Too many translations. About the Office for the Validation of Translations and the Board of Technical Translation Inspectors (1942-1946)

Abstract

The 1940s was the scene of an intense debate about the excessive number of translations that, in the opinion of the institutions of the Franco regime, populated the publishing market in Spain, thus putting at risk "the future of Spanish culture" and "the imperial glory of our beautiful language". Accordingly, an Office for the Validation of Translations was created in 1942 within the Cultural Policy Section of the National Institute of Spanish Books, in which members of the newly created Board of Technical Translation Inspectors actively collaborated. In this way, the publication of the translation of foreign works into Spanish not only required the prior approval of the Book Censorship Section of the National Propaganda Delegation with regard to content and moral value.  It also needed a positive assessment of the translation’s linguistic quality and purity by the Office for the Validation of Translations. The present work proposes an approach to this new programme that aimed to eradicate all foreign influence on the Spanish language.