Chile. History of translation

Panorama of translation in Chile from a socio-historic perspective that combines translation studies and intellectual history. During the colonial period (16th-19th centuries), due to its geopolitical situation, settlement conditions, and extended wars against the Mapuche indigenous people, Chile’s lettered population and production was quite limited. On the other hand, these same conditions make Chile a singular case for studying European-Indigenous diplomacy and linguistic mediation. The Independence process, the influence of revolutionary ideas from France and the United States, liberalism and positivism, literary romanticism, as well as classical culture and the Republican values it implied, constitute another scene in which Chile, like other Hispanic American nations, translated and adapted foreign works to its culture and society throughout the 19th century. As an axis of innovation, translation was situated at the center of the literary system until the end of the 19th century. Certain scholars thus displayed interest in studying the primary autochthonous language, Mapudungun, which gave rise to ethnographic translation and the first manifestations of resistance to these scientific representations, also by means of translation and heterolinguistic practices. As the 20th century progressed, translation shifted to the margins of the literary system, abandoning 19th-century ideals so as to follow the dynamics of different political and social scenarios throughout the rest of the century and into the present