this is like some kind of revelation

[bagheera_san]

I have a German linguistics essay/termpaper to write (about something related to writing, written language etc - the technical term is graphemics or graphematics) and stupidly I thought that writing about online fandom from a linguistic perspective would be a cool idea. There are three problems with this:

1) it has to be in German, about German fandom
2) no one has ever written anything about this - the closest I've got are linguistic studies of chat communication, email, blogging etc. - mostly in English
3) linguistics isn't exactly my strong suit and I have no idea what I'm doing

But the biggest problem is definitely German fandom. I haven't so much as dipped a foot into the German part of fandom since I was about 17 because I abandoned it as soon as I started to write exclusively in English. I'm almost tempted to write a story in German just to see if I still can. All German fanfiction sounds terrible to me. Is this because you're more sensitive to bad style in your own language, or because I'm not finding the good stories (since so far I've only discovered the German equivalent of fanfiction.net) or because there's something wrong with non-English fandom in general? Fanfiction is largely anglophone, and English is where its stylistic conventions have developed. I assume (but I don't know if this is true) that German online fandom started as a translation/imitation of anglophone online fandom (and to some extent maybe Japanese fandom), with people trying to do the same thing but in their native language and that might be the reason why some of it sounds awkward.

For example, German fanfic authors LOVE gerunds and participles (the -ing forms of verbs). However, gerunds are typical of English, and sound awkward if you translate them directly into German - usually, where English can use a simple gerund, German needs slightly longer and more complicated phrases.

An example from the summary of a D/M fic:
"Mit dem Master an seiner Seite reist der Doktor immer noch durch das Universum, Welten entdeckend, beschützend, rettend."

The part in italics could be translated as "discovering, protecting and saving worlds". In English those three gerunds/participles sound perfectly okay and they fulfil the function of verbs (you could also say "they discover, protect and save worlds"). In German, a participle can't really function as a verb, it's commonly used as an adjective or an adverb, so the author should have used a different verb form instead of a participle. Now, I don't think this author took an English fic and translated it badly in German - I think s/he either reads a lot of English fic or is imitating the style of other fanfic writers who read too much English. The result is incredibly awkward writing (I wonder if I sound like that when I write English - or if I'd sound like that if I wrote German prose.)

ETA: I finally understand why having the Doctor (or the Master) use cuss words is WRONG. All it takes is one instance of German cursing to make me see the light.

ETA2: Also, where English has "you" as a form of adress, German has "Sie" (polite, respectful, distanced) and "du" (close, intimate, informal). Neither "Sie" nor "du" sounds right for people adressing the Doctor.

ETA3: Have found German LJ com called das_fandom. I find this more amusing than I should.

Comments

[x-los.livejournal.com]

ETA: I finally understand why having the Doctor (or the Master) use cuss words is WRONG. All it takes is one instance of German cursing to make me see the light.

Agree compleeetely. Unless it's like--a VERY specific/intentional, discrete use, it's just so tonally weird for either it's not true. Also, 'young' language for classic Doctors and Masters is a big source of o_O for me.

[dragonofmemory]

Have you tried fandoms of actual German things? Because I find that makes a big difference in writing, at least in English vs. Japanese fandoms. There are times I've written for animes where I had to fight with the fic to make it sound normal instead of awkward, because it makes more sense in Japanese. I've ranted for hours on the fact we don't have a word for a more final good-bye.

But I can see why things might be more awkward in a different language, just because the original source has a certain flow to it. Like I'm sure there's some German equivalent to Three's way of speaking, but it still probably wouldn't flow quite right. It's like how dubbers used to like heavy southern accents for Osaka dialect. It drove me nuts, because it didn't suit the characters at all, at least not to me.

Cuss words are definitely a characterization thing. It doesn't work, because you never hear them say it in the show. It usually always throws me off when I'm reading. I know I've used them a handful of times, but usually I spend a while thinking on it and if I could find something else that flows better. It just takes them out of character otherwise, since they never use them in the show.

[aralias.livejournal.com]

as much as this sounds painful and weird, it looks like you have a lot of material to talk about from a linguistic perspective. albeit a weird perspective. it's interesting, also, to talk about translation in a fandom where it's so not a problem in canon - thanks, tardis! who knows what happens in episodes where they go to germany and the germans hear german?

[asthenie-vd.livejournal.com]

I think the lack of activity in das_fandom should be proof enough of how Germans on LJ prefer to just participate in the English speaking parts of fandom instead of copying and Germanizing what's already there. It's one of the only German wank!communities, and it's stone-dead! Ergo, there isn't even enough of a German LJ-Fandom to wank about!

(but perhaps you could share your findings on there?)

So, is it possible for you to write about how written language in the German fandom subculture got influenced by English? Because it sounds interesting, and definitely like something I recognize from trying to read German fanfic. And I say "trying" because, yes, there's a lot of akward syntax issues with missing verbs out there. (I'm absolutely certain there's been fics I really enjoyed too, but I couldn't come up with a single author's name. :/)

The fic quality seems to improve with the smaller fandoms, but I don't know whether that's because even English micro-fandoms tend to attract less badfic, or because almost all the small fandoms I ever looked up German fic for tend to not have large English speaking counter parts to influence them at, and also attract crowds of people who I don't believe would otherwise be into/and therefy not influenced by any popular, large English speaking fandoms and the fic/shipping-culture connected with them (this would be fandoms for obscure eastern European fantasy lit and even more obscure video games. The fic is rare and curiously also tends to focus on the settings, not on canon!characters. But then, video game fandoms tend to work differently in general, due to a lot of them being male-dominated)

[firefly1311.livejournal.com]

Very interresting!

[ciaan]

You can also go to the AO3 and select a language, if you haven't tried that already, they do have some fic in German on there.