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Schmidt-Melbye, Inger Hesjevoll; Axelsson, Marcus & Skogmo, Siri Fürst
(2024).
"The World in Norwegian- Glimpses from a digital exploration of bibliomigration patterns".
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Axelsson, Marcus & Lindgren, Charlotte
(2024).
Fostering Critical Literary Discussions: Analyzing the
Representation of Native Americans in Children's Book Covers in Sweden and Norway.
Show summary
In the summer of 2023, we had the opportunity to take part in a conference on Chumash territory in California. This drew our attention to the situation of indigenous peoples, especially Native Americans, in children's literature published in our home countries, Sweden and Norway. In Sweden, a doctoral thesis (Pålsson, 2013) dealt with the subject of Swedish children's books about so-called Indians. This thesis studies the period from 1860 to 2008. Although it shows that the genre is in decline, or even that the reading of this kind of book has nearly ceased, these books have had a considerable influence on the way we see the Native Americans in Sweden and Norway. In this paper, we analyze the covers of a selection of so-called Indians books in Sweden and Norway over a period of some sixty years, up to the present day. The aim is to show the value of such an analysis for critical discussion in the classroom (Felski, 2008). As recommended in Sweden by the Swedish school curriculum Lgr22 (see also the Norwegian correspondent, LK20), “Xenophobia and intolerance must be confronted with knowledge, open discussion and active measures” and critical discussions with pupils could be such a measure. As previously shown, children's book covers studies (for ex. Axelsson & Lindgren, 2023) can be used for (eco)critical discussions in the classroom (Axelsson & Lindgren, forthcoming). In this paper,
we carry out book cover analyses within the framework of race theory (see for ex. Capper, 2015) using Socio-semiotic Multimodal Analysis method (Björkvall 2009, Kress & van Leuwen 2006, Painter & Martin 2013). This analysis is followed by a discussion of how the book covers may make the children critical readers who can avoid, and prevent, racist representations of ethnic groups
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Axelsson, Marcus & Grønn, Berit
(2024).
Skandinavisk konsekrasjon av barnelitteratur - en kvantitativ studie.
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Tungland, Lars Magne; Skogmo, Siri Fürst; Axelsson, Marcus & Schmidt-Melbye, Inger Hesjevoll
(2024).
Oversatt litteratur på kartet- en digital presentasjon av den norske oversettelseshistorien.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2023).
Aktuella strömningar inom nordisk översättningsvetenskap.
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Axelsson, Marcus; Schmidt-Melbye, Inger Hesjevoll & Skogmo, Siri Fürst
(2023).
“The world in Norwegian”: a digital exploration of
bibliomigration patterns and reviews of translated
fiction.
Show summary
Our project, financed by the National Library, combines digital humanities, translation history and library development. In close collaboration with the DH lab at the National Library, we are going to develop two open source and open access digital resources:
A digital, interactive map showing bibliomigration patterns, that is, how translated fiction from all over the world makes its way into the Norwegian literary system (back to approximately year 1800)
A dynamic corpus of selected Norwegian reviews of translated fiction We are now in the very first phase of the project, testing and exploring the demo corpus app from the National library, which is the base for the interactive map.
Some of the questions we ask are: How can we make
our project methodologically transferable to other DH or digitalization projects? How can we collaborate with other libraries? How can we reach both an academic audience and people outside of academia? This project is connected to the development of a digital lab at the NTNU University library/The faculty of Humanities at NTNU. However,
there are still some organizational challenges we would like to address.
What activities should the lab engage in? What is the lab’s target group? Who will be the main contributors to the lab financially and administratively?
In our presentation, we will raise such questions, and we hope for an interesting discussion with the network, and all kinds of feedback.
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Axelsson, Marcus & Lindgren, Charlotte
(2023).
Sven Nordqvist's Pettson Series and Children's Education: Ecocritical Dialogues in Kindergarten.
