La relación intérprete-mandante: Claves de una crónica colonial para la historia de la interpretación

Abstract

In recent years, the field of Interpretation Studies has experienced a considerable growth. Nevertheless, the history of interpretation is still a marginal area. In addition, in spite of its ubiquitous presence during the Conquest and Colonization, Hispanic American historiography has given interpreters a relatively scarce attention. Because of the apparent absence or poorness of historical registers of situations where interpreters were involved their study and the construction of conceptual frames that may help us to understand and explain the functioning of historical oral mediation has been made difficult. Nevertheless, a careful analysis of colonial sources can give us clues to this understanding. In this paper, based on the reading of colonial chronicles, in particular Alonso Gonzalez de Nájera's Desengano y reparo de la Guerra de Chile, we present a tentative framework for one of its least well known aspects: the relationship between the interpreters and their principals. We believe that this proposal may help fill in some of the gaps in the field of Interpretation Studies as well as in Colonial historiography itself.