1 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 (K orpus a nglicko-c esky – e lektronicky n astroj K atedry a nglistiky) 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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1
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
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.
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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.
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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)
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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
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
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)
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(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)
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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
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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
“zdravíčko”, “tak to prrr” (“‘Erran? Hey! I thought this a sweepin and moppin job.”’ -
“‘Pochůzku? Tak to prr! Já jsem najatej na zametání.”’).
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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
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).
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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
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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).
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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
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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