The Loving Hand: spanish poetry in Spanish Sign Language (LSE)
Temas
Detalles
Ancient grammars took on the hermeneutic task of explaining sample texts from the poetic register in the academic register, whether this was poetry written in their own language or in another, resulting in the establishment of poetry as a ‘language of culture’. The ‘poetic function’ (Jakobson 1960) evolved from this approach to analysis of poetic texts in translation. In addition to the effect on phonological, morphological and syntactic relationships, it also affects the pragmatics of poetic texts, which must be interpreted in order to ensure transfer of poetic significance cross-linguistically. When undertaking the translation of some of the most significant Spanish poetry to LSE, the aim was to transpose these texts while remaining faithful to the following three concepts: (1) the original meaning in Spanish, (2) LSE grammar, and (3) the spontaneous poetic sentiment of the native signers. The results show that poetic meaning becomes more transparent in translation in a signed language and that LSE boasts a poetic dimension that is linguistic in nature.