Rethinking the hegemony of English in twentieth-century Portugal: some figures and beyond

Abstract

ABSTRACT To pinpoint the hypothesized change of status of French and English as the hypercentral language in Portugal by the mid-twentieth century, this paper follows the methodology suggested by Johan Heilbron for the identification of a world system of book translation. It accordingly maps relations between language groups and analyses translation flows regarding source languages, considering data on translation in Portugal by Index Translationum, Pordata, and the National Library of Portugal and on literary translation by the online database Intercultural Literature in Portugal 1930–2000: A Critical Bibliography. This paper thereby endeavours to track the evolution of the announced hypercentrality of English in the Portuguese (literary) system in the twentieth century. The data analysed in this paper show that it was Spanish, rather than English, that became the quantitatively hypercentral language in the Portuguese literary book market once the cultural clout of France began to wane. This evidence, therefore, calls for a rethinking of the oft-mentioned centrality of English in contemporary Portugal and for the possible consideration of a regional system. However, it also suggests the need for a rethinking of the conceptual frameworks used to address linguistic imperialism and cultural hegemonies, so as to not only consider numerical data but also go beyond them.