Rivista internazionale di tecnica della traduzione n.17 - 2015

One of the aspects less analysed in the comparison of languages is that of prefixation. In this study we search to establish the main characteristics of prefixation in the Spanish and Italian languages in order to amplify the semantic field that covers each of them, principally with reference to their extension. Concretely, we study the cases of the prefixes re-, in-, des-and super- in Spanish and their different equivalents in Italian. From the translation point of view, we will examine the major cases of contrast in word formation and will propose the most appropriate solutions.

This work gives hitherto unpublished information on the life and work of the French translator Gabriel Chappuys (1546-1612/13). After a section devoted to his biography – determination of his date of birth, information about his family and his social background, details of the studies he undertook and the places where he worked, determining the different posts he held at the court of Henri III, etc. – we focus on his activities as a translator, in all their various facets: what did translating mean to him? Why, and for whom did he translate? How did he go about translating? Does he follow the tradition established by Étienne Dolet, or does he diverge from it? Can we judge the quality of his translations? This study aims to answer all of these questions.

This article deals with the first French translation of Quichotte in 1605. Published by Cesar Oudin in 1614, the text struggles to free itself from its source and in addition features numerous annotations in the margin. After reviewing Oudin’s work as a Hispanist, the article concentrates on the role and contents of these notes, demonstrating that they are not annotations in the usual sense because they do not necessarily clarify the text but reflect on the art of translation as such or refer to lexicography or Spanish culture. One might therefore conclude that this is more the work of a Hispanist lato sensu than that of a translator.

The literary relationships between Spain, France and Italy were strong during the 17th and 18th centuries. The interest in their respective literary works promoted many translations with the aim of making them accessible to interested readers. Dictionaries became a fundamental tool to facilitate understanding of confusing expressions and ambiguous words, both for native speakers and for translators. This paper focuses on the relationships between literature and lexicography and particularly on how the vocabulary of Cervantes’ works is presented in some of the most important monolingual and bilingual dictionaries in the 17th century: Covarrubias (1611), Oudin (1607) and Franciosini (1620). Bilingual lexicographic repertoires contained long explanations and not only a sequence of equivalent words. They included extensive definitions, information about idiomatic expressions, examples and proverbs which helped to understand the literary texts.

The first translation to French of El Criticón (1651) by Gracián is published in 1696 with the title L’homme detrompé ou Le Criticon, signed by Maunory, the same Guillaume de Maunory who is the author of Grammaire et Dictionare espagnol (1701) published briefly afterwards. This translation had a publishing life somewhat fortunated in the 18th century, and it was reissued by Alfred Coster in 1931, the famous French expert on Gracián. We intend in this article to peruse the translation theory expressed in the preface of L’homme detrompé and observe how it does or does not suit with the translation practice of Maunory himself, especially regarding metaphor (lexicalized and not) for which we will especially compare a chapter of the translation by Maunory with the original work by Gracián as a representative sample of the whole book.

Rivista Internazionale di Tecnica della Traduzione of the Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori, University of Trieste (Dipartimento di Scienze Giuridiche, del Linguaggio, dell’Interpretazione e della Traduzione) is a refereed international journal published once a year. The aim of the journal is to provide a forum of discussion for the multifaceted activity of translation as well as related issues such as terminology and terminography, lexicology and lexicography, contrastive analysis, corpus linguistics, and intercultural communication. The journal is mainly focused - but not limited to – specialized, i.e. non-literary, translation and is open to different theoretical approaches including contributions from qualified professionals operating on the translation market. Articles are mainly published in Italian and English, but articles in other European languages are also accepted, provided they are preceded by an Abstract in English. Each issue of the journal contains a section devoted to a specific topic, but contributions on other subjects as well as papers by young researchers and reviews are also very welcome.

Verbal periphrases with the infinitive often behave differently in Spanish and Italian. In this paper, through a contrastive analysis between the two languages I analyze some aspects of the use of such periphrases, such as the way in which a non-personal form is attached to the auxiliary verb (directly or through a prepositional link), the behaviour of clitics within the verbal periphrasis and the behaviour of these structures when they are used in the passive. Moreover, given the absence of verbal periphrases both in practical dictionaries and bilingual dictionaries, I propose the Italian translation of the main structures using the infinitive in Spanish, focusing on those in which the auxiliary verb is subject to a major lexicalization. This marks a significant contrast with the Italian language, which is not so rich in verbal periphrasis. In the search for Italian equivalents, two main dimensions have been taken into account: on the one hand, the characteristic aspectual values of the periphrases (such as time, modality, reiteration and perfectiveness); on the other, the situational context.

This article provides a brief description of the Hispanic book collection in the National and University Library of Strasbourg (Alsace, France). The description is a means to approach the translations of Spanish literature from the 16th and 17th century held in the library. Due to the particular way the collections held in this library were gathered, i.e. through duplicated items found in other libraries, especially in Germany, these translations can be considered a starting point for research considering them as both a sample of the most widely circulated Spanish literature works in Europe and as complementary works for the learning and teaching of Spanish in the period under consideration.