The concept of universal disintegration and the realization of linear cohesion in the English and Spanish translations of Magda Szabó’s novel, Katalin street

Abstract

Szabó Magda’s novel Katalin utca (Katalin street) uses several expansive, syntactically complicated sentences,
which at times pose serious challenges to the reader as well. While this is probably a deliberate technique on the
author’s part to create a confusing atmosphere, translators must find a balance between preserving this textual
feature and applying appropriate transfer operations, which may make the target language text more explicit. This
paper examines how the devices of local, linear text cohesion are handled in the English and Spanish translations of the novel. The analyses of the excerpts identify similar translation operations in the approaches of the two texts to the problem of linear cohesion but the degree of explicitation is often higher in the English translation.