, aha) are not very frequent.

The table of interjections found in the novel is at the beginning of this chapter (table 29).

The interjections that appear only once are jééé, jé, prokrista, mno, haló, ksakru, aha, hergot,

hurááá, he, ach, hm, tě pic. Onomatopoeic interjections are - škyt, ááááách, áááách, pssst (sounds

of breathing), klapity klap and prrr.

Table 35: What interjections express in Hovno hoří

used to express number % of the total (74) emphasis 21 28% anger 15 20% sorrow, pity 6 8% onomatopoeic 6 8% agreement 5 7% joy 4 5% surprise 4 5% fear 4 5% hesitation, thinking 3 4% objection 3 4% address 1 1% understanding 1 1% invitation 1 1% total 74

No

In more than a half cases no appear as a personal locution of one of the characters in the

beginning (“Co? No!”, 16 cases). Together with one simple no I listed these as an emphasis. The

47

locution means something like Am I right? Right. The rest of the 28 is distributed among

agreement (5), objection (3), invitation (1), anger (1) and hesitation (1).

Empty vocatives

Empty vocatives counted together form the next greatest group of interjections in the text. To this

group belong proboha, panebože, ježíšmarjá, hergot, prokrista, ksakru.

Table 36: What the empty vocatives express in Hovno hoří

used to express

number % of the total % among other int. expressing the same

anger 8 33% 53% fear 4 17% 100% emphasis 4 17% 19% sorrow, pity 4 17% 67% joy 2 8% 50% surprise 1 4% 25% thinking, hesitation

1 4% 33%

total 24

Anger is expressed by proboha (4), panebože (2), ksakru and hergot (both 1), fear by proboha (2),

panebože and ježíšmarjá (both 1), emphasis by proboha (4), joy by panebože (2), surprise by

proboha and hesitation by prokrista.

From the remaining interjections do prdele is used in all four cases to express anger as well as do

háje (2). Jééé and hurááá express joy, he, jé and tě pic are used for surprise (jé for pleasant, he

and tě pic for unpleasant), ach and hm express sorrow and pity, mno hesitation, haló attracts

attention and aha is used for signalling understanding.

Comparison

The novels share several features - there are not many subjective, original interjections, on the

contrary, there is quite a large number of secondary interjections (empty vocatives) and

onomatopoeic ones.

48

Table 37: What interjections express in The Cool World and Hovno hoří

used to express The Cool World Prezydent Krokadýlů (only int.)

Hovno hoří

emphasis

58 41 21

onomatopoeic 31 29 6

address 24 17 1

hesitation, thinking 23 8 3

anger 21 16 15

disagreement, objection 16 12 3

joy 16 16 4

sorrow, pity 13 9 6

fear 10 9 4

agreement 10 6 5

impatience 6 6 0

surprise 6 6 4

remembering 4 1 0

understanding 3 2 1

total 255 178 74

Though the language of Hovno hoří is not as colloquial or even peculiar as the language of

Prezydent Krokadýlů, Šabach and Škvorecký employ similar interjections in similar situations, for

example for agreement Šabach uses 5 times no and Škvorecký 4 times hm no, to express anger

they both use doprdele (Škvorecký writes the preposition and the noun together), Šabach 4 times

and Škvorecký 9 times. Škvorecký does not use so many deviated forms of empty vocatives as

Šabach when translating interjections but he employs this strategy when he translates the

intensifiers. “The hell” used as intensifier is 6 times translated as ksakru or sakra. “God dam it” is

translated as sakra krucifix or as krucinál (see table 38). The high number of emphasising

interjections is also common to both novels; it is a part of colloquial language. There is a

relatively high frequency of onomatopoeic interjections, mainly in The Cool World; this feature is

still present in the speech of the adolescents and Škvorecký was right to translate them by

interjections and not by verbs.

49

As the other already discussed translators, Škvorecký also added some interjections to the text. He

did so when translating the above mentioned intensifiers and when translating “well”, “you know”

which he translated by no. He also adds one ach.

Table 38: Translation of interjections in Prezydent Krokadýlů by Josef Škvorecký

The Cool World - Prezydent Krokadýlů

number % of the total in the source text (255)

interjection- interjection 178 70% interjection - no interjection 77 30% no interjection - interjection 24 9% no (15), empty

vocatives

Table 38 shows that Škvorecký very frequently translated an interjection by an interjection, he

translated 70% of the interjections in the original. He realized that the interjections form a very

important part of the speech of young people. He, as well as Kořán, added mostly no, which is a

typical interjection of Czech texts.

50

2.4 Rudyard Kipling: The Jungle Book, Aloys a Hana Skoumal: Kniha džunglí and Josef

Čapek: Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce

Now I get to the representatives of literature for children. Both The Jungle Book and Povídání

o pejskovi a kočičce share the main feature - there are mostly animals as the main characters

(except for Mowgli, who is human but brought up by animals).

