Translating contemporary mexican texts. Fidelity to altery

Abstract

This book considers problems relating to the translation of contemporary Mexican texts, especially those that display signs of linguistic innovation and creativity, often resulting from contact with English. lt aims to provide guidance for the translator whose primary allegiance is to the source text (ST) and wishes to carry out translations that reflect the originaliry of the author's work and rhe distinctive features of the language it contains. Although it is a common phenomenon that has been discussed at length in sociolinguistics, and in spite of its frequent use in Mexican and other literatures, code-switching has received little attention in translation theory. lndeed, in a conference rhat took place in New York as recently as 1990, Reyes observed that: In literary translation no serious consideration, to my knowledge, has yet been given to the problem of translating texrs writren in an interlanguage, i.e., in a syntheric blend of rwo separare languages such as rhe language characteristic of the Chicanos in the U nited States (1991: 301). lt is worth noting rhat there has been some progress in this field since 1991, but the topic remains relatively untouched, and what little progress there has been is mainly with regard ro rhe analysis of the translation of literature produced by Chicanos, that is, literature written in English by authors of Mexican descent in the United States, displaying characteristics of Spanish 'interference'. Little if any attention has been paid to the translation into English of code-switching in texts written in Mexican Spanish. The intention of this work is to address rhat particular dearth of research.