UNIVERSIDAD DE COSTA RICA 

SISTEMA DE ESTUDIOS DE POSGRADO 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOREIGNIZING SPANISH- ENGLISH LITERARY TRANSLATIONS: THE 

CASE FOR RESISTING CULTURAL DOMINANCE AND TRADITIONAL 

DOMESTICATION THROUGH LAWRENCE VENUTI´S APPROACH 

 

 

 

 

 

Tesis sometida a la consideración de la Comisión del Programa de Estudios de 

Posgrado en Literatura para optar al grado y título de Maestría Académica en 

Literatura Inglesa. 

 

 

 

LORENA ZÚÑIGA ALVARADO 

 

 

Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo Facio, Costa Rica 

2024 

 

 



 
 

ii 
 

DEDICATORIA 

 

Para mi abuelito, Papo. 

 El maestro que me inició en el maravilloso mundo de las letras. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 
 

iii 
 

AGRADECIMIENTOS 

 

Primero que todo, gracias vida (Dios) por permitirme explorar desde muy pequeña los 

mundos paralelos de la literatura y los libros. Mundos que me acompañaron en mi 

soledad, que me sostuvieron, sanaron y salvaron. Este ha sido un camino de casi dos 

décadas por el que han transitado muchas personas. Gracias a todas ellas por dejar su 

huella.  

Gracias a todos mis profesores del programa que me dejaron muchísimos 

aprendizajes. Entre ellos destacar a Gilda Pacheco, Ileana Molina, Juan Carlos 

Vargas, Vanessa Fonseca, Marco Mora y Álvaro Salas (q.e.p.d.). Gracias a aquellos 

que además de ser profesores estrella directamente me acompañaron en el proceso de 

escribir mi tesis a través de los años (ya sea como directores o asesores), parte de este 

trabajo también es de ustedes: Ilse Bussing, Anthony López, Natalia Salas, Norman 

Marín, Jorge Brenes y Ruth Cubillo. Gracias a mis asesoras: Adriana Jiménez y 

Monica Bradley. Adri, mi admiración a vos como profesora y gracias por aceptar ser 

parte de este trabajo a lo último. Me hubiera encantado poder leer y escuchar todos tus 

valiosos aportes desde el inicio y sufrir y reír juntas con esta traducción tan atroz. Monica, 

you open-heartedly accepted my invitation. Thanks for always making me feel supported 

and guiding me unconditionally through the process. You have been a blessing. Gracias 

a mi director César Valverde a quien le debo este trabajo. Profe, gracias por estar desde 

los tiempos de Ian McEwan y The Cement Garden, por permanecer durante años siempre 

motivándome a no abandonar, por creer en mí y por supuesto por todo lo aprendido. Mis 

eternas gracias y admiración. A mis compañeros Silvia Morgan, Oscar Delgado, 

Vanessa Pacheco, Ana Sánchez y Bryner Montiel por acompañarme en este viaje. Y 

por supuesto no puedo dejar de mencionar a doña Lilliana, que al igual que César han 

estado por años, siempre pendientes y ayudando en todo el proceso. Gracias a todos por 

haber sido parte de una etapa muy significativa de mi vida.  

Quiero agradecer a mi familia, pero en especial a mis papás, que a pesar de ser 

ambos profesionales de las ciencias nunca cuestionaron mi elección de carrera y gustos. 

Siempre me han apoyado y nunca me han presionado o cuestionado mi proceso. Gracias 

por creer en mí y tener fe que algún día terminaría lo que hace mucho inicié y me hace 

feliz. Es un privilegio tenerlos con vida para poder seguir convirtiéndolos en padres 

orgullosos. Como mamá ya entiendo lo que los logros y derrotas de los hijos significan.  



 
 

iv 
 

Laguis, viniste a darme ese último empujón, toda la motivación y fuerza que 

necesitaba para terminar. Sos la persona que me mantiene con los pies en la tierra y no 

deja que mi cabeza vuele y crea que está viviendo una tragicomedia. Gracias por todo el 

amor y admiración que me hacés sentir todos los días. Gabo y Nano, mis enanos 

protagonistas. Jamás me los imaginé dentro de esta ecuación cuando inicié esta 

aventura. Espero que a través de los años tengan el privilegio de experimentar el mundo 

maravilloso de los libros que su bisabuelo Papo me enseñó desde muy pequeña. Los 

libros junto a la educación son la mejor herencia. Los enseñan a viajar por otros mundos 

y culturas, a acercarse de una forma íntima con la humanidad. Todo mi anhelo es para 

que ustedes también puedan vivir un poco de este camino que estoy concluyendo, que 

por medio de la educación tengan el privilegio de conocer a personas maravillosas, 

puedan ver el mundo a través de una amplia gama de colores y tengan la sensibilidad 

que se necesita para poder tener paz en un mundo a veces muy confuso.  

 

Todo mi cariño. 

                          Lore 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 
 

v 
 

TABLA DE CONTENIDO 

 

DEDICATORIA ............................................................................................................. II 

AGRADECIMIENTOS ................................................................................................. III 

TABLA DE CONTENIDO .............................................................................................V 

HOJA DE APROBACIÓN ........................................................................................ VIII 

RESUMEN ...................................................................................................................IX 

ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................X 

LISTA DE TABLAS .....................................................................................................XI 

LISTA DE FIGURAS ..................................................................................................XII 

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 1 

TOPIC ......................................................................................................................... 2 

GENERAL OBJECTIVE .................................................................................................. 2 

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................. 2 

CHAPTER 2. JUSTIFICATION .................................................................................... 3 

WHAT IS TRANSLATION AND WHY DOES IT MATTER IN THE ACADEMIC ARENA? ........... 5 

TRANSLATION AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE ........................................................... 6 

TRANSLATION ETHICS ................................................................................................. 7 

TRANSLATION STUDIES APPROACHES ......................................................................... 9 

Lawrence Venuti’s Foreignization ......................................................................... 9 

CHAPTER 3. REVIEW OF LITERATURE ................................................................. 11 

THE COSTA RICAN CONTEXT ..................................................................................... 11 

CARLOS SALAZAR HERRERA AND CUENTOS DE ANGUSTIAS Y PAISAJES ..................... 12 

SHORT STORIES OF ANGUISH AND LANDSCAPES BY MARÍA LUZ MÉNDEZ SALAZAR.... 16 

CARMEN LYRA AND HER WORKS ............................................................................... 17 

ELIZABETH ROSA HORAN’S THE SUBVERSIVE VOICE OF CARMEN LYRA ..................... 19 

WHEN NEW FLOWERS BLOOMED “SHORT STORIES BY WOMEN WRITERS FROM COSTA 

RICA AND PANAMA” EDITED BY ENRIQUE JARAMILLO LEVI ............................................... 21 



 
 

vi 
 

Marinell James as Carmen Lyra’s Translator ..................................................... 21 

CHAPTER 4. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .......................................................... 23 

THE HISTORY OF TRANSLATION ................................................................................. 23 

Translation as an encoding-decoding linguistic activity ...................................... 23 

Translation as a Process ..................................................................................... 25 

Translation as an Academic Field ....................................................................... 26 

Translation Beyond Contrastive Linguistics ........................................................ 27 

Translation and Literature.................................................................................... 28 

Translation Ethics and Norms ............................................................................. 30 

Venuti’s Ethical Standpoint .................................................................................. 34 

Paratextual Elements in Literary Translation ...................................................... 38 

VERMEER’S SKOPOS THEORY ................................................................................... 40 

History .................................................................................................................. 40 

The Skopos Rule ................................................................................................. 40 

Eugene Nida’s Equivalence Effect in Translation Studies .................................. 43 

Criticism ............................................................................................................... 44 

Christiane Nord in Skopostheorie........................................................................ 46 

The Cultural Turn ................................................................................................. 46 

LAWRENCE VENUTI’S FOREIGNIZATION APPROACH VS EUGENE NIDA’S DOMESTICATION

 ....................................................................................................................................... 47 

LANGUAGE VARIETIES: SOCIAL AND TONAL REGISTERS, DIALECT, AND SOCIOLECT ... 52 

BRIEF SUMMARY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH AND VERNACULAR 

DIALECT .......................................................................................................................... 54 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF COSTA RICA AND TRANSLATION ............................................... 57 

Costa Rica and Its Literary Heritage ................................................................... 57 

The 1900s Debut ................................................................................................. 58 

The Costa Rican Translation’s Political and Social Panorama .......................... 63 

Lack of Systematization in Costa Rican Literary Translations............................ 64 

Translation in Costa Rica as a Profession .......................................................... 66 

CHAPTER 5. ANALYSIS ........................................................................................... 68 

A METADISCURSIVE ANALYSIS OF MARÍA LUZ MÉNDEZ SALAZAR’S TRANSLATION IN 

HER TRANSLATION THESIS CUENTOS DE ANGUSTIAS Y PAISAJES BY CARLOS SALAZAR 



 
 

vii 
 

HERRERA THE PLAUSIBILITY OF SUBSTITUTING A FOLK DIALECT WITH A REGIONAL DIALECT

 ....................................................................................................................................... 68 

Translating Dialect ............................................................................................... 70 

Méndez Salazar’s Use of AAVE and Domestication .......................................... 78 

Salazar and Standard Spanish ............................................................................ 82 

Méndez’s Combined Use of Foreignization and Domestication ......................... 87 

CARMEN LYRA AND FOREIGNIZATION ....................................................................... 101 

“Bananos y hombres” [TT: “Bananas and Men”] .............................................. 106 

“Estefanía” from “Bananas and Men”- Translation Analysis ............................. 108 

Translating Proper Nouns .............................................................................. 108 

Changes of Meaning and Interpretation ........................................................ 115 

Omissions....................................................................................................... 121 

“Los diez viejitos de Pastor” [TT: “Pastor’s Ten Little Old Men”] ...................... 125 

“Los diez viejitos de Pastor” [TT: “Pastor’s Ten Little Old Men”]- Translation 

Analysis .................................................................................................................... 126 

Foreignization Examples................................................................................ 126 