Show summary
Since 1984, the Swedish children’s book author Sven Nordqvist (b. 1946) has published 14 books about Pettson and his cat Findus. The books are all set in the countryside, where nature is more than an idyllic backdrop and where animals, both wild and domesticated have prominent roles. In many ways, there seems to be an idyllic and harmonious relationship between human and nature in the novels. It is this relationship that is of interest for this study, where we direct the attention toward the iconotextual representation of human and nature in four of Nordqvist’s books, namely Rävjakten [The Fox Hunt] (1986), Stackars Pettson [Poor Pettson] (1987), Kackel i grönsakslandet [Clucking in the vegetable garden] (1990), and Tuppens minut [The rooster’s minute] (1996). These books are especially interesting, since nature and animals are foregrounded. More specifically, the corpus consists of two spreads from each book. We conduct an ecocritical reading (see Heise 2006, Garrard 2012) of both text and images in the different spreads, using the so-called NatChiLit-matrix (see e.g. Goga et al 2018). The image analysis is based on Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) grammar of visual design and the text analysis uses Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) Systemic Functional Grammar as a point of departure. In its turn, this reading constitutes a point of departure for a discussion on how Nordqvist’s books may be used to initiate ecocritical dialogues (see Goga et al forthcoming) between children and adults in kindergarten. We are especially interested in how these books may be used to trigger children’s reflections on ecological sustainability and their views on the relationship between human and nature (see Shugarman, 2020). Preliminary results suggest that nature is depicted as a place for food and recreation and that animals and humans live together in perfect harmony. Findus and Pettson are depicted as characters living in harmony with nature, whereas their neighbor Gustafsson represents an anthropocentric view on the world. These are all themes that are interesting to raise in ecocritical dialogues with kindergarten children.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2023).
Bokomslagen revisited och glimtar ur ett nytt projekt.
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Axelsson, Marcus & Lindgren, Charlotte
(2023).
Sven Nordqvist’s Pannkakstårtan – an initiator of Ecocritical dialogues?
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Axelsson, Marcus & Johansson, Niclas
(2022).
Inledning: Att sy om språkdräkten.
Samlaren: tidsskrift för forskning om svensk och annan nordisk litteratur.
ISSN 0348-6133.
143,
p. 104–109.
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Kvam, Sigmund; Axelsson, Marcus; Moe, Knut Jørgen & Ritzau, Nini
(2022).
Skjørtekanter, himmerik og fjell og dalar. En presentasjon av prosjektet Song Translation - Lyrics in Contexts.
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Axelsson, Marcus & Lindgren, Charlotte
(2022).
"[S]om en torsk från Lofoten som hänger på tork i nordanvinden” Naturliknelser i de svenska och franska översättningarna av Maria Parrs barnbok Keeperen og havet (2017).
Show summary
I studien undersöker vi naturliknelser i de svenska och franska översättningarna av Maria Parrs barnbok Keeperen og havet (2017). Studien placerar sig både inom ekokrotiken (se bl.a. Garrard 2012) och den deskriptiva översättningsvetenskapen (Toury 2012). Similen, som är en metafor där ”som” eller ”likt”, används (se t.ex Fuchs 2014) är en central term i vår studie, där vi undersöker hur naturen metaforiskt används i liknelser. Resultaten visar att källtextens natursimiler ofta behålls i måltexten, men att den franska översättaren också lägger till natursimiler som inte finns i källtexten. Det visar sig att det är djurriket som dominerar i similerna. Denna observation ligger i linje med andra ekokrotiska läsningar av barnböcker, där djurriket helt klart anses som mer intressant än växtriket – så kallad zoomorfism (se Birkeland 2016:3). Djur och natur har en central roll i Parrs verk, men likväl innebär inte det här alltid ett hyllande av naturen. När människors dåliga beteende skall beskrivas i similer jämförs dessa också oftast med djur. Detta är också något som framkommer i översättningarna.
Källor:
Birkeland, Tone (2016), “Forhandling om natur – kultur. En økokritisk lesning av Jörg Müller og Jörg Steiners bildebok Kaninliv (1978)“, Barnelitterært forskningstidsskrift, 7:1–11.
Fuchs, Catherine (2014), La comparaison et son expression en français. Paris : Éditions Ophrys.
Garrard, Greg (2011), Ecocriticism. London: Routledge,
Parr, Maria (2017), Keeperen og havet. Oslo: Samlaget.
Parr, Maria (2018), Min bästis målvakten. Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren.
Parr, Maria (2018), Foot et radeaux à gogo. Paris: Editions Thierry Magnier.
Toury, Gideon (2012), Descriptive Translation Studies and beyond. Amsterdam/Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2022).
Peritextual Consecration of Literature in Norwegian and Swedish
Translation: a Study of Book Covers.
Show summary
The present study investigates how consecrational mechanisms are used on book covers when translated literature is marketed on the Norwegian and Swedish book markets. According to Bourdieu (1993), consecration happens when a cultural elite recognizes the value of a cultural product. His theories on consecration have been used in empirical research by among others Casanova (2002), Verboord (2011), Lindqvist (2010) and Sapiro (2010, 2016) in order to investigate how literature is translated and recognized as literature of quality in a target culture. However, no larger studies have so far investigated what consecrational mechanisms are used on book covers when literature in translation is marketed in Sweden and Norway. A number of research questions govern the present investigation:
• What reviews and accolades are seen as most important to foreground on the covers and what are deemed as less important?