Kipling’s The Jungle Book was published in 1894, it is composed of three stories about

Mowgli, the man cub, about Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the mongoose, and about Toomai, the elephant

handler. These stories contain much of what Kipling knew about the jungle and about India. They

are seen as fables, the animals in the stories have human characters and the stories should give a

moral lesson to the reader. An interesting fact about this book is that it is one of “founding” texts

of the Scout movement because of the morals of the book.

(www.usscouts.org/profbvr/jungle_book, en.wikipedia.org). This book is for older children than

the Čapek´s one.

Josef Čapek´s Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce was published in 1929. Čapek started writing

stories for children as his own children started learning to read, so the book is written for an age

group between 6-8 years old). Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce is to the present one of the most

popular and one of the best books written for children in Czech Republic. I doubt there is a child

who does not have it on his or her bookshelf. The book is composed of various comic adventures

that Pejsek and Kočička experience while doing the everyday things, for example, cooking or

tiding up the house.

Concerning the interjections The Jungle Book contains the classic ones (oh, o) as well as the

unusual ones (arre arre), as the setting is exotic and the author tried to keep a bit of this exotic

feature in the language. There is also a large number of onomatopoeic interjections - mainly,

obviously, the animal sounds.

51

Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce has not such a number of animal sounds as Pejsek and Kočička

are conceived more as humans than Kipling´s characters. The most numerous interjection is again

no, followed by jejej, panečku, etc. The interjections in these two books differ probably more than

in the case of the other pairs discussed here, as the age groups the novels are aimed at differ, and

the difference is very important for the style of writing.

Table 39: Interjections found in The Jungle Book and in Knihy džunglí

The Jungle Book number Knihy džunglí number o 35 ach 7 oh 30 hej 6 onomatopoeic 19 hoho 3 hai 5 héj 3 oho 3 aha 3 bah 3 fuj 3 hi 3 fú 2 hah 3 jéje 2 phew 3 pst 2 ahaa 3 hurá 2 ah 2 ó 1 faugh 2 hm, chm chm 1 pah 2 áaa, ah-h-á 1 hsh 2 au, ouvej 1 wah 2 hola hola hola 1 umph 2 aaa-sp 1 ugh 2 ahah, ehé 1 once appearing 22 uf 1 fí 1 hehe, haha 1 uá, uach 1 hurá 1 pch 1 other once appearing 5 onomatopoeic 18 total 143 total 59

52

Table 40: Interjections found in Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce

interjection number no 12 panečku 8 jéjej, jejej 7 aha 5 jemine 5 ach 3 heč 3 hej 2 ha ha 2 ó jej, ó je 2 hm 2 fuj 1 au au 1 propána 1 oho 1 propánajána 1 no no 1 onomatopoeic 16 total 73

Numbers in tables 39 and 40 may be misleading. The greatest density of interjections was found

in Josef Čapek´s Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce, where the interjections form 0,628% of all words.

The reason is obvious, the book is written for very young readers and interjections are quite

important in literature for such young children, probably because interjections are among the very

first words a child utters and which he or she understands and understandability is one of the

requirements for literature for children.

Rudyard Kipling: The Jungle Book, Aloys and Hana Skoumal: Knihy Džunglí

The interjections found in Kipling’s novel are very varied, many of them appear only once or

twice in the whole text. The most numerous are oh and o, the other interjections found in the text

53

are used less than 5 times, usually once, twice or three times. As was said above, many of the

interjections are very unusual due to the exotic setting. The interjections appearing more

frequently are listed in table 39. Once appearing interjections are aah, ah-h-á, ouch, heh, arulala

wahooa, ahoo, ts ts, arre arre, ai, aihai, huah, ouach, ahae, aaa-ssh, ow, wow, hmph, ohe, hillo

illo illo, hum, hurrah, arre arre hai yai kyaa - ah. Onomatopoeic interjections are whoof, ho ho (3

times), ha ha, hhrrmph, rrrt, rrrmph, rrrhha, augrh, aaarh, uhrr, yarrh, grr, arrh, wah, sssss,

heya--hullah, heeyah--hullah

Table 41: What interjections express in The Jungle Book

used to express number % of the total translated or substituted

address 41 29% 17% (7) surprise 22 15% 73% (16) onomatopoeic 19 13% 94% (16) anger 11 8% 55% (6) contempt 8 6% 63% (5) sorrow, pity 7 5% 57% (4) emphasis 7 5% 0% (0) comforting, soothing 6 4% 100% (6) fear 5 3% 100% (5) objection 4 3% 75% (3) joy 3 2% 100% (3) salute 3 2% 100% (3) pain 2 1% 100% (2) relief 2 1% 100% (2) attention seeking 1 1% 100% (1) agreement 1 1% 100% (1) understanding 1 1% 100% (1) total 143

The largest number of interjections is used for address because two most frequent interjections

were employed to express it, and that are o and oh.

