ORWELL´S ANIMAL FARM AND THE TRANSLATION CHALLENGES (ENGLISH-PORTUGUESE) REGARDING ANIMAL PERSONIFICATION

In this study, we conducted a comparative and contrastive analysis of the personification of the animals and their translation from English to Portuguese language. Animal personification is a likely source of cross-cultural misunderstanding, so that if translators do not contribute to remove this misinterpretation, communication efficiency will be jeopardized. We assumed that in translation of animal personification, where the personifications are different or opposite in the two languages involved in the translation, the translators should guide their efforts toward adopting the appropriate animal terms in the translation. In this study, the situation of translation was more complicated as the source text (Orwell´s Animal Farm) represents itself the image of some animals which are different from or contrary to the English readers´ expectations. It was assumed that representing the animals in the source text with different or opposite image to the expectations of the source text readers was the author´s intention; hence, this style should be also observed by the translators. Therefore, regarding the relationship between the source language and the target language in terms of the type of similarities and differences between the personification of the animals and the intention of the author, different cases of translation were pointed out and discussed. Afterwards, possible translation methods were proposed for each condition. In fact, we aimed to determine whether these methodologies are applicable to a work like Animal Farm. However, in translating Animal Farm, all the Portuguese translators kept all the same animal terms in the target text, and it seems that the readers do not prejudice with this. Apparently, the translators were not required to explain everything to the readers, as Orwell did not do. In fact, the author and the translators made use of the reader´s willing suspension of disbelief which helps them in temporarily accepting some unusual ideas and being absorbed in the text and so being entertained by this artistic creativity.