Translating Dialogues .................................................................................... 129 

Translating Costarriqueñismos ...................................................................... 134 

Translating Religion ....................................................................................... 136 

Translating Proper Names ............................................................................. 137 

Changes of Meaning and Omissions............................................................. 141 

CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSION ................................................................................... 147 

TRANSLATION AS COMMUNICATION ......................................................................... 147 

TRANSLATORS AS ETHICAL POWER AGENTS ........................................................... 148 

MARÍA LUZ MÉNDEZ AND THE USE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH 

(AAVE) ......................................................................................................................... 151 

COSTA RICA TO THE WORLD ................................................................................... 154 

THE FOREIGNIZING TRANSLATOR AS A SOCIAL ACTIVIST.......................................... 155 

THE CONTEMPORARY LITERARY READER ................................................................ 159 

FINAL OBSERVATIONS ............................................................................................. 163 

WORKS CITED ......................................................................................................... 165 

 



 
 

viii 
 



 

ix 
 

RESUMEN 

 

Esta tesis para la Maestría Académica en Literatura Inglesa analiza la manera en que las 

traducciones literarias extranjerizadas del español al inglés de Lawrence Venuti resisten 

el dominio cultural y la domesticación tradicional. Se realiza un análisis metadiscursivo 

de la tesis de traducción de María Luz Méndez, Cuentos de angustias y paisajes de 

Carlos Salazar Herrera The Plausibility of Substituting a Folk Dialect with a Regional 

Dialect.  El análisis examina, específicamente, el enfoque de traducción domesticada que 

adopta el inglés vernáculo afroamericano (AAVE) para traducir al campesino 

costarricense y los efectos que este tiene en distintos elementos y técnicas literarias. 

Luego, se contrasta el discurso de Méndez analizando traducciones de obras 

seleccionadas de Carmen Lyra por las traductoras Elizabeth Horan y Marinell James. 

Horan y James utilizan el enfoque de extranjerización de Lawrence Venuti en sus 

traducciones y logran retratar con precisión la cultura costarricense, respetando a la vez 

a la cultura meta. No obstante, dentro de los análisis se demuestra que en la transferencia 

cultural y de lenguaje de textos literarios costarricenses para una audiencia 

angloparlante, los y las traductoras, resisten el dominio cultural y la domesticación 

tradicional al adoptar el enfoque de extranjerización de Lawrence Venuti. De esta manera 

se explora la traducción literaria, específicamente la aplicación de los enfoques de la 

extranjerización frente a la domesticación y los desafíos que enfrentan los traductores 

para capturar la esencia del autor, no alterar el análisis literario y representar éticamente 

a una cultura. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

x 
 

ABSTRACT 

 

This thesis for the Academic Master's Degree in English Literature analyzes the way in 

which Lawrence Venuti's foreignized Spanish to English literary translations resist cultural 

dominance and traditional domestication. A metadiscursive analysis is carried out of 

María Luz Méndez's translation thesis, Cuentos de angustias y paisajes by Carlos Salazar 

Herrera The Plausibility of Substituting a Folk Dialect with a Regional Dialect. The analysis 

specifically examines the domesticated translation approach that African American 

Vernacular English (AAVE) adopts to translate the Costa Rican peasant and the effect 

this has on different literary elements and techniques. Translators Elizabeth Horan and 

Marinell James then contrast Méndez's translation approach with selected works by 

Carmen Lyra. Horan and James use Lawrence Venuti's foreignization approach in their 

translations and manage to accurately portray Costa Rican culture, while respecting the 

target culture. However, the analysis illustrates that in the cultural and language transfer 

of Costa Rican literary texts for an English-speaking audience, the translators resist 

cultural dominance and traditional domestication as they adopt Lawrence Venuti's 

foreignization approach. Thus, literary translation is explored, specifically the application 

of foreignization approaches versus domestication and the challenges that translators 

face to capture the essence of the author, not alter the literary analysis, and ethically 

represent a culture. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

xi 
 

 

LISTA DE TABLAS 

 

TABLE 1. LITERARY TRANSLATIONS PUBLISHED BY PERIOD IN COSTA RICA (COMPLETE OR 

PARTIAL; IN MAGAZINES, NEWSPAPERS, ANTHOLOGIES, OR MONOGRAPHS). ......................... 59 

TABLE 2. LITERARY TRANSLATIONS PUBLISHED PER YEAR DURING THE 2010-2015 PERIOD 

(IT ONLY INCLUDES THOSE PUBLISHED BY COSTA RICAN PUBLISHERS)................................. 60 

TABLE 3. LITERATURE CLASSICS TRANSLATED AND EDITED IN COSTA RICA ........................ 61 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

xii 
 

LISTA DE FIGURAS 

 

FIG. 1 AN IMAGE TO ILLUSTRATE TRANSLATION AS A PROCESS, JEREMY MUNDAY, 

INTRODUCING TRANSLATION STUDIES: THEORIES AND APPLICATIONS. ........................ 25 

FIG. 2 AN IMAGE TO ILLUSTRATE THE GLOSSARY OF TERMS OF HINDI WORDS IN ALKA JOSHI’S 

NOVEL THE HENNA ARTIST. ....................................................................................... 161 

FIG. 3 AN IMAGE TO ILLUSTRATE THE FOOTNOTES OF PHRASES IN CANTONESE AND HOKKIEN 

IN KEVIN KWAN’S NOVEL CRAZY RICH ASIANS. .......................................................... 162 

FIG. 4 AN IMAGE TO ILLUSTRATE THE FOOTNOTES OF PHRASES IN CANTONESE AND HOKKIEN 

IN KEVIN KWAN’S NOVEL CRAZY RICH ASIANS. .......................................................... 162 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



1 

 

 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION  

 

Literature acts as a social agent, as the eyes of the unknown, of the silenced, and of 

the “cultural other”. It also acts as the change for future generations and the world we live 

in. As scholars Stefano Arduini and Robert Hodgson state, literature is a vehicle that 

introduces readers to source cultures (84), and it is the best expression of the world; one 

in which humans are taught to tolerate and accept each other. Humanity’s expansion has 

created the multicultural world we live in, one in which cultural realities cannot and should 

not be hidden. Therefore, Costa Rican Spanish to English translators, should choose a 

foreignization approach to deliberately produce an effect that exposes and highlights the 

foreign text, culture, and literary elements. With a foreignized strategy, the reader will not 

be able to recognize himself but, on the other hand, will be able to uncover and understand 

a new culture. Moreover, Costa Rican texts, should not look to domesticate or overcome 

cultural differences, on the contrary, they should make them visible. Hence, the intention 

of literary translators should be to create original compositions, texts that emphasize and 

explain the Costa Rican culture, through their context and literary elements, to foreign 

readers, and not “fake copies”, letting translators be visible agents in the texts. Translators 

are power agents that can help the reader seek cultural openness and understand and face 

Costa Rican culture.  This project particularly seeks to enrich contemporary approaches in 

the fields of Translation Studies and Comparative Literature as it intends to foster cultural 

awareness and the ability to communicate; in addition, to foment translation strategies that 

resist cultural dominance and try to restrain traditional domestication in literature. This 

study will assuredly preserve and develop Costa Rican culture; and, given the inventive 

status and interdisciplinary nature, process, and outcomes, it will expectantly enrich the 

theories of Translation Studies, Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, and Spanish-

English literary translations. 

 

 

 

 

 



2 

 

Topic 

 

Lawrence Venuti’s foreignized Spanish-English literary translations resist cultural 

dominance and traditional domestication. 

 

 General Objective 

 

To demonstrate that in the cultural and language transfer of Costa Rican literary texts 

for an Anglophone speaking audience, translators resist cultural dominance and traditional 

domestication by mainly adopting Lawrence Venuti’s foreignization approach. 

 

Specific Objectives  

 

1. To explore literary translation, specifically the application of foreignization vs. 

domestication translation approaches, and the challenges translators confront to 

capture the essence and ethically represent cultures. 

2. To conduct a metadiscursive analysis on María Luz Méndez Salazar’s translation 

thesis, Cuentos de angustias y paisajes de Carlos Salazar Herrera The Plausibility 

of Substituting a Folk Dialect with a Regional Dialect; examining her domesticated 

translation approach as she adopts African American Vernacular English (AAVE) 

to translate the Costa Rican peasant’s dialect. 

3. To contrast Méndez’s discourse by demonstrating how literary translators Elizabeth 

Horan and Marinell James translate Carmen Lyra’s selected works using Lawrence 

Venuti’s foreignization approach while accurately portraying Costa Rican culture 

and respectfully acknowledging the target culture. 

 

 

 

 

 

 



3 

 

CHAPTER 2. JUSTIFICATION 

 

After completing the dissertation project, A Foreignizing Translation of Urbanoscopio, 

a Costa Rican Subversive Microfiction Collection by Fernando Contreras Castro for an MSc 

degree in Translation Studies from The University of Edinburgh, I realized that it was a 

great start to an even bigger project. It was an opportunity to explore Translation Studies 

from an interdisciplinary perspective and combine it with my Academic Master’s Degree in 

English Literature program from The University of Costa Rica. The MSc Translation Studies 

dissertation A Foreignizing Translation of Urbanoscopio, a Costa Rican Subversive 

Microfiction Collection by Fernando Contreras Castro consists of a Spanish-English 

translation and commentary of Costa Rican author Fernando Contreras Castro’s 

Microfiction collection Urbanoscopio. It premises a Spanish- English culturally didactic 

foreignized translation of Contreras’ work. It also adheres to the translation’s scope of 

strengthening democratic values, cultural identity, and developing intercultural 

understanding. The text’s translation and framework allowed for Venuti’s theories to be 

explored in the Translation Studies field, a contemporary academic area that is lacking 

exploration. 

Moreover, a few weeks after arriving in Costa Rica, I had the honor to assist to María 

Luz Méndez Salazar’s presentation of her translation of Carlos Salazar Herrera’s novel 

Cuentos de angustias y paisajes. Méndez read passages of her translation titled Short 

Stories of Anguish and Landscapes, expressed some of the challenges, and explained her 

translation approach. I saw her initiative and project as a significant input to our country 

and a passageway for Costa Rican literature to reach Anglophone speaking audiences. 