O

54

The most numerous is o (35 occurrences), for the most part used as a part of an address (31

occurrences), in accordance with the dictionary definition “expression used when addressing a

person, thing, etc.” (OALD 848). The remaining four os are used to express emphasis

(3 cases), for example “Haste! O haste!” - “Honem. Honem.” and anger (1). The translators

omitted the most of it. As was said many times before, ó and ach is not used in Czech with

address very often.

Table 42: Methods of translating o in The Jungle Book by Aloys and Hana Skoumal

method of translation

number % of the total

equivalent 2 6% ó, ach other int. 0 0 other part of speech 1 3% milý omission 32 91% total 35

Oh

Oh with 30 occurrences is the second most frequent interjection in the novel. Again the most often

used method of translation is omission, but the other methods were employed here as well:

Table 43: Methods of translating oh in The Jungle Book by Aloys and Hana Skoumal

method of translation

number % of the total example

equivalent 5 17% ach other interjection 1 3% aha other part of speech 4 13% ale, co, inu, copak ty omission 20 67% total 30

Examples of usage of the other parts of speech:

“Oh, thou art a man´s cub”- “Copak ty, ty jsi člověčí mládě”

“Oh, if you trying to back out” - “Inu, jestli si netroufáš do rvačky”

55

As well as translation of it, the use of oh is more various than that of o.

Table 44: What oh expresses in The Jungle Book

used to express number % of the total % among other interjection expressing the same

address 7 23% 17% anger 5 17% 45% sorrow, pity 4 13% 57% emphasis 4 13% 57% surprise 4 13% 18% objection 3 10% 75% contempt 2 7% 2% understanding 1 3% 100%

The remaining interjections appear only one to five times and I will choose those that were

translated unusually or creatively. Hai is one of the exotic interjections and is used for comforting,

soothing. It was translated as héj which in Czech definitely does not evoke comforting. As an

expression of surprise hai was translated as jéje. Oho also expresses surprise and is translated by

other parts of speech that express surprise in Czech - “cože” and “podívejme se”. Bah, when it is

used for contempt, is translated as uch and fuj, both interjections are usual expression for

contempt in Czech, the translators tried to vary their vocabulary by using different expressions.

The onomatopoeic interjections are usually translated by transforming English spelling to Czech

usage, for example changing ph to f, or omitting h at the end of the words (hhrrmph - hrmf, augrh

- augrr).

56

Josef Čapek: Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce

Čapek´s book is similar to Kipling’s in the usage of interjections, there is a great variety of

them, but they are not used very often. Onomatopoeic interjections again appear quite often, not

only animal sounds but also sounds inanimate objects (for example car - tu-tututú). As was said at

the beginning of the chapter, Čapek´s book has the greatest density of interjection of all the novels

studied here. It is so because it is meant for the youngest readership. It is necessary to add one

thing - though there are many interjections in the text they are not used cheaply, in a kitschy way.

The interjections that were found in Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce are again listed at the

beginning of the chapter. Onomatopoeic interjections are: haf, haf, cilililink (3 times), hehe, hehe,

hihihi, ratata ratata, mňáááuf, mňáaauf, ňaufňaufňauf, rrrrrr, hňauf, hňaf hňaf, tu-tututú.

Table 45: What interjections express in Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce

used to express number % of the total onomatopoeic 16 22% emphasis 13 18% surprise 7 10% joy 7 10% understanding 5 9% fear 5 7% objection 4 5% boasting 3 4% unspecified emotion 3 4% anger 2 3% hesitation, thinking 2 3% attention seeking 2 3% sorrow, pity 1 1% remembering 1 1% pain 1 1% address 1 1% total 73

No

As in every Czech book discussed here, the most frequent interjection is again no. It appears 12

times and expresses mainly emphasis.

57

Table 46: What no expresses in Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce

used to express number

% of the total % among other interjections expressing the same

emphasis 5 42% 39% unspecified emotion 3 25% 100% fear 1 8% 20% objection 1 8% 25% anger 1 8% 50% joy 1 8% 14% total 12

Panečku

The second most numerous interjection in the text, panečku, can be counted in the empty

vocatives group, panečku is a diminutive of either only pane or of panebože with “bože” omitted -

that would be a deviation of the vocative. Panečku is also mostly used for emphasis (6 cases) (for

example: “[P]es má, panečku, ouška nějak citlivá”) and once for surprise and objection (ó

panečku).

