The Translation Into Portuguese of the Literary Sociolects of the Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

Abstract

Among all the themes studied in Science Fiction works in general, the translation of linguistic varieties is one of the less regarded by literary criticism. These varieties constitute an important element in the composition of the internal verisimilitude in these fictional universes. The so-called “literary sociolects” can express many attributes of a character, such as: education, origin, class, ethnicity, gender, power, culture, institution, social values and attitudes. This paper is mainly focused on the linguistic varieties of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Empire). In order to create more realistic characters and civilizations, Asimov used different literary and linguistic varieties, according to the notion of literary sociolect, which was defined by the Canadian scholar Lane-Mercier. Among the most remarkable literary sociolects, we analyzed the religious technolects used by the Priests and the rural dialect of the character Narovi. The research corpus is based on the latest translation into Portuguese of the Foundation trilogy (2009 - Aleph) by Fábio Fernandes and Marcelo Barbão.