Big translation history
Data science applied to translated literature in the Spanish-speaking world, 1898–1945
This article proposes the term Big Translation History (BTH) to describe a translation history that can be
analysed computationally and that we define as involving: (1) large-scale research (geographical and chronological); (2) massive
data understood as big data, accompanied by little data, and drawing on a wide range of often heterogeneous and non-structured
sources; and (3) the use of computational techniques as part of the research process, and for the production of knowledge, rather
than helping only with visualisation of data. We advance the hypothesis that one of the main possibilities of BTH, as a conceptual
framework and a methodology, is to help decentralize translation history and literary and cultural history, in a broad sense. The
article goes on to present an analysis of the circulation of literary translations and the agents involved in the Spanish-speaking
world between 1898 and 1945 as a case study in BTH.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Big translation history as a conceptual framework
- 3.A BTH case study: Translated literature in the Spanish speaking-world (1898–1945)
- 4.Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
References (82)
References
Aiden, Erez, and Jean-Baptiste Michel. 2014. Uncharted:
Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture. New York: Riverhead Books.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Algee-Hewitt, Mark, Sarah Allison, Marissa Gemma, Ryan Heuser, Franco Moretti, and Hannah Walser. 2016. “Canon/Archive.
Large-scale Dynamics in the Literary Field”. Literary Lab.
Pamphlet 111: 1–13.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bail, Christopher A. 2014. “The cultural environment:
Measuring culture with big data.” Theory and
Society 43 (3–4): 465–82. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bastian, Mathieu, Sebastien Heymann, and Mathieu Jacomy. 2009. “Gephi:
an open source software for exploring and manipulating networks.” Paper presented at
the International Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence on on Weblogs and
Social Media, held in Pasadena, California (USA).
Bernardini, Silvia, and Dorothy Kenny. 2020. “Corpora.” In Routledge
Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, 110–15. London/New York: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Blank, Grant. 2007. Critics,
Ratings, and Society. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Blondel, Vincent D., Jean-Loup Guillaume, Renaud Lambiotte, and Etienne Lefebvre. 2008. “Fast
unfolding of communities in large networks.” Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and
Experiment (October): P10008. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Borgman, Christine. 2015. Big
Data, Little Data, No Data: Scholarship in the Networked World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Braudel, Fernand. 1958. “Histoire
et Sciences sociales: La longue durée.” Annales. Histoire, Sciences
Sociales 13 (2) (October –
December): 725–53. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Brems, Elke, Theresia Feldmann, Orsolya Réthelyi, and Ton Van Kalmthout. 2020. “The
Transnational Trajectories of Dutch Literature as a Minor Literature: A View from World Literature and Translation
Studies.” Dutch Crossing – Journal of Low Countries
Studies 44: 2, 125–35. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bruegger, Niels. 2018. The
Archived Web: Doing History in the Digital Age. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Buell, Lawrence. 2005. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination, USA-UK. Victoria, Australia: Blackwell Publishing.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Casey, Edward S. 1993. Getting Back into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place-World. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2nd edition, 2009.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chesterman, Andrew. 2009. “The
name and nature of translator studies.” Hermes: Journal of Language and Communication
Studies 421: 13–22.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Clariana Rodagut, Ainamar. forthcoming. “Ibero-American
Women Mediators and their Networks in Early Film Clubs: Lola Álvarez Bravo, Victoria Ocampo y María Luz
Morales.” Modernism/Modernity, special issue Global South
Cinephilias, edited by Rielle Navistki, 2022.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cohen, Daniel, and Rosenzweig, Roy. 2005. Digital
History. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Champion, Eric Malcolm. 2017. “Digital humanities is
text heavy, visualization light, and simulation poor.” Digital Scholarship in the
Humanities 32 (1): 25–32.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Da, Nan Z. 2019. “The Computational Case against
Computational Literary Studies.” Critical
Inquiry 451: 3. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Dietze, Antje, and Katya Naumann. 2018. “Revisiting
transnational actors from a spatial perspective.” European Review of History: Revue européenne
d’histoire 25 (3–4): 415–30. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
D’Hulst, Lieven. 2012. “(Re)locating
translation history: From assumed translation to assumed transfer.” Translation
Studies 5 (2): 139–55. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Drucker, Johanna. 2014. Graphesis:
visual forms of knowledge production. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Düring, Marten, Roman Kalyakin, Estelle Bunout, and Daniele Guido. 2021. “Impresso.
