O tradutor como mediador cultural: desafios e escolhas na tradução de três contos de Belazarte, de Mário de Andrade, para língua inglesa

Abstract

This undergraduate thesis analyzes the translation of three stories from Os Contos de Belazarte (1934) by Mário de Andrade into English, focusing on the translator’s role as a cultural mediator. The study situates the work within Brazilian Modernism, highlighting the oral language, popular expressions, and social critique that emphasize the experiences of marginalized subjects in São Paulo’s periphery. It examines how Andrade’s narrative construction and literary aesthetics demand complex translational choices that preserve regional lexicon, archaisms, cultural realia, and stylized oral discourse. The research draws on theories of formal and dynamic equivalence (Nida), technical translation procedures (Barbosa), and functional and Skopos approaches (Reiss, Vermeer, Nord), proposing strategies of domestication and foreignization to ensure both comprehension and aesthetic impact for the Anglophone reader. The study underscores the necessity of footnotes, glossaries, and cultural adaptations, maintaining fidelity to the original author while ensuring intelligibility in the target context. It concludes that literary translation in this case functions as transcreation, requiring the translator to balance ethics, loyalty, and creativity, ensuring that the social, psychological, and cultural nuances of the original text are conveyed without losing literary and communicative effects.