However, her translation approach significantly contrasted my standpoint and dissertation’s 

translation scope. In her translation, Méndez uses rules prescribed by African American 

Vernacular English (AAVE), a dialect currently spoken mostly in Southern states of the 

United States (Méndez viii), to translate the dialogue and way of speaking of Costa Rican 

peasants. From an ethical and culturally appropriate standpoint her approach results 

vexing since it does not capture or strengthen cultural identity. Therefore, I felt the need to 

explore the topic of translation approaches in Costa Rican translations further. I wanted to 

know if all, or at least some, of the translations took approaches like the one Méndez had 

attempted.   



4 

 

I then took up the task of finding other Costa Rican short stories that were translated 

and published. I was surprised to discover that it is not so simple to find Costa Rican literary 

texts that are published and translated for Anglophone speaking countries. After several 

weeks of research, I came across the text When New Flowers Bloomed: Short Stories by 

Women Writers from Costa Rica and Panama which is a “compilation of women writers 

from the Central American nations of Costa Rica and Panama who have distinguished 

themselves in the fields of short fiction and poetry during recent years” (Jaramillo cover 

copy). The book contains translations of the renown Costa Rican authors Emilia Macaya, 

Eunice Odio, Yolanda Oreamuno, Carmen Lyra and Julieta Pinto among others. I also 

came across the text The Subversive Voice of Carmen Lyra, translated and edited by 

Elizabeth Horan. I then chose to work specifically with Carmen Lyra’s short stories because 

she best portrays Costa Rican reality and living conditions in these stories and presents a 

variety of challenging translation aspects that fit perfectly with my scope. Lyra’s stories 

were all translated using the foreignization approach and therefore are great examples to 

prove my hypothesis and to reconsider Méndez’s translation approach.  

After translating Contrera’s text, and reading Méndez’s approach, I came to the 

conclusion that due to their nature, Latin American, and in this specific case Costa Rican 

literature, should be translated into the English language mainly by utilizing Lawrence 

Venuti’s foreignization approach. Even though, using foreignization as an exclusive 

strategy for the translation of Latin American texts is an ambitious project due to several 

aspects I will further address. However, it is the most effective way to truthfully represent a 

wide range of aspects in a specific culture.  

I was able to justify the University of Edinburgh’s dissertation because its brief consists 

of a hypothetical situation in which the Ministry of Culture believed that volunteers traveling 

to Costa Rica with different social work organizations needed special training and support; 

therefore, the Ministry felt that the best way to immerse volunteers, or in that case anyone 

travelling to Costa Rica, into its social reality was through its literature. The brief was a 

culturally- didactic oriented translation which allowed the translation to have explanations 

within the translation. For example, in one of the short stories, I included within the 

translation, the explanation that Juan Santamaria is our national hero. In translations which 

are not meant to be didactic this is too ambitious and not publishable. However, I still do 

believe Venuti’s theories should be mainly implemented, even if the publication of these 

can limit the foreignized experience at times, which I will further explain in the analysis. 



5 

 

However, translator Elizabeth Horan proves that foreignized translations are possible and 

that they can do justice to the subversive voices of Carlos Salazar Herrera and Carmen 

Lyra.  

 

What Is Translation and Why Does It Matter in the Academic Arena? 

 

"Translation" is by now a word that needs translating 

- André Lefevere 

 

According to British translator Jeremy Munday, the term translation has several 

meanings since it can refer to the subject field, to the text that is translated, or to the act of 

producing the translation (5-6). For Gabrielle Schultz, in a deeper philosophical sense, 

“translation deals with the challenge of carrying complex moments across language and 

cultural borders” (2). Nonetheless, Schultz believes words are very sensitive and “no word 

can ever fully express the nature of a situation or an emotion” (2). On the other hand, 

pioneering scholars and translators, Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere view translation 

objectively and define it as the rewriting of an original text (xi). They further state that all 

rewritings reflect a certain ideology, therefore; they manipulate literature to function in a 

given society in a given way (Bassnett and Lefevere xi). Furthermore, they explain that 

these manipulative texts can help in the evolution of literature and society by introducing 

new concepts, genres, devices, and literary innovation; or in other words, the shaping of 

one culture upon another (Bassnett and Lefevere xi). As American translator, Edith 

Grossman asserts, translation matters since it expands our ability to explore through 

literature “the thoughts and feelings of people from another society or another time as well 

as to savor the transformation of the foreign into the familiar and for a brief time to live 

outside our own skins, our own preconceptions, and misconceptions” (14.) To expand on 

this belief, Rainer Schulte states that “translation does matter in a global world where 

nations and languages interact on a daily basis” (2). However, he argues that even though 

it matters, the concept and practice of translation are treated as unimportant in the 

academic arena and the audience has little idea of what is involved in the process of 

carrying texts from one language to another (Schulte 1). Nevertheless, the study of 

translation “touches on the very core of translation and literary theory” (Lefevere 131) and 

has, as writer Debiani Ganguly points out, “the inventive status and interdisciplinary nature, 



6 

 

process, and outcomes, it will expectantly enrich” (127). Discussion over the definition or 

standpoint of the meaning or significance of translation is extensive and problematic among 

scholars and critics as it has become a contemporary academic discipline. 

British linguist, Jeremy Munday explains that the study of translation as an academic 

subject began fifty years ago and what is known as Translation Studies became popular 

thanks to scholar James S. Holmes (5). Writings on the subject of translation date back to 

Cicero and Horace; however, the practice as an academic discipline began only a few 

decades ago (Munday 8). Translation Studies can be defined as the academic discipline 

related to the study of the theory and phenomena of translation; its nature is multilingual 

and interdisciplinary, embracing communication studies, philosophy, cultural studies, 

languages, linguistics, and basically all the humanities (Munday 1). Moreover, American 

translator and Comparative Literature professor Sandra Bermann, states that the 

disciplinary field of Translation Studies grew with globalization, specifically with the 

increase of migration from people around the globe, and even with war (438). As translation 

became a visible discipline, a separate sphere of practice and knowledge, translation and 

comparative literature crossed paths regularly and closely, especially since translation 

poses timely questions for the humanities in general (Bermann 438). As Bermann further 

states, the practice, and reflections of both areas “create important and ongoing relations 

across time, language, and geographic space, among texts and their specific language, 

texts that serve as source texts, those that are translations, those that are retranslations, 

and those that are retranslations of retranslations” (438-9). In essence, both translation and 

comparative literature, invite new encounters and associations. (Bermann 438-9). 

 

Translation and Comparative Literature 

 

According to translation theorist André Lefevere in Translating Literature: Practice and 

Theory in a Comparative Literature, the relationship between comparative literature and 

translation did not have the most favorable of starts (1). He claims this was due to 

“nationalistic thinking” or the belief that the only language of importance was the one 

spoken in the country of origin (Lefevere 3). However, as soon as the country’s literature 

tried to go beyond its borders, translations became a necessity (Lefevere 3). Culture, art, 

and literature cannot develop in isolation but call into play history, politics, religion, culture, 

and other works. Therefore, since Comparative Literature is a cross-cultural and 



7 

 

transdisciplinary process, it must rely on translations. Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere 

stated that “translation is a major shaping force in the development of world culture and no 

study of comparative literature can take place without translations” (12). They even believe 

that Comparative Literature should be considered a subcategory of Translation Studies 

(Bassnett and Lefevere 12). It was not until the 1980s that translation as a practice and 

theory became central to Comparative Literature and that the literary and linguistic canon 

as well as scholars worldwide acknowledged the necessity of studying translation 

(Washington University in St. Louis, par.7). Moreover, Translation Studies, with its new 

theories, increases the range of Comparative Literature. 

Translation can be seen directly as Comparative Literature when a single language 

renders and moves from one specialized discourse to another (literature to art history, 

literature to politics, literature to history) or even from a dialect, a historical moment, or a 

word to a definition (Bermann 439). All those instances are examples of translated literature 

in the same language. Or in Bermann’s words, “translation focuses its attention on the 

question of language itself and the multilinguistic and multicultural interweaving it entails” 

(440). As American Translator Edith Grossman states and aligned with Venuti’s theory, “it 

permits us to savor the transformation of the foreign into the familiar and for a brief time to 

live outside our own skins, our own preconceptions and misconceptions, and expands and 

deepens our world, our consciousness, in countless, indescribable ways” (Yale University 

Press, par. 5). Nonetheless, translator María Tymoczko describes translation as “an activity 

with a set of ethics, ideology, and politics, rather than a linguistic activity (443). She further 

states that translation plays a significant role in shaping societies and nations in different 

ways such that it can make pivotal changes on the globalized world (459). In brief, 

translation expands the experience of exploring through literature the thoughts and 

emotions of other societies and times. 

 

Translation Ethics 

 

Translation Studies, as a recent discipline, is not legally supported by a code of ethics 

or norms. Some countries, including Costa Rica, have agreements for translators that 

concern the rates and the legal process of becoming a certified translator, but these 

agreements do not mention ethical or unethical legal practices. Translators are clear on the 

theory of ethics and norms in translation; however, in practice translations are merely seen 



8 

 

as good or bad subjectively. For example, in Translation Ethics: From Invisibility to 

Difference, Xénon Cruz believes translation should be seen as an activity with ethical 

implications and translators as its potential ethical agents, seeing that they play a central 

role in the cultural systems, shaping societies and nations in an increasingly globalized 

world (96-97). In fact, one should look at translation not merely as a [contrastive] linguistic 

exercise, but as an action grounded in ethical principles and framed in a certain ideological 

and political sphere. It is of interest to reflect about ethics in translation because translations 

can, in a very pragmatic sense, affect the lives of the people (Cruz 98). According to Belgian 

scholar Theo Hermans, “translations were one of the primary literary tools that larger social 

institutions, educational systems, arts councils, publishing firms, and even governments 

had at their disposal to manipulate a given society in order to construct the kind of culture 

desired” (10). Translators are able to manipulate source texts and target readers therefore 

their decisions become an ethical matter.  