Jéjej, jejej

These interjections differ only in diacritic, their usage is the same. They are used to express

surprise (5 cases) (for example: “Jéjej, tady je anděl a Mikuláš”), joy (1) and emphasis (“[J]éjej,

děti, co ona toho ještě našla”).

Jémine

Jémine belongs to the same category as panečku, it is a deviated form of “Jesus”. Its use is more

varied than that of panečku. Jémine expresses joy (2 occurrences), fear, surprise and objection (1

each).

58

The other interjections are used according to their dictionary definitions, there is no original

usage. Aha is used in the usual way, to express understanding and that in 5 cases.

Ach does not appear very often, only three times, twice it expresses fear and once a part of an

address. Haha is not included in the onomatopoeic interjections because here it used to express

mischievous joy. Heč as was said is an interjection used mainly by children, as an expression of

boasting or of joy. Hej attracts attention (2 cases), hm expresses thinking (2 cases), ó je is

expression of joy; ó jej is used for emphasis. Oho expresses remembering, propána fear and

propánajána sorrow and pity. Fuj appears not as expression of disgust but for anger, no no is an

objection and au au expresses pain.

Comparison

Translators of The Jungle Book, Skoumals, employed the method of omitting the interjections

that are not frequently used in the Czech language and sometimes they translated such

interjections with the other parts of speech. They translated The Jungle Book 70 years after its first

publication and they seem to have made the language more up to date and more readable than the

original. Those interjections that appeared as an exotic feature of language, the Indian

interjections, were only adjusted to the Czech spelling (arrulala! whoo! - arulala! hú!).

59

Table 47: What interjections express in The Jungle Book, Knihy džunglí and Povídání o pejskovi a

kočičce

used to express The Jungle Book

Knihy džunglí (int. only)

Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce

address 41 5 1 surprise 22 13 7 onomatopoeic 19 18 16 anger 11 5 2 contempt 8 3 0 sorrow, pity 7 4 1 emphasis 7 0 13 comforting, soothing 6 6 0 fear 5 3 5 objection 4 0 4 joy 3 3 7 salute 3 3 0 pain 2 2 1 attention seeking 1 1 2 agreement 1 1 0 understanding 1 1 5 relief 1 1 0 total 142 69 73

(containing other categories not included in the table)

The table shows that the translators of the novel tried reduce those interjections that do not appear

so often in Czech as in English (see, for example, the reduction of interjections expressing address

or surprise). They also omitted those interjections that do not appear often in the literature for

children, anger and contempt. Skoumals do not translate the other parts of speech by interjection,

as was the case in other pairs that were studied here.

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3. Final Comparison

In this section I would like to compare the translations and the original texts on a more general

level. The first thing that will be explored is the difference in the use of interjections in standard

literary language and in colloquial language. The difference is very clearly visible in both original

texts and in the translations. The fact is that the more literary the language is, the fewer

interjections there are, this is true for both languages but more for Czech. Second, Czech literary

texts seem to prefer secondary interjections to primary interjections (see Trávníček´s classification

in chapter An Interjection). This tendency appears in those texts that are written in a standard

language but also in colloquial texts. Third, variety in the use of interjections to express particular

emotions will be examined. In the last part the translators’ attitudes will be compared on a general

basis.

Amis’s Lucky Jim and Kipling’s The Jungle Book are written in standard literary language.

The number of interjections in the originals is significantly higher than in the translations. If the

total numbers of interjections are counted, the interjections make up 0.247% of all words in Lucky

Jim and 0.271% in The Jungle Book whereas in Šťastný Jim the translated interjections represent

only 0.071% of all words and in Knihy džunglí 0.176% of all words. On the other hand Toole’s A

Confederacy of Dunces and Miller’s The Cool World are written in non-standard language, A

Confederacy of Dunces a colloquial language with many dialogues, in a language specific for

New Orleans and The Cool World in a black Harlem dialect. Interjections appear more often in

both the originals and the translations – in A Confederacy of Dunces the interjections represent

0.429% of all words and in The Cool World 0.464% of all words. The translations retained most

of the interjections – Spolčení hlupců 0.324% and Prezydent Krokadýlů 0.373%.

The reason for reduction of interjections in the translations of standard literary language texts

is, in my opinion, a different perception of primary, original (subjective) interjections in Czech

and English. Czech uses primary (and secondary) interjections more often in the colloquial

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language, interjections are more connected to spoken language and many of the primary

interjections are often seen as marked (for comparison see tables 48 and 49). In literary texts

secondary interjections, mainly empty vocatives appear more often than primary interjections.

Secondary interjections seem to have become a more natural part of the language and are not

perceived as marked, definitely not so often as primary interjections. English uses primary

interjections in literary language more frequently than Czech. On the average, in original English

texts primary interjections make up 59% whereas in Czech texts it is only 24%.

