DelleChiaie Tesitriennale

Università degli Studi di Padova
Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari
Corso di Laurea Triennale in Mediazione Linguistica e Culturale

Classe LT-12
Tesina di Laurea
George Orwell’s “1984”: A Corpus-

based Analysis of the Novel and of two
Translations into Italian
Relatore Laureando
Prof. Erik Castello Davide Delle Chiaie
n° matr.1010482 / LTMZL
Anno Accademico 2013 / 2014

LIST OF CONTENTS
Introduction ......................................................................................................................3
Chapter 1: The author, the novel 1984 and the Italian translations ..............................5
1.1 George Orwell .........................................................................................................5
1.2 The novel..................................................................................................................6
1.3 The translations .......................................................................................................7
Chapter 2: Corpus Linguistics, Translation Studies, and Corpus Linguistics applied to
Translation Studies ..........................................................................................................9
2.1 Corpus linguistics ....................................................................................................9
2.2 Translation Studies ................................................................................................12
2.3 Corpus linguistics applied to Translation Studies .................................................13
Chapter 3: A corpus‐based analysis of verbs and processes of cognition ....................15
3.1 The importance of visual control ..........................................................................15
3.1.1 LOOK ...............................................................................................................17
3.1.1.1 Look: pattern 1.........................................................................................18
3.1.1.2 Look: pattern 2 ........................................................................................19
3.1.1.3 Look: pattern 3 ........................................................................................20
3.1.2 TO WATCH ......................................................................................................22
3.1.2.1 Watch: pattern 1 .....................................................................................22
3.1.2.2 Watch: pattern 2 .....................................................................................22
3.1.2.3 Watch: pattern 3......................................................................................23
3.1.3 SPY ..................................................................................................................24
3.1.4 GAZE ...............................................................................................................25
3.1.5 TO STARE ........................................................................................................30
3.1.6 TO GLARE ........................................................................................................31
3.2 Winston .................................................................................................................32
3.2.1 OBSERVATION AND RATIONALITY .................................................................34
3.2.2 THOUGHTS ......................................................................................................38
3.2.3 MEMORY .........................................................................................................41
3.2.4 FEELINGS ........................................................................................................43
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Chapter 4: Investigating the Italian translations ..........................................................49
4.1 Analysing the beginning of the novel ....................................................................49
4.2 Analysing the Appendix to the novel .....................................................................58
Conclusions .....................................................................................................................69
References.......................................................................................................................73

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Introduction

Nineteen Eighty‐Four (1984) is one of the cornerstones of English literature, and is
Orwell’s most widely read and researched work. It is impossible to understand and tell
the immense wisdom transmitted by this evergreen author. Many literary studies have
tried to uncover the main features of this novel and explain its value, but to my
knowledge 1984 has not received the same attention from a linguistic point of view.
The reason why I chose to write this undergraduate dissertation is my interest
in exploring this work in an alternative way. My aim is to adopt an approach which is
not limited to considering 1984 only as a literary work per se, but which also analyses it
as a corpus and compares it to two translations into Italian. I will indeed take into
consideration Orwell’s novel and two of its translations into Italian, compare and
contrast them and investigate their linguistic choices. Furthermore, thanks to a corpus‐
based approach, I will discuss some lexico‐grammatical features and structures of the
three texts.
My work is composed of four chapters. Chapter 1 is devoted to George Orwell’s
life, to its novel 1984 and to two of its translations into Italian. Firstly, I will give some
information about his life, focusing especially on the experiences which influenced his
production and style. Secondly, I will provide a general contextualization of the novel
and explain its fundamental characteristics. Finally, I will introduce the two
translations.
Chapter 2 deals with methodology. In its three sections, I will explore the
different methods of analysis, that is corpus linguistics, translation studies and corpus
linguistics applied to translation studies. In my work these fields of investigation are
interconnected, and a separation between them will not always be applied.
Chapter 3 presents a corpus‐based analysis of cognitive verbs and processes,
with specific focus on the expressions of visual control and on how Winston Smith, the
protagonist of the novel, is depicted. I will analyse some concordance lines in English
and Italian, which reveal linguistic patterns and trends and provide clues as to the
characterization of the main characters, especially of Winston.
3

Chapter 4 investigates the Italian translations. In this chapter I will study the
first paragraphs of the novel and some paragraphs taken from the Appendix, and
compare them to their Italian translations. In this way, I aim to gain insights into
Orwell’s writing style, as well as into the ways the translators have rendered the text
into Italian.
4

Chapter 1: The author, the novel 1984 and the Italian
translations

1.1 George Orwell

Born Eric Arthur Blair, George Orwell was known only for his nom de plume. The
change in name corresponded to a profound shift in Orwell’s life‐style, in which he
changed from a pillar of the British imperial establishment into a literary and political
rebel1.
He was born in India in 1903 to a minor British official in the Indian civil service
and the daughter of an unsuccessful teak merchant in Burma. In 1907 he returned with
his parents to England; despite being a morose, withdrawn, eccentric boy, he studied
at Eton and had Aldous Huxley as one of his masters.
Instead of accepting a scholarship to a university, Orwell decided to follow
family tradition and, in 1922, went to Burma as assistant district superintendent in the
Indian Imperial Police. After some years, he felt increasingly ashamed of his role as a
colonial police officer, and in 1928 resigned from the imperial police.
He decided to change his lifestyle completely and to immerse himself in the life
of the poor and outcast people of Europe, spending some time both in the East of
London and in the slums of Paris.
Another important chapter of his life took place in Spain on the occasion of the
Civil War, during which he joined the Republican militia. These events were told in
Homage to Catalonia (1938), which many consider one of his best books. This
experience deeply influenced his political view: after an initial period as an anarchist,
he considered himself a socialist: “Every line of serious work that I have written since
1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic
socialism”. However, “he points with insight and persistence at a crucial and terrifying

1
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/433643/George‐Orwell
5

area of darkness at the heart of socialist, and particularly Marxist‐Leninist, theory and
practice (Rai, 1988: 1)”.
Once back in England, when the Second World War broke out, Orwell was
rejected for military service, and instead he headed the Indian service of the British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). He left the BBC in 1943, but continued working as a
journalist and writer.
In 1944 Orwell finished Animal Farm, a political fable based on the story of the
Russian Revolution and its betrayal by Joseph Stalin. In this book a group of barnyard
animals rebel against their exploitative human masters and set up an egalitarian
society of their own. Eventually the most intelligent animals, the pigs, subvert the
revolution and form an even more oppressive dictatorship (“All animals are equal, but
some animals are more equal than others.”). At first, Orwell had difficulty finding a
publisher for this small masterpiece, but when it appeared in 1945 Animal Farm was
immediately a big success.
However, his most important work was 1984, his last novel. In 1950, some
months after finishing it, Orwell died in London.

1.2 The novel

Nineteen Eighty‐four (1949) was written as a warning against the threats of the two
totalitarian regimes: Nazism and Stalinism. The novel is set in an imaginary future in
which the world is dominated by three perpetually warring totalitarian police states:
Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. The book’s hero, the Englishman Winston Smith, is a
minor party functionary whose job is to falsify archives for the Ministry of Truth in
London, Oceania.
Every aspect of both private and public life is controlled by the Party, led by the
enigmatic entity Big Brother, who only appears in posters and images. In addition to
the most typical means of control of the masses, such as propaganda, technology and
means of communication, the regime is based on a blind, enthusiastic acceptance of
the principles of the Party, and on the systematic distortion of the truth and rewriting
6

of history according to its own purposes. Other peculiar elements are the so‐called
Spies, who create an alienating atmosphere of reciprocal suspect to find traitors, and
the Thought Police, patrolling the streets in search for people committing
“thoughtcrime” (thinking something not in compliance with the rules and the
principles of the Party). Furthermore, “one of Orwell’s best strokes is his analysis of the
technique of ‘double‐think’, drilled into the Party members, which consists in the
willingness to assert that black is white when the Party demands it, and even to
believe that black is white, while at the same time knowing very well that nothing of
the sort can be true” (Rahv, 1949: 743‐749).
Winston has a love affair with a like‐minded woman, Julia, but then they are
both arrested by the Thought Police. The following imprisonment, torture,
brainwashing and re‐education of Smith are intended not merely to break him
physically or make him submit, but to root out his independent mental existence and
his spiritual dignity until he can love Big Brother.
Orwell’s warning of the potential dangers of totalitarianism made a deep
impression on his contemporaries and upon subsequent readers. The book’s title and
many of its coined words and phrases (“Big Brother is watching you,” “newspeak”,
“doublethink”, “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery”, “Ignorance is Strength”, “2 + 2 =
5”) became bywords for modern political abuses.

1.3 The translations

Two translations of 1984 will be analysed in this study, which have both been
published by Mondadori:
1. Translation by Stefano Manferlotti (2000)2;
2. Translation by Gabriele Baldini (1959)3.

2
http://ns3.codoh.com/fran/livres6/1984‐it.pdf
3
http://caus‐ufficiostampa.weebly.com/uploads/6/2/7/5/6275849/george_orwell_1984.pdf
7

The former is Professor of English Literature and of Comparative Literature at
the University Federico II in Naples, and “author of essays and books mainly devoted to
modern and contemporary British literature”4. His version is the most recent and
diffused one. The latter was Professor of English Language and Literature in many
universities, such as Rome, Trieste, Pisa, Turin and Naples5.

4
http://www.stefanomanferlotti.com/
5
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gabriele‐baldini_%28Dizionario‐Biografico%29/).
8

Chapter 2: Corpus Linguistics, Translation Studies, and Corpus
Linguistics applied to Translation Studies

In this chapter the theoretical background is given for the research conducted in this
study. The general field of this research is corpus linguistics applied to translation
studies. In my work, I will analyse Orwell’s novel and the two translations into Italian,
applying the method I will explain below. In my analysis there is not always such a
clear‐cut division as in the following three sections, which are devoted respectively to
corpus linguistics, translation studies and corpus linguistics applied to translation
studies.
Below I will give some theoretical information about each branch of research,
and will explain how I have used each for my analysis.

2.1 Corpus linguistics

Corpus linguistics is “the study of language based on examples of real life language
use” (McEnery & Wilson, 1996: 1, in Baker 2006: 1). “The term corpus merely refers to
a body of electronically encoded text” (Baker, 2006: 26). The fact that it is encoded
electronically means that complex searches and calculations can be carried out on
large amounts of text, revealing linguistic patterns and frequency information. It is
possible to make observations on morphology and syntax, for example, which allows
for large‐scale grammatical analyses to be carried out. To this end, having a good
linguistic background is of paramount importance , which I mainly acquired consulting
the three following publications: Biber, Conrad, Leech (2002), Falinsky (2006), Swan
(2005).
As regards morphology, the basic concepts to know are that of affix (Biber,
Conrad, Leech, 2002: 455: a cover term including both suffixes and prefixes), that of
suffix (Biber, Conrad, Leech, 2002: 460: a morpheme added to the end of a word) and
prefix (Biber, Conrad, Leech, 2002: 459: a morpheme added to the front of a word).
9

Two English peculiar structures are the specifying ‘s genitive (Falinski: 2006, 79) and
the classifying ‘s genitive (Falinski: 2006, 157). The former is a determiner indicating
possession; the latter is a pre‐modifier signaling the purpose of the referent of the
head nouns, and its role is to describe, classify or measure it. Morphologically, they are
both signaled by the apostrophe ‘s with singular reference and by the apostrophe ‘
with plural reference.
In terms of syntactical analysis, the basis is the phrase (Biber, Conrad, Leech,
2002: 459), a structural unit made up of words, consisting of a head plus (optionally)
modifiers, and its elements: head (Biber, Conrad, Leech, 2002: 457), the required
element in any phrase that specifies the type of phrase, pre‐modification (Biber,
Conrad, Leech, 2002: 459), modifying structures that occur before a noun and describe
it, such as attributive adjectives, and post‐modification (Biber, Conrad, Leech, 2002:
459), the part of a complex noun phrase consisting of modifiers that follow it. The
most recurrent types of phrases we will come across in this dissertation are noun
phrases (Biber, Conrad, Leech, 2002: 458) ‐ phrases with a noun (or pronoun) as head
‐ and prepositional phrases (Biber, Conrad, Leech, 2002: 459) ‐ phrases consisting of a
preposition followed by a noun phrase (or a nominal clause) as prepositional
complement. The following concept is the clause (Biber, Conrad, Leech, 2002: 455): a
key structural unit of grammar, normally consisting of a verb phrase plus other
elements: subject, object, predicative, adverbial. There are many categories of clauses,
but the most prominent ones in my text are the finite clause (Biber, Conrad, Leech,
2002: 457): a clause that has either present/past tense or a modal verb, embedded
clauses (Biber, Conrad, Leech, 2002: 457): clauses that are contained within a higher‐
level clause, and the relative clause (Biber, Conrad, Leech, 2002: 460): a type of finite
dependent clause used to modify a noun phrase).
Finally, an important text‐linguistic phenomenon to consider is the alternation
of theme and rheme in clauses. Theme is the starting point for the message, the
element which comes first in the clause. “Since we typically depart from places with
which we are familiar, the theme typically contains familiar, or ‘given’ information, i.e.
information which has already been mentioned somewhere in the text or is familiar
10

from the context” (Eggins, 2004: 296‐326). We can identify three different types of
elements in the structure of a clause that have the potential to become theme: topical
(or experiential) elements, that is the subject, complements and circumstantial
adjuncts (topical theme); interpersonal elements, that is, unfused finite in
interrogative structures and modal adjuncts (interpersonal theme); and textual
elements, that is continuity adjuncts and conjunctive adjuncts (textual theme). A
related phenomenon is that of thematization. “In selecting theme, speakers must
choose between a neutral order of clause constituents or a marked order”. The Subject
is the neutral, unmarked choice in a declarative clause, for example, while “any other
constituents but the subject will be marked, and signals an additional meaning”
(Downing & Locke, 2006: 223‐237). In this latter case, the constituent is called
“thematised” or “fronted”.
The most common tool for data extraction is a concordancer, a piece of
software which enables the user to both have a general overview of the corpus
features and to focus on some details. In particular, the user enters a search word or
phrase and the concordance finds all the instances of that word or phrase. It is also
possible to set up the length of the co‐text with which the search element is displayed
in concordance lines.
In my work I have used the free‐of‐charge concordancing software Antconc
3.2.4w by Laurence Anthony, and have followed the corpus linguistics methodology
sketched out by Baker (2006).
Frequency counts are the first aspect to take into consideration: it is
fundamental to notice which words are most used, and to relate them to word token
(Baker, 2006: 52), the total number of words, and word type (Baker, 2006: 53), the
number of original words. In order to understand this latter concept we have to know
what a lexical lemma is. Baker (2006: 55) describes it as “the canonical form of a
word”. Francis and Kučera (1982: 1, in Baker, 2006: 55) define it as a “set of lexical
forms having the same stem and belonging to the same major class, differing only in
inflection and/or spelling”.
11

In Chapter 3 the concordance lines are organized and divided according to
different criteria. In 3.1 I will focus on the most recurrent cognitive words used to
signal and express visual control. I will analyse each lemma separately and I will point
out some recurrent patterns. Semantic and morphological observations are usually
interconnected. In 3.2 I have preferred to divide the words in sections according to
semantic fields (Taylor, 1998: 326), the grouping of words that are related in some
systematic way. The lemmas analysed are the lexical set of a semantic field (Baker,
1992: 16), the actual words and expressions under each semantic field.
2.2 Translation Studies

The focus on process of translation features Chapter 4. I will take into consideration
some extracts from the original text to compare and contrast them with the two Italian
translations. The aim is to show if and to what extent the target text reproduces the
source text.
The method consists in comparing extracts from the three texts and
commenting about their differences regarding some techniques I studied in the
following publications: Baker (1992), and Taylor (1998). The basic translation strategies
which will be focused on are presented in pairs in these books, as they are mirror
images of one another. Equation (Taylor, 1998: 47) suggests “some form of automatic
equivalence”, while substitution (Taylor, 1998: 52) takes place when “a translation is
used that may bear little or no morpho‐syntactic or semantic relation to the source
text. There is no equivalent as such” in these cases. Divergence (Taylor, 1998: 53)
consists in “choosing a suitable term from a potential range of alternatives”, while
convergence (Taylor, 1998: 55) indicates the opposite phenomenon. Amplification
(Taylor, 1998: 55) requires “that the translator add some element to the source text
for reasons of greater comprehensibility”, whilst reduction (Taylor, 1998: 56) consists
in “omitting elements in a target text because they are redundant or even misleading”.
Diffusion (Taylor, 1998: 56) adds some elements in the target text to make it closer to
12

the Italian style of writing, while condensation (Taylor, 1998: 48) is “the contraction of
a source item”. Re‐ordering (Taylor, 1998: 61), as its name itself suggests, consists in
changing word order.
In addition, other concepts to be aware of when analyzing translations from a
language to another are: collocation (Taylor, 1998: 318), the non‐casual occurrence of
words in recognizable combinations (collocates); idiomatic expressions (Taylor, 1998:
321), i.e. words which together mean something different from the literal meanings of
the words that make it up, and are often peculiar to a particular language culture.
Furthermore, in order to compare and contrast the semantic values of some
words in English and Italian, I consulted these dictionaries: Il Devoto‐Oli, Vocabolario
della lingua italiana (2010), and The Longman Exams Dictionary (2006).
Chapter 4 is divided into two sections referring to two different parts of the
original book, but the method is consistent. I will put the three extracts in a table and I
will comment on them.

