La variazione linguistica nella traduzione in spagnolo di "Per cosa si uccide" di Gianni Biondillo

The Spanish translation of the novel Per cosa si uccide (Guanda 2004) by Gianni Biondillo, published in Spain with the titleMotivos para matar (Tropismos 2007), is a compendium of the multiple translation choices that the translator has to deal with when translating the diatopic, diastratic, and diaphasic variation. The presence of four dialects (Milan, Piacenza, Naples, and Sicily), of sociolects that reflect the social background of the characters and of a dynamic variation of register represents a real challenge for the translator. This article is structured in three parts: the first outlines the functions of linguistic variation in literary texts; the second summarizes the main lines of the debate, still open, on the most suitable methods and techniques for the translation of dialects and sociolects; finally, in the third, the translation choices of the Spanish version are analyzed with the aim of observing how the richness of the diatopic, diastratic, and diaphasic dimensions was transferred into the target language.