Scholar Anthony Pym (qtd. in Cruz 102) elaborates on the ethical role translators might 

play as cultural mediators, regarding translation itself as an intercultural transaction. 

Equipped with all their linguistic and cultural tools, professional translators become 

something like strategists in the communicational space established between two different 

cultures. Considering this, it is of no small importance to reemphasize the way translators 

can define themselves as ethical agents (Cruz 102). Furthermore, Wyke (qtd. in Cruz 103), 

states that ethics does not involve simply declaring fidelity [to the source text], but, instead, 

sorting through difficult decisions and taking responsibility for those taken”. However, 

English and Translation Studies professor Annjo Greenall, states that JRR Tolkien’s 

“Nomenclature” in The Lord of the Rings, after the Dutch and Swedish translations came 

out, “clearly subscribes to, and hence indirectly promotes, an ethics of fidelity” (11).  Tolkien 

explains that names in general “should be left entirely unchanged in any language used in 

translation, except that inflexional -s, -es should be rendered according to the grammar of 

the language” (155). Greenall clarifies that “Tolkien also provides a 21-page-long list of 

exceptions to this rule, with detailed instructions on how specific names and things should 

be translated, as in the entry for the surname Appledore” (11). As Greenall states “literature 

is an area with a strong sense of textual ownership, so that the focus on ethics of 

representation is not surprising” (12). He adds that “the fact that this seems to be a strong 

concern among authors is of course unsurprising, in that it is their reputation that is on the 

line, given that most readers of the translations will have accepted the ‘translation pact’, a 



9 

 

construct leading to the reading of the translated version as if it were the original” (Greenall 

12). Greenall insists that “although some literary authors do not want to have anything to 

do with the translation of their works, the responsibility of the translator to consult the author 

in cases of uncertainty or doubt – arguably an aspect of the ethics of service – is a theme 

that seems to strongly underlie authors’ reflections” (12). Unfortunately, Carlos Luis Salazar 

is not here with us today to guide the translation of Cuentos de Angustias y Paisajes and 

best judge how he wants his stories to be translated. Nevertheless, María Luz Méndez 

irresponsibly fails as an ethical agent in the transfer of the source culture and literary 

elements. She does not make enlightened decisions with the situations she finds herself 

in. She dismantles the foreign linguistic and cultural differences and representations, as 

well as her own, in what she believes is an attempt to live up to the expectations of the 

target reader. Unfortunately, María Luz Méndez overlooks her power as a translator and 

unethically creates false images of the cultures and societies she translates.  

 

Translation Studies Approaches  

 

Translation Studies was subdivided for a recompilation in the Benjamins Translation 

Studies Bibliography into approaches, theories, research methods, and applied translation 

studies as it established itself as an academic discipline (Munday 22). For example, some 

schools of thoughts include: Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet’s “Equivalence”, Itamar 

Evan-Zohar’s “Theory of Polysystems”, Katharina Reiss and Hans Vermeer’s “Skopos 

Theory”, as well as Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere’s “Cultural Translation” (Munday 

23). Some fields of inquiry consist of: Translation History, Sociologies of Translation, Post-

Colonial Translation Studies, Gender Studies, and Ethics.  However, for this investigation’s 

purpose, the translation strategies (approaches and theories) that will be discussed, some 

more thoroughly than others are: Domestication, Foreignization, Equivalence, Skopos 

Theory, Translation Ethics, Cultural Translation, Literary Translation, Translation History, 

and Contrastive Linguistics.  

 

Lawrence Venuti’s Foreignization 

 

Translation theorist and historian, Lawrence Venuti and his approaches are a source 

of debate among critics. His main objective is to demonstrate the central importance of the 



10 

 

translator and make him or her a visible presence in the text. In The Translator’s Invisibility: 

A History of Translation, Venuti acknowledges Schleiermacher, who distinguishes between 

the translator who chooses a “domesticating method, an ethnocentric reduction of the 

foreign text to target-language cultural values, bringing the author back home and the 

translator who chooses a foreignizing method that values registering the linguistic and 

cultural difference of the foreign text, sending the reader abroad” (15).  Venuti recommends 

the latter and further explains that the terms domestication and foreignization indicate what 

he calls ethical attitudes towards a foreign text and culture, or effects produced by the 

strategy devised to translate it (19). He also states that foreign translations resist dominant 

target-language cultural values to evidence the language and cultural differences of the 

foreign text (Venuti 23). 

Foreignized translation is a term specifically used by Venuti to “designate the type of 

translation in which a Target Text (TT) is produced which deliberately breaks target 

conventions by retaining the foreignness of the original” (18). The translator who opts to 

foreignize, challenges the linguistic, aesthetic, and political status quo of the work. In the 

act of questioning the pastness of the past, of re-forming or challenging the current, easy, 

comfortable canons, the translator, according to Venuti, performs “an act of cultural 

restoration which aims to question and possibly re-form, or simply smash the idea of, 

domestic canons” (308-9). This ‘smashing’ of domestic canons is the central idea of what 

should happen in Costa Rican English-Spanish literary translations. This investigation 

follows Venuti’s recommendation of sending the reader abroad by including Costa Rica’s 

idiosyncrasy in the TT. Translators who adopt a foreignizing approach become visible 

translators as they enable the reader to learn and appreciate a new and foreign culture. 

These foreignized literary translation productions are means that foster cultural awareness 

and the ability to communicate, in other words, translations that can resist cultural 

dominance, allow foreign influences to infiltrate the text, and restrain traditional 

domestication.  

 

 

 

 

 

 



11 

 

CHAPTER 3. REVIEW OF LITERATURE 

  

Even though both Carmen Lyra and Carlos Salazar Herrera are established authors, a 

limited number of reviews and investigations by scholars and critics are published. Carlos 

Salazar has even less reviews and investigations about his works than Carmen Lyra. Most 

of what is written on them praises their colorfulness and contribution to Costa Rican 

literature. As mentioned previously, what is certain is that both authors’ works constitute 

great cultural information warehouses and their contributions have allowed the questioning 

of concepts of the past, present, and future of Costa Rican culture. More precisely, they 

have stimulated readers to consider the transformations that have affected the country’s 

economy as well as its population. Criticism of both authors will be reviewed below.  

 

The Costa Rican Context 

 

The Republic of Costa Rica with its capital in San José, is not only considered a natural 

beauty paradise, but also a Central American peace haven after 1949. The absence of an 

army and its ecological richness have positioned the country as a tourist destination at an 

international level. However, this does not mean that the country is exempt of violence, 

discontent, or governmental dysfunction, especially in recent years.  Nonetheless, Costa 

Rican authors have made the multiple damages and their consequences of a corrupted 

population that suffers from the impossibility of speaking up for themselves: as well as the 

fears that have prevailed in Costa Rican urban and rural society throughout the decades 

visible, through their writings (MEP-ICER 44). Social problems that are not new or foreign 

are materialized in both national and international literature. There was a contradiction 

between the images of the idyllic Costa Rican territory and the grim and grotesque images 

portrayed by authors of a less understood side of the brochure (Calderon 178). Fred 

Perkins, Pearson’s CEO, stresses that in today’s political climate, publishers, booksellers, 

and writers, have the collective mission of revealing the truth to readers (Taylor, par.4). 

Likewise, subversive text publications, especially when revealing the harsh realities citizens 

prefer to evade, are critical, since no progress or change takes place when realities are 

eluded. The best way to immerse readers into Costa Rican social realities and step away 

from the Costa Rican ‘utopic paradise’ is through its literature. The Constitution of Costa 

Rica establishes the necessity to “preserve and expand our cultural heritage by imparting 



12 

 

knowledge while interacting with people from other cultures and respecting their values” 

(MEP-ICER 46). In an article for Publisher’s Weekly, journalist Sally Taylor mentions that 

in recent years, Central America is the new marketplace for Latin American and United 

States publishers (Taylor, par.3). Consequently, publishers have promoted a deeper 

understanding of developing countries, global citizenship, and intercultural competency. 

Not only authors, but translators as well, should strive with their publications to strengthen 

democratic values and cultural identity, and to develop intercultural understanding. Both 

Costa Rican authors, Carmen Lyra and Carlos Salazar Herrera as well as their Spanish-

English translators, act as agents of change that explore Costa Rican social reality. The 

Costa Rican authors’ writings reveal several difficulties in their texts allowing readers to 

take a glimpse of the country’s global reality through their short stories. The issues 

uncovered in their works exceed national limits as they coincide with problems of global 

interest like marginalization, social exclusion, poverty, vices, and misery. The problems 

exposed in the Costa Rican plantations during the 1920’s not only affected the Costa Rican 

workers but imaged the working conditions in many countries around the globe. For 

example, in the 1920s, specifically in United States factories, workplace injuries and deaths 

were common and, in many cases, labor conditions were strenuous.  The culturally- 

specific nature of the writings, based on Costa Rica’s urban and rural decay, and the 

problems of transferring the Spanish language for Anglophone speakers obliges carefully 

considered translation strategies. Therefore, the relevance of the short stories’ themes to 

worldwide readers, in addition to the shared belief of literature to create social awareness, 

unity, and change, make the culturally- oriented translations into foreignized English 

translations appropriate. 

