MA in Translation Studies

- Distance Learning
Assignment Cover Sheet
Student Registration
Number

UP798629

Course Title

MA Translation Studies (DL)

Unit Title

Theory and Practice of Translation (DL)

Assessment Type

Essay

Assignment Title

Compare the paratexts of the ST and TT of a text of

your choosing. How do each frame the text for its
audience and how does this framing change in
translation?

Dr Jonathan Evans
Unit Co-ordinator / Tutor

Actual Date of
Submission

05 May 2016

Due Date of Submission

06 May 2016

Word Count 3170

Candidates are reminded that the following are defined as Assessment

Offences and will be dealt with in accordance with the Universitys Code of
Student Discipline:
any attempt to complete an assessment by means considered to be unfair;
plagiarism, which the University defines as the incorporation by a student in
work for assessment of material which is not their own, in the sense that all or
a substantial part of the work has been copied without any adequate attempt at
attribution, or has been incorporated as if it were the students own work when

in fact it is wholly or substantially the work of another person or persons.

Compare the paratexts of the ST and TT of a text of your choosing. How do each
frame the text for its audience and how does this framing change in translation?

Genette (1991, p. 261) first defined paratext as the means by which a text makes a book of
itself and proposes itself as such to its readers, and more generally to the public. All of the
following elements can be considered as part of a novels paratext: titles and subtitles
epigraphs, dedications, prefaces, afterwords, the copyright page and all jacket copy
(Gorman, 2010, p. 419). The function of paratext is to guide the reader's attention, influence
how a text is read, and communicate such information as to give a text its first contours, its
manageable identity so to speak (Stanitzek, 2005, p. 32). Birke & Christ (2015, p. 68) go
further than this definition and expand on Genettes original work by arguing that paratext
manages the reader's purchase, navigation, and interpretation of the text in its specific
mediating.

In this essay I compare the paratext of the ST, Jennifer Egans book, A Visit from the Goon
Squad, and the TT, its German translation, Der grere Teil der Welt [the larger part of the
world]. First published in 2010, the themes in this collection of thirteen, non-linear stories are
the passage of time and the effects new technologies are having on our lives. I have chosen
to examine the ebook (.ePub) editions of both of these books, purchased from
www.thalia.de, as they are framed differently by their paratext, ultimately creating altered
reading experiences for the audience. Furthermore, although ebooks mimic the appearance
of print books in many ways, there are some difference in the function of paratext in this
format.
Genette distinguishes further between the paratextual materials that are adjacent to the text,
the 'peritiext', and those that are subsequent to it, the 'epitext' (Gorman, 2010, p. 419). This
distinction is important in the structure of this essay as well. I first compare how the more
traditional peritextual elements frame the ST for the reader, how this potentially differs in
ebooks compared to printed books and how this framing changes in translation. It is only
possible to include the cover and title of the ST and TT, the tables of contents and
information on the author in this short essay. Secondly I compare how the existence and
absence of epitextual elements particular to the digital age, such as the authors
accompanying website and a smartphone application, can alter the reading experience for
the audience.
When Genette published his original work on paratext, he was focusing on physical books,
framed by permanent, fixed peritext and relatively minimal epitext. In the digital age,
however, paratext exist temporally and spatially within particular dynamic viewing practises
(McCracken, 2013, p. 106). The fact that the same content can be channelled through a
variety of different technologies, in contrast to the physical book complicates the issue of
paratext in ebooks (Birke & Christ, 2013, p. 75). So at this point is it important to remember
that the medium in which a text appears is not neutral (McCracken, 2013, p. 108); in this
essay I include screenshots of the ST and TT taken on a smartphone with no changes made
from the default font type and sizing.

With a printed book, the first paratext a potential reader is confronted with is likely to be the
front cover and title. These important elements fulfil a commercial function; they are
designed by publishers to serve as an enticement to buy (McCracken, 2013, p. 112). One
could argue that someone who has decided to purchase an ebook rather than a physical
book would be less interested in such a traditional paratextual element as the front cover but
this would be to underestimate the effect the cover on the reader. Covers and headers act as
aids to memory (Malone, 2015, p. 26) and are perhaps more important in ebooks than in
printed books because of the absence of a physical object. Unlike the tradition of storing
physical books in a bookshelf with only the spine visible, ebooks are arranged on a digital
bookshelf with the front cover facing the reader. This shows the understanding of publishers
and programmers about the enduring attraction of the cover page.
The artwork on the cover of the ST (Figure 1) is very detailed; there is a sketch of a woman
holding up an umbrella shielding herself from what appears to be rain. Only when the reader
looks very closely at the image, in fact it is necessary to zoom in on a smartphone, is it
apparent that the clouds are raining musical notes. The picture therefore gives few clues as
to the content or plot of the text. The prominent outline of the guitar and the plectrum shape
on the cover of the TT (Figure 2), on the other hand, tell the reader immediately that music is
going to play a role in the book. The ST cover also ties into the design of the digital epitexts,
which will be discussed later on.

