This project focuses on the translation of elements specific to fantasy literature. We will analyze proper nouns and neologisms found in Brandon Sanderson’s novel known as Mistborn: The Alloy of Law (2011), and its Spanish translation Aleación de Ley (2012) by Rafael Marín Trechera. The main objective of our study is to explore the challenges that the translation of these newly created elements entails for the literary translator, as well as find out which approach the professional prefers for their translation: foreignization or domestication.
An analysis of our corpus, which is composed of seventy-two terms taken from the already mentioned literary work as well as their Spanish translations, was conducted. The theoretical framework for this project explores what translation is, what fantastic literature and its subgenres are, as well as a definition, a classification, and an explanation of the formation and translation processes involved in fantastic proper nouns and neologisms. These fundaments will be applied later to the practical side of our thesis, which combines both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The quantitative analysis studies the presence of proper nouns, neologisms, and the many translation strategies and formation techniques used in the novel. The qualitative analysis will study the adequacy of the decisions made by the translator in the process of transferring the semantic information contained in the selected terms of our corpus. In cases where the solution rendered has turned out to be unfavorable, a new translation which expresses the information contained in the original term has been proposed.
Thus, the complexity of a literary work of such magnitude will be proven, as well as the many translation challenges (be those linguistic or cultural), posed by these terms which the author has created in order to build his superb fantasy universe.