Punctuation Strategies in the Textualization of Femininity: Virginia Woolf Translated into Italian

Abstract

This article investigates shifts in punctuation in the Italian translations by Nadia Fusini of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. It argues that shifts in textual cohesion contribute to the elimination of salient traits of Woolf’s ‘female sentence’. Shifts in punctuation are analyzed in the light of discourse and gender theories, and particular attention is paid to the use of the semicolon, the exclamation mark, the dash and the full stop.