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In:The Discourse of Indirectness: Cues, voices and functions
Edited by Zohar Livnat, Pnina Shukrun-Nagar and Galia Hirsch
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 316] 2020
► pp. 119–142

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Anne Frank’s Diary – The Graphic Adaptation as a case of “indirect translation”

Integrating the principle of relevance with Bakhtinian concepts

 | Bar-Ilan University
 | David Yellin Academic College of Education
Published online: 29 October 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.316.06wei
The 2017 adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary into a graphic novel by Ari Folman and David Polonsky is addressed in this article as a case of indirect translation, a concept developed by Ernst-August Gutt on the basis of relevance theory. According to Gutt, indirect translation “interpretively resembles” the source text in respects that are relevant to a new target audience in a new context. Rather than applying this concept to interlingual translation, we use it to study an adaptation which involves a change of modalities – from the verbal to the multimodal. To find out how the adaptation retains the relevance of the original diary to a new generation of readers, familiar with new media and visual means of communication, we employ the Bakhtinian concepts of chronotope and polyphony. Through this case study we hope to demonstrate the usefulness of Gutt’s concept of “indirect translation” to the study of adaptations, to offer a link between the principle of relevance and Bakhtinian concepts, and to shed new light on the principle of relevance itself.
Article outline
  • 1.Relevance Theory and Translation Studies
  • 2.From ‘Version C’ to the graphic adaptation
    • 2.1Historical background
    • 2.2The graphic novel comes into being
  • 3.Addressees and audiences
    • 3.1From an imaginary addressee to real readers
    • 3.2The graphic diary: Reinterpreting the icon and addressing today’s young audience
  • 4.Chronotopes
  • 5.Polyphony
  • 6.The visual contribution: The page-space, words and images
    • 6.1The house behind
    • 6.2Life in the secret annex
    • 6.3Anne’s feminism
    • 6.4The many faces of Anne
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
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