Slang and dialect in Harry Potter: The translator as mediator of marked language

Abstract

The present research covers the intersection between Descriptive Translation Studies and Children's Literature and aims to investigate the important role of the translator as mediator of marked language, more specifically by dialect and slang. This paper is based both on Santos's (2010) concluded mastering thesis which investigated the translation of the dialect of the character Rubeus Hagrid and Santos's ongoing PhD research which deals with translation into Brazilian Portuguese of slang words in the Harry Potter series. The initial hypothesis is that dialects and slang words will be translated by standard language and this translator choice is influenced by the particularities of its readership.