Figure 1. Front cover ST. (Egan, 2011, p. 1)

Figure 2. Front cover TT. (Egan,

2013, p. 1)

Until recently, most research on

paratext has focused on the
titles of texts (Gorman, 2010, p.
419). In a physical book, the
title has four locations: the front
cover, the spine, the title page,
and the half-title page (Genette,
1997, 65). In an ebook,
however, the reader sees the
title on every page so it is
potentially more significant than
in a printed book. The titles of
the ST and the TT are both
fairly ambiguous, giving the
reader no clues to the genre,
but the former links the title to
the content of the book. In the
ST, the reader is told through
various characters that time is
a goon (Egan, 2011, p. 106)
while in the TT the passages
are translated as Die Zeit
macht einen fertig[time wears
you down] (Egan, 2013, p.
117). The title of the ST therefore offers an interpretive function for the reader who can
connect the title and the numerous references to the goon squad and understand that the
A Visit from the Goon Squad is the passing of time itself. In comparison, the title of TT does
not seem to offer any interpretive meaning. This change in the framing is understandable as
a TT reader is unlikely to know the historical English word goon and might be confused by
its inclusion.
The small font and the pale colours on the cover of the ST are not well-suited for an ebook.
The ebook format can be read on various types of screen, from a smartphone or a colourscreen tablet to a black and white ereader or computer screen. It is near impossible to read
the many review quotes on the cover of the ST on a black and white screen. While there is
little contrast between the colours on the ST cover, the TT cover only uses three colours;
black, white and red. The contrast between these three colours is striking, particularly when
displayed on a black and white screen. This may have been a consideration by the
publishers in choosing this cover as it different to the hardback and paperback editions.
Aside from the author name and title, the only additional to text to appear on the cover of the
TT is the information that the book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011. In contrast to the ST
cover, which aims to sell the ebook through the many reviews of celebrities such as Oprah
Winfrey on the cover, the TT relies solely on the authority of this prestigious award.
In printed books as well as ebooks, the contents pages have an important navigational
function but even more so in the latter. Birke and Christ (2013, p. 68) explain that paratext
guide the readers reception in a more mechanical sense, both when approaching the text
or when orienting herself within a text and point out that this function of paratext was
originally bypassed by Genette. In a physical book, the reader uses the contents page as
well as their visual memory to navigate to a specific point in a book. In an ebook, however,
the reader relies more heavily on the contents page as they cannot determine if a point was,
for example, a third of the way through the book visually.
There are significant changes in how the contents pages appear from the ST to the TT. In
the ST (Figure 3), the thirteen chapters fit on to the page, as they would appear in the
printed book. In the TT (Figure 4), the table of contents is spread over two pages and there
are more subchapters under chapters 4 and 7, marked with roman numbers. Although these
subchapters do appear in the ST, they are not shown in the list. While this addition in the TT
fulfils a navigational function, it also takes away from the pleasing effect created by the
ordered display of the thirteen chapters. The remaining four chapters are forced on to a

second page and this alters the reading experience. The reader needs to move to the next
page to see the other chapter titles and no longer has an overview. In the TT, the titles of the
chapters are blue, indicating they are also hyperlinks. The marking of the hyperlinked text is
an unnecessary addition as a reader accustomed to ebooks would expect this link to exist
anyway.

Figure 3. Contents page ST. (Egan, 2011, p. 5)

Figure 4. Contents page TT. (Egan, 2013, p. 2)

A striking feature of the ST and TT is that the twelfth chapter narrative consists entirely of a
75-slide PowerPoint presentation. Encountering this chapter on a tablet or smartphone

creates a dynamic reading experience; the reader is not turning a paper page but rather
clicking through the presentation, a familiar experience for most people in the digital age. In
the original print editions of the ST and the TT these slides are, as expected, in black and
white. The ST publishers have used the opportunity to include colour images in the ebook
format (Figure 5) to enhance some of the slides with colour. As we will see in below, colour
images are indeed included in the other paratextual elements of the TT, but all of the slides
in this chapter are in black and white (Figure 6). The TT therefore misses out on some of the
potential authenticity that the ebook format could have offered in this unusual paratext.

