Browsing by Author "Toniolo, Giuditta."

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Rise of the Otaku: investigating the anime fandom in South Africa.
Ramrathen, Trisha.; Wade, Jean-Philippe.; Toniolo, Giuditta.
This ethnographic research project is an empirical investigation into the nature of the anime subculture and the practices of its fans (popularly known as ‘otaku’ in Japanese culture) in South Africa. Subcultural theory was used to outline the key characteristics of a typical subculture. My work has drawn heavily from Paul Hodkinson’s (2002) interesting attempt to combine the theoretical strengths of both ‘traditional’ subcultural theories and their post-modern critiques. Resisting the post-modern tendency to see subcultures as ephemeral and fluid, Hodkinson outlines four key elements that define a grouping of people as having sub-cultural substance: autonomy, identity, consistent distinctiveness and commitment. In order to introduce, explore, and investigate the practices of the anime fandom in South Africa, I have made extensive use of these four subcultural characteristics. Henry Jenkins and John Fiske’s seminal work on fandom and fan studies will be useful in this paper as I shall be attempting to understand how and why fans in South Africa enjoy and relate to anime. While utilising the testimonies of otaku, this thesis is also self-reflexive, and places my fandom within the context of cultural studies research, in order to provide a more indepth investigation.
Translating South Africa's transition : Ivan Vladislavi*c's Missing persons in French.
(2008) Toniolo, Giuditta.; Dimitriu, Ileana.
This short dissertation is based on the comparative analysis of Ivan VladislaviC's short-story collection, Missing Persons (1989) and its French (Belgian) translation, Portes Disparus (1997). The thematic concerns of the source text - produced in South Africa at a time of "increasing socio-political upheaval and transition" (Wood 2001: 21) - add interest to such an investigation, providing insights into how South Africa's transition to democracy has been re-written for a Belgian Francophone audience. In line with recent debates in the field of Translation Studies, the study addresses the central problem of cross-cultural transfer, by embracing two essentially systemic approaches to the study of translated literature: Descriptive Translation Studies (or DTS), and Polysystem Theory. In addition, Lambert and Van Gorp's "Hypothetical Scheme for Describing Translations" is used to investigate and explain the strategies adopted by the translators to transfer concepts that are culturally and historically specific to a transitional South Africa. The initial hypothesis to be tested is that, while Portes Disparus is mainly the product of strategies of 'domestication', it also displays traces of 'foreignisation', which suggest broadly ideological, rather than purely linguistic, motivations on the part of the translators.