2.3 Corpus Linguistics applied to Translation Studies

The approach used in Chapter 3 is the result of the combination of corpus linguistics
and translation studies. These two fields of study are strictly interconnected in the
analysis of concordance lines. After determining the recurrent and meaningful patterns
in the corpora and obtaining the concordance lines, I will focus on some of the
quotations containing interesting cases in point about the translation. Differently from
what I will be doing in Chapter 4, in which an entire paragraph is analysed according to
the process of translation, in Chapter 3 I will deal with the translations of sentences
situated throughout the book. In this way, I will show how the same constructions or
words are rendered into Italian in the different passages.
Generally speaking, I will list the concordance lines and then I will consider
some of them and their translations: I will contextualize and introduce them, and then
analyse them.
13

14

Chapter 3: A corpus‐based analysis of verbs and processes of
cognition

3.1 The importance of visual control

As in any totalitarian regime, keeping everyone and everything under the dictator’s
control is a fundamental requirement to preserve the status quo. In Orwell’s futuristic
world, in which technology deals with all the aspects of both social and private life, it is
quite straightforward to have beady eyes on people constantly, for example through
the telescreen. At the same time, those verbs could be referred to the action of
rebelling by discovering what reality is. It is possible to identify a kind of trend,
according to which the characters visually involved are divided into the two categories
of the eternal fight between good and evil.
Winston, the protagonist, looks carefully to find out more about this; deeply
characterized by a meditative attitude, he is stimulated by an everlasting wish to
discover, to verify if reality has always been as it is. In Mr Charrington’s shop he comes
across a paperweight, an object used in the past which has disappeared from the
present world: he observes it as if he were an innocent child, and does so out of
curiosity. In addition, he sometimes uses his eyes to express his tender and shy love for
Julia. As anything might be illegal, the visual contact between them is the only way
they have to exchange their feelings. But not only does the look convey strength, it can
also be the vehicle for feelings of desperation by prisoners and the external signal of
the vacuous thoughts by a brainwashed Winston.
Big Brother is present everywhere at any time. His pictures gaze at people’s
eyes to threaten and at the same time to reassure them, thereby providing the typical
example of the severe but paternalistic leader. Telescreens and the Thought Police are
constantly spying. In this atmosphere of terror and mistrust, everyone becomes a spy
and is simultaneously spied.
15

Another item of interest is the amount of information about the world we
receive thanks to verbs related to the sense of sight. The grim and disquieting context,
the fearful and oppressed people are vividly depicted.

THE ANALYSIS
This chapter explores how visual control takes place in the original novel and how it is
rendered in the two target texts. A corpus‐based approach has been adopted, which
has revealed the most recurrent lexical lemmas belonging in this semantic field and
has enabled me to study the original version and compare it to the two translations by
Manferlotti and Baldini.
The first comment that should be made is about the number of word tokens
and of word types. As can be seen, the English version presents fewer words than the
Italian translations. What is striking, however, it that while Manferlotti’s version
contains only two thousand words more than the source text, Baldini’s translation
features more than six thousand more. It can be hypothesised that this also depends
on the changes made in the translations and also on and the additions of words, due
for example to amplification or diffusion. However, Manferlotti contains more word
types than Baldini. More generally, it also depends on the fact that Italian is
morphologically richer than English, which implies a more substantial use of
inflectional endings for nouns, adjectives and verbs. The figures are represented in
Tables 1, 2 and 3:

ORIGINAL TEXT
Word tokens 101,004
Word types 9,175
Table 1: Word tokens and word types in the original text

16

MANFERLOTTI
Word tokens 103,821
Word types 15,061
Table 2: Word tokens and word types in Manferlotti’s version

BALDINI
Word tokens 107,932
Word types 13,440
Table 3: Word tokens and word types in Baldini’s version

It is interesting to notice that some verbs of cognition are widely used throughout the
novel, each with several different meanings. In particular, the lexical lemma “look”
appears 191 times out of the 101,004 word tokens. Other quite recurrent lemmas are
“watch”, “spy” and “gaze”, while it comes quite as a surprise that “stare” and “glare”
are hardly used.

VERBS OCCURRENCES PRECENTAGE
Look 191 0.19 %
Watch 36 0.04 %
Spy 26 0.03 %
Gaze 22 0.02 %
Stare 5 0.00 %
Glare 2 0.00 %
Table 4: Verbs analyzed in this chapter, with their occurrences and the percentage on the word
tokens

3.1.1 LOOK
The first and clearly most significant lexical lemma to analyse is “look”, which appears
191 times, both as a noun and as a verb. Apart from its core meaning, the action of
turning the eyes towards something to see it, which is the most frequent, the term
takes up several connotative nuances which often depend on the context. Indeed, it is
17

possible to identify some repetitive clusters which make up the different patterns
used.

3.1.1.1 Look: pattern 1
The first pattern consists in adjectives conveying a negative meaning put before and
after the lemma to connote the visual appearance of objects and people. There are 11
examples of this trend:
- Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold.
- Everything had a battered, trampled-on look, as though the place had
just been visited by some large violent animal.
- But what most struck Winston was the look of helpless fright on the
woman's greyish face.
- The sun had shifted round, and the myriad windows of the Ministry of
Truth, with the light no longer shining on them, looked grim as the
loopholes of a fortress.
- As he mechanically shot his arms back and forth, wearing on his face
the look of grim enjoyment which was considered proper during the
Physical Jerks, he was struggling to think his way backward into the
dim period of his early childhood.
- A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering
to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of
abnormality, of having something to hide.
- Her eyes were fixed on his, with an appealing expression that looked
more like fear than pain.
- His face, seen from below, looked coarse and worn, with pouches
under the eyes and tired lines from nose to chin.
- A forlorn, jailbird's face with a nobby forehead running back into a
bald scalp, a crooked nose, and battered-looking cheekbones above
which his eyes were fierce and watchful.
- The cheeks were seamed, the mouth had a drawn-in look.
- 'You have thought sometimes,' said O'Brien, 'that my face--the face
of a member of the Inner Party--looks old and worn.

Among these, an interesting case in point is in the second concordance line, which
describes the untidy and chaotic aspect of the Parsons’ flat, Winston’s neighbours.
Original: Everything had a battered, trampled‐on look, as though the place had just been visited
by some large violent animal.
Manferlotti: Sembrava che ogni oggetto fosse stato battuto e calpestato, come se nella casa
avesse imperversato un qualche grosso animale.
Baldini: Ogni cosa aveva l'aria d'essere stata urtata e pestata come se il luogo fosse stato visitato
poco prima da qualche animale violento e ingombrante.

As far as the translations are concerned, while Manferlini changes the syntactic
structure of the sentence substituting the noun “look” with the verb “sembrava”, thus
being semantically quite adherent to the original text, Baldini keeps the phrases closer
18

to the source text, but his lexical choices do not seem so convincing: “urtata” and
“pestata” are not usually referred to “casa”, and the literal translation of the verb
“visited” reduces the meaning in Italian.

The second pattern refers to the use of sight as means to show power and strengths or
weaknesses, since eyes could reveal somebody’s soul. Big Brother is the character that
best represents it.
The easiest example to provide is Big Brother, whose “dark eyes looked deep
into Winston's own.” More complex instances consist in the use of participial ‐ing
premodification (Falinsky, 2006: 147), that is, patterns featuring “looking” and a noun.
Four of them contain an adjective and one a past participle. It is a peculiar English
construction, which can be rendered only through periphrases into Italian.

- She was a bold-looking girl, of about twenty-seven, with thick hair,
a freckled face, and swift, athletic movements.
- And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to the reality
which Goldstein's specious claptrap covered, behind his head on the
telescreen there marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army—row
after row of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who
swam up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by
others exactly similar.
- A colourless, crushed-looking woman, with wispy hair and a lined
face, was standing outside.
- A handsome, tough-looking boy of nine had popped up from behind the
table and was menacing him with a toy automatic pistol, while his
small sister, about two years younger, made the same gesture with a
fragment of wood.
- In the corresponding cubicle on the other side a small, precise-
looking, dark-chinned man named Tillotson was working steadily away,
with a folded newspaper on his knee and his mouth very close to the
mouthpiece of the speakwrite.

“Bold‐looking” is translated by both authors with the Italian collocation “dall’aria
risoluta”, which is a lexical equivalent of the original expression. “Solid‐looking men”
represents the first issue: Manferlotti renders it as “uomini massicci”, and Baldini “as
uomini dalle facce forti”, thereby only relating it to the their faces. This is a clear
example of the so‐called “expressive meaning”, which, as Baker (1992: 11) says,
“relates to the speaker’s feelings or attitude rather than to what words and utterances
19

refer to”. This is also another piece of evidence that English is up‐to‐the‐point and
compact, but it can also be misleading, as expressions could have more than one
possible interpretation, although in this case the former solution seems to be
preferable. Mrs Parson, “a colourless, crushed‐looking woman”, in Manferlotti’s
derogatory translation is depicted as “una donnetta insignificante, dall'aria disfatta”,
while Baldini’s more neutral solution is “una donnetta dall'aspetto incolore e dimesso”.
A nine‐year‐old child, described as “tough‐looking”, becomes “dall’aria minacciosa” for
Manferlotti, and “dall’aspetto robusto” for Baldini. Again, we find an example of two
expressive meanings in Italian, since the English expression has been interpreted in
two different ways, either referring to the child’s his behavior or to his/her physical
aspect. The last example of this type is the sentence “in the corresponding cubicle on
the other side a small, precise‐looking, dark‐chinned man named Tillotson was working
steadily away”. The pre‐modifier “precise‐looking” has been respectively translated as
“dall’aria meticolosa” and “dall’aria assai diligente”, a far more common solution in
Italian.

The third possibility is using the word in association with expressions related to the
actions of observing and of thinking. For Winston it means trying to understand reality
and to remember it; by looking at things and people he also becomes aware of his
sexuality, something that he has always controlled in a bigoted way: “As he looked at
the woman in her characteristic attitude, her thick arms reaching up for the line, her
powerful mare‐like buttocks protruded, it struck him for the first time that she was
beautiful.”
- The old man looked meditatively at the darts board.
- From over scrubby cheekbones eyes looked into Winston's, sometimes
with strange intensity, and flashed away again.
- Winston looked out into the field beyond, and underwent a curious,
slow shock of recognition.
- As he looked at the woman in her characteristic attitude, her thick
arms reaching up for the line, her powerful mare-like buttocks
protruded, it struck him for the first time that she was beautiful.
- Winston looked at the thing sulkily and without interest.

20

The phrasal verb “look round” is repeated four times throughout the novel to suggest
Winston’s curiosity; twice “look about” is used twice to draw a comparison between
what the Party says and the real situation.
- He looked round the canteen.
- He looked round the canteen again.
- Or did you just want to look round?
- Winston looked round the shabby little room above Mr Charrington's
shop
- How easy it was, thought Winston, if you did not look about you, to
believe that the physical type set up by the Party as an ideal--tall
muscular youths and deep-bosomed maidens, blond-haired, vital,
sunburnt, carefree--existed and even predominated.
- Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the
lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals that
the Party was trying to achieve.

On the contrary, the oppressors spy and meditate on how to punish alleged rebels and
opponents of the regime. In four out of the six occurrences the verb appears in the
progressive aspect:

- The girl at the next table had turned partly round and was looking
at him.
- She was looking at him in a sidelong way, but with curious
intensity.
- He did not know how long she had been looking at him, but perhaps
for as much as five minutes, and it was possible that his features had
not been perfectly under control.
- O'Brien was looking down at him speculatively.
- O'Brien looked down at him thoughtfully.
- He looked thoughtfully into the distance, as though he were
addressing an audience somewhere behind Winston's back.

In particular, O’Brien is highly connoted as an intelligent and meditative detective.
While interrogating Winston, “O'Brien was looking down at him speculatively”.
Manferlotti reduces the adverb by saying “con aria pensosa”, while Baldini reproduces
the idea of “looking at Winston while trying to guess something about him” with “con
aria inquisitrice”. Moreover, O’Brien looks at Winston “thoughtfully” twice: Manferlotti
goes for “con aria pensosa” and “pensoso”, whilst Baldini is consistent with his
translation “pensieroso”.

21

3.1.2 TO WATCH
The verb “to watch” describes one of the most common actions in everyday life and is
apparently straightforward to understand. However, its 36 occurrences take on at least
three different meanings.

3.1.2.1 Watch: pattern 1
The most straightforward pattern is simply the idea of looking at someone or
something. With this meaning, it is usually referred to Winston; it is often
accompanied by expressions of disgust, unease or by deep meditations. The target
translation choice is almost always the verb “guardare”. The progressive aspect is used
thrice, twice with the verb “stood”.

- As he watched the eyeless face with the jaw moving rapidly up and
down, Winston had a curious feeling that this was not a real human
being but some kind of dummy.
- Winston watched them disgustedly.
- He remembered the sort of terrified fascination with which he had
watched them out of the corner of his eye.
- As Winston stood watching, it occurred to him that the old man, who
must be eighty at the least, had already been middle-aged when the
Revolution happened.
- A knot of others, standing round with glasses in their hands, were
watching the scene.
- His first feeling was relief, but as he watched the strong slender
body moving in front of him, with the scarlet sash that was just tight
enough to bring out the curve of her hips, the sense of his own
inferiority was heavy upon him.
- Winston watched it with a sort of vague reverence.
- He sat up and watched the freckled face, still peacefully asleep,
pillowed on the palm of her hand.
- Winston stood watching her for a moment.

In the novel, the most recurrent sense of the word is “to spy”, which occurs 13 times;
nine of them are in the progressive aspect, to suggest the idea of a continuous and
repetitive control.
- There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched
at any given moment.
- It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.
22

- Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and
day for symptoms of unorthodoxy
- Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you.
- Why was she watching him?
- utterly alone, utterly secure, with nobody watching you, no voice
pursuing you, no sound except the singing of the kettle and the
friendly ticking of the clock.
- It was enough that she was watching him.
- There was no place where you could be more certain that the
telescreens were watched continuously.
- There might be someone watching
- Immediately beneath the telescreen, in such a position that anyone
who was watching at the other end of the instrument could read what he
was writing, he scribbled an address, tore out the page and handed it
to Winston.
- Every citizen, or at least every citizen important enough to be
worth watching, could be kept for twenty-four hours a day under the
eyes of the police and in the sound of official propaganda, with all
other channels of communication closed.
- For seven years I have watched over you.
- He knew now that for seven years the Thought Police had watched him
like a beetle under a magnifying glass.

Manferlotti is quite consistent in his versions, and mainly uses the verb “osservare”
and the noun “osservazione”. Other recurrent translations are the verbs “spiare” and
“sorvegliare” and the Italian collocation “fare la guardia”, adopted twice by Baldini.

The third meaning is “watch” used as means of mental control, to show superiority
simply through an effective and powerful look. Apart from the famous slogan written
in capital letters, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU”, connoted by a kind of religious
threat, a clear example is given by the scene in which O’Brien watches Winston in his
eyes to catch his attention: “'You are afraid,' said O'Brien, watching his face, 'that in
another moment something is going to break”. As a consequence, the look can also be
a dumb one, as Winston’s look was while he was being brainwashed: “He watched the
heavy yet graceful form strolling to and fro, in and out of the range of his vision”.
- BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
- 'You are afraid,' said O'Brien, watching his face, 'that in another
moment something is going to break.
- O'Brien watched him, the four fingers still extended.
- He watched the heavy yet graceful form strolling to and fro, in and
out of the range of his vision.
- You can take the whole lot of them and cut their throats in front of
my eyes, and I'll stand by and watch it.
23

An interesting case in point is the last concordance line, in which the action of
watching is imposed as a torture. Both translators communicate the implicit idea of
bearing a terrible pain, since Manferlotti goes for an effective Italian collocation, “non
batterò ciglio”, whilst Baldini prefers the periphrasis “starò imperterrito a guardarli”.

3.1.3 SPY
Another relevant lexical lemma in the book is “spy”. In 19 out of the total 26
occurrences, the word takes on a kind of official, orthodox value, as it is written in first
capital letter or near some key words, such as “Party” or “Thought Police”. Thrice it
refers to a personal initiative; in four sentences, it has a negative meaning, as it
suggests that the person is working for the enemies.
- It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the
most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the
amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.
- A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his
directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police.
- On the walls were scarlet banners of the Youth League and the Spies,
and a full-sized poster of Big Brother.
- At thirty-five he had just been unwillingly evicted from the Youth
League, and before graduating into the Youth League he had managed to
stay on in the Spies for a year beyond the statutory age.
- Both of them were dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirts, and red
neckerchiefs which were the uniform of the Spies
- You're a Eurasian spy!
- What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the
Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little
savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel
against the discipline of the Party.
- At six--a year early, by a special relaxation of the rules--he had
joined the Spies, at nine he had been a troop leader.
- He had no subjects of conversation except the principles of Ingsoc,
andno aim in life except the defeat of the Eurasian enemy and the
hunting-downof spies, saboteurs, thought-criminals, and traitors
generally.
- His whole appearance was that of a little boy grown large, so much
so that although he was wearing the regulation overalls, it was almost
impossible not to think of him as being dressed in the blue shorts,
grey shirt, and red neckerchief of the Spies.
- All they think about is the Spies, and the war, of course.
- His earlier thought returned to him: probably she was not actually a
member of the Thought Police, but then it was precisely the amateur
spy who was the greatest danger of all.
- Quite likely the person at the next table was a spy of the Thought
Police, and quite likely he would be in the cellars of the Ministry of
Love within three days, but a cigarette end must not be wasted.
- That's a first-rate training they give them in the Spies nowadays—
better than in my day, even.
24

- By careful early conditioning, by games and cold water, by the
rubbish that was dinned into them at school and in the Spies and the
Youth League, by lectures, parades, songs, slogans, and martial music,
the natural feeling had been driven out of them.
- There was no doubting any longer that the girl was spying on him.
- Whether she was really an agent of the Thought Police, or simply an
amateur spy actuated by officiousness, hardly mattered.
- He was particularly enthusiastic about a papier-mache model of Big
Brother's head, two metres wide, which was being made for the occasion
by his daughter's troop of Spies.
- 'Actually I am that sort of girl, to look at. I'm good at games. I
was a troop-leader in the Spies.
- She had been a troop-leader in the Spies and a branch secretary in
the Youth League before joining the Junior Anti-Sex League. She had
always borne an excellent character.
- The children, on the other hand, were systematically turned against
their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations.
- then a rumour flew round that spies were directing the rocket bombs
by means of wireless waves, and an old couple who were suspected of
being of foreign extraction had their house set on fire and perished
of suffocation.
- They could spy upon you night and day, but if you kept your head you
could still outwit them.
- The square was packed with several thousand people, including a
block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the Spies.
- The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the
rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys.
- He confessed that he had been a spy in the pay of the Eastasian
government as far back as 1968.