• How are the source culture consecrational peritexts positioned in relation to the target cultures’?
• Are there any differences between the Norwegian and Swedish covers concerning what consecrational mechanisms that are highlighted?
The methods used in this study are concrete. We visit one Norwegian bookshop and one Swedish. In the bookshops, we will focus on translated books retailed as ”fiction”. We focus on paperbacks, since they include more consecrational peritexts than first editions. To a large extent, the study will be of a quantitative nature, since we make an overview of the consecrational mechanisms that occur and where they are positioned on the cover. In order to categorize the results, we use Bourdieu’s three types of legitimacy, bourgeois legitimacy, specific legitimacy, and popular legitimacy. This categorization leads to a discussion of the role of different consecrational mechanisms concerning translated literature in Norway and Sweden.
References
Bourdieu, Pierre (1993): The field of cultural production: essays on art and literature. Cambridge: Polity
Casanova, Pascale, 2002: Consécration et accumulation de capital littéraire. I: Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 144(1). S. 7–20.
Lindqvist, Yvonne, 2010: Ett globalt perspektiv på nutida svensk översättningskultur. System- och fältteori i praktiken. I: Bladh, Elisabeth & Kullberg, Christina (eds), Litteratur i gränszonen. Transnationella litteraturer i översättning ur ett nordiskt perspektiv. Falun. S. 81–93.
Verboord, Marc, 2011: Market logic and cultural consecration in French, German and American bestseller lists 1970–2007. I: Poetics 39 (2011). S. 290–315.
Sapiro, Giséle, 2010: Globalization and cultural diversity in the book market: The case of literary translations in the US and in France. Poetics 38(2010). S. 419–439.
Sapiro, Gisèle, 2016: The metamorphosis of modes of consecration in the literary field: Academies, literary prizes, festivals. Poetics 59 (2016). S. 5–19.
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Axelsson, Marcus & Lindgren, Charlotte
(2022).
Ecocritical perspectives in Maria Parr’s Keeperen og havet.
Show summary
The present study is positioned within the academic discipline Translation Studies and draws upon ideas from ecocriticism. In the study, we investigate how ecocritical perspectives are rendered as Norwegian children’s book author Maria Parr’s novel Keeperen og havet [The goalie and the sea] is translated into Danish, English, French, German and Swedish. Our focus is on book cover images and we use concepts and tools from Kress & van Leeuwen’s Grammar of visual design (2006) to carry out the study. Nature and landscape are quite prominent in Parr’s œuvre, which is set in the Western part of Norway, where the mountains and the sea are always present. In addition, previous research has shown that the protagonists’ use of language is also tied to the landscape (Goga 2011, Axelsson& Lindgren 2021), which again highlights the importance of nature in Parr’s book. We are especially interested in the relation between nature and the protagonists on the covers and also how elements from nature and elements created by humans are portrayed differently. The covers of the novel all portray an episode taking place in the novel, where the three children protagonists, Lena, Trille and Brigitte are sailing on the water on a raft they have built. They end up in a quite dramatic situation caused by some waves. This situation is portrayed somewhat differently in the different target texts. The source text cover portrays this dramatic situation, where the natural element of water is a threat to the protagonists’ safety. The threatening water and its waves have become even more violent on the French cover, whereas the German and Swedish covers portray the children and the sea in perfect harmony. On the British cover, the children use branches from a tree to paddle their way forward, which shows that they use nature as a resource (the branches) to master nature (the element of water). In the study, we aim to discuss this aspect further.
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Axelsson, Marcus & Tveitan, Christina Berg
(2022).
What choices do kindergarten teacher-students take when judging a translation by its cover? – A quantitative analysis.
