The Opacity of Self-Translation between Asymmetric Languages

Abstract

The present article aims to develop the concept of ‘opaque self-translation,’ i.e., a translation made by the author himself/ herself in which there is no indication of the existence of a previous text written in another language, so as to give to the recipient of the self-translated text the impression that the text he/she reads is the original work (with reference to the other possibility, i.e., a selftranslation that makes explicit that there exists a source text, the term used is ‘transparent self-translation’). Our study examines the properties of the aforementioned opaqueness, especially in those self-translations made from a peripheral culture into a central culture. We will try to ascertain whether the self-translator’s non-visibility in those renditions is unintentional or, rather, it has to do with a conscious strategy