Inspect and Compare. Visual Comparison of Semantically Enriched Historical Newspaper
Articles.” Information 12 (348): 1–12. Accessed August 30, 2021. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Fernández-Moya, María. 2009. “Editoriales
españolas en América Latina. Un proceso de internacionalización secular.” ICE. Revista de
Economía 8491: 66–77.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Fisher, Danyel et al. 2012. “Interactions
with big data
analytics.” Interactions 19 (3): 50–59. Accessed August 30, 2021. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Fólica, Laura. forthcoming. “Digital
Humanities and Big Translation History in the Global South: the Spanish-Speaking Case.” World
Literature Studies.
Freitag, Ulrike, and Achim von Oppen (eds). 2010. Translocality.
The Study of Globalising Processes from a Southern Perspective. Leiden/ Boston: Brill. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Graham, Shawn, Ian Milligan, and Scott Weingart. 2015. Exploring
Big Historical Data: The Historian’s
Macroscope. London: Imperial College Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Grandjean, Martin. 2018. Les
réseaux de la coopération intellectuelle. La Société des Nations comme actrice des échanges scientifiques et culturels dans
l’entre-deux-guerres. PhD thesis, Université de Lausanne.
Hagener, Malte. 2016. “Cinephilia
and Film Culture in the Age of Digital Networks.” In The State of
Post-Cinema. Tracing the Moving Image in the Age of Digital Dissemination, edited
by Malte Hagener, Vinzenz Hediger, and Alena Strohmaier, 181–94. London/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Harvey, David. 2009. Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom. New York: Columbia University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Heilbron, Johan. 1999. “Towards
a Sociology of Translation.” European Journal of Social
Theory 2 (4): 429–44. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Heilbron, Johan, and Gisèle Sapiro. 2002. “La
traduction littéraire, un objet sociologique.” Actes de la recherche en sciences
sociales 1441: 3–5. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hitchcock, Tim. 2013. “Confronting
the digital: or how academic history writing lost the plot.” Cultural and Social
History 10: 1, 9–23. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Jacomy, M., T. Venturini, S. Heymann, and M. Bastian. 2014. “ForceAtlas2,
a Continuous Graph Layout Algorithm for Handy Network Visualization Designed for the Gephi
Software.” PLoS
ONE 9(6): e98679. Accessed August 30, 2021. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Jockers, Matthew. 2013. Macroanalysis:
Digital Methods and Literary History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Jofre, Ana, Vincent Berardi, Carl Bennett, Michael Reale, and Josh Cole. 2020. “Faces
extracted from Time Magazine, 1923–2014.” Journal of Cultural
Analytics 1 (1): dataset.
Accessed August 30,
2021. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Joyeux-Prunel, Béatrice. 2015. “Provincializing
Paris. The Centre/Periphery Narrative of Modern Art in Light of Quantitative and Transnational
Approaches.” Artlas
Bulletin 4 (1): 40–64.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kenny, Dorothy. 2020. “Machine
Translation.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation
Studies, edited by Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, 305–310. London/New York: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lafarga, Francisco. 2014. “Tendencias
de la traducción de autores del XVIII francés en España (1975–2013). Consideraciones en torno a un
catálogo.” Anales de filología
francesa 221: 161–75.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Liu, Alan. 2018. Friending
the Past: The Sense of History in the Digital
Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Manovich, Lev. 2015. “The
Science of Culture? Social Computing.” Digital Humanities and Cultural
Analytics. Accessed August 30,
2021. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Manovich, Lev. 2020. Cultural
Analytics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Mauro, André de, Marco Greco, and Michele Grimaldi. 2015. “What
is big data? A consensual definition and a review of key research topics.” AIP Conference
Proceedings 1644, 97. Accessed August 30, 2021. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
McMartin, Jack. 2020. “Dutch
Literature in Translation: A Global View.” Dutch Crossing- Journal of Low Countries
Studies 44 (22): 145–64. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Martínez Martín, Jesús A. (ed.). 2015. Historia de
la edición en España 1939–1975. Madrid: Marcial Pons. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Meyer, Eric, and Schroeder, Ralph. 2015. Knowledge
Machines. Digital Transformations of the Sciences and Humanities. London/ Cambridge (US): MIT Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Meylaerts, Reine, Maud Gonne, Tessa Lobes, and Diana Roig Sanz. 2016. “Cultural
mediators in cultural history: what do we learn from studying mediators’ complex transfer activities in interwar
Belgium?.” In Doing Double Dutch. The International Circulation of
Literature from the Low Countries, edited by Elke Brems, Ton Van Kalmthout, and Orsolya Rethelyi, 51–75. Leuven: Leuven University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Meylaerts, Reine, Lieven d’Hulst, and Tom Verschaffel (eds). 2018. Cultural
mediation in Europe, 1800–1950. Leuven: Leuven University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Milton, John, and Paul Bandia (eds). 2009. Agents
of Translation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Moretti, Franco. 1998. Atlas
