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Article published In:
Language, translation and empire in the Americas
Edited by Roberto A. Valdeón
[Target 31:2] 2019
► pp. 207–227

Translating from/for the margins of empire

The Gaceta de Guatemala (1797–1807) and the enlightened elites

| Concordia University
| Université de Montréal

The third series of the Gaceta de Guatemala (1797–1807) represents a high point of early journalistic production in colonial Spanish America. It benefitted from the presence of a particularly dynamic and cohesive group of young men involved in the development of the paper as a means of improving the social and economic situation of a territory extending from Chiapas to Costa Rica. Against a backdrop of censorship, and undeterred by their marginal position vis-à-vis the European centers of knowledge, they managed to include a surprising number of translations and references to foreign works. In conjunction with Colonial Studies, the Translation Studies perspective adopted in this article highlights how the editors of the Gaceta and their close collaborators, far from being passive consumers, managed to use translation as a tool to engage in, and prepare their readership for, dialogue with the Enlightened elites of the Western world.

Keywords: early periodical press, sociological-cultural model, metadiscourse of translation, Enlightenment, colonial Spanish America
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical and methodological remarks
  • 3.Circumstances and evolution of translation
  • 4.Translator interventions
  • 5.Integral translations
  • 6.Discourse on translation
    • 6.1The translator’s attributes
    • 6.2The status of the original text and the translation
    • 6.3A translators’ academy
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 28 June 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/target.19093.nav
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