Big Translation History. Data science applied to translated literature in the Spanish-speaking world, 1898-1945

Abstract

This article proposes the term Big Translation History (BTH) to describe a translation history that can be analysed computationally and that we define as involving: (1) large-scale research (geographical and chronological); (2) massive data understood as big data, accompanied by little data, and drawing on a wide range of often heterogeneous and non-structured sources; and (3) the use of computational techniques as part of the research process, and for the production of knowledge, rather than helping only with visualisation of data. We advance the hypothesis that one of the main possibilities of BTH, as a conceptual framework and a methodology, is to help decentralize translation history and literary and cultural history, in a broad sense. The article goes on to present an analysis of the circulation of literary translations and the agents involved in the Spanish-speaking world between 1898 and 1945 as a case study in BTH.