This paper addresses the ‘textual web’ surrounding one individual source text, presented here as an example of what is an increasingly common occurrence: while intersemiotic translation (to use Jakobson’s term) boasts a longstanding tradition, it is only relatively recently that Adaptation Studies has emerged as an autonomous field of academic enquiry. Mark O’Thomas defines the difference between adaptations and translations as being the fact that the first take place across media while the latter are produced across cultures (2010:48). This distinction, however, is not always clear cut: we are witnessing the multiplication of ‘hybrid’ texts that move between languages and cultures, while simultaneously playing with both genres and media.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887, has been translated into numerous different languages and indeed there are several cases of multiple translations into the same language – there are at least 17 Italian versions, for example. The book has also been widely adapted for both film and television: the majority of these adaptations appears first in English and is subsequently dubbed or subtitled for foreign markets but the opposite is also true. One of these many adaptations, and arguably the most well-known, is the BBC series Sherlock, created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, first broadcast in 2010. So far so normal.
However, following the popularity of the series around the world, the pseudonymous Japanese artist Jay has produced a series of adaptations including the first episode, A Study in Pink, as Manga in his native Japan (2014). This first manga has now just been published in English (2017), among other languages, but bears some of the distinctive textual and paratextual features of its previous Japanese incarnation (it reads ‘back to front’ and right-to-left, is produced in black and white, has vertical balloons). The hardcopy texts are also surrounded by copious amounts of online material (screenplays, youtube videos, blogs, reviews, fansubs, amateur manga translations, etc.). This paper will analyse the (para)textual features of the volumes and, in particular the English-language edition, highlighting the conscious hybridity of the text.
Belying any notion of the homogenizing effects of globalization, these publications are evidence of a dynamic textual exchange, an overlapping of translation and adaptation, a blurring of media and genre, an interlingual and intercultural métissage.Le roman policier Une étude en rouge d’Arthur Conan Doyle, paru en 1887, a été largement traduit et adapté pour le cinéma et la télévision, en particulier dans la série Sherlock pour la BBC. Suite au succès de la série dans le monde entier, l’artiste Jay a produit une adaptation manga dans son Japon natal (2014), par la suite traduite en anglais (2017), parmi plusieurs autres langues, avec certains des traits (para)textuels distinctifs de sa première incarnation japonaise (il se lit « à l’envers » et de droite à gauche, est imprimé en noir et blanc, les bulles sont verticales). Les exemplaires papier sont entourés de contenus en ligne (scénarios, critiques, fansubs, scantrads, etc.). Cet article analyse les traits paratextuels des volumes, notamment ceux en anglais, français et italien, mettant en avant l’hybridité consciente du texte.
Ces publications témoignent d’un échange textuel dynamique, un chevauchement entre traduction et adaptation, un gommage des distinctions entre les médias et les genres, un métissage interlinguistique et interculturel