3.1.4 GAZE
A lexical lemma we have come across several times already in this study is “gaze”,
which conveys the idea of “looking at someone or something for a long time, giving it
all your attention, often without realizing you are doing so”. It occurs 22 times, and
only once it is used as a noun. It mainly refers mostly to the pictures of Big Brother or
to Winston, to suggest the idea that both the evil and the hero observe carefully. The
former observes with the aim of controlling and oppressing, while the latter with the
aim of understanding and rebelling. Mainly at the end, the frequencies tend to show a
sad, almost desperate look, by prisoners or by brainwashed people: a Mongolian old
prisoner “gazed mournfully at Winston”, Ampleforth and Parsons show inquietude
while waiting for their punishment, and in the Chestnut Tree Café Winston
concentrates his dumb eyes on his glass or on the poster of Big Brother. Below are the
corresponding concordance lines:
- On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the
enormous face gazed from the wall
- The black-moustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner
25

- For some time he sat gazing stupidly at the paper
- But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and
despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day,
on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories
were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the
pitiful rubbish that they were--in spite of all this, his influence
never seemed to grow less.
- The hypnotic eyes gazed into his own.
- Winston sat for a minute or two gazing at his empty glass, and
hardly noticed when his feet carried him out into the street again.
- Winston gazed at it for some moments.
- The face gazed up at him, heavy, calm, protecting: but what kind of
smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache?
- He wandered round the base of the enormous fluted column, at the top
of which Big Brother's statue gazed southward towards the skies where
he had vanquished the Eurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian aeroplanes,
it had been, a few years ago) in the Battle of Airstrip One.
- Their sad, Mongolian faces gazed out over the sides of the trucks
utterly incurious.
- With hands locked together, invisible among the press of bodies,
they stared steadily in front of them, and instead of the eyes of the
girl, the eyes of the aged prisoner gazed mournfully at Winston out of
nests of hair.
- Winston gazed abstractedly through the muslin curtain
- He turned over towards the light and lay gazing into the glass
paperweight.
- It was as when Winston had gazed into the heart of the paperweight,
with the feeling that it would be possible to get inside that glassy
world, and that once inside it time could be arrested.
- Julia had come across to his side; together they gazed down with a
sort of fascination at the sturdy figure below.
- They could do nothing except stand gazing into one another's eyes.
- His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a metre above the
level of Winston's head
- His eyes had a wide-open, staring look, as though he could not
prevent himself from gazing at something in the middle distance.
- As his eyes regained their focus he remembered who he was, and where
he was, and recognized the face that was gazing into his own; but
somewhere or other there was a large patch of emptiness, as though a
piece had been taken out of his brain.
- Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty glass.
- The huge face gazed back at him, full of calm power.
- He gazed up at the enormous face.

“To gaze” has only one meaning, which is however quite difficult to render, as Italian
does not have a real equivalent. Indeed, it is a clear example of divergence. “Gaze”
does indeed take on several possible translations according to the different situations.
Below we find the concordance lines together with their translations:
- Original: On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with
the enormous face gazed from the wall
Manferlotti: Su ogni pianerottolo, di fronte al pozzo dell'ascensore,
il manifesto con quel volto enorme guardava dalla parete
26

Baldini: A ciascun pianerottolo, proprio di fronte allo sportello
dell'ascensore, il cartellone con la faccia enorme riguardava dalla
parete
- Original: The black-moustachio'd face gazed down from every
commanding corner
Manferlotti: Il volto dai baffi neri guardava fisso da ogni cantone
Baldini: La faccia dai baffi neri riguardava da ogni cantone
- Original: For some time he sat gazing stupidly at the paper
Manferlotti: Per qualche tempo restò come intontito a fissare la
pagina
Baldini: Per qualche minuto rimase attonito a guardare il foglio
- Original: The hypnotic eyes gazed into his own.
Manferlotti:I suoi occhi lo fissarono, ipnotici.
Baldini:Lo sguardo ipnotico si fissò nei suoi occhi
- Original: Winston sat for a minute or two gazing at his empty glass,
and hardly noticed when his feet carried him out into the street
again.
Manferlotti: Winston restò seduto per un paio di minuti, fissando il
bicchiere vuoto, e quando i piedi lo riportarono in strada, quasi non
se ne accorse
Baldini: Winston rimase seduto uno o due minuti, a fissare il suo
bicchiere vuoto, e s'accorse appena che, qualche minuto dopo, i suoi
piedi lo avevano condotto di nuovo nella strada.
- Original: Winston gazed at it for some moments.
Manferlotti: Winston stette a guardarlo attentamente per alcuni
istanti.
Baldini: Winston stette a guardarlo per qualche minuto.
- Original: The face gazed up at him, heavy, calm, protecting: but
what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache?
Manferlotti: Quel volto prese a fissarlo, energico, calmo,
rassicurante
Baldini: La faccia lo guardava di rimando, forte, tranquilla, con aria
di protezione
- Original: He wandered round the base of the enormous fluted column,
at the top of which Big Brother's statue gazed southward towards the
skies where he had vanquished the Eurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian
aeroplanes, it had been, a few years ago) in the Battle of Airstrip
One.
Manferlotti: Si mise a passeggiare avanti e indietro sotto l'enorme
colonna scanalata, in cima alla quale la statua del Grande Fratello
scrutava l'orizzonte rivolto a sud, là do-ve aveva debellato
l'aviazione dell'Eurasia (fino a pochi anni prima si era trattato
dell'aviazione dell'Estasia) nella Battaglia di Pista Uno.
Baldini: Si mise a girare attorno alla base della colonna scanalata in
cima alla quale la statua del Gran Fratello guardava verso il sud, ai
cieli dove egli aveva sopraffatto gli aeroplani eurasiani (pochi anni
prima erano stati quelli estasiani a esser sopraffatti) nella famosa
Battaglia di Pista Prima.
- Original: Their sad, Mongolian faces gazed out over the sides of the
trucks utterly incurious.
Manferlotti: Dalle fiancate dei carri i loro occhi tristi da mongoli
guardavano la folla, ma sembravano manifestare la più grande
indifferenza per quello che accadeva intorno a loro.
Baldini: Gli occhi mongoli guardavano in giro, senza curiosità
- Original: With hands locked together, invisible among the press of
bodies, they stared steadily in front of them, and instead of the eyes
of the girl, the eyes of the aged prisoner gazed mournfully at Winston
out of nests of hair.
27

Manferlotti: E così, tenendosi ben stretti per mano, resi invisibili
da quella muraglia di corpi, avevano entrambi lo sguardo fisso davanti
a sé, e non furono gli occhi della ragazza a guardare Winston ma
quelli dolenti del vecchio prigioniero, che lo fissavano di sotto a
quella disordinata massa di capelli.
Baldini: Con le mani serrate, invisibili in mezzo alla calca dei
corpi, essi guardarono un attimo, fissi, di fronte a se stessi, e
invece degli occhi della ragazza furono gli occhi di quel prigioniero
anziano che riguardarono Winston fuor dalla massa di quei capelli
grigi, con espressione di tetro sconforto.
- Original: He turned over towards the light and lay gazing into the
glass paperweight.
Manferlotti: Si girò verso la luce e si mise a osservare la parte
interna del fermacarte di vetro
Baldini: Si voltò verso la luce che impallidiva e indugiò a guardare
il fermacarte di vetro
- Original: It was as when Winston had gazed into the heart of the
paperweight, with the feeling that it would be possible to get inside
that glassy world, and that once inside it time could be arrested.
Manferlotti: Era lo stesso sentimento che aveva provato Winston
quando, nell'osservare la parte più interna del fermacarte, gli era
parso di poter entrare in quel mondo di vetro e aveva pensato che così
facendo il tempo si sarebbe fermato
Baldini: Era come quando Winston aveva guardato dentro il cuore del
fermacarte e aveva sentito che sarebbe pure stato possibile entrarci
dentro e che, una volta dentro quel mondo di vetro, il tempo si
sarebbe potuto fermare.
- Original: Julia had come across to his side; together they gazed
down with a sort of fascination at the sturdy figure below.
Manferlotti: Nel frattempo Julia si era portata accanto a lui ed
entrambi restarono a guardare affascinati quella tozza figura
Baldini: Julia gli venne vicino; si misero a guardare tutt'e due, come
affascinati, quella robusta figura nel cortile.
- Original: They could do nothing except stand gazing into one
another's eyes.
Manferlotti: Non potevano fare altro che restare immobili, fissandosi
negli occhi.
Baldini: Non potevano far più nulla se non guardarsi l'uno negli occhi
dell'altro.
- Original: His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a metre
above the level of Winston's head
Manferlotti: I suoi occhi inquieti erano rivolti alla parete, fissi a
un punto un buon metro al di sopra della testa di Winston.
Baldini: I suoi occhi appannati guardavano fissi la parete, un metro
al disopra della testa di Winston
- Original: His eyes had a wide-open, staring look, as though he could
not prevent himself from gazing at something in the middle distance.
Manferlotti: Teneva gli occhi spalancati, come se non potesse
impedirsi di guardare qualcosa a una certa distanza da lui.
Baldini: I suoi occhi guardavano fissi spalancati, come se non
riuscisse a fare a meno di tenerli puntati su un qualche oggetto
sospeso a breve distanza nell'aria.
- Original: As his eyes regained their focus he remembered who he was,
and where he was, and recognized the face that was gazing into his
own; but somewhere or other there was a large patch of emptiness, as
though a piece had been taken out of his brain.
Manferlotti: Quando gli occhi riuscirono a mettere di nuovo a fuoco
gli oggetti, Winston ricordò chi era, dov'era, riconobbe la faccia che
28

ora scrutava la sua, ma da qualche parte restava una larga sezione di
vuoto, come se gli avessero asportato un pezzo di cervello.
Baldini: Come il suo organo visivo riuscì di nuovo a concentrarsi
sugli oggetti, Winston si ricordò chi era, e dove era, e riconobbe la
faccia che lo stava guardando fisso negli occhi
- Original: Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty
glass.
Manferlotti: Winston sedeva al suo solito tavolo, fissando un
bicchiere vuoto
Baldini: Winston se ne sedeva nel suo solito angolo, fissando un
bicchiere vuoto.
- Original: The huge face gazed back at him, full of calm power.
Manferlotti: Il volto enorme gli restituì lo sguardo, ricolmo di un
sereno senso di potenza.
Baldini: Il faccione riprese a guardarlo spirando calma potenza.

The most frequent translation for gaze is the verb “guardare”, which occurs 19 times.
Some of its uses are accompanied by adverbs which emphasize its meaning. There are
also three periphrases containing the noun “sguardo”, which becomes Manferlotti’s
hallmark. The second most recurrent solution, provided by both translators, consists in
translating with the verb “fissare”, which occurs 10 times, or with the adverb “fisso”,
which is found thrice. Another meaning conveyed by the translations – especially by
Baldini’s (Manferlotti goes for this possibility only once) – is the idea of an iterative
relationship or a correspondence. However, both of them make this choice with the
sentence “The huge face gazed back at him, full of calm power”, in which the verb “to
gaze” is followed by the adverb “back”. Manfelotti chooses the Italian collocation
“restituì lo sguardo”, while Baldini paraphrases by “riprese a guardarlo”. Moreover,
Manferlotti renders the idea of looking thoroughly four times: on two occasions with
“scrutare”, which is one used in the Italian collocation “scrutare l’orizzonte”, and two
with “osservare”, when describing the action of examining the paperweight.
A peculiar expression is “gazed abstractedly”, in the twelfth concordance line.
In their hiding place, while Julia gets ready, Winston looks at a woman out of the
window, which is narrated as follows:
Original: Winston gazed abstractedly through the muslin curtain.
Manferlotti: Winston gettò uno sguardo distratto attraverso la tendina di mussola.
Baldini: Winston diede un'occhiata attraverso le tende di mussolina

It is translated by both with the idea of a distracted glance, as “gettò uno sguardo” and
“diede un’occhiata”.
29

Another interesting observation could be made about the combination of the
verb “to gaze” and the adverb “up”, in the last concordance line. It is a sentence
contained in the last paragraph of the novel, in which not only has Winston
surrendered to O’Brien, but he even starts to love Big Brother. Winston’s watches then
Big Brother’s pictures:
Original: He gazed up at the enormous face.
Manferlotti: Alzò lo sguardo verso quel volto enorme.
Baldini: Guardò su, alla faccia enorme.

In both the translations the phrase is rendered communicating the idea of looking
upwards: “alzò lo sguardo” and “guardò su”.
A particular case in point is the use of “gaze” as a noun, in the sentence related
to Goldstein, one of the Party’s original leaders who had fled and was hiding, and is
generally called the Enemy of the People. The following extract shows the aversion of
the Party against him, and yet his hypothetical success in a clandestine criminal
association called the Brotherhood:
Original: But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by
everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in
newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze
for the pitiful rubbish that they were‐‐in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less.
Manferlotti: E però era strano che, sebbene Goldstein fosse il bersaglio dell'odio e del disprezzo
collettivo, sebbene ogni giorno e per migliaia di volte, dall'alto di un podio o da un teleschermo,
in libri o giornali, le sue teorie venissero confutate, fatte a pezzi, ridicolizzate ed esposte al
pubblico ludibrio per quella spazzatura che erano, malgrado tutto ciò, la sua influenza non
sembrava subire colpi.
Baldini: Era davvero strano, tuttavia, che sebbene Goldstein fosse disprezzato e odiato da tutti,
sebbene ogni giorno, migliaia di volte al giorno, dal podio, dal teleschermo, dai giornali, dai libri,
le sue teorie fossero confutate, schiacciate, volte in ridicolo, e ad ogni modo esposte
pubblicamente per quelle pietose stupidaggini che erano, nonostante tutto ciò, la sua influenza
non sembrava che stesse per nulla decrescendo

3.1.5 TO STARE
A synonym for “gaze” is “to stare”; it occurs only five times. The most common Italian
translations for this word are “guardare”/”sguardo” and “fissare”/”fisso”, sometimes
combined together. Once again, Manferlotti characterizes his style by using the
collocation “lo sguardo fisso” twice; in the second instance it is rather interesting,
because it is the translation for the expression “stared steadily”. Like Manfelotti, also
Baldini uses reduction, since he renders it as “guardarono fissi”. As a consequence, in
30

both cases the extra meaning provided by the adverb is not conveyed. In the last
occurrence, “His eyes had a wide‐open, staring look, as though he could not prevent
himself from gazing at something in the middle distance”, we find another example of
reduction, as Manferlotti only writes “teneva gli occhi spalancati”.
- He sat staring at the marbled cover of the book, trying without
success to shut the voice out of his consciousness.
- The relief of seeing her was so great that he could not resist
staring directly at her for several seconds.
- They were shoulder to shoulder, both staring fixedly in front of
them.
- With hands locked together, invisible among the press of bodies,
they stared steadily in front of them, and instead of the eyes of the
girl, the eyes of the aged prisoner gazed mournfully at Winston out of
nests of hair.
- His eyes had a wide-open, staring look, as though he could not
prevent himself from gazing at something in the middle distance.

