Translating Literature of Ideas: A Model of Analysis and its Illustration through an Essay by Samuel Johnson

Abstract

 This article aims to put forward a translation-oriented model of analysis of the essay. Firstly, the article highlights the defining features of the essay as a genre to be differentiated from the other three great literary genres – narrative, drama and poetry. Then an overview is provided of the main theoretical contributions to the study of essay translation. The issues dealt with in the literature are grouped under four headings: subject matter, the voices heard in the text and their interaction, the text’s linearity and the cultural dimension. A correspondence is established between these four headings and the three language functions identified in systemic-functional linguistics (ideational, interpersonal and textual) and the context of culture, respectively. Finally, by way of illustration, the model of analysis is applied to Samuel Johnson’s essay “Capital Punishment” and its Spanish translation.