The intersectionality of culture, religion and oral features in the translation of Majorcan folklore tales: rondalles

Abstract

[eng] The following paper consists of the commented translation and the analysis of a rondalla, an oral Majorcan folklore tale. To support the choices made in the translation that I have personally conducted of “Ecos de la vida de Jesús, Maria i Josep”, frameworks such as Nord’s (1991, 1997), Newmark’s Continuum (1988) and Katan’s Logical Levels (1999) have been applied. Important aspects that will be studied in the following pages are divided into two major levels: culture and religion, and oral features. The aim of this paper is to argue whether culture and orality can both be preserved in the target text (TT) taking into account the skopos of the translation and its target audience. Taking into consideration that, Rosa (2015) argues, “oral and written discourse should be considered two extremes of a continuum that displays overlaps”, the following analysis comments on the overlapping of such elements as oral features and culturemes belonging to the geography, religion and the flora and fauna of the island. To sum up, as much as the naturalness (1988) of the TT is one of the aspects of most concern for translators, the main function of the translation resides in bringing Majorcan culture closer to the tourists interested in learning more about the island and our traditions, so far underexplored in the touristic sector. Therefore, there have been instances where Nord’s Continuum and his concept of “literal translation” have been applied to the source text (ST) to fulfill the skopos of the TT. All in all, rondalles are a fertile and unexplored territory invested with a high cultural value which needs to be seized to keep our roots alive and attract travelers from all around the globe.