Youth speech in translated fiction: a corpus-based comparison of selected pragmatic markers in Catalan and Spanish

The aim of this study is to explore fictional youth speech in translated novels in contrast to real youth speech in spoken conversation. Specifically, this analysis focuses on a selection of pragmatic markers as one of the many features of orality that can be found in literary dialogue. These markers function as expressive turn-management units between characters and are particularly prevalent in youth speech. The study examines the frequency and distribution of the pragmatic markers of interest in two languages, Catalan and Spanish, using a parallel corpus of translated dialogues from contemporary novels and two spoken corpora. The results show that, in line with previous descriptions of fictional orality, pragmatic markers are less common in fictional youth speech than they are in real conversation. However, there are some exceptions that highlight the characteristics of translated language and the literary traditions of Catalan and Spanish.