This paper researches how slang is transferred from a source text into a target text, using the example of the chapter ‘Circe’ from the Irish novel Ulysses by James Joyce and the challenges faced by the translator Mircea Ivănescu when rendering English and Irish slang in Romanian. In addition, the paper deals with a view on structural perspectives of slang in Ulysses, the composition of which began in 1914. It was published in 1922 and is considered to be one of the most difficult works of literature to read. The range of styles that the writer uses is one of the reasons that the book is held up as one of the key texts of literary modernism, a movement characterised by overturning traditional manners of writing. Joyce fills his narratives with some of the most imaginative uses of language in his devotion to portray the grandeur of ordinary life and what goes on in his characters’ minds moment by moment, a style emblematising his signature: the stream of consciousness.

The Romanian translator, Mircea Ivănescu, is a postmodernist poet who prefers to employ an ordinary language in his writings. Moreover, he is a self-taught man of letters who did not even receive a degree in the languages he translated. However, ‘Ulise’ is an acclaimed Romanian translation and critics have repeatedly praised Ivănescu’s skills and use of language. This paper focuses on the choices made in the process of cultural transposition of slang and on the changes in form and structure of words and expressions when rendered from one language to another.

Academia Română, Institutul de lingvistică ‘Iorgu Iordan’. (1998). DEX. Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române (ed. a II-a). București: Editura Univers Enciclopedic Gold.

Adams, M. (2009). Slang. The people’s poetry. New York: Oxford University Press.

Aitchison, J. (1987). Words in the mind. An introduction to the mental lexicon. Oxford: T. J. Press.

Atlas, J.D. (2005). Logic, meaning and conversation. Semantical underdeterminacy, implicature and their interface. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ayto, J. (1998). The Oxford dictionary of slang. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Benstock, B. (1991). Narrative con/texts in Ulysses. London: The Macmillan Press.

Beza, M. (1928). Romanul englez contimporan. București: Cultura Națională.

Blamires, H. (1996). The new Bloomsday book. A guide through Ulysses (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.

Brister, J.G. (2010). The mainstream of consciousness: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner and mass modernism (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Kansas.

Bum [def. 1]. (n.d.). Collins English dictionary online. Retrieved May 11, 2019, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/bum

Burgess, A. (1973). Joysprick. An introduction to the language of James Joyce. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers.

Candrea, A., & Desusianu, O. (1907). Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române. Elementele latine. București: Librăria Socec & Comp.

Chomsky, N. (2002). On nature and language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chomsky, N. (2006). Language and mind (3^rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Collins Online English dictionary. Retrieved June 15, 2019, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english.

Colston, L.H. (2015). Using figurative language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dancygier, B., & Sweetser, E. (2014). Figurative language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Darbies [def. 1]. (n.d.). Collins English dictionary online. Retrieved May 11, 2019, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/darbies

Degner, H. (2015). The all including language of Ulysses (Unpublished master’s dissertation). Wellesley College, Wellesley. Retrieved April 9, 2019, from https://repository.wellesley.edu/thesiscollection/251.

Droździał-Szelest, K., & Pawlak, M. (2013). Psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives on second language learning and teaching. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Eble, C. (1996). Slang and sociability. London: The University of North Carolina Press.

Ellmann, R. (1982). James Joyce. The first revision of the 1959 classic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ellmann, R. (Ed.). (2003). Selected letters of James Joyce. London: Faber and Faber.

Eriksen, M. H. (2010). Translating the use of slang. A study of microstrategies in subtitling with a view to researching the transfer of the use of slang from source text to target text with I Love You, Man as empirical example, including a study of the function of slang (Unpublished master’s thesis). Aarhus University, Aarhus. Retrieved from https://pure.au.dk/portal/files/13200/Specialeafhandling.pdf

Gibbons, L. (2015). Joyce’s ghosts. Ireland, modernism and memory. London: The University of Chicago Press.

Gifford, D., & Seidman, R.J. (1988). Ulysses annotated. (2^nd ed). Revised and enlarged by D. Gifford). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Gilbert, S. (1955). James Joyce’s Ulysses. A study. New York: Random House.

Gleet [def. 1]. (n.d.). Collins English dictionary online. Retrieved May 11, 2019, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/gleet.

Glucksberg, S. (2001). Understanding figurative language. From metaphors to idioms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Green, J. (2011). Some thoughts on slang. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses, 24, 153-171. Retrieved from https://rua.ua.es/dspace/bitstream/10045/22601/1/Revista_Alicantina_de_Estudios_Ingleses_24_06.pdf

Grigorescu, D. (1984). Realitate, mit, simbol. Un portret al lui James Joyce. Bacău: Univers.

Heffernan, J. (2001). Joyce’s Ulysses. Chantilly: The Teaching Company.

Herring, P.F. (1987). Joyce’s uncertainty principle. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Hughes, G. (2006). An encyclopedia of swearing. The social history of oaths, profanity, foul language, and ethnic slurs in the English-speaking world. London: M.E Sharpe.