I reviewed the translators´ dealing with most numerous primary interjections in the texts and

compared them with secondary interjections. I found out that Mucha in his translation of Lucky

Jim omitted 60% of occurrences of oh in the text and translated by equivalents only 2% of these.

On the other hand he used equivalent to translate 61% of the empty vocatives in the text and

omitted only 9%. Skoumals in their translation of The Jungle Book omitted 91% of occurrences of

o in the text; equivalent appears in 6% of the cases. Unfortunately, there are no empty vocatives in

The Jungle Book so the comparison here is not complete. The situation is different in the two

remaining texts. In A Confederacy of Dunces Kořán translated by equivalent 58% of ohs present

in the text and omitted 24% of them. For translation of all empty vocatives Czech equivalents or

the other empty vocatives were used. Škvorecký in his translation of The Cool World uses

equivalent to translate 41% of ohs appearing in the text but omitted 31% of them. He also

translated all empty vocatives by their Czech equivalents or by the other empty vocatives. The use

of the empty vocatives in original Czech texts will be discussed in a moment.

62

Table 48: Translation of oh and of empty vocatives in all translated texts

equivalent other parts of speech

other interjections

omission

Šťastný Jim - oh 2% 24% 14% 60% Šťastný Jim – empty vocatives

61% 9% 21% 9%

Knihy džunglí - oh 17% 13% 3% 67% Spolčení hlupců - oh 58% 8% 9% 24% Spolčení hlupců – empty vocatives

100% 0% 0% 0%

Prezydent krokadýlů - oh

41% 15% 13% 31%

Prezydent krokadýlů – empty vocatives

100% 0% 0% 0%

Table 48 shows that translators really deal with the primary and secondary interjections

differently. Primary interjections (and to a lesser extent also secondary interjections) are used

more often in the texts written in colloquial language than in texts written in literary language. I

will try to support this claim by comparing the original Czech texts.

First of all I would like to make a brief comment on style of the texts. Poláček´s Muži v offsidu

is colloquial in dialogues and literary in the narration, but sometimes very ironic. Šabach´s text is

also written in colloquial, relaxed language. Čapek´s Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce is written for

a very young readership and that makes the language of the novel specific – it has a high number

of interjections and the reader is addressed directly from time to time, which does not appear in

any other novel discussed here, and Švandrlík´s text can be considered to be closest to the

standard literary language but the style is ironically elevated. The density of interjections in the

Czech text is as follows: the most interjections can be found in Čapek´s Povídání o pejskovi a

kočičce – 0.628% of interjection among all words, I think that this is so because of the age group

the novel is written for – little children – whose word stock may still contain a lot of interjections

and thus the texts conforms to that feature of children’s language. Poláček´s Muži v offsidu comes

next with 0.377%, then Šabach´s Hovno hoří with 0.232% and the last one is Švandrlík´s Černí

baroni with 0.150% (approximately – the novel in electronic form is not complete).

63

As was said in the corpus study itself, the most numerous of Czech interjections is no.

Etymology of no is not clear, it used to be, and partly still is, an invitation (like English “come

on”), similar to Czech nu and also to na (Holub-Lyer 336). It is not exactly one of the primary

interjections. So in Czech texts primary interjections appear less frequently - mainly to add colour

and vividness – and secondary interjections are used more often.

Table 49: The most often used interjections in the Czech texts

Muži v offsidu – no 32,4% (of the total – 222) Muži v offsidu – empty vocatives 5,4% Muži v offsidu – ach 5% Černí baroni – no 49,7% (of the total – 175) Černí baroni – empty vocatives 24% Černí baroni – ach 0% Hovno hoří – no 37.8% (of the total – 74) Hovno hoří – empty vocatives 32.4%

Hovno hoří – ach 2.7% Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce -no 16% (of the total – 73) Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce - empty vocatives 19.1% Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce - ach 4.1%

Again, the language is important for the choice and the occurrence of primary and secondary

interjections. As was said above Černí baroni can be considered to be written in more standard

language than the remaining three texts. In this text no forms half of the interjections used in the

novel and another quarter is made up by the empty vocatives, on the other hand there is no ach

(which I chose as a representative of primary interjections and for comparison of the use and

frequency of appearance of ach in the translations and in the original Czech texts).

In Šabach´s Hovno hoří and Poláček´s Muži v offsidu the level of language is approximately

the same, though Šabach language is, obviously, more up-to-date. The difference is in the use of

the empty vocatives, in Poláček´s text they represent only 5.4% of the interjections whereas in

Šabach´s text it is 32.4%. I think that in Poláček´s times authors were more careful with the empty

64

vocatives and used deviated forms of the vocatives (jemine, panečku) because of the religion and

the taboo (the name of God). The use of no and ach remains the same.

