Itzulpen kritikaz - Xabier Mendiguren

The present article may be considered an attempt to establish the basis upon which a balanced criticism of translations, and more especially literary translations, can be made. Rooted in several reviews of literary translations, all of which were, incidentally, a little impressionist and imprecise and which have been published in these same pages in recent issues, it is an attempt to orientate criticism in general, giving it a more scientific and global basis, one supplied by the theory of translation.

According to the writer criticism of translations should take into account three levels of accord between the original text and the translated text. Firstly, accord in the semantic content, in case of a loss of information. Secondly, an accord in the actual content, so that the translation has the same communicative efect as the original, and thirdly accord on a stylistic level. The author divides this last point into four sub-headings a) grammatical approximation b) acceptability c) the use of socio-linguistic rules and d) individual style.

The writer afterwards expounds the objectives by which a good review of a translation should be guided: the orientation of the public in general and an effort on behalf of the publishers. He ends by underlining the great difficulties with which critics of literary translations are always going to be confronted, given the fact that the critic is always conditioned by his previously having read the original literary text.