A Translingual Reading of Sharon Dodua Otoo's "Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin"

Abstract

This thesis proposes a new model of approaching literary texts in translation by examining the experience of reading translingually from the reader's perspective. Taking Roland Barthes' analysis of Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac (1830) as a guide for dividing and starring a text, "Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin" (2016) by the award-winning Sharon Dodua Otoo undergoes a similar interruption. Individual lexia side-by-side in German and English are considered in order to learn how the specific linguistic input shapes the readers' experiences and how these may vary across the languages. This thesis attempts to propose an alternative approach to analyzing literary translated text by refraining from reaching for one definitive interpretation of the text or discussing the correspondence and relation between the source-text and its translation. Instead of interpreting the short story or critiquing its translation, the goal of this thesis is to determine how each text in its final version reaches the reader and what effects it may release in her.