Ironie und Phraseologie am Beispiel des Romans Der Zimmerspringbrunnen und seiner Übersetzung ins Italienische

The collapse of the German Democratic Republic is object of ironic narration in some German literature, whereby especially the troubles of East Germans in losing their homeland and identity is depicted with sarcasm. Irony can be expressed in texts by means of phraseological expressions, which can be modified formally or semantically to convey specific meanings and inferences. The present paper investigates the relationship between irony and phraseology in the novel Der Zimmerspringbrunnen by comparing the original text by Sparschuh (1995) with its Italian translation by Galli (Sparschuh 2000). Particular attention will be paid to the use of creativity in the translation with regard to idiomatic expressions and diatopic variation.