 

Carlos Salazar Herrera and Cuentos de angustias y paisajes 

 

Carlos Salazar Herrera, author of Cuentos de angustias y paisajes, was born in San 

José Costa Rica in 1906 and died in 1980. He won the Premio Magón de Cultura and was 

a university professor, painter, sculpturer, engraver, carpenter, and poet, who according to 

the Editorial Costa Rica, “wrote stories which such a trace and colorfulness that they 

seemed as if narrated with a brush” (Editorial Costa Rica, par. 2-3). Salazar’s writings have 

won him a privileged place amongst Costa Rican writers because of his unique depiction 

of life and natural landscapes of our country but in such a unique way that they have 



13 

 

become a crucial part of Costa Rican literature. Translator Méndez acknowledges this as 

she writes in her thesis that Salazar Herrera “gathered” the 15 stories he has published in 

Repertorio Americano before the 1948 war and published them as Cuentos de angustias 

y paisajes (143). She adds to this that it was “so well received by the public that in 1964, 

along with the engravings with which he illustrated eight out of his thirty stories, it won for 

the author the Premio Nacional de Cultura Magón, the highest award a person can achieve 

for his/ her contribution to the country’s culture” (Méndez 143). Critics have emphasized 

that Salazar can be praised by the originality he achieved in the use of metaphors, the 

briefness but at the same time the precision of his style, the chromatism, and the way he 

plays simultaneously with human psychology and nature in his stories (qtd. in Bonilla, 122). 

Moreover, the vigor in his prose as well as how he stylishly describes nature and the 

precision in which he describes his character’s psychological condition characterize his 

work (qtd. in Portuguez, 181). Scholars have also studied the tension and intensity in his 

short stories as well as the deconstruction of his style (qtd. In Ovares and Rojas, 122). In 

her article, Latin-American critic Flora Ovares stresses the role these stories play in the 

construction of national discourse (Ovares 47). As poet Isaac Felipe Azofeifa clearly states, 

“Salazar’s stories respond to the literary spirit movement that came to substitute the 

exhausted narrative tradition at the beginning of the century” (Azofeifa 18). The poet adds 

that Salazar Herrera’s writing, like most produced around the year 40, breaks with tradition 

since, in his stories, the wakes, marriages, cock fights, and festivities seem to have 

disappeared from literature (18). He adds that even the famous politician, the teacher and 

even the sometimes detailed and ironic presence of the peasant, with his life and customs, 

do not leave breathing space for fantasy in the reader and disappear from Salazar’s 

realism.  His stories, on the other hand, portray an orderly world, one without ambiguities, 

without more surprises than those within “the strict game of human institutions” (Azofeifa 

18).   

Cuentos de angustias y paisajes was written in 1947. The compilation consists of 30 

short stories in which Salazar describes the day-to-day activities of his characters with a 

“stylized, idiosyncratic romanticism” (Méndez 9). Méndez adds that Salazar Herrera’s short 

stories “were written during the early days of the twentieth century, when the country 

offered only poverty to most of its people (142). She explains that a selected group were in 

control of the coffee oligarchy and exploited the working class who included the 

denominated cholos, blacks and farm workers in the country (Méndez 142). Salazar’s story 



14 

 

collection, as stated by professor and author Jesús Cárdenas, expresses landscapes, 

societies, and languages from different regions of Costa Rica and in them emotions appear 

hurriedly. Cárdenas also indicates that Salazar achieves “universality expressed through 

sensibility in the rural landscapes with the most humane part of the Costa Rican peasant,” 

(www.intercultura.com, par.3). In the second half of the twentieth century Cuentos de 

angustias y paisajes became one of the most renown works of Costa Rican literature as 

Salazar’s stories were deemed to be “enhanced by skillfully chosen lexicon to portray the 

social and academic status of his characters” (Méndez 9). Likewise, Professor Sonia Jones 

states that in Cuentos de angustias y paisajes he successfully achieves to “amalgamate 

the Costa Rican rural landscape with the most humane part of its peasants in the first half 

of the XX Century” (52). She further asserts that Salazar Herrera is different from other 

authors who portray the Costa Rican country people in a caricaturized way; he, on the other 

hand, exalts the anguish of the characters that gain universal dimensions and are 

representative of universal human passions (Jones 52). She argues that Costa Ricans can 

mirror their culture and themselves; not only this, but these emotions go beyond borders 

and the reader can sense the universality of the themes and all the human emotions 

present in each story (Jones 52). Professor Tatiana Herrera states a similar idea, 

expressing that every story in Cuentos de angustias y paisajes is precisely that, an anguish 

and a landscape that create a relationship in the psyche of characters, maybe not as 

reflexively, but very eloquently in their actions (80). She adds that the compilation speaks 

about the complex human condition and does not limit itself to the beautiful descriptions 

highlighted (Herrera 80). Costa Rican painter and professor Emilia Prieto adds that 

“Salazar’s characters feel a lot, they exist, but that existence is not expressed by them, but 

by the reduced scenarios through which they travel” (Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud, par. 

7). As a poet himself, Azofeifa beliefs that the stylistic enchantment that arises from Salazar 

Herrera’s stories comes from their lyric (15). Moreover, Flora Ovares emphasizes that 

decades after it was written, Salazar Herrera’s text still captivates because while he draws 

a country’s reality, it integrates and appeals to the reader who is reflected in the great 

passions of its simple characters. The critic adds that the book appeals to the reader’s 

participation, who oversees constructing the national landscape- both natural and human- 

in the act of reading; even the “subtle” police structure in some of the stories is a challenge 

to the reader (Ovares 47). Ovares suggests that Cuentos de angustias y paisajes plays 



15 

 

with the reader, presenting false clues, and hiding the truth between suggestive lines and 

strokes (Ovares 53).  

Azofeifa explains that short stories often carry a great range of topics, characters, and 

a particular view of the world (2). He adds that stories are usually a collection in which each 

story shoots in a different direction (Azofeifa 2). However, he further explains that in 

Salazar’s stories, they all integrate, and they all share an aesthetic unity; an image of the 

world and of men as they repeat themselves through so many different themes and 

structures sharing the same understanding of the world (Azofeifa 2). Additionally, the poet 

states that the characters and nature share so many influences that “humans become 

nature” while “nature becomes human” (Azofeifa 2).  Ovares adds that the colorfulness in 

nature has a stretch relationship with the characters who are lost by their jealousy, love 

and hate, fears, illusions, and dreams (Ovares, par. 6). According to Ovares the conflicts 

the characters face is not determined by their economic situation, or offer details about 

their racial or social attributes, as happens in his narrative a few years later (Ovares 48). 

Ovares also expresses that characters who are usually identified as peasants due to their 

attire, are able to step away from this image because what really matters to Salazar is their 

anguish, pain, and feelings: in other words, the text insists that social situations or skin 

color are not relevant even if the characters identify themselves as the Cholo, Indio, or 

Mestizo; their passions, let them be revenge, betrayal or love, are what attract the reader 

(Ovares, par. 6). The Cholo, Indio, and Mestizo do not appear isolated by the color of their 

skin; rather, the stories always highlight the human condition, or what makes every race 

equal (Ovares 48). Azofeifa explains that it is no secret that all the characters are peasants, 

but it is not home, family, nor the peasant’s life in his own house or village what interests 

here (20). He believes that all the stories show the case of the man who has chosen 

loneliness (20). Furthermore, another general trait of Salazar’s humanity depiction is the 

absence of value judgements about the world. Azofeifa affirms that his characters do not 

judge the world they live in, they are not above or below it, they let go without opposing, 

without reflecting on good or bad, and in general there lies a natural disposition to abandon 

the fight and yield before unfavorable or adverse circumstances (19).  

Besides the studies of the works summarized above, Carlos Salazar Herrera does not 

have a great amount of published criticism; but reviewers agree that Salazar Herrera 

intertwines a well-painted description of nature and the emotions evoked in the stories. 

Critics believe that Costa Ricans can represent their culture and themselves through 



16 

 

Salazar’s writing, in particular the way he paints the anguish, pain, hurt and all those 

feelings that have no borders, race or social standing in his stories. These emotions 

trespass borders and the reader can sense the universality of the themes and all the human 

emotions evoked in each story. It is no surprise then that The Costa Rican Council of Higher 

Education submitted the novel as a suggested high school reading for teenagers across 

the country for its national identity value. The colorful human emotions evoked by his 

writings have made him one of the most accomplished “mirrors” in which Costa Ricans can 

see and feel themselves (Editorial Costa Rica, par. 3). According to Azofeifa, Cuentos de 

angustias y paisajes was not noticed in Costa Rican society when it was first published but 

he states that, “this is no surprise since this happens often in our country” (17). Azofeifa 

describes Salazar as a sort of sniper, a rebel that shoots desperately until he remains silent 

(Azofeifa 18) and describes his writing as always literally true (Azofeifa 17). Ovares 

believes that “re-reading these stories constitutes an unforgettable experience for the 

reader, that continues discovering in them new rhythms, colors, unpublished views of the 

world and of himself” (par. 6). This emblematic work of Costa Rican literature was first 

translated to the English language by the academic María Luz Méndez and published by 

the Editorial de la Universidad Nacional (Euna) in March 2017. Méndez reaffirms the 

scholars and critics position that Salazar Herrera “explores powerful and universal themes 

like unrequited love, revenge, treachery and the unequal battle between men equipped 

with nothing but hand tools and the savage strength of nature while they all take place in a 

setting that is impeccably described and uniquely Costa Rican” (www.euna.una.ac.cr, 

par.4). Therefore, it is only fair to translate Salazar’s well-crafted writing in a foreignized 

translation which sends the reader abroad to the picturesque landscapes and language of 

the Costa Rican peasant.  

 

Short Stories of Anguish and Landscapes by María Luz Méndez Salazar 

 

Méndez Salazar, professor at the School of Literature and Language Sciences from 

the Universidad Nacional (UNA) and who graduated from the master’s program in 

Translation from this university, challenged herself to transmit the traditionalist spirit of the 

Costa Rican peasant but also to be faithful to Carlos Salazar’s work in English (Barrantes, 

par. 3). Her fascination with these texts began when she was assigned the translations of 

“La Ventana” and then “La Calera” as part of her master’s program. She then translated 



17 

 

the complete story collection which she turned into her thesis project Costa Rican Short 

Stories of Anguish and Landscapes. Méndez included a monograph in which she gave the 

theoretical and academic support of her investigation (Barrantes, par. 3). The translator 

turned to the African American Vernacular English (AAVE) to translate the Costa Rican 

peasant dialect and to other sources such as forums to what she states, “contributed to 

making the text more universal” (Barrantes, par. 8). The published English version is also 

illustrated with Carlos Salazar’s own engravings. I will refer to African American Vernacular 

English (AAVE), as well as to other approaches in the Theoretical Framework below. Even 

though this emblematic Costa Rican work was translated into English, a year later no 

scholar or critic reviews or studies are available. The translated novel was introduced to 

the public in 2017 at the national Book Fair, a publication about this event was made in the 

newspaper La República at the Universidad Nacional’s website, but no other publications 

on the transcendence and/or impact that this publication will have internationally or on how 

literary critics and other translators received it was made.  

