Feigned orality constitutes a specific, structured modality, whose place between oral and written modes, and more precisely, between the polarities of language of proximity and language of distance is not easy to establish. It does not simply map onto an expression of colloquial language in a written text (e.g. a script, a novel). The intervention of an author involves selecting certain typical features of oral language so as to evoke an oral context by means of the written mode. These features have functions assigned to them that may match their functions in the language of proximity, but they may also be stereotypical elements.

Given the increasing frequency of use of these elements—which provide credibility to fictional texts and non-fictional texts alike—and the problems they pose when it comes to rendering this authenticity in another language and culture, this project aims to: a) describe the specific resources of each one of the languages to be studied or the particular traits observed in the use of typically oral elements; b) distinguish between resources regarded as “plausible” in a fictional text and the resources that belong to real oral language; c) describe the changes that are made when it comes to translating feigned orality, and, implicitly, the value judgements that translators bring to the fore when operating these changes.

On the applied side of the project, will be the description of a linguistic model that serves as a backdrop to these translational options. This will involve producing the necessary resources, temporarily, as a synopsis or diagram, to assess the quality of the translations that carry the trait of feigned orality.