The reception of the country girls in Spain: Translation strategies to overcome cultural leaps

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze how the elements of Irish culture and society transmitted by Edna O’Brien in her debut novel, The Country Girls (1960), have been translated to the readers in Spanish. First of all, a contextualization of the translation of the novel will be provided. Next, a section on literary translation and cultural references, as well as translation strategies in this field will be included. Thirdly, a descriptive study will be applied comparing extracts from the source text and the target text. Fourthly, the strategies used and their adequacy for the cultural transposition of the ST into the TT will be assessed. In the concluding section we will reflect on whether the degree of cultural transposition resulting from the translation into Spanish allows the transgressive nature of the novel to have a similar impact on the recipient culture as a contemporary edition of the original text in English.