Čapek´s Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce is rather a specific case, as was said above in chapter

II.4, the text is meant for the children who are just beginning to learn to read. The density of

interjections is great because the interjections belong to the first words a child utters and they

remain an important part of their speech for a long time. The choice of interjections also shows

the fact – panečku, jeje, and especially heč.

On the whole, Czech prefers secondary interjections to primary interjections and that particularly

in the literary language.

Table 50: Average numbers of primary/secondary/onomatopoeic interjections in original Czech

and English texts and translations

primary int. secondary int. onomatopoeic int. English texts 59% 34% 7% Czech texts 24% 67% 9% translations 40% 40% 20%*

*The onomatopoeic interjections are very frequently translated by equivalents, that is why there is

such a high number of them.

The most often used secondary interjections are the empty vocatives, and while the use of

primary interjections differs significantly in Czech and English original texts, the empty vocatives

are used approximately the same way (the empty vocatives make up 17.3% of all interjections in

Czech texts and 14.1% in English texts). Here is the comparison of the use of the empty vocatives

in the original English texts, in their translations and in the original Czech texts.

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Table 51: Use of the empty vocatives in Lucky Jim, The Cool World and Confederacy of Dunces

used to express number % of the total number of empty vocatives (172) anger 33 19% surprise 32 19% fear 28 16% disgust 25 15% sorrow, pity 10 6%

Table 52: Use of the empty vocatives in Šťastný Jim, Prezydent Krokadýlů and Spolčení hlupců

used to express number % of the total of translated empty vocatives (166) anger 31 19% surprise 31 19% fear 26 17% disgust 22 13% sorrow, pity 9 5%

Table 53: Use of the empty vocatives in Muži v offsidu, Hovno hoří and Černí baroni

used to express number % of the total number of the empty vocatives (77) anger 28 36% fear 18 23% sorrow, pity 12 16% joy 6 8%

Tables 51-53 show that while the emotions that are expressed by the empty vocatives are

approximately the same, the frequency with which they are used differs. To return to the previous

section I would say that this fact is related to the Czech preference for secondary interjections and

also to the difference in numbers of interjections used to express various emotions which will be

discussed later.

There is another interesting feature in the Czech translations – in A Confederacy of Dunces or

The Jungle Book – there is a tendency to use a greater variety of primary interjections than the

original, especially with interjections that are used once or twice. For example in The Jungle Book

there are 22 interjections used once which makes up 15.4% of the whole. In Knihy džunglí there

are 18 interjections used once and that makes up 30.5% of the whole. In A Confederacy of Dunces

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interjections used once make 0.4% of the number, whereas in the translation they make 1.7% of

the whole number. It may be argued that with the reduction of interjections in the translation it is

natural that there are more interjections appearing once, but the fact is that if, for example, an

interjection appears in the original four times it is translated by three different Czech interjections

and once omitted. For example, Kořán translates whoo, which is used five times, by five different

interjections – juchúúúú, žúúú, páni, hergot and chacha. Translators in this case seem to be

translating the emotion the word expresses rather than the word itself. Unfortunately, this cannot

be proved with the remaining texts, there is not enough interjections appearing once to make a

significant comparison.

The last difference I would like to explore here is the difference in the use of interjections to

express various emotions. In this case the numbers do not speak as clearly as in the case of the

primary and secondary interjections. I counted the percentage, the average numbers, which show

the proportion of interjections that express given emotion. The results are these:

Table 54: Mean percentage of interjections expressing given emotions in all texts

used to express English originals

translations (only int.)

translations (substitutions)

Czech originals

anger 9,3% 7,5% 1,3% 12,1% surprise 11,5% 9,3% 3,5% 8,3% joy 4,3% 4,7% 0,4% 7,1% fear 3,7% 3,7% 1,2% 5,5% sorrow, pity 4,5% 5,8% 0,9% 8,4% objection, disagreement

7,1% 2,8% 3,3% 6,1%

understanding 4,3% 3,8% 1,2% 3%

The numbers show that the there are differences between Czech and English original texts, which

is natural and can be partly caused by the different stories in the texts. I would like to pay

attention to the translators´ individual style here. Table 54 shows that in all but one cases the

67

number of translated interjections is higher or lower according to the number of Czech

interjections. This tendency is, in my opinion, not surprising; the translators did this intuitively

with feeling for their mother tongue. The only exception is anger where the number of translated

interjections is lower than in the original English text even though the number of interjections

expressing anger is even higher in the Czech texts. I would ascribe this to the fear of

overtranslation – fear as an emotion is usually expressed by an empty vocative or by a taboo word

in Czech originals, these words are quite expressive and the translators may have been afraid to

use them more often. I would also like to draw readers’ attention to the two highest numbers of

substitutions in cases of surprise and objection, disagreement. For example: “‘Erran? Hey! I

thought this a sweepin and moppin job.’” “‘Pochůzku? Tak to prrr! Já jsem najatej na zametání.’”

