Certain parts of this text are quite topic heavy, prior knowledge of flamenco is probably necessary to truly understand the argument. This might prove to be a potential issue when translating, thus certain words that relate to flamenco will have to be investigated. Furthermore, the text utilises Spanish words that are not commonly used in the English language, such words include the different names for different minorities of gypsies, names of buildings etc. Finally, this article refers to specific zones of Seville that might be easy to map for a native resident, however these place names might mean nothing for an English reader that has never been to Seville. Thus, all these aspects will have to be considered. A possible resolution for this is to use footnotes with the original Spanish word and a short English explanation of the term, and secondly, photos can be utilised to represent some of these places and building as a visual reference to the reader.
On a side note, I chose to provide background context on famous figures in the form of footnotes (interactive ones may I say) and/or pictures in order to immerse the reader into the article and to ensure a continuous reading experience.
Examples of issues:
Pragmatic:
- The source text contains several different names that relate to the gypsy people in Spain, for example, Gachés, Payo, and Calé. These words are a cultural aspect of the Spanish gypsy community in Spain. Yet, such words are uncommon in English. However, I was able to identify the English equivalent of the word Gachés, which is Gadjo, and thus translate it appropriately. Nevertheless, Gadjo is still an uncommon term in English so I decided to use footnotes to further provide background information for the readers. The same approach to using footnotes for the remaining words of Payo and Calé has been applied, as I was not able to find a cultural equivalent. Moreover, I feel like the conservation of these two words in the Spanish language (also called ‘borrowing’) helps to engage the reader into the Spanish context of this article.
- As this translation is aimed at students, amongst historians and academia in general, the notion of place names (Polígono Sur and San Pablo), towns (Barrio de la Viña de Cádiz), and buildings (el Corral Pistola) might have been a barrier for those who have never studied about Seville, or even visited this area. Thus, for the purpose of providing contextand clarity, I chose to italicise place names and provide visual references such as maps and photographs.
- The title of the film Triana pura y pura, was initially translated by me as ‘Pure and Pure Triana’, however my teacher informed me that this might have been a play on the Spanish idiom of ‘pura y dura’.
- I also came across some phrases that were challenging to translate and at the same time transfer the original message, for example, ‘Con ratas que hacían recados’, literally meaning ‘with rats that were doing errands.’ Yet such literal translation might have left the reader in a state of confusion, plus it did not convey the image of a rat-infested building. Therefore, I chose to translate it more figuratively, ‘With rats scuttering around’ as this translation was clearer and more concise for the reader.
- Some words had no direct English equivalent, such as ‘corrales de vecinos’. I had to research what this was, and then find a similar word to portray it, but in addition I also used photos to provide visual context and background to the reader.
- Some words had a direct and simple English translation, for example I translated ‘casitas bajas individuales’ as ‘bungalows’.
- Specific historical events such as ‘la Gran Redada General de Gitanos de 1749’ required me to further research the topic, rather than using literal translation, and by doing so I was able to find the English name for this event which was called ‘The Great Gypsy Round-up of 1749’.
Interlingual:
- The running head of the source text was rather long. Thus, I chose to completely rephrase it and summarise it into a more concise heading.
- The source text utilised long sentences that were divided up into several segments using commas, as well as instances of run-on clauses. This caused confusion as to what was said and as to whom the author was talking about. As a result, my initial draft was choppy and I often mixed-up pronouns, as it was the case with the following sentence, ‘La célebre saetera Finito de Triana, que no era del barrio tampoco, aunque vivió en él muchos años, donde murió, dijo en un periódico.’ At first, I translated it as ‘a newspaper said that…’ rather than ‘He [Finito] said in a newspaper that…’
- As the article was mainly focused on flamenco, I came across many flamenco words that had no concise English parallels, for example ‘arte jondo’ and ‘saetera’. I either chose to translate the word (‘arte jondo’ as ‘flamenco art’) or adopt the original word (‘saetera’) and provide further explanation using footnotes.
Intercultural:
- The original text used different punctuation marks that had to be adjusted to the standard English writing system. For example, the Spanish text used «…» instead of the standard quotation marks (‘’…’’)
- The way that the centuries were referred to were adjusted, as the Spanish text employed Roman numerals instead of numerical figures. I swapped ‘el siglo XIX’ to ‘the 19th century’.
- Similarly, time periods such as ‘los cincuenta del pasado siglo’ was simplified to ‘the 1950’s’