Grammar and Stereotypes: African American English in the Italian Translations of Flannery O’Connor’s Short Stories, by Chiara Martini, Dottorato in Scienza del Libro e della Scrittura, Università per Stranieri di Perugia

Italian translations of African American English (as it appears in literary works by major authors of the twentieth century) seem to follow two main strategies: stereotypical rendering, or normalization of language varieties into standard Italian. Through a linguistic analysis of the different editions of Italian translation of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories, this presentation proposes a different model of translation in which language conveys otherness without distortions or oversimplifications.