3.1.6 TO GLARE
Another lexical set of this semantic field is represented by “to glare”. It actually comes
as a surprise that this verb is used only twice, and in both cases in the meaning of
“shining with a very strong bright light which hurts your eyes”. The two occurrences
are related respectively to the common procedures followed during an arrest and to
some of the physical tortures Winston undergoes in the end. While Manferlotti
chooses a literal equivalent, “abbagliare”, Baldini seems more creative: “the lights
glaring in your eyes” becomes “le luci che pizzicavano gli occhi assonnati” and “shone
glaring lights in his face” is rendered as “gli saettavano certe luci violentissime sulla
faccia”.
Original: The sudden jerk out of sleep, the rough hand shaking your shoulder, the lights glaring in
your eyes, the ring of hard faces round the bed.
Manferlotti: il risveglio improvviso e violento, una mano brutale che vi scuoteva la spalla, la luce
delle torce elettriche che vi abbagliava gli occhi, il cerchio di facce dure intorno al letto.
Baldini: Quello scossone che faceva svegliare di soprassalto, quella mano che scuoteva la spalla,
le luci che pizzicavano gli occhi assonnati, il cerchio dei volti feroci intorno al letto.
Original: they slapped his face, wrung his ears, pulled his hair, made him stand on one leg,
refused him leave to urinate, shone glaring lights in his face until his eyes ran with water;
Manferlotti: Lo schiaffeggiavano, gli torcevano le orecchie, gli tiravano i capelli, lo costringevano
a reggersi su una gamba sola, non gli consentivano di minare, lo abbagliavano con la luce dei
riflettori fino a quando gli occhi non gli lacrimavano copiosamente
Baldini: Lo schiaffeggiavano, gli torcevano le orecchie, gli tiravano i capelli, lo facevano star ritto
su una gamba sola, gli rifiutavano il permesso di ormare, gli saettavano certe luci violentissime
sulla faccia fino a che gli occhi non erano inondati di lacrime;

31

CONCLUSIONS
The corpus‐based approach adopted in this chapter has been particularly useful and
meaningful as regards both the literary and linguistic aspects of the novel.
Concordance lines have showed the most recurrent cognitive words used to describe
Winston, Big Brother and O’Brien, thus providing many clues about their personality
and characterization.
In addition, it is prominent to make some grammatical observations. First of all,
the lexical lemmas “look” and “watch” feature three patterns each: the linguistic
characteristics and the literary ones are strictly interconnected, since the formers
stress the expressive strength of the latter. The lexical lemma “spy” occurs quite often,
26 times, to suggest the disquieting atmosphere of reciprocal suspect. Also “gaze” is
meaningful, for its strong focus on observation.
Finally, the concordance lines have provided some information about the
translators’ different styles: generally speaking, Manferlotti is consistent when
translating the same word and quite adherent to the source text, while Baldini tends to
vary and to be more creative, sometimes possibly also too much so.

3.2 Winston

Winston is the hero of the novel, who rebels against an oppressive regime simply by
trying to find out the truth. He observes reality and meditates on it, in order to try and
understand the present situation and remember the past, which has been
continuously deleted or modified: expressions concerning observation, rationality,
reflection, and memory are widely used throughout the novel. At the same time, he
struggles to also live his emotional side, the umpteenth aspect of people’s life
controlled by the Party. In this respect it must be noticed that also the semantic field
which can be labeled “feelings” is often present.

32

THE ANALYSIS
This section explores how Winston, the protagonist, is depicted and connoted both in
the original novel and in the two target texts. A corpus‐based approach is adopted,
which allows one to explore the most recurrent lexical lemmas used to describe the
character; furthermore, it will provide some clues about the different features of the
translations. The focus is on some extracts from the texts in the form of concordance
lines and on their translations.
The three most frequent content words in the original text are the names of
the main characters, which comes as no surprise. Winston, the protagonist’s surname,
is the most recurrent one, featuring 527 occurrences. Despite being an abstract entity,
the “Party” could be considered as the second most important character and word in
the novel; it occurs 289 times. The third item is O’Brien, Winston’s antagonist and
torturer. In this chapter we will focus on the characterization of Winston, which will be
explored through the analysis of concordance lines.

CHARACTERS OCCURRENCES PERCENTAGE
Winston 527 0.52%
Party 289 0.29%
O’Brien 205 0.20%
Table 4: The three most frequent content words

A recurrent construction is the specifying ‘s genitive, which is used 72 times, mostly to
refer to Wiston’s body (35 occurrences). It is also sometimes used to refer to Winston’s
thoughts (6 times) or to indicate the position of an object or a person (6 times).
Another interesting expression is the combination of the past simple of the verb “to
say” and the name Winston, which is an instance of inversion. As Swan (2005: 80)
suggests, “in story‐telling, the subject often comes after reporting verbs like said,
asked, suggested etc when those follow direct speech”. Table 5 below shows the most
recurrent clusters:

33

Winston’s 72
Said Winston 43
Winston’s heart 6
Winston’s arm 4
Winston’s back 4
Winston’s head 4
Winston’s mind 4
Winston’s body 3
Winston’s face 3
Winston’s entrails 3
Table 5: The most recurrent clusters regarding Winston

3.2.1 OBSERVATION AND RATIONALITY
Winston wants to explore reality and tries to find the truth about things. To this end,
he performs an in‐depth analysis of facts and goes beyond appearances. Therefore, the
first semantic field that will be analysed is the set of verbs related to observation and
rationality that collocate with Winston. The most recurrent clusters are broken down
in Table 6:

Winston + Lexical lemma 8
“know” 6
Winston looked 7
Winston noticed 4
Winston’s mind 4
Table 6: The most recurrent clusters regarding observation and rationality

The concordance lines below exemplify the above clusters:
- Winston looked back when he had gone thirty metres.

6
The lexical lemma “know” includes: “knew” (4 occurrences), “did not know” (2 occurrences), “did
know” (1 occurrence), “know” (1 occurrence).
34

- Winston looked out into the field beyond, and underwent a curious,
slow shock of recognition.
- Winston looked round the shabby little room above Mr Charrington's
shop.
- Winston looked up at him.
- At the door Winston looked back, but O'Brien seemed already to be in
process of putting him out of mind.
- Winston looked up at the portrait of Big Brother.
- Winston looked at the thing sulkily and without interest.
- In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others
and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair.
- The pain of the coughing fit had not quite driven out of Winston's
mind the impression made by his dream, and the rhythmic movements of
the exercise restored it somewhat.
- But there was a fraction of a second when their eyes met, and for as
long as it took to happen Winston knew--yes, he KNEW!--that O'Brien
was thinking the same thing as himself.
- Winston had never been able to feel sure--even after this morning's
flash of the eyes it was still impossible to be sure whether O'Brien
was a friend or an enemy.
- Winston did not know what it meant, only that in some way or another
it would come true.
- In his childish way Winston grasped that some terrible thing,
something that was beyond forgiveness and could never be remedied, had
just happened.
- He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with
Eurasia as short a time as four years ago.
- Winston examined the four slips of paper which he had unrolled.
- Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate ration was to be
reduced from thirty grammes to twenty at the end of the present week.
- In the long, windowless hall, with its double row of cubicles and
its endless rustle of papers and hum of voices murmuring into
speakwrites, there were quite a dozen people whom Winston did not even
know by name, though he daily saw them hurrying to and fro in the
corridors or gesticulating in the Two Minutes Hate.
- Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced.
- Winston did know that, of course.
- 'Except----' began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped.
- Winston knew the man by sight, though he knew no more about him than
that he held some important post in the Fiction Department.
- This, Winston was aware, was not meant altogether seriously, but
somehow it fitted in with the general ideology of the Party.
- Suddenly the passage from the history book that he had copied into
his diary came back into - Winston's mind, and a lunatic impulse took
hold of him.
- Winston realized that he would have accepted three or even two.
- Winston noticed that the furniture was still arranged as though the
room were meant to be lived in.
- The thought flitted through Winston's mind that it would probably be
quite easy to rent the room for a few dollars a week, if he dared to
take the risk.
- Winston came across to examine the picture.
- Winston knew the place well.
- Winston knew they were there but he saw them only intermittently.
- It had been contrived as a way of letting Winston know O'Brien's
address.
- But at this moment Winston noticed some tufts of loosestrife growing
in the cracks of the cliff beneath them.
35

- Meanwhile I shall send you a copy of THE BOOK'--even O'Brien,
Winston noticed, seemed to pronounce the words as though they were in
italics--'Goldstein's book, you understand, as soon as possible.
- One, a woman, was consigned to 'Room 101', and, Winston noticed,
seemed to shrivel and turn a different colour when she heard the
words.
- Winston became aware of silence, as one becomes aware of a new
sound.
- And then another quite different voice, a thin, cultivated voice
which Winston had the impression of having heard before, struck in;
- Winston suddenly realized whose voice it was that he had heard a few
moments ago on the telescreen.
- After a moment Winston recognized one of them as his own.
- His mind CONTAINED Winston's mind.

An interesting case in point can be found in the eighth concordance line, which is
reported in the larger context of occurrence here along with the translations into
Italian. It describes what happens during the Two Minutes Hate, a manifestation of
hatred against Goldstein, the enemy of the Party:
Original: In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his
heel violently against the rung of his chair.
Manferlotti: In un momento di lucidità Winston si rese conto che stava gridando come tutti gli
altri, battendo con forza il tallone contro il piolo della sedia.
Baldini: In un momento d’improvvisa lucidità, Winston si accorse che anche lui stava strillando
come tutti gli altri, e batteva furiosamente i tacchi contro il piolo della sedia.

Both Baldini and Monferlotti translate the prepositional phrase “with the others” into
the comparative phrase “come tutti gli altri”; moreover Baldini uses the technique of
diffusion, as he adds information in his text through the adjective “improvvisa”.
The thirteenth concordance line is devoted to a confused and incomplete
memory Winston has of a past event. We notice several prominent elements:
Original: In his childish way Winston grasped that some terrible thing, something that was
beyond forgiveness and could never be remedied, had just happened.
Manferlotti: Nella sua innocenza di bambino, Winston comprese che doveva trattarsi di qualcosa
di terribile, di irrimediabile, qualcosa che non era possibile perdonare.
Baldini: Pur con la sua mente di fanciullo, Winston capì che doveva essere successo qualcosa che
era oltre il perdono, e che non sarebbe mai più stato riparato.

Both the translators deeply modify the structure of the sentence: Manferelotti
reorders it, and translates the verb “happened” with “doveva trattarsi”; Baldini puts
this verb before its subject and uses the technique of condensation, as he does not
translate “some terrible thing”. On the other hand, he turns the prepositional phrase
“in this childish way” into a circumstantial adjunct with a concessive value (“pur con la
36

sua mente di fanciullo”). Also Manferlotti finds an alternative way to translate it (“nella
sua innocenza di bambino”): he uses the technique of diffusion to make the meaning
clearer. The English word provides a good example of divergence.
It is possible to make many observations on the eighteenth concordance line,
which is presented here in the wider context of use. It concerns the description of the
Records Department, the section of the Ministry of Truth where Winston works:
Original: In the long, windowless hall, with its double row of cubicles and its endless rustle of
papers and hum of voices murmuring into speakwrites, there were quite a dozen people whom
Winston did not even know by name, though he daily saw them hurrying to and fro in the
corridors or gesticulating in the Two Minutes Hate.
Manferlotti: Nella sala lunga e priva di finestre, con la sua doppia fila di cubicoli, l'ininterrotto
fruscio della carte e il continuo ronzio delle voci che parlavano ai parlascrivi, vi erano una buona
dozzina di persone che Winston non conosceva neanche per nome, sebbene ogni giorno le
vedesse correre avanti e indietro per i corridoi o gesticolare a più non posso durante i Due Minuti
d'Odio.
Baldini: Nella sala lunga e senza finestre, con la sua duplice fila di cubicoli e l’ininterrotto fruscio
di carte e bisbiglio di voci che si confidavano coi dittografi, c'era una dozzina di persone che
Winston non conosceva nemmeno per nome, anche se le vedeva affrettarsi, tutti i giorni, su e giù
nei corridoi e abbandonarsi ad ogni sorta di gesti durante i Due Minuti d'Odio.

The onomatopoeic verb “to murmur”, which means “to say something in a soft quiet
voice that is difficult to hear clearly”, could be possibly translated as “mormorare”, but
Manferlotti opts for “parlavano” and Baldini for “si confidavano”; the first one reduces
the sense, the second one changes it. Another interesting issue is the translation of
Orwell’s neologism “speakwrites”: Manferlotti goes for a literal translation,
“parlascrivi”, a compound of two existing words, like the original, while Baldini uses
the word “dittografi”, which reminds of the already existing word “dittografia” (“nella
filologia testuale, l’errata ripetizione di una parola o di un gruppo di lettere da parte
dell’amanuense”). Both use diffusion with the verb “gesticulate” to emphasize its
meaning: the former puts “gesticolare a più non posso”, the latter “abbandonarsi ad
ogni sorta di gesti”.
The last concordance line to analyse is the twenty‐sixth one, which refers to the
secret room Winston discovers above Mr Charrington’s shop, which will become his
hiding place. The extract is the following:

37

Original: Winston noticed that the furniture was still arranged as though the room were meant to
be lived in
Manferlotti: Winston osservò che i mobili erano disposti come se la stanza fosse ancora abitata.
Baldini: Winston notò che i mobili erano disposti come se in quella stanza ci si abitasse ancora.

Manferlotti translates “noticed” with “osservò”, whilst Baldini chooses its literal
equivalent, “notò”; the comparative clause “as though the room were meant to be
lived in” contains the verbal expression “to be meant to”, meaning “to be intended
to”, quite a hard one to render into Italian, which does not have a similar periphrasis:
this is an instance of a “source‐language concept [which] is not lexicalized in the target
language”, as Baker (1992: 18) explains. It could also be considered as an example of
substitution. Manferlotti translates it as “come se la stanza fosse ancora abitata”,
Baldini as “come se in quella stanza ci si abitasse ancora”. In particular, the second
translation is grammatically incorrect for the presence of the pronoun “ci”, which is a
repetition.

3.2.2 THOUGHTS
Another recurrent action performed by Winston is thinking. Expressions related to the
semantic field of reflection are used quite often. We can notice, in particular, the use
of two clusters, “thought Winston” and “Winston thought”, used to report the
protagonist’s thoughts:

Thought Winston 10
Winston thought 6
Table 7: The most recurrent clusters regarding thoughts

The following concordance lines show the above clusters:
- It was a good job it was not a real pistol he was holding, Winston
thought.
- Bad news coming, thought Winston.
- Winston wondered whether Comrade Tillotson was engaged on the same
job as himself.
- Winston thought for a moment, then pulled the speakwrite towards him
and began dictating in Big Brother's familiar style:
- Winston debated with himself whether to award Comrade Ogilvy the
Order of Conspicuous Merit.
- One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme
will be vaporized.
38

- Unquestionably Syme will be vaporized, Winston thought again.
- Mr Charrington, thought Winston, was another extinct animal.
- How easy it was, thought Winston, if you did not look about you, to
believe that the physical type set up by the Party as an ideal--tall
muscular youths and deep-bosomed maidens, blond-haired, vital,
sunburnt, carefree--existed and even predominated.
- For some reason Winston suddenly found himself thinking of Mrs
Parsons, with her wispy hair and the dust in the creases of her face.
- Even at that time Winston had not imagined that the people who were
wiped out in the purges had actually committed the crimes that they
were accused of.
- Winston wondered vaguely to what century the church belonged.
- How small, thought Winston, how small it always was!
- Winston thought
- Winston thought
- She might, thought Winston, be his mother
- He was older than Winston had thought him;
- Then why bother to torture me? thought Winston, with a momentary
bitterness.
- He is not pretending, thought Winston, he is not a hypocrite, he
believes every word he says.
- He knows, thought Winston suddenly, he knows what I am going to ask!
Winston thought.
- The terrible thing, thought Winston, the terrible thing was that
when O'Brien said this he would believe it.
- What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more
intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and
then simply persists in his lunacy?

It is important to analyse the first concordance line. Winston is afraid of Mrs Parsons’
son playing, because “there was a sort of calculating ferocity in the boy's eye, a quite
evident desire to hit or kick Winston and a consciousness of being very nearly big
enough to do so”. Here is the extract:
Original: It was a good job it was not a real pistol he was holding, Winston thought.
Manferlotti: Fortuna, pensò Winston, che non aveva in mano una pistola vera
Baldini: Era davvero una provvidenza che non avesse in mano una pistola vera, pensò Winston.

The interesting case in point is the translation of the phrase “it was a good job”, an
expression typical of spoken British English “used to say that you are glad something
happened, because there would have been problems if it had not happened”. Both the
translators render it through expressions related to luck and change the structure of
the sentence; in addition, Manferlotti reorders it, putting the clause “Winston
thought” at the beginning.
The next prominent case in point is provided by the second concordance line,
which refers to one of the announcements made by the telescreen, which was used
39

both to widespread the Pary’s culture and to control people. The sentence reads as
follows:
Original: Bad news coming, thought Winston.
Manferlotti: Cattive notizie, pensò Winston
Baldini: Mala nuova in vista, pensò Winston.

The nominal phrase “bad news coming”, composed of an adjective, a noun and an ‐ing
post‐modifying clause, is hard to render in Italian. Manferlotti goes for “cattive
notizie”, thus omitting the third word, while Baldini is adherent to the English with his
choice, “mala nuova in vista”.
The fifth concordance shows Winston while falsifying the truth, precisely while
making up a story adherent to the Party’s new needs:
Original: Winston debated with himself whether to award Comrade Ogilvy the Order of
Conspicuous Merit.
Manferlotti: Winston fu a lungo in dubbio se concedere o meno al Compagno Ogilvy l'Ordine del
Gran Merito
Baldini: Winston disputò con se stesso se fosse opportuno concedere al camerata Ogilvy la
decorazione dell'Ordine del Gran Merito

It is another instance of the conciseness of the English language, which seems to be
able to convey strong meanings in very few words. The verb “debated with himself”
becomes “fu a lungo in dubbio” and “disputò con se stesso” in the two translations;
the former is semantically successful but longer than the original; the latter is adherent
to English, but does not sound well in Italian. Moreover, Baldini adds “la decorazione”,
thus using the technique of diffusion.
The sixth quotation refers to Syme, a philologist whose task is to work on
Newspeak. Winston believes that he is too intelligent to stay alive and has the
following conviction:
Original: One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be
vaporized.
Manferlotti: Un giorno di questi, pensò Winston con improvvisa, profonda convinzione, Syme
sarà vaporizzato.
Baldini: "Uno dei prossimi giorni" pensò a un tratto Winston, afferrato da una profonda
convinzione ''Syme verrà senz’altro vaporizzato.

