Through the creative use of dialect varieties available in another language, Hauptmann's play, which defies transfer into Standard language has been recreated in translation. Too frequently, the weavers of Hauptmann's Silesian play have been bereft of a voice in English translation. Findlay's achievement is to provide an imaginative version of the dialect-coloured
essence of a little-known German play, written by one of the leading representatives of modern European drama.
In The Weavers Findlay transferred the dialect of the source language into a target language dialect. In Bairns' Brothers, his translation of Raymond Cousse's Enfantillage (Findlay, 2000), a contemporary play written in Standard French, he also eschews Standard English in favour of a Scots dialect version, this time in order to capture the language of a special social group at a given period of time.
Enfantillages is set in a country village in the 1950s and takes the form of a monodrama with one actor playing Marcel, a young boy of working class origin. There is also a multitude of other characters, both children and adults, whose voices are heard, relatives as well as members of the village, all mediated by the boy. The number of characters provides a good degree of scope for incorporating contrasting speech varieties. Findlay first establishes an obvious contrast between the Scots speech of the local villager and the English spoken by the sprinkling of 'professionals' who speak Standard English, such as the teacher, the priest and the vet. An exception to this broad distinction between the Scots-speaking villagers and Englishspeaking ‘professionals’ is the boss of the undertakers. Arriving at the family of the bereaved, his occupational role demands that he speaks semiformally. To this end, in certain situations Findlay has him speak rather stiff English: this is for example the case in Scene 9, 'The Death of Marcel' where he first addresses the family:
Good day ladies and gentlemen we apologise for disturbing you we’ve come for the box ... (to his men) Kindly bring forward the box, gentlemen, and don't forget your nails, Gaston. (Findlay, 2000: 43)
Here the undertaker addresses his men as well as the family of the bereaved and, as a result, there is a note of formality to his language. This Voices in Translation 13differs, however, from the way he speaks directly to his men; now he is at ease and his language is more natural:
That's us Gaston doon a wee bit oan your side straightforrit at that. (Findlay, 2000: 43)
And when Marcel’s sister tries to cling to the coffin, he is very gentle with her, something that shows in his language:
Come on now lass you mustnae get yourself intae a state like this you're young you've yir haill life in front of you. (Findlay, 2000: 43)
While the words in Scots are fatherly and informal, fulfilling the function of showing his sympathy and kindness to the young girl, there is still a note of restraint in his speech as he is speaking to a member of the bereaved family. Hence he is speaking in a modified form of Scots. Had he spoken in a fully fledged register, Findlay points out, he is more likely to have said:
Come oon noo lass ye mustnae git yirsel aw wrocht up lik this young ye've yir haill in front ae ye. (Findlay, 2000: 44)
As in The Weavers, in his translation of Enfantillages Bill Findlay gives a voice to a group of speakers living at a particular point in time. Together with Martin Bowman, he gave the characters of Quebec playwright Michael Tremblay, living in Montreal, a language with which to speak in translation.
The Guid Sisters, their version of Tremblay's play Les Belles-soeurs, went on the following year to Toronto and the next year to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before taking the stage in Montreal itself. It was the first of eight Findlay-Bowman 'trans-creations' of Tremblay's plays, including A Solemn Mass in Summer, seen in Glasgow, Perth and Edinburgh as well as London, Toronto and New York. Findlay also worked with Bowman to translate from Québecois into Scots Jeanne-Mance Delisle's The Reel of the Hanged Man (see Chapter 2, this volume).
It is to be hoped that, following Bill Findlay's example, more translators and Translation Studies scholars will help bridge cultural divides and give speakers of other languages and countries voices that 'sing' in translation.
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