 

Carmen Lyra and Her Works 

 

María Isabel Carvajal was born in 1887, 19 years before Carlos Salazar. She wrote 

about social matters in her first narrations (Contreras and Villalobos 1). Carmen Lyra, María 

Isabel’s pseudonym, made a lasting impression on the Costa Rican literary world 

(González 73). According to Professor Ann González, she was recognized, not only for her 

contribution to adult and children’s literature, but also for her leadership in politics and her 

efforts to improve socio-economic conditions especially for Costa Rican women and 

children (González 73).  She was the first person in Costa Rica to “write fiction attacking 

Yankee imperialism and decrying the conditions on the foreign-run banana plantations” 

(González 74). Furthermore, at the beginning of the twentieth century there was a mixed 

process of modernization and social and political effervescence which redefined the gender 

system and journalistic discussion that influenced the incorporation of women in politics 

(Mora 65). Within this process, Carmen Lyra’s literary career became a protagonist in the 

public scope. She became a feminist leader and between the years 1910 and 1920 she 

was known as a children’s literature writer, a teacher at the Escuela Normal and the 

Escuela Maternal, as an activist for her social concerns, and working close to the social 

politics of the liberal state. All of this earned her recognition as a public figure (Mora 79). 



18 

 

As mentioned earlier, Carmen Lyra is tied to the development of Costa Rican children’s 

literature from the first half of the twentieth century for different reasons. She directed 

Heredia’s Escuela Normal, and she co-created with Joaquín García Monge a section in the 

National Library dedicated to children and teenager’s books. Moreover, she was part of the 

first literary- didactic magazine San Salerín (1913-1914) and is the author of Short Stories 

of My Aunt Panchita, which is the first publication that gathered Costa Rican folkloric story- 

telling (Vásquez 182). These stories have had great editorial success since they have 

Costa Rican elements such as: traditions, customs, religion, habits, and dialect. According 

to Magdalena Vásquez, those who have analyzed the text, agree that it recollects Costa 

Rican forms of expression and background which makes adults seek this specific literature 

as well (187). This book is one of the most popular books in Costa Rican society because 

it has a close connection with the Costa Rican and universal cultural heritage; as well as 

fascinating audiences of all ages, especially children (Vásquez 187). Children’s literature, 

like all literature, questions and legitimates, it is subversive and sometimes an accomplice, 

a product of oral tradition, and it is part of the imagination and creativity of the people who 

form part of a collectivity, and so they reproduce ideas and behaviors fostered by ideologies 

(Vásquez 187).  

Carmen Lyra’s book Short Stories of My Aunt Panchita was published on April 1920. 

Its second edition, which was part of the series “El convivio” and directed by Joaquín García 

Monge, was considered as the most interesting contribution that Costa Rica can offer to 

popular children’s literature across the globe (González 105). In several publications, Lyra 

clarifies that the short stories are oral recollections, and in the prologue, she recreates the 

storyteller, a character called Aunt Panchita (González 106). Moreover, Professor 

González believes that teachers make the ideal author and data compiler profile, since 

teachers are in contact with parents and children (108). González also states that The 

Adventures of Uncle Rabbit are deposits of “cultural treasures” and not altered by urban 

modernity in Costa Rican books and magazines, especially in rural areas (González 108). 

The professor strongly believes that the success of the stories is mostly due to the 

adherence of a regional linguistic code (108). According to Gerardo Contreras and Ana 

Irene Villalobos’ article, while Lyra was a teacher, she witnessed firsthand the magnitude 

of the social problems that Costa Rica faced during the early 1900s. Her questioning spirit 

made her political thoughts very dynamic and adjusted to the political and historical realities 

of the time (Contreras and Villalobos 2). The authors add that Lyra’s thoughts which were 



19 

 

projected in her literary pages are rooted in the national political struggles. According to 

translator Elizabeth Horan another unique characteristic Lyra possessed was that “her 

gender enabled her to speak for schoolteachers as few others would and could” (Horan 

12). Horan further explains that with urban poverty and its consequences, these teachers 

questioned and rejected the idealistic and theoretical training they were offered (14-15). 

Carmen Lyra was enraged with the pedagogical theories she was taught since she believed 

they ignored the conditions of the children’s lives (Horan 15). She considered 

contradictions endured in this formal form of education since teachers were concerned with 

the children’s hygiene but seemed to ignore the social context in which they were raised 

(Horan 15). Carmen Lyra’s principles are also evident in her stories for adults Cuentos del 

Barrio Cothnejo-Fishy, her first major publication following her return from Europe (Horan 

13). In these stories she “satirizes the pretensions of the comfortably wealthy, or those who 

wanted to appear so” (Horan 13). With “naturalism’s characteristic exaggeration”, Lyra puts 

her character’s lives, through her omniscient narrator, under the microscope, revealing the 

“imbecility of their entertainment and pretensions to taste and pedigree” (Horan 14). 

Carmen Lyra’s rebellious spirit and writing can only be represented with a translation 

approach that does justice to all the ideas and criticism she wanted to transmit. She would 

probably have never allowed her words to be domesticated into any other culture and would 

have liked for children and adults in and out of Costa Rica to live the reality and culture her 

stories portray.  

 

Elizabeth Rosa Horan’s The Subversive Voice of Carmen Lyra  

 

In 2000, Elizabeth Rosa Horan wrote Carmen Lyra’s first Spanish- English translation: 

The Subversive Voice of Carmen Lyra. Elizabeth Rosa Horan is the director of comparative 

studies in literature and associate professor of English at Arizona State University. She 

holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz and is 

the author of the award-winning book Gabriela Mistral: An Artist and Her People and 

translation editor of House of Memory: Short Stories by Latin American Jewish Women 

Writers (Arizona State University, par. 4). Nowadays, Horan teaches Latin American and 

US Literature and conducts research in the areas of women and gender studies and 

translation (Arizona State University, par. 2). Horan’s translation of the Costa Rican writer 

includes her popular folktales, including her most famous work, Tales of My Aunt Panchita 



20 

 

and highlights her influential social criticism (University Press of Florida, par. 2). Lyra's 

satire of high society is represented through realism in Tales of the Cothnejo-Fishy District, 

and her narrative Silhouettes from the Maternal School describes the creation of Latin 

America's first Montessori kindergarten. Lyra also denounces the exploitation of workers in 

Bananas and Men, while Golden Bean reveals the corrupted trades that take place in the 

coffee business. Although Lyra's writings represent the underlying’s of this collection, 

Horan’s essay offers an essential cultural background unfamiliar to many in the United 

States. According to the University Press of Florida’s review, “those readers interested in 

Latin American literature, women writers, and folktales will find this book interesting and 

informative” (par. 4).  

Carmen Lyra’s and Carlos Herrera Salazar’s voices travel across the convoluted but 

restrained landscapes of Costa Rica. The authors put notes of realism in their writings, 

make them political, and place popular resistance in their narratives. In their outlines of 

Costa Rican life and customs, social satire appears beside their unique picturesque styles. 

Carmen Lyra’s work critiques the roles of sex and gender; she mocks national clichés and 

denounces the corruption that permeates Northern and Southern hemispheric relations 

(Horan 3). Both Cuentos de angustias y paisajes and Carmen Lyra’s short stories share 

the same characteristic: they represent change and crisis scenarios, illustrated by 

corruption, vice and the anguish and restlessness of an uncertain future (Cárdenas, par.6). 

Both texts portray situations of social exclusion where the marginal individuals turn into 

everyday landscapes. These author’s works force us to consider the social conditions of 

both Costa Rica and the United States together with present political and social realities. 

Through Horan’s translation, readers who are unfamiliar with Central American literature 

will experience a distinctive perspective through a voice who refuses to assimilate the 

reader’s culture. Carmen Lyra questions the myth of Costa Rica as the “tropical paradise” 

and criticizes this nation-built construct. Horan highlights Carmen Lyra’s active resistance 

of these preconceived notions in her foreignized translation. Horan states that Carmen Lyra 

“challenges domestic canons and registers the region’s cultural hybridity while using this 

to legitimate her gritty descriptions of Costa Rica at the onset of the twentieth century” (3). 

This research demonstrates that even though both translators draw on Costa Rica’s reality; 

Horan foreignizes her translation acknowledging Lyra’s own rebellious voice and defying a 

domesticated interpretation of its social, and political context, while Méndez domesticates 



21 

 

her translation as she adopts the African American Vernacular English (AAVE) to translate 

the Costa Rican peasant’s dialect.  

 

When New Flowers Bloomed “Short Stories by Women Writers from Costa Rica and 

Panama” Edited by Enrique Jaramillo Levi 

 

Enrique Jaramillo Levi prepared this anthology of translations while he was a Spanish 

American Literature Professor at Oregon State University. Its preliminary investigation was 

done at the University of Texas at Austin while he was working as a Fulbright Scholar. The 

anthology was published in 1991 by the Latin American Literary Review Press and financed 

by the National Endowment for the Arts (Jaramillo 22). It includes translations from the 

following women Costa Rican writers: Delfina Collado, Carmen Lyra, Emilia Macaya, 

Rosibel Morera, Carmen Naranjo, Eunice Odio, Yolanda Oreamuno, Julieta Pinto, Victoria 

Urbano, and Rima de Vallbona. Editor Enrique Jaramillo states that “the present anthology 

of short stories by women writers from Costa Rica and Panama will help draw the attention 

of North American readers and critics to the excellence of contemporary prose writers” (11). 

