Intralingual Translation of British Novels

Shortlisted for the ESSE 2022 Book Awards
Shortlisted for the 2022 SAES / AFEA Research Prize

Building on an upsurge of interest in the Americanisation of British novels triggered by the Harry Potter series, this book explores the various ways that British novels, from children’s fiction to travelogues and Book Prize winners, have been adapted and rewritten for the US market.

Drawing on a vast corpus of over 80 works and integrating the latest research in multimodality and stylistics, Linda Pillière analyses the modifications introduced to make British English texts more culturally acceptable and accessible to the American English reader. From paratextual differences in cover, illustrations, typeface and footnotes to dialectal changes to lexis, tense, syntax and punctuation, Pillière explores the sociocultural and ideological pressures involved in intralingual translation and shows how the stylistic effects of such changes – including loss of meaning, voice, rhythm and word play – often result in a more muted American edition. In doing so, she reveals how homing in on numerous small adjustments can provide fascinating insights into the American publishing process and readership.