Iberian-Slavonic Studies

Within the framework of Iberian-Slavonic and descriptive translation studies, this paper aims to analyse the translation flow from Poland to Portugal during the Portuguese First Republic (1910-1926). To do so, it offers a brief study of five translations brought out in the period covered, while providing answers to questions such as who translated what, when, where, for whom, how and why? More importantly, the paper tries and pinpoints possible reasons that led to the non-translation of many Polish literary texts in the period concerned. By doing so, it intends to contribute to the sum total of knowledge upon intercultural exchange between the two cultures concerned.

This paper is a first attempt at presenting a general outline of the emerging discipline of Iberian-Slavonic Studies in the Portuguese context. To do so, the first step will consist in providing relevant data regarding the name, nature and history of the ISS. Subsequently, the discipline’s institutional background will be presented. Finally, possible criticism to which the discipline may be subject, together with the possible avenues of future research, will be highlighted.

The study of Portuguese translations from Polish literature provides the necessary framework for an exploration of the importance of the discipline of translation history in the study of individual cultures. Any research on translation history implies finding proper translations, usually through recourse to bibliographical sources of some kind. Although seldom studied, bibliographical sources prove to be an indispensable tool in the archaeology of translation.
Thus, the aim of the current paper is twofold. On the one hand, it intends to present and discuss a few bibliographical sources available to scholars carrying out research on Portuguese translation history. On the other, its purpose is to shed light on the importance of the discipline of translation history in the study of Portuguese culture.
The paper starts with a brief comment on translation history which, in spite of its importance, has not received much attention within the discipline of literary history. Subsequently, the research on Portuguese translations from Polish literature and the correspondent object of study are briefly elucidated. Furthermore, general problems related to the use of bibliographical databases in translation history are presented. An overview of ten bibliographical lists used in the aforementioned research follows and the pros and cons of each source are considered. Finally, some general conclusions are drawn concerning the completeness and reliability of this kind of documents.

The aim of the present paper is twofold. On the one hand, it is to offer an outline of the author’s ongoing PhD research on cultural relations between Poland and Portugal through translation. To do so, the project’s background, main goals, central questions, rationale and methodology are briefly elucidated. On the other hand, the paper seeks to exemplify how a series of working definitions can be formulated with regard to corpus selection in a study focused on translation flow from one culture to another. More specifically, the reasoning that led to establishing working definitions is explained and various examples of borderline cases (e.g. weakly marked or unmarked translations) are given. The paper ends with some remarks on the initial findings and future research avenues.