Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Il "lei" e  il "tu"

Leggendo in  italiano "Le notti di Salem" di Stephen King mi è capitato di
imbattermi in queste righe:
«Ti sto dicendo la verità,» insisté lui. Fu così che senza nemmeno accorgersene,
cominciarono a darsi del tu.
(ovviamente prima di queste righe i due personaggi usano il "lei")
Ora siccome il libro è ovviamente una traduzione, e io ho sempre
creduto che in inglese la differenza tra il  "lei" e il "tu" non esistesse (o
meglio esiste solo "you"),  mi spiegate come è possibile trovare
una cosa del genere?
Mi sfugge qualcosa?
Magari se qualcuno ha il libro in inglese le confrontiamo.
Ciao.

"Max" ha scritto
«Ti sto dicendo la verità,» insisté lui. Fu così che senza nemmeno
accorgersene,
cominciarono a darsi del tu.
(ovviamente prima di queste righe i due personaggi usano il "lei")
Ora siccome il libro è ovviamente una traduzione, e io ho sempre
creduto che in inglese la differenza tra il  "lei" e il "tu" non esistesse
(o
meglio esiste solo "you"),  mi spiegate come è possibile trovare
una cosa del genere?
Mi sfugge qualcosa?
A me sfugge il motivo per cui a certi messaggi non compaiono i simbolini ">"
per il testo riportato, ma tant'è....
Riguardo al libro, credo che nella versione originale al posto di lei e tu
ci siano Mr. o Mrs. da un lato e i nomi propri dall'altro.
"This is the truth, John!"
Qualcosa del genere...
saluti,
Peltio

Max ha scritto:

I don't have the book, but most likely the *concept* of familiar discourse
was mentioned in some other way...
"... without even realizing it, their conversation took on a familiar
tone."
Maybe they started using first names instead of formal titles and surnames.
Maybe they smiled a lot more at each other.
Maybe they even had s*x. ;-D
I'm curious, though, to see how it was really expressed in the book.
Anyone?
-- 
This is my opinion of modern, colloquial, American English. 
If you feel the need to e-mail me, un-not my address first.

 per il testo riportato, ma tant'è....
Un buon motivo potrebbe essere che usi un news reader bruttissimo oltre che
obsoleto, cambialo! :-)
Grazie a entrambi per le risposte.

 Anyone?
Č Salems Lot?
Non l'ho ancora letto, perň ho credo di aver trovato il punto: non c'č
nessun accenno al "cominciarono a darsi del tu". Anche prima di questo brano
si chiamano per nome, Ben e Susan.
'Oh, Ben, don't - ' she said nervously.
'No, I'm telling you the truth,' he insisted. 'The truth of what a
nine-year-old boy saw and what the man remembers twenty-four years later,
anyway. Hubie was hanging there, and his face wasn't black at all. It was
green. The eyes were puffed shut. His hands were livid . . . ghastly. And
then he opened his eyes.'
[...descrizione del fatto...]
'That's terrible.'
'No, it's not,' he said. 'Not very, anyway. We all have our bad dreams.' He
gestured with a thumb at the silent, sleeping houses they were passing on
Jointner Avenue. 'Sometimes I wonder that the very boards of those houses
don't cry out with the awful things that happen in dreams.' He paused. 'Come
on down to Eva's and sit on the porch for a while, if you like. I can't
invite you in - rules of the house - but I've got a couple of Cokes in the
icebox and some Bacardi in my room, if you'd like a nightcap.'
'I'd like one very much.'
He turned onto Railroad Street, popped off the headlights, and turned into
the small dirt parking lot which served the rooming house. The back porch
was painted white with red trim, and the three wicker chairs lined up on it
looked toward the Royal River. The river itself was a dazzling dream. There
was a late summer moon caught in the trees on the river's far bank,
three-quarters full, and it had painted a silver path across the water. With
the town silent, she could hear the faint foaming sound as water spilled
down the sluiceways of the dam.
'Sit down. I'll be back.'
He went in, closing the screen door softly behind him, and she sat down in
one of the rockers.
She liked him in spite of his strangeness. She was not a believer in love at
first sight, although she did believe that instant lust (going under the
more innocent name of infatuation) occurred frequently. And yet he wasn't a
man that would ordinarily encourage midnight entries in a locked diary; he
was too thin for his height, a little pale. His face was introspective and
bookish, and his eyes rarely gave away the train of his thoughts. All this
topped with a heavy pelt of black hair that looked as if it had been raked
with the fingers rather than brushed.
[...]
-- 
Maria Luisa C - 17/11/2004 21.41.29

