Translation Studies Journal

Using Translation Studies methodology, the author analyzes the problems the Icelandic translator of Poniatowska's testimonial novel Hasta no verte Jesús mío might encounter in transposing Jesusa's Mexican Spanish to Icelandic. The main issue, Miglio argues, is transposing the richly dialectal speech of Jesusa Palancares into a language essentially devoid of dialectal distinctions and so far removed from Mexico in cultural and geographical terms. A solution can be reached however if a detailed analysis of the text is carried out first, which would reveal that it is not regional dialectal nuances that are important in Poniatowska's text, but rather the fact that those features of Jesusa's speech are mainly sociolinguistic, lower class markers.  Equivalences to these can be found in Icelandic too, and in fact, are readily available in Salka Valka, a novel by 1955 Nobel Prize winner Halldór Laxness. Miglio proceeds to analyze parallels between the two novels, pointing out the literary and cultural elements they share. (The article is in Spanish).