Between Peripheries: Towards an External History of Portuguese Translation of Polish Literature (1855-2010)

Abstract

Translation plays a vital role in cultural exchanges between the so-called peripheral languages (those that have a low capacity of cultural exportation). Nonetheless, there has been very little research on this topic in Translation Studies. This is unfortunate, as such research has the potential to shed new light on the evolution of power relations between cultural peripheries and ‘intermediary centres’.

To address this gap, this study aims to investigate the ‘external history’ of book-length translations of Polish literature published in Portugal between 1855 (the date of the first translation in the corpus) and 2010 (the final date for which data were collected). Emphasis on ‘external history’ means that the study focuses on the circumstances involved in the process of translation rather than on the modifications the texts undergo in translation transfer.

To achieve this aim, a corpus of contextual data from 113 target texts was selected and submitted to quantitative analysis. This analysis was guided by six main questions (what is translated, when, by whom, where, how and why?), resulting in the identification and explanation of various patterns in the passage of translations of Polish literature to Portugal. Moreover, due to its exploratory nature, the study provides research paths upon which future research projects with larger or different corpora could draw.

The thesis comprises an introduction, four main parts and a conclusion. Part One examines the relevant theoretical framework (Descriptive Translation Studies) and concepts (‘external translation history’, ‘indirect translation’ and ‘peripheral languages’). It also presents the results of a critical survey of previous research that was considered relevant to the development of the methodology and to the analysis of the corpus. A crucial output of this part of the thesis is the proposal of a triangulation model for identifying different types of indirectness in literary translation.

Part Two outlines the historical context that influenced the production of the target texts under study. It explores historical elements of the Polish and the Portuguese cultures, as well as the framework of Polish-Portuguese cultural and political relationships. An important output of this part of the thesis is a proposal for a new periodisation of the history of Polish-Portuguese relations.

Part Three discusses the methodological parameters that guided the data selection and analysis. These parameters include (a) a methodology for corpus selection (consisting of two stages: the compilation of a catalogue and the subsequent delimitation of the corpus), (b) a top-down model for corpus analysis (structured around the six questions that guided the analysis) and (c) a quantitative method for data analysis (including nine stages, starting with the identification of relevant contextual data and ending with the exploration of possible relations between selected contextual variables). Although all these methodological parameters were designed specifically for this study, they could easily be adapted to future research based on other corpora.

Part Four discusses the results of data analysis. This discussion results in the identification and explanation of patterns in the synchronic and diachronic distribution of translations by decade, author, publisher, collection, translator and mediating language.