The translation of structural markers of identity: The verb phrase

The construction of the characters' identity in fictional work entails the author's use of a variety of procedures. The literary dialogue is one of the substantial providers of information about the heroes' identity, their personality, their momentary state of mind and the relation among them. Since the heroes' speech can be a crucial contributor to the creation of personal and social identities, its translation has important bearing upon the reception of such identities in the target language. The features of the characters' way of speaking can be of idiolectal, sociolectal, rhetorical or stylistic nature. This paper looks into a variety of structures embedding different kinds of identity markers. It offers a range of such markers expressed in peculiar structural deviations, the translation of which pose problems due to structural differences between the languages in contact, namely English and Romanian. The conclusions refer to the translation of structural identity markers which have no direct correspondent in the target language. The paper advocates the formulation of coherent translation strategies during the pre-translation stages so as to offer solutions at the micro-contextual level which should suit the information provided by the macro-context.