A Ilusão da Invisibilidade: a subjetividade discursiva do tradutor em Bliss de Katherine Mansfield

Abstract

This study examines the translator’s discursive subjectivity through the analysis of four Brazilian Portuguese translations of Katherine Mansfield’s short story Bliss. It is based on the understanding that literary translation is not a neutral process of linguistic transfer but an interpretive practice that produces meaning. From this perspective, the study widens Venuti’s (1995) notion of the translator’s invisibility and adds that every translation is shaped by interpretive acts produced by historically constituted subjects. The theoretical framework draws on French Discourse Analysis, particularly the works of Orlandi (2009) and Pêcheux (1999), in dialogue with Foucault’s (1996) conception of the subject and Venuti’s (1995) discussions of domestication and foreignization. The corpus consists of the translations of Bliss published by Cupertino (2000), Albano (2020), Vidal (2023), and Varjão (2024). The analysis compares selected translation choices, discusses the strategies adopted by the translators, and relates these choices to the historical, editorial, and professional conditions that shape each translation. The findings show that the differences among the translations result not only from linguistic preferences but also from the conditions of production that constitute translators as subjects of interpretation. Finally, the study argues that the translator’s subjectivity should be understood not as the expression of individual intention but as a discursive effect produced through the relationship between language, history, and ideology, allowing the translator to be understood as a translator-author.