“Aw, Santa! I’m too old, girl.” “Ale di ty, Santo. Na tohle jsem stará.” (Toole). In Czech example

may be: “‘Hej, tatíku!’ zvolal, ‘dejte tu ženskou z ruky. Copak se to patří?’” or “No, já myslím, že

to tak honem nešlo.” (Poláček). Substitution makes up more than 3% in both cases, while the rest

of interjections is substituted in around 1% of cases or less (0.4%-1.3%, see table 54). This is also

caused by the translators´ intuitive use of the parts of speech that are used to express these

emotions in Czech. These are expressed by a verb (objection, disagreement) – “počkejte”,

“heleďte” – or by “ale”, “kdepak” etc. Surprise is usually expressed by “ale, ale”, “heleďme”,

“tak”.

As was said above, the empty vocatives may be the cause of the difference in the numbers of

interjections expressing anger, fear, joy and sorrow, pity. When tables 51-53 are compared and all

of them then compared with table 54 the result will be that empty vocatives are used most often

for these emotions and that these emotions are more often expressed by an interjection in Czech

than in English. I think that the connection here is clear. Because Czech uses more empty

vocatives to express these emotions than English, they are more often expressed by an interjection

(by an empty vocative) in Czech.

68

The translators chose different methods of translations. On the average, they translated 62.5%

of interjections found in the original texts. On the whole, the interjections in the translations were

reduced regarding the original texts – in the translations the interjections make up 0.236% of all

words, in English and Czech it is 0.353% and 0.347%, respectively. The differences between the

translators are quite great. Mucha in his translation of Amis´s Lucky Jim translated 29% of

interjections, Skoumals in Knihy džunglí translated 65% of the interjections, Kořán in Spolčení

hlupců translated 76% and Škvorecký in Prezydent krokadýlů translated 80% of interjections.

Why Mucha omitted so many interjections is not clear.

The translators´ methods are connected to the previous discussion of the use of primary and

secondary interjections in all cases, I think, because all the translations in this sense share some

characteristics: omission of primary interjections that appear often, translation of the empty

vocatives by equivalents or by approximate equivalents; on the whole, reduction of the total

number of interjections. Kořán´s and Skoumals´ translations also share one characteristic – though

the number of the primary interjections in the translations tends to be reduced, those interjections

that appear less frequently (up to 5 times) are usually all translated and the translation is done

according to the emotion the interjection expresses, not by a dictionary equivalent. The reasons

why the remaining two translators do not fulfil this characteristic are, I think, these: Škvorecký in

his translation of The Cool World did not increase the number of interjections like Kořán because

the language of the novel is very specific and he did not want to add anything of his own

invention. And Mucha was very careful with the translation of interjections, maybe because the

use of interjections in his source text is not varied and he was afraid of repetition on one hand or

overtranslation on the other.

Translators also added interjections in places where Czech usually uses them. The most often

added ones were aha (“I see”), no (added, “come on”, “well”). On the whole, they added 20%

interjections - Mucha 33 (60% of interjections translated by interjections), Škvorecký 24 (13% of

69

the number of interjections translated by interjection), Kořán 50 (12% of the number of

interjections translated by interjection) and Skoumals none.

70

4. Conclusion

The aim of this corpus study was to find out whether there is any difference between the use of

interjections in the original English texts, in their translations and in the original Czech texts and

which strategies the translators used when dealing with interjections.

The results of my study can be summarized as follows. The most numerous English

interjections is oh, in Czech it is no. The next most numerous group in both language are the

empty vocatives. Czech uses fewer interjections than English (interjections make up 0.353%

among all words in English and 0.347% in Czech); translations are in the middle, with the average

number of translated interjections around 62%. The reason seems to be that Czech does not have

many primary interjections in texts written in standard literary language; it prefers secondary

interjections, mainly that group of them which is called empty vocatives. These are used more

often in texts written in both literary and colloquial language. Empty vocatives are used more

often in Czech; on the average they represent 17.3% of all interjections in Czech texts, 28% in the

translations and 14.1% in English texts. This has an influence on the numbers of interjections used

to express chosen emotions (those that appeared in every text).

