Transposing the language and linguistic picture of the world in Hektorović’s Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje from literature to film

Abstract

Transposing the language and linguistic picture of the world in Hektorović’s Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje from literature to filmThe paper analyses the believability of the language and linguistic picture of the world presented in the screen adaptation of Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje by Petar Hektorović, a Croatian writer (from the island of Hvar) who wrote this work in verse in the Čakavian literary language in the 16th century. The discussion presents and analyses representative examples of linguistic failures in terms of locality and temporality in transposing Hektorović’s world. The language of the film is mainly Čakavian, however the language is only partly localised as the lines of some non-Čakavian actors also contain some Štokavianisms. The temporal backdrop provided by the usage of the Čakavian language is faulty, as no attempts appear to have been made to bring the language of the film closer to 16th-century Čakavian language or the dialect spoken on Hvar at the time.