of the European Novel,
1800–1900. London: Verso![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Moretti, Franco. 2005. Graphs,
Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for Literary
History. London: Verso.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Moretti, Franco. 2013. Distant
Reading. London: Verso.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pegenaute, Luis. 2018. “Translation
and cultural development: Historical approaches.” In The Routledge
Handbook of Translation and Culture, edited by Sue Ann Harding, and Ovidi Carbonell i Cortés, 177–206. London/New York: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Piper, Andrew. 2018. Enumerations:
Data and Literary Study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Porter, J. D. 2018. “Popularity/Prestige.” Pamphlet 171: 1–24. Stanford: Stanford Literary Lab.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pym, Anthony. 1998. Methods
in
Translation. London: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pym, Anthony. 2001. “Alternatives
to borders in translation
theory.” Althanor 121: 172–82.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Río Riande, Gimena del. 2016. “De todo lo visible y lo
invisible o volver a pensar la investigación en humanidades
digitales.” SIGNA 251: 95–108. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Rodríguez Ortega, Nuria. 2013. “Digital
Humanities, Digital Art History and Artistic Culture: Relationships and
Disconnections.” Artnodes 131. Accessed August 30, 2021. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Roig-Sanz, Diana, and Reine Meylaerts. 2018. Literary
Translation and Cultural Mediators in ‘Peripheral’ Cultures. Customs Officers or
Smugglers?. London/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Ronen, Shahar, et al. 2014. “Links
that Speak: The Global Language Network and Its Association with Global
Fame.” In Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences 111 (52): E5616–E5622. Accessed August 30, 2021. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Simeoni, Daniel. 1995. “Translating
and studying translation: The view from the
agent.” Meta 40: 3, 445–60. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Schäfer, Mirko Tobias, and Karen van Es. 2017. The
Datafied Society. Studying culture through
data. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Schelstraete, Jasper, and Marianne van Remoortel. 2019. “Towards
a Sustainable and Collaborative Data Model for Periodical Studies.” Media
History 25 (3): 336–54. Accessed August 30, 2021. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Shandler, Jeffrey. 2017. Holocaust
Memory in the Digital Age. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
So, Richard Jean, and Hoyt Long. 2013. “Network
Analysis and the Sociology of
Modernism.” Boundary 2 40 (2): 147–82. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Soja, Edward. 2008. “Taking Space Personally.” In The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Santa Arias, and Barbara Warf. London: Taylor and Francis, 11–35.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Terian, Andrei. 2019. “Big
Numbers. A Quantitative Analysis of the Development of the Novel in Romania.” Transylvanian
Review 28 (1): 55–71.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Terras, Melissa, et al. 2017. “Enabling
complex analysis of large-scale digital collections: Humanities research, high-performance computing, and transforming access
to British Library digital collections.” Digital Scholarship in the
Humanities 33 (2): 356–466.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Treveri Gennari, Daniela. 2018. “Understanding
the Cinemagoing Experience in Cultural Life: The Role of Oral History and the Formation of ‘memories of
Pleasure’.” TMG Journal for Media
History 21 (1): 39–53. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Underwood, Ted. 2017. “A
genealogy of distant reading.” Digital Humanities
Quarterly 11 (2).![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Vega, Miguel, and Martha Pulido. 2013. “The
History of Translation and of the Theory of Translation in the Context of Translation
Studies.” MonTI 51: 39–70.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Verboord, Marc. 2003. “Classification
of Authors by Literary
Prestige.” Poetics 311: 259–81. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Verboord, Marc, Giselinde Kuipers, and Susanne Janssen. 2015. “Institutional
Recognition in the Transnational Literary Field.” Cultural
Sociology 9 (3): 447–65. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Vimr, Ondrej. forthcoming. “Geographies
and Networks: Spatial Aspects of Global Literary
Circulation.” In Global Literary Studies. Key
Concepts, edited by Diana Roig-Sanz and Neus Rotger. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wilson, Patricia. 2004.
La constelación del Sur. Traductores y
traducciones en la literatura argentina del siglo XX. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Malínek, Vojtěch, Tomasz Umerle, Edward Gray, Ivan Heibi, Péter Király, Christiane Klaes, Przemysław Korytkowski, David Lindemann, Arianna Moretti, Charlotte Panušková, Róbert Péter, Mikko Tolonen, Aldona Tomczyńska & Ondřej Vimr
2024.
Open Bibliographical Data Workflows and the Multilinguality Challenge.
Journal of Open Humanities Data 10
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
Razumovskaya, Veronica A.
2024.
“Supertext” as a Form of a “Strong” Fiction Text Existence.
RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics 15:1
► pp. 262 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.