Show summary
The topic of book covers of translated novels has previously been addressed by, among others, Mossop (2019), Rüegg (2018), and Carlström (2020). Also Batchelor (2018), in her book about translation and paratexts, has touched upon this theme. In the present study, we are inspired by the title of Mossop's article, "Judging a Translation by its Cover”, and we combine Translation Studies with the Didactics of Literature, as we investigate what book covers kindergarten student-teachers prefer when given the option to choose among several covers. The data analysis builds on the results from a questionnaire, where some 90 students were asked to rank what book covers they preferred among nine covers of translated novels. The novels in question were Norwegian children's book author Maria Parr's three novels Vaffelhjarte [Waffle Heart] (2005), Tonje Glimmerdal (2009) and Keeperen og havet [The Goalie and the Sea] (2016) translated into German, French and English. The study is, to some extent, inspired by Rostvåg (2010), who investigated what book covers children preferred when they were asked to choose from a selection offered by the researcher. Her results showed that the children most of all preferred books that they already knew. She also noted that they were attracted to colorful covers as well as covers with animals seeking the children's eyes. In addition to Rostvåg!s results, the present study also builds on a previous study (Axelsson & Næsje 2021), where the cover images of Parr's first two novels, Vaffelhjarte and Tonje Glimmerdal translated into German, French and English, were analyzed using Kress & van Leeuwen's (2006) grammar of visual design. Some of the most prominent results from this analysis are turned into variables which are checked against the questionnaire results in order to study correlations. In the 2021 study, it turned out that the German covers were quite stripped of details and artistically had a "naïvistic” impression. The French covers foregrounded the Scandinavian landscape, whereas the British covers
showed a richness in details and colors. Preliminary results suggest that the kindergarten student-teachers tended to give the German covers the highest grades and we raise the hypothesis that their choice may partly be explained by the fact that the students were already thinking as kindergarten teachers and chose covers that were most likely to appeal to the kindergarten children.
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Axelsson, Marcus & Kvam, Sigmund
(2022).
Er oversettelse av sanger mulig? Presentasjon av prosjektet «Song Translation» i ord og toner
.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2022).
Vicki Barr løser mysteriet med LK20: bærekraft, oversettelse og norskfaget.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2022).
Ulike bilder på barn i Maria Parrs bøker.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2021).
Fourth LAMUC meeting: Teacher practices in the multilingual classroom.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2021).
Anna Kérchy & Björn Sundmark (red.), Translating and Transmediating Children's Literature.
Barnboken.
ISSN 0347-772X.
doi:
10.14811/clr.v44.591.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2021).
Paratekstuell konsekrasjon av migrasjonslitteratur i Sverige, Norge og Danmark: Jonas
Hassen Khemiris forfatterskap.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2021).
Third LAMUC meeting: Multilingualism in our study programs and research applications.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2021).
Oversatte bærekraftperspektiver i pikeboken.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2021).
Oversetteres kontekstualisering av hykleri: "Harper Valley PTA", "Fru Johnsen" og "Fröken Fredriksson".
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Axelsson, Marcus & Kvam, Sigmund
(2021).
Det er ikke alltid sex og svarte får selger.
Forskning.no.
ISSN 1891-635X.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2020).
Second LAMUC meeting: Multilingualism in curricula and teaching materials.
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Axelsson, Marcus; Svahn, Elin; Pleijel, Richard; Carlström Podlevskikh, Malin & Mendoza Åsberg, Lisa
(2020).
Glimtar från en nyutkommen antologi:
Översättningsvetenskap i praktiken
.
Show summary
Översättningsvetenskap i praktiken. Om översättningar, översättare och översättande (Morfem, 2020), redigerad av Elin Svahn och Lova Meister, är en metodologiskt orienterad antologi som i första hand riktar sig till översättarstudenter. Den består av en introduktion till metodologi i översättningsvetenskap, fem översättningsvetenskapliga studier, instuderingsfrågor och lästips samt en bibliografi över översättningsrelaterade avhandlingar i Sverige. På seminariet presenterar skribenterna sina kapitel: Lisa Mendoza Åsberg berättar om översättningsuniversalier hos en Nobelpristagare, Marcus Axelsson om inflödet av amerikanska flickböcker i Norge och Sverige under efterkrigstiden, Malin Podlevskikh Carlström om utgivning och reception av rysk skönlitteratur på svenska efter Sovjetunionens fall, Elin Svahn om nyblivna översättarstudenters tankar om översättning och Richard Pleijel om processen bakom Bibel 2000. Avslutningsvis berättar redaktör Elin Svahn om syftet och tankarna bakom bokprojektet.
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Axelsson, Marcus & Bjørke, Camilla
(2020).
Multilingualism and foreign language teaching: A Study of Norwegian Textbooks in French, German and Spanish
.
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Axelsson, Marcus & Lindgren, Charlotte
(2020).
Översättning av kraftuttryck i den franska och svenska översättningen av Maria Parrs Keeperen og havet (2017).
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2019).
First network meeting for LAMUC (Languages in the multilingual classroom).
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2019).
Oversettelse av økokritiske perspektiver i pikeboken: en studie av Helen Wells Lykke på reisen, Vicki!
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2018).
Konflikterna inom Svenska Akademien ett sundhetstecken?
Nya Wermlands-Tidningen.
ISSN 1103-985X.
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Axelsson, Marcus & Næsje, Ragnhild Louise
(2018).
Lena Lid's and Tonje Glimmerdal's journey to France, Germany and the UK: Visual and textual translations of the Norwegian heroine - a case study.