 Anyone?
Č Salems Lot?
Non l'ho ancora letto, perň credo di aver trovato il punto: non c'č



However , sometime between boy and girl first meeting and going to bed 
together , I suppose an Italian translator must always move from 'lei' to 
'tu' , and the decision about the precise moment when to do so must always 
have a considerable degree of subjectivity ?
I haven't read the book , and don't intend to , so I couldn't comment on 
this particular choice of moment .
Mike 

 
| X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4
Yep. Neither very secure, I dare say. I would update it to 5.5 or 6,
at least, or change to another reader :)
Anyway, even old OE 4.72 should put the quoting symbol at the
beginning of quoted lines, shouldn't  it?

...

I think that in Italy 9-y-o boys and girls always address each other
by informal you (even if sometimes they use last names for their
school mates instead of first names), never by formal you.

 school mates instead of first names), never by formal you.
But there is a small particular: the man is 33 years old :-)
He told a memory of his childhood(when he is 9 years old)

 He told a memory of his childhood(when he is 9 years old)
Oh yes!
-- 
Enrico C using MyNewsGate.net
Private replies to: enrico DOT c AT people  DOT 
it
Inviato da 
www.mynewsgate.net

 ha scritto:
| Inviato da 
www.mynewsgate.net
Alas, it lost part of the Subject, after the double quotation mark "




Per me quel passaggio dal lei al tu deve avere un senso: un traduttore non
può inventarselo, e se nel testo originale non si passa da "Mr. Jones" a
"Charles", il traduttore non ha alcuna necessità di specificare il
cambiamento di pronome.
Ciao, FB
-- 
"What meaning of this, Mitter Twain?" "I will tell you, Mr Wang, if you can
tell me why a man who possesses one of the most brilliant minds of this
century can't say his prepositions or articles"
(Murder by Death)


So how would you solve the translators' dilemma ? Strangers meet and become
intimate ; in English they will always use 'you' ; in Italian , they will , 
as in the example given ,begin with 'lei' and move to 'tu' ; however , 
writers in English never (in my experience) , even when they have ambitions 
to become internationally known , include a sentence saying , 'Had they been 
Italians , at this point he would have begun addressing her as 'tu'' . A 
move to first names from surnames might signify such a moment , but it's by 
no means necessary that it should - surely a translator into Italian can , 
and must , choose what he believes to be the best moment to make this 
necessary transition , on the basis of the emotional dynamics of the 
relationship as he understands them .
Perhaps an Italian who has read the book in the original could tell us at 
what moment he would think the move from 'lei' to 'tu' should be made ? 
Would the one quoted be a credible moment to choose ? The original 
translator was presumably Italian , and since the characters are already 
using first names he clearly had made a conscious decision that that wasn't 
enough to justify the 'tu' .
Mike

 enough to justify the 'tu' .
Why on earth?

 It they address each other by first name, then it's informal you in Italian.
Mica sempre: io do del lei a persone che chiamo per nome di battesimo.
P.
-- 
Prepariamo una agilità di corpi italiani adatti
ai leggerissimi treni di alluminio che sostituiranno
gli attuali pesanti di ferro legno acciaio.

 Mica sempre: io do del lei a persone che chiamo per nome di battesimo.
Me too :)
Actually I meant: if they address each other by first name *in the English
text*, then, I think, it has to be informal you in the Italian
translation. 
-- 
Enrico C
Reply to: enrico /dot/ c /at\ people \dot\ it
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In article <r9hs62-...@massimo.max>, 
maxf...@despammed.com
 says...
Io direi che l'unica forma di confidenza paragonabile al "tu" è il 
chiamare una persona per nome.