Translating Economic Opinion Articles on the Ukraine Conflict: the Challenges of Intertextuality and Other Literary Devices

Abstract

Numerous economic opinion articles on the Ukraine conflict have been published in the specialized media. To hold reader interest, authors incorporate literary devices such as metaphors and idioms, as well as intertextuality, proverbs, quotations, and word play into these articles, a technique that can prove challenging to the translator. This paper studied six Spanish economic opinion articles to determine the type, frequency and difficulty of the different literary devices employed and to analyze which prove most problematic during translation into English. Said articles were chosen from well-established Spanish economic news sources in a six-month period and translated. Tables were created to record the use of the above-mentioned devices. Results suggest that intertextuality and cultural references are more challenging than metaphors or word play, and greater use is made of metaphors and idioms in subsequent articles. It is also concluded that such articles could be useful in the teaching of translation.