Non-Translation, Code-Switching, and the Reader-as-Translator

Abstract

Translation possesses an inherent relationship with conflict and is inescapably involved with power relations. This essay focuses on literary texts that involve code-switching and non-translation as potential loci for such clashes. The fundamental point of argument revolves around how authors such as Helena Maria Viramontes, Cormac McCarthy, and Junot Diaz use untranslated, unmarked Spanish to create situations in which the reader assumes the role of translator. How do readers confront these critical moments in their role as translator? Situations extracted from code-switching narratives provide the textual basis for reflections upon the reconstructed reading experience of a typical, mostly monolingual English reader when faced with embedded Spanish material within an English matrix text. Combining elements of translation studies, bilingual studies, and narrative theory, the normative experience of reading is contrasted with the multitude of potential experiences that code-switching literary texts can trigger in monolingual and bilingual readers.