Georges L. Bastin

Adaptation, the Paramount Communication Strategy

Abstract In Translation Studies as well as in any other discipline dealing with human communication, we can assume without any doubts that adaptation is the most efficient communicational strategy. Although it is a tactical tool used to solve isolated communicational problems or conflicts, it is far and foremost a strategy with a long term general purpose closely related to a communicational and even a lifelong project. This paper will examine the implications of adaption as tactical and strategic ways of solving cultural dissimilarities from the translation studies perspective. Such reflection will be illustrated with examples taken from the so-called field of pragmatic translation activity but also from translation history. Particularly, we will look at what was at stake when Spanish missionaries translated religious texts while serving their purpose of evangelization. This will lead us to envisage the product of such adaptations as syncretism, métissage or hybridity. Those different concepts, while not contradictory, have distinct ideological and political implications when it comes to the interpretation of colonial history. This paper will also deal with the concepts of intertextuality and intermediality as ideal environments for adaptation. We will show that adaptation in translation studies is at the crossroads of various disciplines that it can enrich.

Eurocentrism and Latin Americanism in Latin American translation history

ABSTRACT Language and discourse are inextricably linked in the establishment of power and hegemony. In today’s globalized world, the power emanating from hegemonic centres that control communication and information systems is indisputable. The field of Translation Studies is not immune to such influence. Since it was developed and expanded in the West, mainly in Europe, Translation Studies discourse reflects its origins. In this article, I will first characterize Eurocentrist and Latin Americanist discourses and then study four Eurocentric biases noticeable in the treatment of the history of Latin American translation: (1) the ‘civilizing task’ of missionaries; (2) the ‘interculturation’ and understanding of ‘métissage’ and ‘transculturation’ notions; (3) the concept of ‘empathy’ with native peoples; and (4) the perspective and rescue of native languages by evangelistic religious orders. To discuss these biases, I will draw on the prototypical article by Vega Cernuda.