"Lost in the Funhouse": A Translation of Metafiction

Abstract

This thesis deals with translating John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse”. This short story is a piece of metafiction and postmodernism in which the ideational function of style plays an important role. The source text is therefore analysed as a piece of metafiction following Victoria Orlowski’s list of metafictional features and how these features may pose problems for the translator. These problems are then linked to the more general problem of translating style, with a special focus on the fact that this story has an unreliable narrator as there is no clear distinction between the implied author, narrator and protagonist. Certain linguistic choices may reveal which of these personas is speaking and therefore an analysis of style is necessary in order to make a sound translation that fits the distinct voice of each. This thesis will then present several translation strategies that may be used to translate “Lost in the Funhouse”, after which an annotated translation will be presented that puts these strategies to use.