Figure 5. PowerPoint slide ST. (Egan, 2011, p. 193)

Figure 6. PowerPoint slide TT. (Egan, 2013, p. 211)

The location, format and appearance of the dedications and acknowledgements at the
beginning of ST and TT are almost identical but there are differences in the subsequent
peritext. While the tradition of books having a colour front cover, as discussed above, has
been maintained in ebooks, one would expect the back-cover blurb to have become
obsolete as a potential reader finds this information on a vendor or publishers website. In
the ST, only information about further books written by Egan is included. In comparison, a
summary of the book is provided in the TT (Figure 7) after the text is finished. This seems
out of place in an ebook, particularly when one assumes a reader would read the ebook in a
linear fashion, from the beginning to the end.

Figure 7. Blurb at end of TT. (Egan, 2013, p. 242)

In the TT there is a substantial amount of information about the author, Jennifer Egan. The
author information page (Figure 8) contains a large colour photograph, which would not be
present in the original paperback edition, and a link to the authors website. In the ST none
of this information on the author present. By providing the reader with hyperlinks, the ebook
forges connections between texts in ways that are unprecedented in printed books (Birke &
Christ, 2013, p. 77). The reader of the TT can choose to engage with the digital epitexts on
Egans website, discussed in the next section, simply by clicking on the hyperlink.

Figure 8. Information about author TT. (Egan, 2013, p. 241)

There are far greater differences between the epitextual elements, that is of those not found
within the covers of an individual work in book form (Stanitzek, 2005, p. 31), than the
peritextual elements discussed above. In Genettes original work, epitext includes items such
as interviews with the author, correspondence or journal entries (Gorman, 2010, p. 419).

Genette (1997, p. 34) is critical of public epitext created by publishers, claiming that it does
not involve the responsibility of the author in a very meaningful way and referring to it as
value-inflating hyperbole inseparable from the needs of trade. As McCracken (2013, p.115)
explains, in the digital age there is far more potential epitext:
They consist of scattered references to specific texts in blogs about
e-reading; publishers description and readers comments post on the
point-of-sale sites of web merchants such as Amazon and Barnes &
Noble; dedicated author web pages; personalized algorithmic
recommendations to readers based on their browsing history on such
websites as Amazon; along with author interviews on television,
YouTube, and other advertising media.
Although he could not have predicted the extent of the digital revolution, Genette (1997, p.
347) did correctly foresee that in our media-oriented era will no doubt see other props
exploited, and publishers' commercials have already been heard and seen on radio and
television. Publishers are now putting pressure on authors to create digital materials in
order to boost sales, including participation on Facebook and Twitter and writing shorter,
cheaper digital fiction to attract readers to the more highly priced literature (McCracken,
2013, p. 111). An important factor concerning epitext in the digital age is how easy it is to
access much of it, it can be as simple as a reader of an ebook clicking on a hypertext link or
using a search engine. Of course, in comparison to the peritextual elements, any
engagement with this epitext remains voluntary but the reading experience is certainly
enhanced, for the ST reader at least.
When the ST was published, potential readers had the option to purchase an accompanying
application (Download the app, n.d) from a promotional website, which offered the following
epitextual features:

A sentence-by-sentence audio sync with the highly

acclaimed audiobook produced by BBC Audiobooks America
A unique visual navigation menu that allows readers to
reorder the chapters of the book
Liner Notes exclusive audio, video and written content for
each chapter
Exclusive chapter artwork
Social option share an excerpt of each chapter on your
Facebook wall
Track listing links to iTunes and Wikipedia for each music
artist that influenced, or is mentioned in the novel

The same artwork from the ST front cover features on the promotional website (Figure 9),
further leading the ST reader to see this site as an extension of the text itself. For the TT,
there is no German-language website available. Understandably, such context cannot be
translated into every language in which the book was published. Indeed, the TT reader still
has the option to access these resources but the probability of engagement is lower, mainly
because the content is in English. As discussed above, the TT reader can also easily access
Egans personal website through the link on the author information page. On this site, the
PowerPoint chapter is available in full colour, with many of the songs mentioned as
accompanying audio. Once again, the TT reader can choose to engage with this epitext.

