Translation Strategies: The Fifth Column in French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish

Abstract

This article compares the strategies used in the French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese translations of Hemingway's only play, The Fifth Column. Assuming that culturally relevant features present in the source text tend to be lost in translation and taking into account the four categories of mode of address, semantic congruence, off-color language, and representation of speech—this article considers how systematic comparison of translations clarifies the relationship between a translation and the source text. The results obtained suggest that comparative translation is a viable interdisciplinary field combining elements from literary criticism, translation theory, stylistics, and cognitive linguistics.