Trolls dat speak / Vat did you say? Literary translation approaches to cultural references and Terry Pratchett's novels in German translation

This paper highlights the challenge presented to translators by a specific form of intertextual referencing, namely that of hyperculturality—references to the wider cultural environment. Through the use of examples drawn from original works of the popular British writer, Terry Pratchett, and from the German translations, the use of speech patterns to create culturally-specific characters which represent a 'transtextual' relationship to culture, and its translation into another culture, is discussed. The strategies employed by the German translator are then contrasted with some possibilities offered by the relevant translation strategies of Umberto Eco and Lawrence Venuti.