The prepositional phrase “with sudden deep conviction” is translated differently by
Manferlotti and Baldini, although they both manage to render its semantic meaning.
40

The former translator is quite adherent to the source, the latter, on the contrary,
changes the adjective “sudden” into the adverbial phrase “a un tratto” and turns the
prepositional phrase into the relative one “afferrato da una profonda convinzione”.
Another case in point can be found in the last concordance line, devoted to one
of the last unconditioned thoughts Winston has while being tortured by O’Brien:
Original: What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than
yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?
Manferlotti: Che cosa si può fare, pensò Winston, contro il pazzo che è più intelligente di noi, che
ascolta con indulgenza le nostre argomentazioni ma poi persiste nella sua follia?
Baldini: Che cosa si può, pensava Winston, contro un pazzo più intelligente di noi, che si degna di
ascoltare i nostri argomenti, e che quindi persiste nella sua pazzia?

It is almost impossible to find a complete equivalent in Italian for “lunatic”, an old‐
fashioned “very offensive word for someone who is mentally ill”. Again, the sentence
structure is highly modified in the translations, in particular in relation to the noun
phrase “a fair hearing”, rendered by two relative clauses, “che ascolta con indulgenza”
in Manferlotti’s version and “che si degna di ascoltare i nostri argomenti” in Baldini’s
one.

3.2.3 MEMORY
Memory is fundamental in a totalitarian regime, in which reality is modified on a daily
basis. The name Winston is associated with the verb “to remember” ten times, four of
which are contained in the cluster “Winston remembered”. The word is usually used
with reference to the past, both regarding his own private life and history.
Below we find the related concordance lines:
- Some Eurasian prisoners, guilty of war crimes, were to be hanged in
the Park that evening, Winston remembered.
- His father he remembered more vaguely as dark and thin, dressed
always in neat dark clothes (Winston remembered especially the very
thin soles of his father's shoes) and wearing spectacles.
- Winston could not definitely remember a time when his country had
not been at war, but it was evident that there had been a fairly long
interval of peace during his childhood, because one of his early
memories was of an air raid which appeared to take everyone by
surprise.
- But which buggers they didn't ought to have trusted Winston could
not now remember.
- Winston could not even remember at what date the Party itself had
come into existence.
41

- Winston could not now remember how he had come to be in the cafe at
such a time.
- At this moment Winston remembered where he was.
- (In his own schooldays, Winston remembered, in the late fifties, it
was only the helicopter that the Party claimed to have invented; a
dozen years later, when Julia was at school, it was already claiming
the aeroplane;
- Winston could not remember ever to have seen a passageway whose
walls were not grimy from the contact of human bodies.
- And once--Winston could not remember whether it was in drugged
sleep, or in normal sleep, or even in a moment of wakefulness--a voice
murmured in his ear:
- Winston could not intermittently remember why the pain was
happening.

The first concordance line is an example of the Party’s cruelty against enemies:
Original: Some Eurasian prisoners, guilty of war crimes, were to be hanged in the Park that
evening, Winston remembered.
Manferlotti: Winston ricordò che quella sera alcuni prigionieri eurasiatici, che si erano macchiati
di crimini di guerra, sarebbero stati impiccati nel parco.
Baldini: Certi prigionieri eurasiani, si ricordò Winston, avrebbero dovuto essere impiccati nei
Giardini, quella sera, per delitti di guerra.

The first element to consider is the adjectival phrase “guilty of war crimes”, which is
rendered as a relative clause by Manferlotti and as a prepositional phrase by Baldini.
Then, it is important to focus on the main verb, “were to be hanged”. According to
Swan (2005: 80) “we use this structure in a formal style to talk about official and other
plans and arrangements”. There is not a precise translation into Italian, as the
translators demonstrate: both their choices are correct, since they manage to convey
the meaning of an action which will take place in the future. Finally, it is curious that
both the translators change the position of the clause “Winston remembered”, which
could have been left in the original place.
The following concordance line to analyse is the fourth one. Once again, we
find an instance of a lack of memory of Winston’s:
Original: But which buggers they didn't ought to have trusted Winston could not now remember.
Manferlotti: Ma chi fossero i bastardi di cui non avrebbero dovuto fidarsi, ora Winston non
riusciva a ricordarlo.
Baldini: Ma di quali pervertiti non avrebbero dovuto fidarsi, Winston non poteva ricordare, ora.

I have been struck by the English word “buggers”, “an offensive word for someone
who is very annoying or unpleasant”. While Manferlotti reproduces the derogatory
meaning of the English word, Baldini prefers using “pervertiti”, which usually has a
42

sexual connotation, thus suggesting a slightly different expressive meaning. Moreover
Manferlotti uses the technique of diffusion, as he adds the embedded clause “chi
fossero i bastardi”.
The fifth concordance lines represents an interesting case in point. Winston
tries to remember some basic historical data, but does not succeed:
Original: Winston could not even remember at what date the Party itself had come into
existence.
Manferlotti: Winston non ricordava nemmeno l'anno in cui il Partito stesso aveva cominciato a
esistere.
Baldini: Winston non ricordava neppure la data in cui il Partito stesso aveva cominciato a
esistere.

It is important to focus on the phrase “come into existence”, meaning starting to exist.
Italian does not have a literal equivalent, as showed by the translators, who both
render it as “aveva cominciato a esistere”. Moreover, Manferlotti goes for “anno” to
translate “date”, thereby using a superordinate.

3.2.4 FEELINGS
Thanks to his continuous reflection, Winston begins to become aware of his feelings
and impressions. However, not only is the emotional side related to his rebellion, but it
also appears under torture. The next concordance lines illustrate the emotional words
associated with Winston:
- Winston had disliked her from the very first moment of seeing her.
He knew the reason.
- Thus, at one moment Winston's hatred was not turned against
Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the
Party, and the Thought Police;
- Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one wrenches
one's head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in
transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to the dark-haired
girl behind him.
- Winston raised his hands above his head, but with an uneasy feeling,
so vicious was the boy's demeanour, that it was not altogether a game.
- Winston had the feeling that they were talking at cross-purposes.
- THEM, it appeared, meant the Party, and above all the Inner Party,
about whom she talked with an open jeering hatred which made Winston
feel uneasy, although he knew that they were safe here if they could
be safe anywhere.
- But what most struck Winston was the look of helpless fright on the
woman's greyish face.
- The thing that now suddenly struck Winston was that his mother's
death, nearly thirty years ago, had been tragic and sorrowful in a way
that was no longer possible.
43

- Winston was struck, as he had been struck before, by the tiredness
of O'Brien's face
- They were sitting in silence before glasses of the gin flavoured
with cloves which was the speciality of the cafe. Of the three, it was
Rutherford whose appearance had most impressed Winston.
- The date had stuck in Winston's memory because it chanced to be
midsummer day;
Winston sighed inaudibly.
- 'You did it!' sobbed Winston.
- Winston whined and grizzled, made futile demands for food, fretted
about the room pulling everything out of place and kicking the
wainscoting until the neighbours banged on the wall, while the younger
child wailed intermittently.

The first concordance line deals with the first impression Julia made on Winston, who
describes her as dangerous and disquieting, as all young and pretty women are: “the
most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and
nosers‐out of unorthodoxy”. An interesting case is the translation of the verb “to
dislike”:
Original: Winston had disliked her from the very first moment of seeing her. He knew the reason.
Manferlotti: Winston l'aveva detestata dal primo momento in cui l'aveva vista, e sapeva anche il
perché:
Baldini: Winston l'aveva presa in antipatia fin dal primo momento che l'aveva veduta. E sapeva
perché.

Manferlotti goes for “detestare”, while Baldini prefers being more adherent to the
source by using the Italian fixed expression “prendere in antipatia”. Once again, the
two different choices are instances of each translator’s interpretation. This is another
clear example of expressive meaning.
The verb “to strike” is another one with a visual original meaning: hitting. Let’s
consider three extracts. The first one describes Mrs Parsons, terrorized by her own
children. The second one deals with Winston’s mother’s death, one of his most
frequent memories, even if incomplete and confused. The last one refers to a
repetitive impression Winston has while O’Brien tortures him. Here are the extracts:
Original: But what most struck Winston was the look of helpless fright on the woman's greyish
face
Manferlotti: Ciò che più colpì Winston, però, fu l'espressione di terrore inerme sul volto
grigiastro della donna.
Baldini: Ma quel che impressionò soprattutto Winston fu lo sguardo di indifeso terrore sulla
faccia grigia della donna.
Original: The thing that now suddenly struck Winston was that his mother's death, nearly thirty
years ago, had been tragic and sorrowful in a way that was no longer possible.
44

Manferlotti: Il pensiero che ora colpì Winston fu che la morte della madre si era verificata, quasi
trent'anni prima, in circostanze tragiche e dolorose che adesso sarebbero state impossibili.
Baldini: L'idea che si presentò improvvisamente a Winston fu che sua madre, quasi trent'anni
prima, era morta tragicamente e in preda a sofferenze atroci, e in un modo che non sarebbe
stato ora più possibile.
Original: Winston was struck, as he had been struck before, by the tiredness of O'Brien's face
Manferlotti: Come era già successo in precedenza, Winston fu colpito dalla stanchezza dipinta sul
volto di O'Brien.
Baldini: Winston fu colpito, come lo era stato già prima del resto, dalla stanchezza che si leggeva
sulla faccia di O'Brien.

The translations tend to reproduce this idea by means of the verb “colpire”, but there
are two exceptions by Baldini, who tries to be refined but risks being prolix. He renders
the first occurence with “impressionò”, a weaker lexical equivalent. In addition, in the
second one, he writes “L'idea che si presentò improvvisamente a Winston”, thus
modifying the meaning. Another interesting observation to make is the use of diffusion
by both in the second instance: Manferlotti adds the verb “si era verificata” and the
prepositional phrase “in circostanze tragiche e dolorose”, while Baldini changes
completely the subject, the verb and adds the adverbial phrases “tragicamente e in
preda a sofferenze atroci”.
The eleventh concordance line refers to a past event which was fundamental,
in that Winston recalls when he found a concrete piece of evidence the Party is not
sincere about. It features several peculiar elements:
Original: The date had stuck in Winston's memory because it chanced to be midsummer day;
Manferlotti: La data era rimasta impressa nella memoria di Winston perché si trattava del giorno
di san Giovanni.
Baldini: La data era rimasta ben fissa nella memoria di Winston perché cadeva, per caso, proprio
il 24 giugno, e cioè il solstizio d'estate, il cosiddetto midsummer's day;

The first one is the verb “to stick”, which is characterized by a strong visual meaning in
English; it is translated as “era rimasta impressa” and “era rimasta ben fissa”. Then it is
important to focus on the English clause “it chanced to be midsummer night”; in this
case, the verb has the literary meaning of “happening in a way which is not expected
and not planned”, which can be rendered in Italian only through paraphrases.
Manferlotti goes for “si trattava”, Baldini for “cadeva, per caso, proprio”. “Midsummer
day” is a culture‐specific concept: Manferlotti prefers using the Italian peculiar
expression “giorno di San Giovanni”, thus using a cultural substitution, while Baldini
45

writes the exact date (“il 24 giugno”) and then uses both an astronomical explication
(“il solstizio d’estate”) and a cultural one (“il cosiddetto midsummer’s date”), thereby
using amplification.
Finally, the last concordance line is remarkable. In the following sentence
Winston goes back to his childhood:
Original: Winston whined and grizzled, made futile demands for food, fretted about the room
pulling everything out of place and kicking the wainscoting until the neighbours banged on the
wall, while the younger child wailed intermittently.
Manferlotti: Winston prese a brontolare e frignare, a chiedere inutilmente del cibo, a gironzolare
per la stanza mettendo tutto in disordine, a dare calci al battiscopa finché i vicini non
protestarono dando a loro volta dei colpi sulla parete, mentre la bambina si limitava a lamentarsi
di tanto in tanto.
Baldini: Winston si lamentava facendo futili richieste di cibo, gironzolava attorno alla stanza
mettendo ogni cosa fuori posto e scalciando sulla parete fino a che non si sentirono dei colpi sul
muro della stanza vicina perché smettesse, e la bambina, nel frattempo, piagnucolava.

The English hendiadys “whined and grizzled” is well translated by Manferlotti with
“prese a brontolare e a frignare”, whilst Baldini reduces the strength of the expression
by only putting “si lamentava”. Furthermore, the former reproduces the verbal
asyndeton, but introduces it with the reflexive form of the verb “prendere”, which
conveys the idea of “bursting into”. Then he changes the clause “made futile demands
for food” into “chiedere inutilmente del cibo” and renders the verb “fretted” as
“gironzolare”, that is a verb of movement, which does not render the original message
of anxiety and worry. Finally, he uses the technique of diffusion and adds the verb
“protestare”, absent in the original text. Apart from these critical aspects, his
translation is effective. The one by Baldini, on the contrary, is a bit less adherent to the
original: he uses the verb “gironzolare” too and slightly modifies the syntactic
structure.

CONCLUSIONS
This chapter has provided information about the most recurrent expressions related to
Winston, thereby showing how the protagonist is connoted. Winston appears as a
typical round character, that is a complex one, with many different aspects in his
personality, as proved by the different semantic fields associated with him.
46

Furthermore, I have observed some patterns regarding the two translations.
Manferlotti tends to reorder the English sentences quite often, while Baldini is more
adherent to the original structure. However, Baldini adds a large number of elements,
mostly phrases: with these different strategies, the former manages to make his
sentences sound more Italian‐like and to reproduce semantic nuances, while the
second one, despite some good intuitions, is often wordy and heavier to read.

47

48

Chapter 4: Investigating the Italian translations

4.1 Analysing the beginning of the novel

In the first chapter of 1984 the reader is presented the grim context in which the story
is set. In a few lines the author describes London, characterized by a completely new
atmosphere, the building of Victory Mansions, the flat of Winston Smith, the
protagonist, and Winston himself, who is introduced almost immediately, through
both the depiction of his physical appearance and his thoughts. This alternation
between descriptions of the external and the internal/psychological worlds aims at
conveying a vivid portrait of the totalitarian regime and its effects on both the
environment and the people.

THE ANALYSIS
The aim of this section is to take into consideration some extracts from the beginning
of the novel and to compare and contrast Manferlotti’s and Baldini’s Italian
translations of 1984. The style of the original text is concise and harsh, through which
the environment is described efficiently and meaningfully. Few strong words convey a
very powerful meaning, as proved by several combinations of “adjective + noun”, such
as “vile wind” or “gritty dust”, which we find all throughout the novel. The following is
the first sentence in the novel from the original text and from the two translations:
Original: It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith,
his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the
glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust
from entering along with him.
Manferlotti: Era una luminosa e fredda giornata d'aprile, e gli orologi battevano tredici colpi.
Winston Smith, tentando di evitare le terribili raffiche di vento col mento affondato nel petto,
scivolò in fretta dietro le porte di vetro degli Appartamenti Vittoria: non così in fretta, tuttavia,
da impedire che una folata di polvere sabbiosa entrasse con lui.
Baldini: Era una fresca limpida giornata d'aprile e gli orologi segnavano l'una. Winston Smith, col
mento sprofondato nel bavero del cappotto per non esporlo al vigore del vento, scivolò lento
fra i battenti di vetro dell'ingresso agli Appartamenti della Vittoria, ma non tanto lesto da
impedire che una folata di polvere e sabbia entrasse con lui.

49

In Baldini’s version, a “bright cold day in April” becomes “una fresca limpida giornata
d’aprile”, which might be too reductive a translation in comparison with the original
“cold”. In the English text the second sentence has a peculiar syntactic structure, which
is hard to reproduce in Italian. As Baker (1992:166, in Taylor, 1998: 17) suggests,
“generally speaking, in languages with relatively free order (e.g. Italian) there will be
less tension between the requirements of syntax and those of communicative
function. Conversely, in languages with relatively fixed word order (e.g. English) there
will be greater instances of tension between syntax and communicative function.”
Both translations do change the order and the categories of phrases and clauses, and
add several elements: in addition to re‐ordering the phrases, Manferlotti translates
“the vile wind” with “le terribili raffiche di vento”, an instance of diffusion, while
Baldini uses the noun phrase “il vigore del vento”. Furthermore, he renders “gritty
dust” as “di polvere e sabbia” and adds the phrase “nel bavero del cappotto”, again an
instance of diffusion, which is absent in the original. Moreover, in both the versions
the term “swirl” becomes “folata”, which does not give the original idea of a twisting
circular movement, which words such as “turbine, vortice, mulinello” would convey.
The first chapter of the novel then continues as follows:
Original: The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured
poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an
enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty‐five, with a heavy
black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use
trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric
current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for
Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty‐nine and had a varicose
ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing,
opposite the lift‐shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of
those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG
BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.
Manferlotti: L'ingresso emanava un lezzo di cavolo bollito e di vecchi e logori stoini. A una delle
estremità era attaccato un manifesto a colori, troppo grande per poter essere messo all'interno.
Vi era raffigurato solo un volto enorme, grande più di un metro, il volto di un uomo di circa
quarantacinque anni, con folti baffi neri e lineamenti severi ma belli. Winston si diresse verso le
scale. Tentare con l'ascensore, infatti, era inutile. Perfino nei giorni migliori funzionava
raramente e al momento, in ossequio alla campagna economica in preparazione della Settimana
dell'Odio, durante le ore diurne l'erogazione della corrente elettrica veniva interrotta.
L'appartamento era al settimo piano e Winston, che aveva trentanove anni e un'ulcera varicosa
alla caviglia destra, procedeva lentamente, fermandosi di tanto in tanto a riprendere fiato. Su
ogni pianerottolo, di fronte al pozzo dell'ascensore, il manifesto con quel volto enorme
guardava dalla parete. Era uno di quei ritratti fatti in modo che, quando vi muovete, gli occhi vi
seguono. IL GRANDE FRATELLO VI GUARDA, diceva la scritta in basso.