Show summary
The present study deals with the translation of Norwegian children’s literature. It is a case study and the material for the study consists of Maria Parr’s novels Vaffelhjarte (2005) and Tonje Glimmerdal (2009). The aim of the present study is to investigate how the two heroines, Lena Lid and Tonje Glimmerdal, who are central to the two novels, are translated into German, French and English. Specific focus will be directed toward the cover images and how Lena and Tonje are represented on the covers of the German, French and British target texts. There will also be a focus on how she is translated on the textual level and, lastly, what characteristics of Lena and Tonje that are highlighted in both reviews and publishers’ paratexts. The present study positions itself within the field of Translation Studies and methodologically it draws upon Pedersen (2007), Kress & van Leeuwen (2006), Björkvall (2009) and Batchelor (2018). Preliminary results suggest that the focus on the free-spirited girl is much more foregrounded on the French and British covers than on the German ones.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2018).
The Export, Translation and Consecration of Scandinavian Children’s Literature – the Case of Maria Parr and Sven Nordqvist.
Show summary
This study investigates the translation and consecration (Bourdieu 2000) of Scandinavian children’s literature abroad. More precisely, it focuses on the translation of the book production of two Scandinavian children’s book authors, namely Maria Parr (N) and Sven Nordqvist (S). Previous research suggests that Scandinavia is a peripheral literary system in the larger world translation system, whereas e.g. the French, German, and Anglo-American literary systems are more central. Peripheral systems are generally open to literary import, whereas literary centers are more closed (Heilbron 1999). However, this is not the case concerning children’s literature, where Scandinavia, at least Norway and Sweden, are great exporters of children’s literature and occupy a more central position (cf. Tabbert 2002). The present study positions itself within the branch of translation sociology (Wolf 2006; Chesterman 2009) that focuses on the so-called sociology of translations. These studies often concentrate on the macro-level of translation, which concern for example bibliomigratory perspectives, such as publishing intervals, consecration mechanisms and book covers. The present study looks further into these areas by investigating how long time it took for Parr and Nordqvist to be published in the literary centers Germany, France and the Anglo-American countries. Cover illustrations and paratexts are also of interest, since they contribute with information about how the translated novels were branded and consecrated in the target cultures. Preliminary results suggest that the translated books highlight the Scandinavian context as especially important, which is a result that correlates with theories about Scandinavian Exceptionalisms.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2018).
Kan det være bra at det ikke blir delt ut en Nobelpris i litteratur i år?
Forskning.no.
ISSN 1891-635X.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2017).
Cherry Ames och Vicki Barr kommer till Skandinavien: en studie av utgivning och paratexter.
Show summary
I denna studie undersöker jag utgivningen av de amerikanska så kallade flickboksserierna om Cherry Ames och Vicki Barr i Norge och Sverige. Men hjälp av bibliotekskataloger undersöker jag hur lång tid det tog för dessa serier att översättas och ges ut i de två länderna. Jag studerar även så kallade paratexter för att undersöka hur romanerna marknadsfördes och vilken förlagens bild av läsarna var. Resultaten visar bland annat att det tog längre tid för romanerna att ges ut i Sverige än i Norge, men att de fick starkare fäste i Sverige när utgivningen väl hade börjat. Resultaten visar också att seriens amerikanska ursprung framhävs betydligt mer i de norska paratexterna än i de svenska.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2017).
Engelskspråklige forfattere dominerer Nobelprisstatistikken.
Forskning.no.
ISSN 1891-635X.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2017).
Översättning i Skandinavien: en studie av tre översättare.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2017).
Arpents, Assas, Andersonville och miss - översättning av kulturspecifika element i fransk- och engelskspråkig skönlitteratur".
LMS : Lingua.
ISSN 0023-6330.
p. 22–26.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2015).
Skönlitterär översättning i Skandinavien: En studie av tre översättare.
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Axelsson, Marcus; Gossas, Carina; Norberg, Ulf & Van Meerbergen, Sara
(2014).
Pettson på export: Pettson och Findus på norska, tyska, nederländska, franska och spanska.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2013).
Translation Strategies, Techniques and Norms in Scandinavia: A Study of Three Translators.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2012).
Översättningsnormer och översättningsstrategier i Skandinavien: En studie av tre översättare och deras produktion.
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Axelsson, Marcus
(2016).
”Kalla mig inte mamsell!” En jämförelse av tre skandinaviska översättares behandling av kulturspecifika element i fransk- och engelskspråkig skönlitteratur.
Institutionen för nordiska språk.
ISSN 978-91-506-2542-4.
