Estratégias e praticas de tradução do Padre Joaquim Gonçalves

Abstract

Translation plays a crucial role in the mission of evangelization and education of indigenous languages carried out by missionaries. However, its relevance has often been overlooked in studies conducted within the field of missionary linguistics as well as in the history of translation. Joaquim Afonso Gonçalves (1781–1841) stands as one of the most prominent figures in European sinology, particularly renowned for his trilogy composed of Arte China (1829), Diccionario Portuguez-China (1831), and Diccionario China-Portuguez (1833). This innovative language learning method for teaching Chinese to Westerners in the Far East has garnered significant recognition. The bilingual resources encompassed within this tripartite corpus enable a wide range of contrastive studies, including the study of translation, a monumental didactic tool that is also a major objective of missionary teaching. The author's translation strategies are rarely explicitly documented in his works: only two manifestos found in the preface of his first dictionary touch upon the technique of adaptation through domestication and the use of loanwords within the context of foreignization – two fundamental strategies in modern translation theory. This study will firstly interpret these two observations, along with other scattered reflections on translation found throughout the interconnected three volumes. Subsequently, an analysis of the author's translation practices will be conducted, aiming to comprehend the choices and challenges encountered by the author in the process of converting intercultural references. The outcome of this study will shed light on the significance of these bilingual instructional materials for the study of translation between Portuguese and Chinese.