50

Baldini: L'ingresso rimandava odore di cavoli bolliti e di vecchi tappeti sfilacciati. Nel fondo, un
cartellone a colori, troppo grande per essere affisso all'interno, era stato inchiodato al muro.
Rappresentava una faccia enorme, più larga d'un metro: la faccia d'un uomo di circa
quarantacinque anni, con grossi baffi neri e lineamenti rudi ma non sgradevoli. Winston s'avviò
per le scale. Era inutile tentare l'ascensore. Anche nei giorni buoni funzionava di rado, e nelle
ore diurne la corrente elettrica era interrotta. Faceva parte del progetto economico in
preparazione della Settimana dell'Odio. L'appartamento era al settimo piano, e Winston, che
aveva i suoi trentanove anni e un'ulcera varicosa sulla caviglia destra, saliva lentamente,
fermandosi ogni tanto per riposare. A ciascun pianerottolo, proprio di fronte allo sportello
dell'ascensore, il cartellone con la faccia enorme riguardava dalla parete. Era una di quelle
fotografie prese in modo che gli occhi vi seguono mentre vi muovere. IL GRANDE FRATELLO VI
GUARDA, diceva la scritta appostavi sotto.

In Baldini’s translation, “rag” becomes “logori” and “sfilacciati”, which do not
correspond precisely to the original idea of a small piece of old cloth. The prepositional
phrase “for indoor display” is changed into a clause in both cases, and the translators
are forced to find synonyms to render the verb “to tack” (“to attach something to a
wall, board etc, using a tack”).
The syntactic structure of the following sentence is changed by Manferlotti,
who prefers putting “un volto enorme” as the subject and not as the direct object. The
adverb “ruggedly” is rendered in both translations through adjectives (“severi” and
“rudi”) which do not reproduce the exact English message: a rugged man is good‐
looking and has strong features which are often not perfect, yet he is not exactly
“rude”.
The stretch of the text starting with “Even at the best of times” and ending with
“preparation for Hate Week” is quite different in Manferlotti’s translation, in which the
syntax has been deeply modified and the formal phrases “in ossequio alla” and
“l'erogazione della corrente elettrica” are used instead of a literal translation, as is the
case in Baldini’s version.
The phrase “resting several times” in a subsequent clause is expanded by both
the translators, who add the idea of stopping to breathe: the former writes
“fermandosi di tanto in tanto a riprendere fiato”, the latter fermandosi ogni tanto per
riposare”.
In the successive sentence, the translations of the verbs “gaze” as “guardava”
and “riguardava” and “contrive” as “fatti” and “prese” do not reproduce the strength
51

of the original meaning, and “picture” is interestingly rendered as “ritratti” and
“fotografie” by the two translators, which are examples of the phenomenon of
divergence.
In the last sentence “Big Brother” is mentioned, an expression used by Orwell
which has subsequently become worldwide known and used to refer to “any person,
organization, or system that seems to want to control people's lives and restrict their
freedom”. It is translated by both translators as “Grande Fratello”, although its original
meaning is “older brother”. The last comment to make is that Baldini adds the past
participle “appostavi”, again an example of the phenomenon of diffusion used for
stylistic reasons rather than for linguistic ones.
The third paragraph reads as follows:
Original: Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do
with the production of pig‐iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled
mirror which formed part of the surface of the right‐hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the
voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the
telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.
He moved over to the window: a smallish, frail figure, the meagreness of his body merely
emphasized by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the party. His hair was very fair, his
face naturally sanguine, his skin roughened by coarse soap and blunt razor blades and the cold
of the winter that had just ended.
Manferlotti: All'interno dell'appartamento una voce pastosa leggeva un elenco di cifre che
avevano qualcosa a che fare con la produzione di ghisa grezza. La voce proveniva da una placca
di metallo oblunga, simile a uno specchio oscurato, incastrata nella parete di destra. Winston
girò un interruttore e la voce si abbassò notevolmente, anche se le parole si potevano ancora
distinguere. Il volume dell'apparecchio (si chiamava teleschermo) poteva essere abbassato, ma
non vi era modo di spegnerlo. Winston si avvicinò alla finestra: era una figura minuscola, fragile,
la magrezza del corpo appena accentuata dalla tuta azzurra che costituiva l'uniforme del Partito.
Aveva i capelli biondi, il colorito del volto naturalmente sanguigno, la pelle resa ruvida dal
sapone grezzo, dalle lamette smussate e dal freddo dell'inverno appena trascorso.
Baldini: Dentro all'appartamento una voce dolciastra leggeva un elenco di cifre che aveva
qualche cosa a che fare con la produzione della ghisa. La voce veniva da una placca di metallo
oblunga, simile a uno specchio opaco, che faceva parte della superficie della parete di destra.
Winston girò un interruttore e la voce si abbassò un poco, ma le parole si potevano distinguere,
tuttavia, sempre assai chiaramente. Quell'apparecchio (che veniva chiamato teleschermo) si
poteva bensì abbassare ma non mai annullare del tutto. Si diresse alla finestra, piccola fragile
figuretta, la cui magrezza era accentata dalla tuta azzurra in cui consisteva l'uniforme del
Partito. I capelli erano biondi, molto chiari, il colorito faccia lievemente sanguigno, la pelle
raschiata da ruvide saponette e da lamette che avevano perso il filo da tempo, e dal freddo
dell'inverno che proprio allora era finito.

An analysis of the translations reveals that in Manferlotti’s version the collocation “a
fruity voice” becomes “una voce pastosa”, which conveys the original idea of “a voice
or laugh that is fruity sounds deep and pleasant”, while Baldini prefers an unusual
52

collocation in Italian: “una voce dolciastra”. Once again, the Italian lexis does not seem
to be able to reproduce all the subtleties of the English one: the generic translation of
the phrasal verb “to read out” as “leggere” does not render completely the original
sense: “to read and say words that are written down, so that people can hear”. The
past participle “dulled” is translated as “oscurato” by Manferlotti and as “opaco” by
Baldini: both convey the idea of “becoming less bright, or making something become
less bright”. The finite relative clause “which formed part of the surface of the right‐
hand wall” is turned into an infinitive relative by the former writer, who also changes
the verb, while the latter is quite adherent to the original text.
The translations of the adverb “somewhat” are other instances of the variety of
nuances of the English language, which are hard to reproduce: neither “notevolmente”
nor “un poco” corresponds to the original idea of “more than a little but not very”. The
adjective “distinguishable”, which originates from the verb “to distinguish” plus the
suffix “able”, is translated with verbs. Furthermore, Baldini uses the technique of
diffusion, as he adds “tuttavia … chiaramente”, which are possibly too many words for
just an adjective. In the following sentence, Manferlotti provides another example of
diffusion, as he adds some words and changes the syntactic structure (“il volume
dell’apparecchio”), whilst Baldini, in spite of using equation to render the first clause,
uses too many adverbs, thereby making the sentence too heavy.
The next sentence has a peculiar structure, which is hardly replicable in Italian:
the main clause is followed by a noun phrase (“a smallish, frail figure”) and by an
elliptical embedded clause (“the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the
blue overalls”). Both the translators are forced to change the structure: Manferlotti
does so by adding the verb “era”, while Baldini turns the colon into a comma.
Subsequently, Manferlotti changes the structure of the following sentence, by
substituting the verb “to be” with the verb “to have” and turning all the subjects into
direct objects: apart from these modifications, his translation is adherent and at the
same time his Italian reads well. Yet again, even though he respects the syntactic
structure of the source text, Baldini relies very heavily on diffusion, and in his version
“fair” becomes “biondi, molto chiari”, “blunt” is rendered with “che avevano perso il
53

filo da tempo” , and the adverb “naturally” with “lievemente”, thus changing its
meaning.
The fourth paragraph of the novel reads as follows:
Original: Outside, even through the shut window‐pane, the world looked cold. Down in the
street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun
was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the
posters that were plastered everywhere. The black‐moustachio’d face gazed down from every
commanding corner. There was one on the house‐front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS
WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston’s own. Down
at street level another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind, alternately
covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed
down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a
curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people’s windows. The patrols did not
matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered.
Manferlotti: Fuori il mondo appariva freddo, perfino attraverso i vetri chiusi della finestra. Giù
in strada piccoli mulinelli di vento facevano roteare spirali di polvere e di carta straccia e,
sebbene splendesse il sole e il cielo fosse di un azzurro vivo, sembrava che non vi fosse colore
nelle cose, se si eccettuavano i manifesti incollati per ogni dove. Il volto dai baffi neri guardava
fisso da ogni cantone. Ve ne era uno proprio sulla facciata della casa di fronte. IL GRANDE
FRATELLO VI GUARDA, diceva la scritta, mentre gli occhi scuri guardavano in fondo a quelli di
Winston. Più giù, a livello di strada, un altro manifesto, strappato a uno degli angoli, sbatteva al
vento con ritmo irregolare, coprendo e scoprendo un'unica parola: SOCING. In lontananza un
elicottero volava a bassa quota sui, tetti, si librava un istante come un moscone, poi sfrecciava
via disegnando una curva. Era la pattuglia della polizia, che spiava nelle finestre della gente. Ma
le pattuglie non avevano molta importanza. Solo la Psicopolizia contava.
Baldini: Fuori, anche attraverso i vetri chiusi della finestra, il mondo pareva freddo. Giù, nella
strada, mulinelli di vento giravano polvere e carta straccia a spirale e, sebbene splendesse il sole
e il cielo fosse d'un luminoso azzurro, nessun oggetto all'intorno sembrava rimandare il colore,
con l'eccezione dei cartelloni che erano incollati da per tutto. La faccia dai baffi neri riguardava
da ogni cantone. Ce n'era una proprio nella casa di fronte, IL GRANDE FRATELLO VI GUARDA,
diceva la scritta, mentre gli occhi neri fissavano con penetrazione quelli di Winston. Più sotto, a
livello della strada, un altro cartellone stracciato a un angolo, sbatteva col vento, scoprendo e
nascondendo, alternativamente, la parola SOCING. Lontano, un elicottero volava fra un tetto e
l'altro, se ne restava librato per qualche istante come un moscone, e poi saettava con una curva
in altra direzione. Era la squadra di polizia, che curiosava nelle finestre della gente. Le squadre
non erano gran che importanti tuttavia. Quella che soprattutto contava era la polizia del
pensiero, la cosiddetta Psicopolizia.

The first sentence of the fourth paragraph features the thematization of a
circumstantial adjunct of location, as the adverb “outside” is isolated at the beginning:
Manferlotti reorders the sentence, while Baldini prefers keeping it closer to the
original. Once again, we find several instances of the difficulty of translating some
English terms into Italian. In the second sentence, “posters” is rendered in two
different ways, i.e. “manifesti” and “cartelloni”, both of which are instances of the
phenomenon of divergence. In the following sentence, Manferlotti renders the verb
54

“to gaze down” suitably by adding the adverbial expression “fisso”. In the fifth
sentence, “caption” (“words printed above or below a picture in a book or newspaper
or on a television screen to explain what the picture is showing”) is generically
translated by both as “scritta”. Moreover, Baldini exaggerates by translating “looked
deep” with “fissavano con penetrazione”, too strong an expression, almost a
repetition. One of the keywords, “INGSOC”, is translated in both cases through an
anagram, “SOCING”. This word (the Newspeak term for “English Socialism”) refers to
the political ideology of the totalitarian government of Oceania. It is interesting to
notice that the original expression has been reversed in its translations, to better
suggest an auditory idea of a link to Socialism.
In the penultimate sentence, the verb “to snoop” is translated with a formal
word by Manferlotti, “spiare”, and with a more colloquial one by Baldini, “curiosare”,
both of which are possible translations.
The last observation to make is that Baldini translates the sentence “Only the
Thought Police mattered” by extending it and putting it in a separate paragraph: the
umpteenth example of diffusion for stylistic reasons.
The fifth paragraph of the novel reads as follows:
Original: Behind Winston’s back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig‐
iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three‐Year Plan. The telescreen received and
transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low
whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision
which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no
way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what
system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even
conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your
wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in
the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every
movement scrutinized.
Manferlotti: Alle spalle di Winston, la voce proveniente dal teleschermo continuava a
farfugliare qualcosa a proposito della ghisa grezza e della realizzazione più che completa del
Nono Piano Triennale. Il teleschermo riceveva e trasmetteva contemporaneamente. Se Winston
avesse emesso un suono anche appena appena più forte di un bisbiglio, il teleschermo lo
avrebbe captato; inoltre, finché fosse rimasto nel campo visivo controllato dalla placca
metallica, avrebbe potuto essere sia visto che sentito. Naturalmente, non era possibile sapere
se e quando si era sotto osservazione. Con quale frequenza, o con quali sistemi, la Psicopolizia si
inserisse sui cavi dei singoli apparecchi era oggetto di congettura. Si poteva persino presumere
che osservasse tutti continuamente. Comunque fosse, si poteva collegare al vostro apparecchio
quando voleva. Dovevate vivere (e di fatto vivevate, in virtù di quell'abitudine che diventa
istinto) presupponendo che qualsiasi rumore da voi prodotto venisse ascoltato e qualsiasi
movimento che non fosse fatto al buio attentamente scrutato.

55

Baldini: Alle spalle di Winston, la voce dal teleschermo barbugliava ancora qualcosa sulla
produzione della ghisa e il completamento del Nono Piano Triennale. Il teleschermo riceveva e
trasmetteva simultaneamente. Qualsiasi suono che Winston avesse prodotto, al disopra d'un
sommesso bisbiglio, sarebbe stato colto; per tutto il tempo, inoltre, in cui egli fosse rimasto nel
campo visivo comandato dalla placca di metallo, avrebbe potuto essere, oltre che udito, anche
veduto. Naturalmente non vi era nessun modo per sapere esattamente in quale determinato
momento vi si stava guardando. Quanto spesso e con quali principi la Psicopolizia veniva a
interferire sui cavi che vi riguardavano, era pura materia per congetture. E sarebbe stato anche
possibile che guardasse tutti, e continuatamente. Ad ogni modo avrebbe potuto cogliervi sul
vostro cavo in qualsiasi momento avesse voluto. Si doveva vivere (o meglio si viveva, per
un’abitudine che era diventata, infine, istinto) tenendo presente che qualsiasi suono prodotto
sarebbe stato udito, e che, a meno di essere al buio, ogni movimento sarebbe stato visto.

The hyperbolic neologism “overfulfilment” is translated with the periphrasis
“realizzazione più che completa” by Manferlotti, whilst Baldini reduces the meaning by
putting “completamento”. Both the translations change the structure of the third
sentence, modifying some syntactic roles; in particular, Manferlotti changes the type
of clause, as the main clause of the source text becomes an hypothetical one.
In the sixth sentence, Baldini is imprecise in his translation of the adjective
“conceivable”, as he chooses the generic word “possibile”, which does not exactly
reproduce the idea: “to imagine a particular situation or to think about something in a
particular way”.
In the last sentence, the prepositional phrase “in the assumption” is turned into
two gerunds: Manferlotti’s “presupponendo” and Baldini’s “tenendo presente”.
The sixth paragraph of the novel reads as follows:
Original: Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though, as he well knew,
even a back can be revealing. A kilometre away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, towered
vast and white above the grimy landscape. This, he thought with a sort of vague distaste — this
was London, chief city of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous of the provinces of
Oceania. He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him whether London
had always been quite like this. Were there always these vistas of rotting nineteenth‐century
houses, their sides shored up with baulks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and
their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions? And the
bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the willow‐herb straggled over the
heaps of rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger patch and there had
sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chicken‐houses? But it was no use, he could
not remember: nothing remained of his childhood except a series of bright‐lit tableaux
occurring against no background and mostly unintelligible.
Manferlotti: Winston dava le spalle al teleschermo. Era più sicuro, anche se sapeva bene che
perfino una schiena può essere rivelatrice. A un chilometro di distanza, immenso e bianco nel
sudicio panorama, si ergeva il Ministero della Verità, il luogo dove lui lavorava. E questa, pensò
con un senso di vaga ripugnanza, questa era Londra, la principale città di Pista Uno, a sua volta
la terza provincia più popolosa dell'Oceania. Si sforzò di cavare dalla memoria qualche ricordo
dell'infanzia che gli dicesse se Londra era sempre stata così. C'erano sempre state queste
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distese di case ottocentesche fatiscenti, con i fianchi sorretti da travi di legno, le finestre
rattoppate col cartone, i tetti ricoperti da fogli di lamiera ondulata, i muri dei giardini che
pericolavano, inclinandosi da tutte le parti? E le aree colpite dalle bombe, dove la polvere
d'intonaco mulinava nell'aria e le erbacce crescevano disordinatamente sui mucchi delle
macerie, e i posti dove le bombe avevano creato spazi più ampi, lasciando spuntare colonie di
case di legno simili a tanti pollai? Ma era inutile, non riusciva a ricordare. Della sua infanzia non
restava che una serie di quadri ben distinti, ma per la gran parte incomprensibili e privi di uno
sfondo contro cui stagliarsi.
Baldini: Winston teneva le spalle voltate al teleschermo. Era più sicuro sebbene, come anche lui
sapeva benissimo, perfino un paio di spalle può essere rivelatore. Un chilometro lontano, il
Ministero della Verità, da cui dipendeva il suo impiego si levava alto e bianco sul tetro
paesaggio. Questa, pensò con una sorta di vaga nausea, questa era Londra, la città principale di
Pista Prima, che era la terza delle più popolose province di Oceania. Cercava di spremere dal
cervello quelle memorie dell'infanzia che gli dicessero se Londra era sempre stata proprio così.
C'erano sempre stati quei panorami di case novecento in rovina, coi fianchi tenuti su a mala
pena da travi di legno, con le finestre turate da carta incatramata e con i tetti di ferro ondulato,
e quelle staccionate intorno ai giardini che pendevano sghembe da tutte le parti? E i luoghi
bombardati dove la polvere di calcestruzzo mulinava nell'aria, e le erbacce crescevano sparse
sui mucchi di sassi? e quegli altri luoghi in cui le bombe avevano aperto dei buchi più larghi e
dov'erano germogliate miserabili colonie di capanne di legno simili a pollai? Ma era inutile, non
riusciva a ricordare: non restava nulla della sua infanzia, se non una serie di quadri senza sfondo
e per la maggior parte incomprensibili.

