modern shakespearean film translations and speech community

MODERN SHAKESPEAREAN FILM TRANSLATIONS AND

SPEECH COMMUNITYMichael Thór KuzmackLinguistic Anthropology

Prof. Herrera12/14/13

THESIS 10 Things I Hate About You, delivers a

contemporary interpretation of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew to a broader, modern speech community, however, the adaptation of the text causes the context and message intended for the original 16th century speech communities to get lost in translation leaving modern audiences with a fractured, warped version of Taming of the Shrew.

The Bard Himself

Taming of the Shrew

10 Things I Hate About You

Early Modern English

Auspicious, baseless, bloody, bump, changeful, dwindle, impartial, lonely, premeditated, road, and suspicious.

Sentence Pattern

SVO-Will caught the ball

SOV-Will the ball caught

OSV-The ball Will caught

Prose Tranio, since for the great desire I

had To see fair Padua, nursery of arts, I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy, The pleasant garden of great Italy; And by my father's love and leave

am arm'd With his good will and thy good

company, My trusty servant, well approved in

all, Here let us breathe and haply

institute. (1.1.1) Lucentio

Rhymed Verse Petruchio: Nay, hear you, Kate: in sooth

you scape not so. KAT: I chafe you, if I tarry: let me go.

Iambic Pentameter The rhythm in each line sounds like ba-

BUM/ ba-BUM/ ba-BUM/ ba-Bum/ ba BUM. Each pair of syllables is called an iamb.

"That have by marriage made thy daughter mine While counterfeit supposes bleared thine eyne" (5.1)

Blank Verse I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak; I smell sweet savours and I feel soft

things: Upon my life, I am a lord indeed And not a tinker nor Christopher Sly.

(Induction.2.4)

Language Use in 10TIHAY

Kate’s ending monologue

Kat’s ending monologue http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGV4hxhxW8o

So What?

The modernized simplification of the Early Modern English text to Modern English text bastardizes Shakespeare’s original message delivering a hollow shell of the classic play to modern speech communities.