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Target
Vol. 30:3 (2018) ► pp.345–387

Friend and foe

On the role of indirect literary translation in the construction of the conflicting images of communist Poland in para-fascist Portugal

ORCID logo | University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies

Previous research suggests that in Salazar’s Portugal, Soviet Poland was portrayed as both a friend and a foe. This article argues that these conflicting images are partly due to distinct discourses that reached Portugal through translations of Polish literature. Ultimately, it aims to give insights into the role of literary translation in the construction of a national image abroad. Since all the translations in the corpus are indirect, special attention is paid to the way the mediating texts impacted the image encoded in the target text. The article considers five channels via which texts were imported, presenting the results of a textual analysis of one translation in each of these channels, including its indirect trajectory. The findings confirm the importance of the analysed translations in the construction of the discussed images and show that the mediating texts had a crucial filtering role as regards the transfer of these images.

Keywords: censorship, communism, image studies, indirect translation, peripheral languages, Polish literature, Portuguese language, translation channels
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Two conflicting images of communist Poland in para-fascist Portugal
  • 3.Historical context
    • 3.1The People’s Republic of Poland (1944–1989)
    • 3.2The Portuguese Estado Novo (1933–1974)
  • 4.Corpus
    • 4.1Corpus limitations
    • 4.2Brief overview of translations in the corpus
  • 5.Methodology
    • 5.1Model of analysis
    • 5.2Method of analysis
  • 6.Translation channels
    • 6.1The export channel
      • 6.1.1ST (Wasilewska 1945c)
      • 6.1.2MTs (Wasilewska 1945a)
      • 6.1.3TT (Wasilewska 1945b)
    • 6.2The official channel
      • 6.2.1ST (Iwaszkiewicz [1947] 1975)
      • 6.2.2MT (Iwaszkiewicz 1959)
      • 6.2.3TT (Iwaszkiewicz 1962)
    • 6.3The classics channel
      • 6.3.1ST (Sienkiewicz 1894)
      • 6.3.2MT (Sienkiewicz 1952a)
      • 6.3.3TT (Sienkiewicz 1958)
    • 6.4The semi-official channel
      • 6.4.1ST (Tyrmand 1955)
      • 6.4.2MT (Tyrmand 1958)
      • 6.4.3TT (Tyrmand 1964)
    • 6.5The parallel channel
      • 6.5.1ST (Stypułkowski 1951b)
      • 6.5.2MT (Stypułkowski 1951a)
      • 6.5.3TT (Stypułkowski 1952)
  • 7.Conclusions and future research possibilities
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.15089.pie
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