Dostoevsky’s landlady: portrayals of a mock German accent in Prestuplenie i Nakazanie (Crime and Punishment) in Russian and translation

Abstract

This article explores the portrayal of a mock German accent spoken by a Germano-Russian landlady in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The landlady’s mock accent is a type of fictionalized orality that, poking fun at German second language speakers of Russian, Dostoevsky used to entertain his readers. At the same time, the author’s use of the accent represents a not so subtle statement towards Germans and the German language in 19th century Petersburg. We examine the linguistic features Dostoevsky used to portray the accent and to what extent those features might be representative of a Russian speaker whose first language is German. We then look at three translations of the text – English, Japanese and German – to determine the linguistic strategies used to portray the fictionalized orality of the landlady’s German-accented speech. In the case of the English translation, German code-switching or exaggerated German-like intereference features were freely used to create a stereotypical German accent. The Japanese and German translations were not so straightforward. They relied instead on a translation of stereotypes more than on the language features present in the original work. Research examining fictionalized orality has shown that authors and translators need a sense of linguistic awareness at all levels in order to portray regional and social variation with accuracy and consistency. As this article reveals, the portrayal of mock accents also requires a heightened awareness of stereotypes and language attitudes.