He affirms that the characteristics which predominate in the narrative work of the women 

represented in this anthology are “a struggling will to accept, an authentic commitment to 

life itself, to their countries, and to art; the creation of new, original literary arenas and 

terrains; the search, at times anguishing and alienating, for self-identity as part of their 

social status as a woman in a ‘machista’ society; the attainment of effective narrative 

techniques and of a language which is appropriate to the material narrated, reflections of 

a deep sensitivity and of a superior intelligence (Jaramillo 14-15). The themes presented, 

according to Jaramillo, carry artistic refinement and a deep sense of social responsibility 

which include “the desperate necessity to love and to develop all of their human potential, 

even if it means renouncing social, family or personal situations which, in a determined 

moment, are recognized as absurd or grotesque” (15).  

 

Marinell James as Carmen Lyra’s Translator 

 

Marinell James is a freelance writer, editor, and translator. James previously translated 

Deviations, a poetry recompilation by Enrique Jaramillo Levi. She currently translates 

poetry by Latin American women poets. She translated for the anthology When New 



22 

 

Flowers Bloomed Carmen Lyra’s short stories “Ramona, Women of the Ember” and 

“Estefania” from Bananas and Men.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



23 

 

CHAPTER 4. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 

 

The theoretical framework will define, evaluate, and discuss theories relevant to the 

hypothesis which states that the translating approach of foreignization should prevail in the 

Spanish-English translations of Costa Rican literature. Key concepts, models and 

assumptions that guide the project are explained and demonstrate the established ideas 

grounded in this work. This research project will present an overview of the history of 

translation, specifically its process, translation studies as an academic and professional 

field, and translation beyond contrastive linguistics. I will also explore translation and its 

link to literature. Within the field of Translation Studies, I will review Vermeer’s Skopos 

theory (its history, skopos rule, equivalence, criticism, Christiane Nord in Skopostheorie) 

as well as the cultural turn after 1970. I will go in depth and explore and define Lawrence 

Venuti’s Foreignization vs. Eugene Nida’s Domestication approaches. Moreover, I will 

briefly define language varieties such as social and tonal registers, dialect, and sociolect; 

specifically, African American Vernacular Dialect (AAVE). Lastly, I will briefly discuss the 

history of Costa Rica and Translation; explicitly Costa Rica and its literary heritage, the 

1900s debut, its political and social panorama, the lack of translation systematization and 

translation in Costa Rica as a profession.  

 

The History of Translation 

 

Translation as an encoding-decoding linguistic activity 

 

British professor, Jeremy Munday states that the English term translation, first 

demonstrated around 1340, derives from the Latin translatio or “transporting” and comes 

from the participle of the verb transferre or “to carry over” (8). Translation, he states, has 

several meanings today in the field of languages: 

1. the general subject field or phenomenon. Example: I studied translation at the 

university; 

2. the product or, in other words, the text that was translated. Example: They published 

the Arabic translation; and 

3. the process of producing the translation, otherwise known as translating. Example: 

He offers translation services. (Munday 8) 



24 

 

Translation is traced far back in history; however, as a discipline, it was not an academic 

and professional discipline, beyond a linguistic activity until recently. According to Munday, 

writings on the subject of translation go far back in recorded history (13). He states that 

“the practice of translation was crucial for the early dissemination of key cultural and 

religious texts and concepts; in the west, the different ways of translating were discussed 

by Cicero and Horace in the first century AC and St. Jerome in the fourth century AC” 

(Munday 13).  Munday further explains that in western Europe the translation of the Bible 

was the battlefield of conflicting ideologies for over a thousand years and in China, the 

translation of the Buddhist sutras opened a long discussion on the translation practice from 

the first century AC (13). In The Developing Corpus of Literary Translation, Edward 

Wheatley states that “analyzing the body of writings translated into English from the 

beginnings of the written language to the inception of printing in Europe presents unique 

challenges” (184). Historically, he describes how numerous translations from the Middle 

Ages survive in single copies due to deliberate destructions, disappearances, fires, and 

burnings (Wheatley 184). Wheatley expresses that these losses tantalize; nevertheless, a 

sizeable body of translated work that survives in medieval manuscripts, which allows to 

map out a field of translational activity (184).  Scholar Di Jin states that the modern world 

would not be what it is without translation (20). She states that its culture, its philosophy, 

science, literature, and religion – none of these would be anywhere like what they are today 

without translations from languages into languages (Jin 20). Jin writes that for example the 

Bible on which the president of the United States lays his hand when he is sworn into office 

would be non-existent if it had not been translated from Hebrew and Greek into Latin and 

translated and retranslated into English (20). Scholar César Domínguez states that despite 

the broad recognition among historians of the major role translation has played in the 

representation of national cultures, relatively not much research was carried out so far in 

this area (287). He further describes that history always mentions translations when 

studying the Middle Ages or the Renaissance (Domínguez 287). Moreover, he explains 

that there lies so little out there that no awareness exists of the possible presence of 

translated literature as a particular literary system; however, the prevailing concept is rather 

that of "translation" or just "translated works" treated on an individual basis (Domínguez 

287). Throughout history, Munday explains, written and spoken translations have played 

an essential role in interhuman communication; translations have provided access to 

important texts for scholars and religious purposes, among others (10). He states that 



25 

 

“while the practice of translation is long established, the study of the field developed into 

an academic discipline only in the latter part of the twentieth century. Before that, 

translation was often relegated to an element of language learning” (p.13-14). Translation 

exercises, he explains, were considered as a means of learning a new language or of 

reading a foreign language text until the student had the language skills to read the original. 

Not only this, but the study of a translated work was not encouraged once the student had 

acquired the necessary proficiency to read the original (Munday 14). Munday adds to this 

that translation as language teaching and learning may partly explain why academia 

considered it of secondary status (14). However, this notion began to change as scholars 

in different fields started studying translation as the complex process that it is.  

 

Translation as a Process 

 

Munday explains that “the process of translation between two different written 

languages involves the changing of an original written text (the source text or ST) in the 

original verbal language (the source language or SL) into a written text (the target text or 

TT) in a different verbal language (the target language or TL)”:  

 

 
Fig. 1 An image to illustrate translation as a process, Jeremy Munday, Introducing Translation 
Studies: Theories and Applications. 

 

In other words, and according to translator critic David Katan, “translation is seen as a 

universalist encoding-decoding linguistic activity, transferring meaning from the source 

language to the target language” (74). This explains why translation was thought of as a 

language learning practice. However, this practice was particularly complex, and scholars 

began studying the process it involved. In Katan, academic scholar Gerardo César 

Hurtado, defines translation as a skill that consists in going through the translating process 

and capable of solving the translation problems that arise in each case (25). He believes 

that without this process, there is no translation (Katan 25). Munday points out that this 

systematic or linguistic-oriented approach to the study of translation emerged until the 



26 

 

1950s and 1960s (15), and the study of translation as an academic subject, began until the 

second half of the twentieth century and was known as translation studies, thanks to 

scholar James S. Holmes (Munday 10-11). Cristina García de Toro defines Translation 

Studies as “an academic discipline that studies the theory and practice of translations and 

is a multilingual but also interdisciplinary field of study since it establishes relationships with 

linguistics, cultural studies, philosophy, literature, the information sciences, and so forth” 

(10).  After Holmes defined translation as a field of study; translation has developed in 

many parts of the world and is clearly destined to continue developing well into the 21st 

century (Bassnett and Lefevere xi). 

 

Translation as an Academic Field 

 

According to Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, both renown translation critics, the 

growth of Translation Studies as a separate discipline is a “success story of the 1980s” (xi). 

They affirm that Translation Studies, as an academic field, brings together work in a wide 

variety of fields, including [contrastive] linguistics, literary study, history, anthropology, 

psychology, and economics (Bassnett and Lefevere xi). Translation studies is an academic 

research area that has grown enormously over the years. As Munday mentioned above, 

translation was formerly studied as a language-learning methodology or as part of 

comparative literature, translation workshops and contrastive linguistics courses, but the 

discipline as it is now known, owes much to the work of James S. Holmes, who proposed 

both a name and a structure for the field (García 27). As Cristina de García Toro states in 

her work Translation Studies: An overview, the interdisciplinarity and specialization of the 

subject is more evident, and theories and models are imported from other disciplines but 

are also forged from within translation studies itself (27). She concludes that the research 

landscape has made tremendous amount of progress in recent decades. Since the 

nineties, new schools and concepts focused essentially on the problem of ideology have 

become part of this prosperous setting (García 30). Examples of such progress include 

research on gender, post-colonial studies, and the cultural-studies-oriented analysis. 

García explains that as a logical consequence of the evolution of the discipline, the 

integrating and interdisciplinary proposals also exist. All in all, García concludes that 

Translation Studies is “blossoming and the range of perspectives open to the young 

researcher is enormous” (30-31). According to Bassnett and Lefevere, Translation Studies 



27 

 

“has begun to focus on making texts accessible and manipulating them in the service of a 

certain poetics and/or ideology” (10).  Seen this way, they believe that “translation can be 

studied as one of the strategies cultures develop to deal with what lies outside their 

boundaries and to maintain their own character while doing so, the kind of strategy that 

ultimately belongs in the realm of change and survival, not in dictionaries and grammars” 

(Bassnett and Lefevere 10). Evidently, translation nowadays is much more than a way for 

students to learn a language. In terms of globalization, as world trade has grown, so has 

the importance of translation. Munday affirms that “by 2015, the global market for 

outsourced translation, interpreting and related technologies was estimated to exceed 

US$38 billion, while international organizations such as the European Union translate 

between 24 languages and spend some €456 million per year on translation and 

interpreting services” (10-11). Therefore, translation grew not only as an industry, but as 

an academic field, that is now taken seriously and studied worldwide as a discipline on its 

own.  

