Testing the explicitation hypothesis through different translations into Maltese of Saint-Exupery's 'Le petit prince'

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to test the notion of explicitation, vis-à-vis the Explicitation Hypothesis established by Shoshana Blum-Kulka which is considered to be one of the translation universals in the field of translation studies. This will be done by analysing selected excerpts from Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince and its Maltese translations by Tusè Costa; Il-Prinċep iż-Żgħir and Toni Aquilina’s two versions under the title of Iċ-Ċkejken Prinċep. Vinay and Darbelnet defined the term explicitation as “the process of introducing information into the target language which is present only implicitly in the source language, but which can be derived from the context or the situation”1. One must take into account that explicitation was more considered from the point of view of procedure, prompting Blum-Kulka to come up with the Explicitation Hypothesis. She analysed why translators tend to be more explicit than the original authors. Additionally, explicitation is due to various factors which will be obviously analysed in this study, such as the lack of appropriate terminology in the Maltese language or the deliberate choice of the translator in question for various reasons. Moreoever, I was also motivated by the fact that the Explicitation Hypothesis has not yet been analysed in the context of translations into Maltese.