Using primary sources to produce a microhistory of translation and translators: theoretical and methodological concerns

Abstract

Abstract. In descriptive studies, where the source and target texts are the main primary sources ("primary text products"), "extra-textual" sources are looked at with "circumspection" (Toury 1995:65). However, in historical research methodologies they are central. This article examines the use and value of archives, manuscripts and, especially, translator papers, post-hoc accounts and interviews in producing a history of translation and translators. Rather than informing a 'traditional' Rankean history of facts and major personalities, the article underlines the potential value of such material in creating a 'microhistory ' (Ginzburg 1976' (Ginzburg /1980, reclaiming the details of the everyday lives and working processes of sometimes little-known or forgotten translators and contextualizing them to construct a social and cultural history of translation and translators. Sometimes these sources are housed in collections where translation may not be very visible, which creates problems of location. Examples are given from the autobiography of A. Birse and research on the working papers of

Los nadies, traductores de la historia: el ejemplo de Los hijos de Sánchez

“…«What is the function of the (this, not a, any) translation likely to be?» «What type of text needs to be translated?» «Who is the initiator of the/this translation?»... The questions that now dominate the field are able to dominate it because research has taken a «cultural turn», because people in the field began to realise, some time ago, that translations are never produced in a vacuum, and that they are also never received in a vacuum (Bassnett y Lefevere, 1998: 3 (Bandia, 2009), historias de la traducción desde abajo (Munday, 2014), basadas en la genealogía foucaultiana (Belle 2014) y no eurocéntricas (Bastin, 2017), empeñados como están en estudiar y sistematizar historias de la traducción hasta ahora olvidadas (por ejemplo, Nama, 1990Nama, y 1993o Cheung, 2009).…”

Tradutores De Machado De Assis:

“…Neste ensaio, abordam-se essas motivações na história do tradutor e da tradução para o inglês de Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas por William Leonard Grossman e Gregory Rabassa, seus dois tradutores dos Estados Unidos, a partir de textos suplementares (NEWMARK, 1988), ou de fontes textuais primárias (MUNDAY, 2013;2014), ou paratextos (GENETTE, 1997). São abordados os prefácios e as notas de rodapé para as edições, bem como as afirmações em entrevistas e publicações de autoria desses dois tradutores.…”

Arthur Ransome and Dmitri Mitrokhin: Translating the Russian Folktale

“…Close reading of both primary and secondary sources, including the translated texts under study and related archival materials, such as personal correspondence, as well as exploring other papers pertaining to the translator's micro-history (Pym, 2009;Monday, 2014) have all been employed here as particularly relevant methods for translation history research.…”