 

Translation Beyond Contrastive Linguistics 

 

Contrastive linguistics, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “a branch in 

linguistics concerned with showing the differences and similarities in the structure of at 

least two languages or dialects” (Merriam-Webster 2022). García del Toro explains that the 

contrastive linguistic models of the 50s and 60s were replaced by criticism schools and 

approaches that emphasize on the function of the text, contextual factors, the repercussion 

of translated texts on the target system, and its interrelation and culture (García 15). For 

example, scholars such as House, Crystal, and Davy started an innovative system of 

evaluating translations based on the contextual meaning. Crystal and Davy call these 

translations “overt” and “covert” which are what are nowadays referred to as “foreignization” 

and “domestication” translations (García 17). Basil Hatim and Ian Mason started seeing 

translation as part of a process and the translator as the center and its social conditions 

essential (García 17-18). Also, García recounts, that in Nord’s later works she grants 

importance to the relationship between the ST and the TT and how they relate to Skopos 

(16), term that will be defined below. So, it was after the seventies that these approaches 

started seeing light. All these studies, scholars, and academics started offering the 

discipline a systematic way to analyze texts.  



28 

 

García further asserts that “a key moment in the field of research into translation was 

the appearance of the poly-system theory in the seventies” (García 19). In this poly-system 

theory, literary translation is a system that operates within the literary, social, and historical 

system of the target culture (García 19). He explains that this led to what is known as 

descriptive translation. This framework is oriented towards the target text. It combines a 

linguistic comparison of the source text and target text with the study of the cultural 

framework of the target text (García 19). This indisputably is a vital proposal in the 

translation criticism field. Translation was a part of a sociocultural context and became a 

crucial part of cultural studies once it emerged in the nineties. After cultural studies, the 

translation field was extended by the philosophical and interpretation approaches as well 

as the cognitive approaches. As part of this shift, German linguist Hans J. Vermeer 

developed the Skopos theory or what is known as the core of functionalist translation theory 

in the 1970s (Du 2). Skopos theory introduced the purpose of texts and, therefore, the 

translation strategies and approaches translators should incorporate into their practice to 

produce functionally adequate results since he believed [contrastive] linguistics alone 

cannot solve all the translation problems (Du 3). What is known as Skopostheorie came as 

a rule to help solve these problems, especially in literary translation.  

 

Translation and Literature 

 

The most eminent service one can render to literature is to transport the masterpieces 

of the human spirit from one language into another. 

- Bassnett and Lefevere 

 

As Munday claims, the relationship of translation studies to other disciplines is not fixed: 

thus, this explains the changes over the years from a strong link to contrastive linguistics 

in the 1960s to the present focus on more cultural studies perspectives and even the recent 

shift towards areas such as computing and multi-media (25). He further explains that even 

the object of study has shifted over time, from translation as primarily connected to 

language teaching and learning to the study of the circumstances in which translation and 

translators operate (Munday 27). In the literary field, the universities of Iowa and Princeton 

promoted literary translation in the 1960s United States. According to researcher Even-

Zohar, they implemented translation workshops based on the reading and practical 



29 

 

criticism of Cambridge critic I. A. Richards and later on in creative writing workshops (192). 

As he explains in an article for Poetics Today the translation workshops were intended as 

a platform for the introduction of new translations into the target culture and for the 

discussion of the principles of the translation process and of understanding a text (Even-

Zohar 45). Translation undoubtedly has close relations with Comparative Literature, which 

helped, as Even-Zohar affirms, to “launch the so-called cultural turn in translation and 

Translation Studies in the 1970s and 1980s” (192). After that “cultural turn”, scholars have 

come to study translation from a cultural and comparative perspective. Without translation 

as a mediator, Comparative Literature from different languages is not accomplished, “even 

if a comparatist knows many languages and has a great deal of knowledge of different 

literatures” (Even-Zohar 45).  

However, Even-Zohar states that translation “was largely dismissed by the field of 

comparative literature as a mere mediator and an unnecessary tool for the true 

comparatist”. Nevertheless, he believes the comparatist should master the languages in 

which the works compared are written and states that in recent decades, following the 

“cultural turn”, scholars have come to study translation from a cultural and comparative 

perspective in increasing numbers (Even-Zohar 46). To confirm this statement, Jeremy 

Munday views comparative literature as the field where literature is studied and compared 

transnationally and transculturally, requiring the reading of some works in translation (p.14-

15). And as César Domínguez clearly expresses, all translation issues are cultural, and it 

has as much to do with mediation between cultures as with the transfer of meaning between 

languages. By culture he refers to the physical, social, historical, and ideological 

environment within language (287). Therefore, translation is a cultural and linguistic 

necessity. According to Bassnett and Lefevere, translation is a rewriting of an original text 

(xi). They believe that “all rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain ideology and 

a poetics and as such manipulate literature to function in a given society in a given way. 

Rewriting is manipulation, undertaken in the service of power, and in its positive aspect can 

help in the evolution of a literature and a society. Rewritings can introduce new concepts, 

new genres, new devices, and the history of translation is the history also of literary 

innovation, of the shaping power of one culture upon another. However, rewriting can 

“repress innovation, and in an age of ever-increasing manipulation of all kinds, translation 

can help us towards a greater awareness of the world in which we live” (Bassnett and 

Lefevere xi). According to Ana Ramos and the text Teoría y Práctica de la Traducción 



30 

 

Literaria, a literary translator must seek that the translation’s quality be equivalent to that 

of the original text, without disregarding the integrity of the content (2). Furthermore, literary 

works in translation have always represented an important part of the reader’s and writer’s 

experience, with the hopeful result that readers do not differentiate between “originals” and 

“works in translation” at the end (Even-Zohar 47). Therefore, literary translation is not a 

mere mediator but a tool of change. In the literary field and more recently in the specific 

field of Translation Studies, translators, critics, and academics use different theories to 

properly direction their translations.  

 

Translation Ethics and Norms 

 

Ethics, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is defined as “the principles of 

conduct governing an individual or a group” (Merriam-Webster 2022). Douglas Robinson 

in his work Becoming a translator: An introduction to the theory and practice of translation, 

defines translation ethics as the practice to keep the meaning of the source text undistorted 

(25). However, Robinson also specifies that “this notion of translation ethics is too restricted 

as the translator in specific cases is required to distort parts of meaning of the original text 

to live up to the audience expectations” (26). Moreover, Cruz states that “to ask about 

ethics or morality is, in fact, to ask about one of the most intimate and simultaneously 

universal aspects of humankind. It is to ask about the meaning of existence. Not in a 

teleological way, regarding the purpose of our lives and life in general, but in a pragmatic 

sense, concerning how we exist, how we live, how we relate to each other, how we are 

towards and with each other” (96). Cruz explains that the word “ethics” has its roots in two 

Greek terms whose spelling and sound, albeit similar, have different meanings: the term 

ἕθος (éthos) refers to the “customs”, the “usage” or “way of proceeding”; whereas ἦθος 

(êthos) means “habitation”, “den”, “way of being” or “character” (96). In Ethics of 

Translation, Andrew Chesterman associates norms with translation ethics, arguing that 

“translation ethics require strict commitment to precise expressions, production of a 

truthfully equivalent target text, building trust between translators and clients or any other 

parties involved in this transaction as well as the reduction of possible misunderstandings 

between the parties involved, based on ethical codes of conduct followed in well-known 

and professional organizations (53-54). According to Alwazna, “norms can particularly be 

viewed as problem-solving tools that scaffold translators to perform their translation tasks 



31 

 

within social and cultural criteria” (54). The Merriam-Websters dictionary defines a norm as 

“a principle of right action binding upon the members of a group and serving to guide, 

control, or regulate proper and acceptable behavior” (Merriam-Webster 2022). Therefore, 

a group of norms provide the ethics in a translation; which proves Chesterman’s statement 

above. In “Translation, Ethics, Politics”, Hermans adds that norms “enable translators to be 

aware of the socially acceptable statements, which results in producing a translation 

accepted by the audience as a legitimate and valid target text” (96).   

In Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond, Gideon Toury states that “norms 

refer to the translation of general values or ideas shared by a group, as to what is 

conventionally right and wrong, adequate and inadequate, into performance instructions, 

appropriate for and applicable to particular situations, specifying what is prescribed and 

forbidden, as well as what is tolerated and permitted in a certain behavioral dimension” 

(15). Toury mentions that translation, as a social and cultural activity, is norms-governed 

(58). However, norms are not to be understood as hard and fast rules but operate at every 

stage in the translating event (Toury 58). Norms always imply sanctions, actual or potential, 

whether negative (to those who violate them) or positive (to those who abide by them) 

(Toury 17). In the text, Ethical Aspects of Translation: Striking a Balance between Following 

Translation Ethics and Producing a TT for Serving a Specific Purpose, scholar Rafat 

Alwazna states that norms of translation are pivotal tools that guide the translator to know 

what is acceptable in a particular society and what is not, so that the translator can be 

guided to formulate the final shape of his or her translation (98). Alwazna further explains 

that translation norms may serve as these tools since their nature can be interpreted from 

both social as well as psychological perspectives (53). Hermans states that from a social 

side, norms are said to live up to societies’ expectations and respect their values and 

traditions (95). He further explains that norms are psychological in that they comprise a set 

of shared and common expectations regarding the individuals’ behaviors and the decisions 

they must make in a particular situation (Hermans 95). Tymoczko adds that within such 

social systems, translation serves as an invisible means of cultural appropriateness, 

seeking to establish identities and affiliations (446).  

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is also among the scholars who take ethics into 

consideration in translation. He alleges that “the translator should make an effort to grasp 

the writer’s “presuppositions” and adds that translation is not only adjoining words which 

have the same meanings (133). Spivak also believes that “the translator should endeavor 



32 

 

to comprehend even the author's presuppositions” (93). Toury (1995), agrees with these 

translation norms and views them as “restrictions, which determine the translator's 

behavior (82). He confirms that “decisions taken by the translator, which shape the final 

draft of his/her translated text are primarily based and determined by norms” (Toury 82). In 

other words, Toury sees norms as a word choice guide for the translator, and as a result 

they play a substantial role in creating the target text. In, Translation Norms and the 

Translator’s Agency, professor He Xianbin mentions that “non-normative behavior is 

always a possibility. After all, it is the translator who decides how to behave, be that 

decision fully conscious or not. He further states