The English adjective “safer” is another example of divergence: in this case, the
meaning would be “not causing harm”, but it seems to be quite difficult to find an
appropriate Italian equivalent. None of the translators has managed to come up with a
better solution than the generic “più sicuro”.
Furthermore, Manferlotti re‐orders the third clause, without modifying the
meaning, while Baldini, in spite of keeping the original order of the phrases, employs
stylistic diffusion and translates “his place of work” with “da cui dipendeva il suo
impiego”. The adjective “grimy”, meaning “covered with dirt”, is translated literally as
“sudicio” by Manferlotti, while Baldini connotes his translation with a disquieting
meaning by saying “tetro”.

CONCLUSIONS
The two translators use different techniques and schemes: while Manferlotti tends to
be quite adherent, almost literal, to the source text, Baldini seems to change and add
elements to the original text. Despite reordering the sentences and modifying the
clauses quite often, Manferlotti reproduces the original text. On the contrary, Baldini
respects the order and the categories of the clauses, but sometimes exaggerates with
57

the use of diffusion, thus “overloading” his version. On some occasions, this technique
helps him make the meaning clearer and the text closer to the Italian style of writing,
but generally speaking his choices seem to be only due to stylistic reasons rather than
to linguistic ones.

4.2 Analysing the Appendix to the novel

As in every totalitarian regime, one of the principal means of control is control through
the use of language. In Orwell’s frightening world, not only do the Party censor, but
they even create a new language, “Newspeak”, deriving from English. The author
himself explains this concept in the Appendix, entitled “The Principles of Newspeak”, a
guide to the basis of the language. Newspeak is meant to reproduce Ingsoc’s
principles, by creating a linguistic system which is only formed by words expressing
those principles and do not consider other concepts.
The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world‐view
and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought
impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and
Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought ‐ that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc
‐ should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.

THE ANALYSIS
In this section, I will compare and contrast the original version and the translations of
some lines of the Appendix. Indeed, it is interesting to notice how Manferlotti and
Baldini render the English language as well as this new language based on it. To this
end, they both translate English into Italian and Newspeak into “Neolingua”, its Italian
version, a complex operation of double translation, or possibly of “meta‐translation”.
The fifth paragraph is the first extract to analyse.

Original: The grammar of Newspeak had two outstanding peculiarities. The first of these was an
almost complete interchangeability between different parts of speech. Any word in the
language (in principle this applied even to very abstract words such as IF or WHEN) could be
used either as verb, noun, adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and the noun form, when
they were of the same root, there was never any variation, this rule of itself involving the
destruction of many archaic forms. The word THOUGHT, for example, did not exist in Newspeak.
Its place was taken by THINK, which did duty for both noun and verb. No etymological principle
was followed here: in some cases it was the original noun that was chosen for retention, in
other cases the verb. Even where a noun and verb of kindred meaning were not etymologically
58

connected, one or other of them was frequently suppressed. There was, for example, no such
word as CUT, its meaning being sufficiently covered by the noun‐verb KNIFE. Adjectives were
formed by adding the suffix ‐FUL to the noun‐verb, and adverbs by adding ‐WISE. Thus for
example, SPEEDFUL meant 'rapid' and SPEEDWISE meant 'quickly'. Certain of our present‐day
adjectives, such as GOOD, STRONG, BIG, BLACK, SOFT, were retained, but their total number
was very small. There was little need for them, since almost any adjectival meaning could be
arrived at by adding ‐FUL to a noun‐verb. None of the now‐existing adverbs was retained,
except for a very few already ending in ‐WISE: the ‐WISE termination was invariable. The word
WELL, for example, was replaced by GOODWISE.
Manferlotti: La grammatica della neolingua presentava due caratteristiche di fondo. La prima
era data dall'intercambiabilità pressoché completa fra le diverse parti del discorso. Qualsiasi
parola (in linea di principio, questa regola si applicava anche a termini come se o quando)
poteva essere usata indifferentemente come verbo, nome, aggettivo o avverbio. Quando
possedevano la stessa radice, non vi era differenza alcuna tra la forma del verbo e quella del
nome; e questa regola causava automaticamente la distruzione di parecchie forme arcaiche. La
parola pensiero, per esempio, non esisteva in neolingua. La sostituiva pensare, che fungeva sia
da verbo che da nome. Non si seguiva alcun criterio etimologico: in certi casi era il nome a
essere conservato, in altri il verbo. Perfino nei casi in cui un nome e un verbo di significato affine
non presentavano connessioni di carattere etimologico, si procedeva di frequente
all'eliminazione dell'uno o dell'altro. Non esisteva, per esempio, una parola come tagliare,
poiché i suoi significati erano agevolmente coperti dal nome/verbo coltello. Gli aggettivi si
formavano aggiungendo al nome/verbo il suffisso oso, gli avverbi aggiungendo il suffisso ente.
In tal modo, per esempio, rapidoso significava "veloce" e rapidente significava "velocemente".
Alcuni degli aggettivi ancora usati tutt'oggi, come buono, forte, grosso, nero, morbido, erano
stati conservati, ma il loro numero complessivo era assai esiguo. Ve ne era scarso bisogno, dal
momento che qualsiasi significato di tipo aggettivale poteva essere espresso aggiungendo oso al
nome/verbo. Non era stato risparmiato nessuno degli avverbi esistenti oggi, a eccezione dei
pochi già terminanti in ente. Questo suffisso era invariabile. La parola bene, per esempio, era
stata sostituita da buonente.
Baldini: La grammatica della Neolingua aveva due principali caratteristiche. La prima era una
quasi completa intercambiabilità tra le parti del discorso. Ogni parola della lingua (e per
principio ciò si applicava anche a parole del tatto astratte come se ovvero quando) poteva
essere usata sia come verbo, sia come nome o come aggettivo o avverbio. Tra forme verbali o
nominali, quando appartenevano alla stessa radice, non sussisteva alcuna variazione, e questa
regola era quella che determinava la scomparsa di non poche forme arcaiche. La parola
pensiero, per esempio, non esisteva da sola e in questa forma, in Neolingua. Il suo posto era
stato preso dalla parola pensare, che serviva sia per il nome che per il verbo. Non era seguito
alcun principio etimologico: in taluni casi era il nome originale che veniva mantenuto, in altri era
il verbo. Anche quando un verbo o un nome di significato analogo non erano connessi tra loro
etimologicamente, l'uno o l'altro dei due era frequentemente soppresso. Non c'erano, per
esempio, parole come taglio, dal momento che il suo significato era espresso a sufficienza dal
nome coltello. Gli aggettivi erano formati mediante l'aggiunta del suffisso evole al nome‐verbo,
e gli avverbi mediante l'aggiunta del suffisso mente. Così, per esempio, velocitevole, significava
"rapido" e velocitamente significava "rapidamente". Taluni degli aggettivi odierni come buono,
forte, grande, nero, molle, erano mantenuti, ma il loro numero era alquanto basso. C'era infatti
scarso bisogno di essi, dal momento che qualsiasi significato aggettivale poteva essere
facilmente ottenuto aggiungendo l'evole al nome‐verbo. Non era mantenuto nessuno degli
avverbi attuali, se si eccettuano quelli che già finiscono in mente: la terminazione mente era
invariabile. La parola bene, per esempio, era stata sostituita con buonamente.

The theoretical description of Newspeak is quite easy to translate, since it consists of
linguistic rules and technical terms. We find very slight difference between the source
59

text and the Italian versions, which are very adherent to it. Sometimes Manferlotti
prefers substituting the literal equivalents of some verbs with Italian terms which
sound better. In the first sentence, “had” becomes “presentava”; in the second one,
“was” is rendered with the periphrasis “era data”.
The fourth English sentence provides the first prominent case in point.
Manferlotti reorders the sentence, while Baldini keeps the thematization of the
circumstantial adjunct of location “Between the verb and the noun form”, but his
sentence does not sound Italian‐like, since it seems the literal translation of a non‐
Italian native speaker. Moreover, what strikes me is the embedded noun phrase “this
rule of itself involving the destruction of many archaic forms”. Both translators turn it
into a finite clause, therefore the embedded ing‐clause “involving the destruction of
many archaic forms” disappears. Manferlotti even puts a semicolon. Another aspect to
focus on is the word “destruction”: it is translated with its Italian equivalent
“distruzione” by Manferlotti, but is rendered as “scomparsa” by Baldini, which is a less
incisive choice.
In the fifth sentence, Manferlotti is adherent to the source text, while Baldini
opts for heavy diffusion (“The word THOUGHT, for example, did not exist in
Newspeak” becomes “La parola pensiero, per esempio, non esisteva da sola e in
questa forma, in Neolingua”). Once again, with the idiomatic expression “to do duty”,
Manferlotti goes for the literal equivalent (“fungeva”), while Baldini prefers a long
periphrasis (“prendere il posto”).
The seventh sentence and its translations into Italian could be considered as
linguistic exceptions, since the Italian translations are shorter than the original text.
Table 1 below shows the data:

VERSION NUMBER OF WORDS
Orwell 24
Manferlotti 19
Baldini 21
Table 1: Word tokens in the seventh sentence of the first paragraph
60

According to the general trend, English is reputed to be more succinct than Italian, not
only for stylistic reasons, as Taylor suggests (1998: 57), but also because of linguistic
reasons, like the simpler morphology and the use of compact constructions, for
instance the Saxon Genitive or pre‐modification. Actually, the current case could be
explained easily. Orwell decides to use a very formal periphrasis, i.e. “to be chosen for
retention”, while the translators use simple verbs, “conservare” and “mantenere”,
thereby providing one of the few examples of condensation.
The translations of the following sentence are adherent, except for the clause
“one or other of them was frequently suppressed”, which is rephrased by Manferlotti
as “si procedeva di frequente all'eliminazione dell'uno o dell'altro”. The ninth sentence
provides an example of divergence, since the English word “cut” could be both
rendered as a verb, “tagliare”, as Manferlotti did, or as a noun, as Baldini chose to
translate.
The biggest problems regarding translation are present from the subsequent
sentence on, when the author takes into consideration some practical examples of
Newspeak. This issue is to translate suffixes and neologisms which respectively do not
have fixed and existing equivalents. The suffix –FUL, used to form adjectives from the
noun‐verb, is rendered as “oso” by Manferlotti and as “evole” by Baldini. The former
translator was therefore probably thinking of words like “painful” or “thoughtful”,
which become “doloroso” and “pensieroso”, while the latter proposes “evole”, which
is a more frequent translation for the suffix “able”, as in “laudable” or “comfortable”,
that is “lodevole” and “confortevole”. The suffix “‐WISE”, used to form adverbs,
becomes “ente” for Manferlotti and “mente” for Baldini. The next neologisms are
translated following those rules.
Surprisingly, another item to analyse is the adjective “SOFT”: although there are
no neologisms related to it, the two translations propose two different solutions,
“morbido” and “molle”. In the next sentence, once again Manferlotti changes
punctuation: instead of reproducing a colon, he prefers a period.
The subsequent paragraph in the Appendix reads as follows:
Original: In addition, any word‐‐this again applied in principle to every word in the language‐‐
could be negatived by adding the affix UN‐, or could be strengthened by the affix PLUS‐, or, for
61

still greater emphasis, DOUBLEPLUS‐. Thus, for example, UNCOLD meant 'warm', while
PLUSCOLD and DOUBLEPLUSCOLD meant, respectively, 'very cold' and 'superlatively cold'. It was
also possible, as in present‐day English, to modify the meaning of almost any word by
prepositional affixes such as ANTE‐, POST‐, UP‐, DOWN‐, etc. By such methods it was found
possible to bring about an enormous diminution of vocabulary. Given, for instance, the word
GOOD, there was no need for such a word as BAD, since the required meaning was equally well‐
‐indeed, better‐‐expressed by UNGOOD. All that was necessary, in any case where two words
formed a natural pair of opposites, was to decide which of them to suppress. DARK, for
example, could be replaced by UNLIGHT, or LIGHT by UNDARK, according to preference.
Manferlotti: In aggiunta a ciò, qualsiasi parola (e anche questa regola si applicava, in linea di
principio, a qualsiasi lemma) poteva essere espressa al negativo mediante il prefisso s o
rafforzata dal prefisso più (o da arcipiù se si volevano raggiungere esiti di maggiore enfasi). In tal
modo, per esempio, sfreddo significava "caldo"; mentre piùfreddo e arcipiùfreddo significavano
"molto freddo" e "freddissimo". Era anche possibile, come avviene nella lingua attuale,
modificare il significato di quasi tutte le parole usando come prefissi le preposizioni anti, dis,
post, su, sotto eccetera. Si scoprì che con questi sistemi si poteva ottenere un'enorme
contrazione del vocabolario. Data, per esempio, la parola buono, non c'era bisogno di una
parola come cattivo, visto che il significato richiesto veniva reso altrettanto bene — anzi meglio
— da sbuono. In tutti i casi in cui due parole formavano una coppia naturale di opposti, vi era
solo da decidere quale delle due sopprimere. Buio, per esempio, poteva essere sostituito da
schiaro; o, anche, chiaro da sbuio, a seconda dei gusti.
Baldini: Oltre a ciò, ogni parola (e questo, per principio, riguardava ogni parola che esistesse
nella lingua) si sarebbe potuta rendere negativa aggiungendo l'affisso s, ovvero poteva essere
rafforzata con l'affisso plus, o, se si fosse voluto ancor più sottolineare il rafforzamento, con
bisplus: così, per esempio, sfreddo significava "caldo", mentre plusfreddo e bisplusfreddo
significavano, rispettivamente, "molto freddo, e "eccezionalmente freddo". Era anche possibile,
come del resto nella lingua attuale, modificare il significato di quasi tutte le parole con le
proposizioni ante, post, sopra, sotto ecc. Con simili metodi si era riusciti a realizzare una enorme
diminuzione del vocabolario. Si prenda per esempio la parola buono; non c'era bisogno di
adoperare la parola cattivo, dal momento che l'identico significato era espresso egualmente
bene (e anzi meglio) dalla parola sbuono. Tutto quel che c'era da fare, semmai, in ogni caso in
cui due parole formavano una coppia naturale di opposti, era di decidere quale dei due
sopprimere. Buio, per esempio, poteva essere sostituito da sluce, ovvero luce da sbuio, a
preferenza.

