Pedagogical Translation Criticism: evaluation of problems in the intra and interlinguistic aspects in two versions of “My mother” by Jamaica Kincaid

Abstract

The capacity for criticism is indispensable in the training of literary translators, and along with the bilingual, strategic, translation and attitudinal subcompetences it is paramount for the ability to make evaluative judgments of translations, derived from a process of systematic analysis, evaluation and reflection applied to both the process and the product of translation (Zierer, 1979; Rodríguez Rodríguez, 1999; Hurtado Albir, 2019). After Pilar Elena García (1997; 1999), this article presents the pedagogical critique of two translations into Spanish of Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “My mother” (At the bottom of the River (2013 [1983]): Alejandro Pérez Viza´s translation (2007), published by Txalaparta in 2007, and the author’s own translation, from which only the relevant fragments are presented. This critique focuses on three translation problems identified in the original text (OT), which are related to syntactic–semantic level categories such as Tense, Aspect and discourse based such as Cohesion, together with Berman’s deforming tendencies (1991 [1985]; 1995).