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The virtual image : Brazilian literature in English translation

The aim of this thesis is to examine how the virtual image of Brazil and its literature is constructed in the Anglo-American world. To this end, a survey of Brazilian literary works in English translation was carried out. Having gathered this data, it became possible to establish correlations between the historical moments when such translations were made, when their number increased, and the events occurring at those times in the international panorama, as well as to look into the role of sponsors, publishers and translators in the selection and production of such translations. The data also allowed a profile of Brazilian literary works in English translation to be drawn. It became possible to suggest that such works fall into four main categories: `authorial works', 'topical works', `ambassadorial works' and `consumer-oriented works'. In order to look more closely into how the translation process has helped to shape the virtual image of Brazilian literary works in the Anglo-American world, an analysis of a sample of translations of such works was made. Included in this sample were the translations of works by Machado de Asis, by Indianist and Regionalist wirters, culminating in an examination of translations of GuimarAes Rosa's works. Having looked at these aspects of the translation process, what remained to be done was to investigate to what extent Brazilian literary works in English translation are read by the English- speaking public. To this end, a survey of availability and library readership was undertaken. Finally, a reading experiment was carried out in which native speakers of English were asked to read the short story 'A terceira margem do rio', by GuimarAes Rosa. The conclusion attempts to pull all these threads together and to indicate directions for further research.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:261415
Date January 1994
CreatorsBarbosa, Heloísa Gonçalves
PublisherUniversity of Warwick
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/56829/

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