Figure 9. Promotional website of ST. (Download the app, n.d)

There is one instance in the ST epitext where the publishers have perhaps forgotten the
significance of paratext. On the ST publishers website, the reader has the option to
purchase the paperback, hardback or ebook edition of the text. After clicking on either of the
physical books, the user has the option to Look Inside from the front cover and the first ten
pages of the novel. If the user choses the ebook version of the title, however, they are only
presented with an excerpt option which is not framed by the paratext of the print editions
and simply begins at the start of first chapter. On the TT publishers website, no distinction is
made in the previews between the digital or physical edition previews. In this preview, the ST
publisher has discounted the effect the paratext has on the reader. A reader still scrolls
through the first few pages of an ebook to gain an impression of it, in the same way one
would flick through a printed book before purchasing it.
New media technologies, including videos, blogs and social media are enabling author and
reader extra-textual communication (Pignagnoli, 2014, p. 44) which is exemplified by the
promotional website discussed above. Unlike with the epitext of the pre-digital age, the
reader is encouraged to interact with more than just the text itself. These elements, in
contradiction with Genettes assessment, do not have a purely promotional function but can
also create an enhanced and interactive reading experience.
Egan and the publishers of the ST and TT have framed the texts by using traditional
paratextual elements from the pre-digital age and also seizing upon the opportunities digital
epitexts can offer, albeit in different ways. Aside from the title, none of these can be seen as
a result of the text being translated, they are rather the design choices made by Egan and
the respective publisher. The cover of the TT is far more suited to the ebook format than that
of the ST due to its contrasting colours and defined outlines. The TT cover grabs the
attention of a potential reader, regardless of what type of screen it is viewed. Unfortunately,
the elegance of the ST page of contents is lost in the TT as it is spread over two pages. The
visual impact on the reader is therefore missing too and this paratextual element only fulfils
its navigational function. The extra information on the author in the TT, including a colour
photograph and a link to the authors website, gives the TT reader far simpler access to the
digital epitexts. The extensive public digital epitext surrounding the ST serves not only as
promotion for the ebook but also gives readers the opportunity to enrich their reading
experience, particularly with the full-colour, audio-enhanced presentation that forms part of
the material peritext from the ST. Furthermore, the reader is encouraged to interact, a
hallmark of digital-age literature.
Up to now there has been little research into the paratext of ebooks and how Genettes
framework can be applied and adapted for the digital age. There is far more potential to
exploit in the paratext that publishers are only now starting to realise and utilize. Hyperlinks,
in particular, bring the reader one stop closer to purchasing other titles, therefore enhancing
the commercial function. I fully agree with McCrackens (2013, p. 121) prediction that these

new paratexts will continue to evolve, both as marketing devices and textual enhancements,
as this watershed in reading practises continues to develop and work out its foibles.

Bibliography
Birke, B & Christ, B. (2013). Paratext and digitized narrative: Mapping the field. Narrative
21(1). 65-87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/nar.2013.0003
Download the app. (n.d). Retrieved from A Visit from the Goon Squad promotion website:
https://avisitfromthegoonsquad.com/app-goon-squad-ipad/
Egan, J. (2011). A visit from the goon squad. Retrieved from www.thalia.de/shop
Egan, J. (2013). Der grere teil der welt [the larger part of the world). Retrieved from
www.thalia.de/shop
Genette, G. (1991). Introduction to the paratext. New Literary History 22(2). 261-272.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/469037
Genette, G. (1997). Paratexts: Thresholds of interpretation. Retrieved from
http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9780511549373
Gorman, D. (2010). Paratext. In D. Herman & M. Jahn & M.L Ryan (eds). Routledge
encyclopaedia of narrative theory (p. 419). Retrieved from
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/portsmouth/reader.action?docID=10398768
Malone, N.C. (2015). Noses in books: Orientation, immersion and paratext. Interdisciplinary
Science Review 40(1). 17-28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/0308018814Z.000000000102
McCracken, E. (2013). Expanding genettes epitext/peritext model for transitional electronic
literature: Centrifugal and centripetal vectors on kindles and ipads. Narrative 21(1), 106-124.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/nar.2013.0005
Pignagnoli, V. (2014). Paratexts 2.0: New perspectives on twenty-first century literary
narrative. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universit Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italy.
Retrieved from http://dspace.unive.it/handle/10579/3974?show=full

Stanitzek, G. (2005). Texts and paratexts in media. Critical Inquiry 32(1). 27-42.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/498002