The first sentence features many interesting elements. The first observation to make
regards the punctuation used for “this again applied in principle to every word in the
language”, a non‐defining parenthetical clause (it provides some additional
information that is not essential and may be omitted without affecting the contents of
the sentence): a double dash in English, brackets in Italian. This frequent change is
likely due to stylistic reasons rather than linguistic ones. The negative affix “UN”
becomes “S” for both translators, but there are some differences regarding the next
ones, “PLUS” (“più” and “plus”) and “DOUBLEPLUS” (“arcipiù and “bisplus”).
Punctuation is modified without an apparent reason by both translators: Manferlotti
adds brackets at the end of the sentence, Baldini substitutes the period with a colon.
62

The superlative “superlatively cold” in the second sentence is rendered as
“freddissimo” by Manferlotti, and as the more adherent “eccezionalmente freddo” by
Baldini.
The following sentence shows the ability of both translators, who render the
expression “present‐day English” as “lingua attuale”. With this more general phrase,
they avoid misunderstandings, since English and Italian could collide: the linguistic
context is English, but the actual translation and term of comparison is Italian. The
prepositional affixes are easily rendered through the literal equivalents because of
their Latin origin. However, Manferlotti adds the Italian affix “dis”, probably to solve a
possible problem of divergence concerning the English “ante” or “post”.
The following sentences provide clear examples of the different styles of the
two translators. Once again, Manferlotti reorders the first one, while Baldini uses a
long periphrasis for the second one (“Si prenda per esempio la parola buono” for
“Given, for instance, the word GOOD,”), and changes its punctuation, since he adds a
semicolon and brackets, which are not present in the original.
Manferlotti’s translation of the penultimate sentence is characterized by
another example of condensation and reordering, in that he changes the order of the
phrases and reduces the number of word tokens, while Baldini is adherent to the
original.
The last sentence in the umpteenth example of divergence, since “dark” and
“light” could be considered both as adjectives (“buio” and “chiaro”, as Manferlotti
does), or as nouns (“buio” and “luce”, as in Baldini’s choice).
The next extract is taken from the section devoted to the B vocabulary, which,
as Orwell himself says, “consisted of words which had been deliberately constructed
for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political
implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person
using them.”
The following are the fourth paragraph of the section and the corresponding
translations:
Original: Some of the B words had highly subtilized meanings, barely intelligible to anyone who
had not mastered the language as a whole. Consider, for example, such a typical sentence from
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a 'Times' leading article as OLDTHINKERS UNBELLYFEEL INGSOC. The shortest rendering that one
could make of this in Oldspeak would be: 'Those whose ideas were formed before the
Revolution cannot have a full emotional understanding of the principles of English Socialism.'
But this is not an adequate translation. To begin with, in order to grasp the full meaning of the
Newspeak sentence quoted above, one would have to have a clear idea of what is meant by
INGSOC. And in addition, only a person thoroughly grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate the full
force of the word BELLYFEEL, which implied a blind, enthusiastic acceptance difficult to imagine
today; or of the word OLDTHINK, which was inextricably mixed up with the idea of wickedness
and decadence. But the special function of certain Newspeak words, of which OLDTHINK was
one, was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them. These words, necessarily few in
number, had had their meanings extended until they contained within themselves whole
batteries of words which, as they were sufficiently covered by a single comprehensive term,
could now be scrapped and forgotten. The greatest difficulty facing the compilers of the
Newspeak Dictionary was not to invent new words, but, having invented them, to make sure
what they meant: to make sure, that is to say, what ranges of words they cancelled by their
existence.
Manferlotti: Alcune parole del lessico B avevano significati altamente sofisticati, a malapena
comprensibili per chi non avesse una piena padronanza della lingua. Si veda, per esempio,
questa tipica espressione, presa da un articolo del «Times»: "Archipensatori nonventralsentire
Socing". Il modo più sintetico di tradurla in archelingua sarebbe il seguente: "Coloro le cui idee
vennero formate prima della Rivoluzione non hanno una comprensione piena dal punto di vista
emotivo dei principi del Socialismo inglese". Si tratta però di una versione insoddisfacente.
Tanto per cominciare, per comprendere sino in fondo la frase in neolingua appena citata, si
dovrebbe avere una chiara idea di che cosa si intende per Socing. Inoltre, solo una persona
totalmente radicata nel Socing potrebbe apprezzare a pieno l'energia del termine
ventralsentire, che implicava un senso di accettazione cieca ed entusiasta, quale non è agevole
a trovarsi oggi, o del termine archipensare, nel quale andavano a sovrapporsi in un nesso
inestricabile i concetti di malvagità e di decadenza. Tuttavia la principale funzione di
determinate parole della neolingua, e fra queste il termine archipensare, non consisteva tanto
nell'esprimere dei significati, quanto nel distruggerli. In numero necessariamente esiguo, queste
parole avevano ampliato sempre più la gamma dei loro significati, fino ad assorbire gruppi interi
di parole le quali, visto che potevano essere rese in maniera sufficiente da un solo termine che
le comprendeva tutte, potevano ora essere cancellate e dimenticate. La difficoltà più grande
incontrata dai redattori del Dizionario della Neolingua non consisteva tanto nell'inventare
nuove parole ma nel rendere cristallino — una volta che le avessero inventate — il loro
significato, vale a dire rendere chiaro quali fossero quelle parole che le parole nuove andavano
a cancellare.
Baldini: Alcune delle parole B possedevano significati così sottili e delicati di sfumature che
divenivano pressoché inintelligibili per chi non conoscesse la lingua nel suo insieme. Si prenda a
esempio la seguente tipica frase che ricorreva spesso in articoli di fondo del giornale:
Archepensèvoli spanciasentire Socing. Una parafrasi il più possibile abbreviata e che peraltro
trascurava non poche sfumature di tale frase può essere resa in Archelingua, così: "Coloro le cui
idee furono formate innanzi la Rivoluzione non possono avere una comprensione emotiva dei
principi del socialismo inglese". Ma questo, come s'è detto, non rappresenta una traduzione
adeguata. Tanto per cominciare, per capire tutt'intero il significato della frase in Neolingua
citata di sopra, si sarebbe dovuta avere un'idea il più possibile chiara e completa di che cosa
s'intendeva per Socing. Oltre a ciò, solo una persona che fosse profondamente radicata nella
dottrina del Socing avrebbe potuto apprezzare la forza di una parola come panciasentire, che
conteneva un significato di cieca, entusiastica accettazione, difficile a immaginarsi oggigiorno, e
allo stesso modo anche quella d'una parola come archepensare, che era strettamente connessa
con l'idea della malvagità e della decadenza. La speciale funzione di talune parole in Neolingua
come, per esempio, archepensare, non consisteva tanto nell'esprimere significati, quanto nel
distruggerli. Codeste parole, che erano necessariamente in numero limitato, avevano avuta, i
loro significati allargati tino a includere in se medesimi intere batterie di parole che, essendo
64

state sufficientemente ricoperte da un unico termine comprensivo di esse tutte, potevano
essere cancellate e dimenticate. La più grande difficoltà cui andavano incontro coloro che
compilavano il Dizionario della Neolingua non consisteva tanto nell'inventare le nuove parole
quanto nel rendersi perfettamente conto di quel che volevano dire, di renderei conto, cioè,
quali sistemi di parole e di frasi esse venivano a sopprimere con la loro esistenza.

A look at the two Italian versions suggests that many observations can be made. The
first case in point is the noun phrase “highly subtilized meanings”, composed of an
adverb, a past participle with an adjectival value and a noun. Manferlotti’s choice,
“significati altamente sofisticati”, is close to the original, whilst Baldini prefers the
periphrasis “significati così sottili e delicati di sfumature”, in which he turns both the
adverb and the past participle using adjectival hendiadys, that is a figure of speech
which consists in expressing “an idea by the use of usually two independent words
connected by and (such as nice and warm) instead of the usual combination of
independent word and its modifier (as nicely warm)”7. The prepositional phrase “as a
whole” is translated in two slightly different ways: Manferlotti suggests the original
idea of having a good command of Newspeak (“una piena padronanza”), while Baldini
focuses on the overall comprehension (“la lingua nel suo insieme”).
In the second sentence, already the first word is very meaningful. While in
English we find the imperative form of the verb “to consider”, in Italian it is almost
obligatory to adopt a different form, the formal imperative derived from the
subjunctive, which is absent in the source language. In addition to this typical
morphological difference, the translators use different verbs which, despite not being
the literal equivalent, convey the same meaning: “si veda” and “si prenda a esempio”.
The latter allows Baldini to incorporate the translation of “for example” into the verb.
The technical expression “leading article” (an editorial, that is “a piece of writing in a
newspaper giving the paper's opinion on a subject”) is not rendered by Manferlotti,
who generically says “articolo” without specifying the type of writing. The sentence in
Newspeak is rendered into Neolingua, in compliance with the previous rules adopted
by the two translators. The only exception is the use of the negative prefix “non” by
Manferlotti, who does not put “non”, as the trend he chose would require. One of the

7
http://www.merriam‐webster.com/
65

keywords, “INGSOC” is translated in both cases through an anagram, “SOCING”, as
already pointed out in Section 4.1.
The third sentence contains many instances of translation strategies.
Manferlotti uses both condensation, i.e. he omits “one could make”, and diffusion, i.e.
he adds “il seguente”. In addition, he uses an alternative translation for Newsapeak,
“archelingua”, to probably avoid repetition. Baldini uses a very long periphrasis,
thereby making his translation heavy and wordy. His text reads as follows, for instance:
“Una parafrasi il più possibile abbreviata e che peraltro trascurava non poche
sfumature di tale frase può essere resa in Archelingua, così:”. He does the same also in
the next sentence, when adding the interpolated sentence “come s’è detto”.
The following sentence starts with a fixed phrase, “To begin with”, translated
into its semantic equivalent “Tanto per cominciare” in both cases. In addition, Baldini
adds the adjective “completa”, once again an example of diffusion.
In the following sentence both translators change the original punctuation and
substitute the original semicolon with a comma; however, it comes as a surprise that
Baldini is more adherent to the original than Manferlotti, who complicates the
translation of the relative clause “which was inextricably mixed up with the idea of
wickedness and decadence”, and renders it a “nel quale andavano a sovrapporsi in un
nesso inestricabile i concetti di malvagità e di decadenza” instead of preferring a
simpler equation.
In the penultimate sentence Manferlotti reorders the first phrases to make the
Italian text sound smoother. In addition, he uses diffusion, since he adds the Italian
word “gamma”, and is likely to do so mainly for stylistic reasons. Both the Italian
versions contain the verb “cancellare” for “to scrap”, which is stronger, since it
suggests the idea of abandoning, getting rid of something which is no longer useful.
In the last sentence, we find several elements to focus on. The first one is the
translation of “compilers”: both translations use semantic equivalents, but while
Manferlotti prefers the Italian noun “redattori”, Baldini mainly uses a calque, “coloro
che compilavano”. Manferlotti reorders some constituents and gets rid of some
punctuation marks, so as to make the Italian sentence more readable. Furthermore, he
66

turns the ing‐clause “having invented them”, with both a temporal and a causal value,
into a finite temporal clause, “una volta che le avessero inventate”, separated from the
rest by dashes, quite an unusual choice in Italian. Conversely, Baldini prefers omitting
the clause, thus adopting condensation. Finally, the translations of the indirect
interrogative clause features several prominent elements: Manferlotti’s style is
characterized by condensation, because of the omission of the translation of the nouns
“ranges” and “existence”, whilst Baldini adopts the opposite technique, diffusion, since
he adds “frasi”.

CONCLUSIONS
This second part of the chapter illustrates some of the challenges that any translator of
literary texts might encounter. It discusses paradigmatic examples of cases in which
the many differences between two languages make the process of translation hard.
Similarly to cases in which puns, idiomatic expressions or cultural concepts are used, it
is always difficult to pass from the source text to the target one: on these occasions,
the translator has to use up not only all his/her technical know‐how but also and
especially his/her creativity and intuition. Also in translation, much freedom requires
much responsibility.
A relevant aspect to point out is that the different styles of the two translators
might at least partly derive from the times in which the two versions were written.
While Baldini translated the novel in 1959, Manferlotti did so in 2000. Doubtless, their
writings reflect the frames of mind, the stylistic expectations, the characteristics of
their different readerships. This topic will be expanded on in the conclusions.

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68

Conclusions

Even though they are considered to be separate fields of study by many scholars, it is
believed by others that literature and applied linguistics are strictly and deeply
interconnected. By adopting a linguistic approach it is indeed possible to appreciate
literature better, and vice versa, literature provides linguists with valuable linguistic
data.
My aim with this study has been to shown how a linguistic analysis of the novel
has enabled me to focus on Orwell’s words and to understand his message better. As
with any literary work, I believe that the linguistic features of 1984 reflect its literary
value, as its external form is deeply linked to its contents. Analysing the words, phrases
and clauses used in the novel and in the two translations has indeed enabled me to, at
least partly, make sense of the linguistic texture which makes up Orwell’s novel.
The analysis of concordance lines has stressed the presence of linguistic
patterns and trends and helped me understand the characterization of the main
characters, above all Winston. This is a piece of evidence of how literature and
linguistics not only coexist, but also cooperate and reinforce each other. To be precise,
the application of a corpus‐based methodology for the analysis of this novel has been
rather successful, as the study of concordance lines has stressed the emergence of
recurrent patterns of use which are not easily noticeable with naked eye.
Chapter 3 has discussed corpus‐derived data about verbs and processes of
cognition expressing visual control, which is at the same time an important element in
the totalitarian regime and one of the most frequent semantic fields in the text. It has
been interesting to notice that some words feature several patterns and sub‐patterns
which are both linguistic and literary in nature. “Look” and “watch” are two of the
most common words in both English and Italian, yet in Orwell’s original text they are
used in rather refined grammatical forms, for instance in association with participial ‐
ing pre‐modification and with the progressive aspect. Furthermore, they are connoted
differently than in everyday language, as they either take on disquieting meanings
69

related to the use of power and spying, or become synonymous with Winston’s search
for the truth and desire for freedom.
By exploring the source text and its translations in Chapter 4, I have shown how
the original strength of the work has been rendered and transmitted to the Italian
readers. I have also explored the extent to which Orwell’s expressive power has been
reproduced, reduced or even increased in passing from one language to the other. I
hope that I have managed to illustrate what is generally and sadly said about the
translation process, that is, “to translate is to betray” (in Italian, tradurre è tradire). It is
indeed impossible not to change something or not to lose some meanings in the
translation process. To be precise, I have shown that the translator Manferlotti tends
to be more adherent to the original text, in spite of the fact that he often re‐orders
phrases and clauses. This strategy enables him to make his sentences sound more
Italian‐like. Baldini, on the contrary, usually respects the original order of the clause
constituents, yet some parts of his text are semantically distant from the source text,
mainly because of his lexical choices. Moreover, the wide use of the strategy of
diffusion sometimes makes his version prolix and heavy. However, their styles are also
partly due to the contexts in which they were produced. Baldini published his
translation in 1959, while Manferlotti in 2000. Clearly, the readerships, the stylistic
conventions and expectations, and the language of literary fiction had changed in‐
between the two versions and still continue to change. This is the most likely reason
why Baldini’s version sounds more formal and complex, while Manferlotti’s seems to
be simpler and more direct. In addition, we should not forget that Baldini translated
the novel only a decade after its publication, whilst Manferlotti had the advantage of
knowing it better. It is even probable that the version by Baldini was a starting point
for him. This shows that translating is a dynamic process, which evolves according to
the new stylistic rules, and can improve with time and experience.
What has been extremely stimulating is the comparison of the original
Appendix to the two translations. In the Appendix the features and the principles of
the new language called Newspeak are explained by the author himself. Analysing the
original text and the translations has given me the opportunity to reflect on the
70

translation process and product and to see how the two translators talk about this new
language (variety) and come up with “meta‐languages”: Orwell indeed describes
Newpeak with reference to 20th‐century English, while Manferlotti and Baldini describe
the so called “Neolingua” with reference to 20th‐century Italian.
This double investigation of Orwell’s novel and its translations, both as source
and target texts and corpora, has revealed more than I had expected. The words and
expressions which I have analysed have indeed turned out to reveal a large number of
subtle meanings. As shown in this dissertation, meaning mainly depends on context,
and therefore the best approach to text‐ and corpus analysis is to also consider each
occurrence of a word or pattern as part of a story which needs to be read in its totality
to be fully appreciated.
To conclude, it can be said that the kind of philosophical discourse contained in
1984 does not aim to be self‐referential and abstract only. On the contrary, with my
analysis of appendixes, single words, linguistic patterns and translation techniques, I
hope I have provided some insights into aspects which have not yet been widely
considered and enhanced the comprehension of those which have already been
studied. In my analysis, I had to limit myself to some extracts and pages, but I think
that every section of 1984 hides unexpected treasures, which can be interpreted by
applying corpus‐based methods. I, therefore, strongly believe that a corpus‐based
approach could and should be adopted to analyse any literary work. In fact, there are
some scholars who already apply corpus linguistics to literary studies, but I think that
this methods should also be presented to undergraduate students of linguistic and
literary subjects. The new perspective from which literary works would be approached
could, in my view, improve the current methods of teaching literature.

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72

References

BAKER, Mona (1992): In other words. A course‐book on translation. London: Oxford
BAKER, Paul (2006): Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum.
BIBER, Douglas, CONRAD, Susan, LEECH, Geoffrey (2002): Student Grammar of Spoken
and Written English. Edinburg Gate, Harlow: Longman.
DOWNING, Angela, LOCKE, Philip (2006): English Grammar. A university Course. Oxon:
Routledge.
EGGINS, Suzanne (2004): An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics. London:
Continuum International Publishing Group.
FALINSKY, Joseph (2006): The English Noun Phrase. Padova: Unipress.
RAHV, Philip (1949): "The Unfuture of Utopia", Partisan Review, 743‐749. In: MEYERS,
Jeoffrey (a cura di): George Orwell, The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul Ltd, 267‐273.
RAI, Alok (1988): Orwell and the politics of despair. A critical study of the writing of
George Orwell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
SWAN, Michael (2005): Practical English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
TAYLOR, Christopher (1998): Language to Language. A practical and theoretical guide
for Italian/English translators. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Dictionaries
DEVOTO, Giacomo, OLI, Gian Carlo (2009): Il Devoto‐Oli, Vocabolario della lingua
italiana 2010. Milano: Mondadori Education S.p.A.
DUCKETT, Bob (2006): The Longman Exams Dictionary. Harlow: Pearson Education
Limited.
Merriam‐Webster Online Dictionary < http://www.merriam‐webster.com/ >

Software
LAURENCE, Anthony (2011): AntConc 3.2.4w.

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Online references
Encyclopaedia Britannica, George Orwell <
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/433643/George‐Orwell >
1984: Italian translation by Stefano Manferlotti, online version <
http://ns3.codoh.com/fran/livres6/1984‐it.pdf >
1984: Italian translation by Gabriele Baldini, online version < http://caus‐
ufficiostampa.weebly.com/uploads/6/2/7/5/6275849/george_orwell_1984.pdf >
Stefano Manferlotti, Official Website < http://www.stefanomanferlotti.com/ >
Enciclopedia Treccani, Gabriele Baldini < http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gabriele‐
baldini_%28Dizionario‐Biografico%29/ >

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Università degli Studi di Padova

Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari

Corso di Laurea Triennale in Mediazione Linguistica e Culturale

George Orwell’s “1984”: A Corpus-

Anno Accademico 2013 / 2014

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