These emotions were surprise, objection, understanding, anger, joy, fear and sorrow, pity. The

first three of these were more often expressed by an interjection in English; the remaining four

were expressed by an interjection more often in Czech. Anger, joy, fear and sorrow, pity are more

often expressed by an empty vocative and surprise, objection and understanding have the highest

number of substitutions in the translations - it follows that when there are those emotions that are

expressed by an empty vocative in Czech, translators do so and when there are emotions for

which Czech does not use an interjection translators prefer substitution or omission.

The translators had different approaches to the translation of interjections. Their attitude to

translation of interjections differed according to the text they translated. Those translators that

translated texts written in standard language used fewer interjections than those who translated

71

texts in colloquial language. The only translator who differed in his translation method was Jiří

Mucha (Šťastný Jim). His by far the most preferred method was omission; he omitted more than

70% of the interjections.

The translators also added some interjections, Mucha, surprisingly, added the highest number

of them. The added interjections appeared in places where “I see” (aha), intensifiers (empty

vocatives) and invitations or question tags were used (no). Kořán and Mucha also employed a

greater variety of interjections in their translations. They tried to reproduce the emotion rather

than the interjection.

As there is no study on the use of interjections it was no clear what the outcome would be.

I expected there would be greater differences in the emotions and the numbers of interjection by

which these emotions are expressed. These did not appear to be so significant. On the other hand,

it was surprising for me that such a high number of empty vocatives appear in both languages and

that there is such a difference between use of primary and secondary interjections in both

languages.

It would be interesting to find out how the differences between the use of primary and

secondary interjections work in different genres and to compare these differences. Comparison of

texts of different genres translated by one translator could also come up with valuable results. As

was shown here, every translator has his own translation method and it would be interesting to see

whether he holds to it irrespective of the genre he translates.

72

5. Sources:

Primary Literature:

Amis, Kingsley. Lucky Jim. London: Victor Gollanz Ltd, 1957.

Čapek, Josef. Povídání o pejskovi a kočičice. Praha: Albatros 1984. <http://go.to/eknihy>

Kipling, Rudyard. The Jungle Book. New York: The Century Co. 1909.

Kořán, Jaroslav, trans. Spolčení hlupců. By John Kennedy O´Toole. Praha: Odeon 1985.

Miller, Warren. The Cool World. New York: Crest Books, 1964

Mucha, Jiří, trans. Šťastný Jim. By Kingsley Amis. Praha: Odeon 1970.

Poláček, Karel. Muži v offsidu. < http://go.to/eknihy>

Skoumal, Aloys and Hana, trans. Knihy džunglí. By Rudyard Kipling. Praha: Odeon 1976.

Šabach, Petr. Hovno hoří. Praha: Paseka 1994. <www.e-kniha.webovastranka.cz>

Škvorecký, Josef (as Jan Zábrana), trans. Prezydent Krokadýlů. By Warren Miller. Praha: Odeon

1990.

Švandrlík, Miroslav. Černí baroni. Praha: Mladá Fronta 1991.

<www.e-kniha.webovastranka.cz >

Toole, John Kennedy. A Confederacy od Dunces. London: Penguin Books 1981.

Secondary Literature:

Curme, George O. A Grammar of the English Language. Vol. 2: Parts of Speech and

Accidence. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company 1931.

Curme, Gerge O. A Grammar of the English Language. Vol. 3: Syntax. Boston: D.C. Heath

and Company 1931.

Encyklopedie Universum. Praha: Odeon 2001.

73

Grepl, Miroslav and Petr Karlík. Skladba spisovné češtiny. Praha: SPN 1986.

Havránek, Bohuslav and Antonín Jedlička. Česká mluvnice. Praha: SPN 1981.

Holub, Josef - Stanislav Lyer. Stručný etymologický slovník jazyka českého se zvláštním

zřetelem k slovům kulturním a cizím. Praha: SPN 1968.

Jovanovic, Vladimir Z. "The Form, Position and Meaning of Interjections in English".

Linguistics and Literature 3.1 (2004) 17-28.

Trávníček, František. Neslovesné věty v češtině, díl 1. Věty interjekční.

Brno: Masarykova universita 1930.

Trávníček, František. Nauka a slovní zásobě. Praha: SPN 1958.

diploma theses:

Kamenická, Dana. Slovesa a citoslovce vyjadřující zvuky, jejichž původcem je zvíře, popř.

neživotná substance. Brno 1987.

Uhrová, Zdeňka. Slovesa a citoslovce vyjadřující zvuky, jejichž původcem je člověk.

Brno 1987.

Zbořil, Jiří. Translation of Interjections. Brno 1998.

web pages:

OneLook Dictionaries <www.onelook.com>

Merriam-Webster Dictionary <www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary>

Rap Dictionary <www.rapdict.org/Category:Interjections> 25 January 2007

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interjection> 18 October 2006

<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle_Book> 9 March 2007

Slovník Seznam <slovnik.seznam.cz>