The role of Translation Studies in the search for Latin-American cultural identity

Abstract

The present paper addresses the collaborative role of Translation Studies in the search for a Brazilian and Latin-American cultural identity and analyzes to what extent such a collaboration can be felt in our academy. Our analysis stems from a variety of reaidngs, somo of them even apparently contradictory, and concludes that although the Brazilian Literary Studies and Translation Studies share many themes, they have kept a somewhat unfulfilling dialogue with regard to the issue of our cultural identity, as there seems to be none of the steady or deep interchange between the disciplines that one might expect. Therefore, this paper proposes an overview of such studies and, despite its superficiality, stresses the points of contact and the real prospects of research yet to be explored. Consequently, we reassess the role of Translation Studies as a basic tool in the search for an alleged Latin-American cultural identity, wich will certainly be neither uniform not definitive, but as provisional and partial as any translation.