Ionescu, A., & Milesi, L. (2008). The ‘Experience’ of Ulysses in Romanian. Papers on Joyce, 14, 85-113.

Ionescu, A. (2010). Un-sexing Ulysses: The Romanian translation under communism. Scientia Traductionis, 8, 237-252. Doi: http://doi.org/10.5007/1980-4237.2010n8p237

Ionescu, A. (2012). Romanian hos(ti)pitality in translating Joyce. Scientia Traductionis, 12, 57-71. Doi: http://doi.org/10.5007/1980-4237.2012n12p57

Ivănescu, M. (2003). Versuri, Poeme, Poesii. (M. Călinescu, antologie și prefață). Iași: Polirom.

Jigajig [def. 2]. (n.d.). Collins English dictionary online. Retrieved May 11, 2019, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/jigajig

Joyce, J. (1901). The day of the rabblement. In F.S. Skeffington, & J. Joyce (Eds.), Two essays (pp. 7-8). Nottingham: Gerrard Bros.

Joyce, J. (1992). Ulysses. With and introduction by Declan Kibert. London: Penguin Books.

Joyce, J. (1996). Ulise. (M. Ivănescu, Trans. & annotations). București: Editura Univers. (Original work published 1984).

Miller, J.A. (Ed.). (2016). The Sinthome. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book XXIII. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Littlemore, J., & Low, G. (2006). Figurative thinking and foreign language learning. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lupescu, M. (1899). Vîntul. Șezătoarea, Anul V (8, 9, 10). Fălticeni, Retrieved May 10, 2019, from http://greenstone.bjc.ro/greenstone/collect/NEAMT/archives/

Macmillan English dictionary. Free English Dictionary and Thesaurus online. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.macmillandictionary.com/

Mill, J.S. (2008). A system of logic, ratiocinative and inductive (Vol. 1). London: Routledge.

Milesi, L. (2003). James Joyce and the difference of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nix [def. 2]. (n.d.). Random House unabridged dictionary online. Retrieved May 10, 2019 from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/nix

Nix [def. 3]. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2019 from https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/nix

Online Etymology Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved April 9, 2019, from https://www.etymonline.com/

Ortega y Gasset, J. (2000). The misery and the splendor of translation (E.G. Miller, Trans.). In L. Venuti (Ed.), The translation studies reader (pp. 49-63). London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. (Original work published 1937).

Oțoiu, A. (2004). Le sens du pousser. On the spiral of Joyce’s reception in Romania. In G. Lernout, & W.V. Mierlo (Eds.), The Reception of James Joyce in Europe. Volume I: Germany, Northern and East Central Europe (pp. 198-213). London: Thoemmes Continuum.

Pavlenko, A. (Ed.). (2009). The bilingual mental lexicon. Interdisciplinary approaches. Bristol: Cromwell Press.

Partridge, E. (2006). The Routledge dictionary of historical slang. Abingdon: Taylor & Francis Group. (Original work published 1973).

Punter, D. (2007). Metaphor. The new critical idiom. London: Routledge.

Quigley, M. (2015). Modernist fiction and vagueness. Philosophy, form and language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ramirez, A.C. (2009). Joyce el inconsciente. Affectio Societatis, 6(11), 1-10. Retrieved December 9, 2018, from https://antares.udea.edu.co/

Sasu, A. (2006). Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române A-L. București: Editura Paralela 45.

Silva, C.B. (2008). The representation of thought in ‘Circe’: From James Joyce's Ulysses to Sean Walsh's Bloom (Unpublished master’s thesis). Faculdade de Leda UFMG, Belo Horizonte.

Sullivan, J.M. (1921). Criminal slang. The Virginia Low Register, 7(1), 9-17. Charlottesville: Virginia Law Review Association.

Tâlhar [def. 9]. (n.d.). Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române online [NODEX]. Retrieved May 11, 2019 from https://www.webdex.ro/dex/56175/t%C3%A2lhar

The online etymology dictionary. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.etymonline.com/

Valentine, T., Brennen, T., & Brédart, S. (1996). The cognitive psychology of proper names. On the importance of being ernest. London: Routledge.

Vancu, R. (2014, March). Mircea Ivănescu. ultimul interviu. Retrieved December 9, 2018, from https://www.lapunkt.ro/2014/09/

Vancu, R. (2016). Mircea Ivănescu. Poezia discreției absolute. București: Editura Art.

Venuti, L. (2008). The translator’s invisibility. A history of translation (2^nd ed.). London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Vinereanu, M. (2008). Dicționar etimologic al limbii române pe baza cercetărilor de indo-europenistică. București: Alcor Edimpex.

Wales, K. (1992). The language of James Joyce. London: MacMillan.

Walter, R., & Skeat, W. (1888). An etymological dictionary of the English language. London: Oxford University Press.

Woolf, V. (2008/2009). Selected essays. Edited with an introduction and notes by E. Bradshaw. Oxford: Oxford University Press.