[Review] IS THE GLASS HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL? REFLECTIONS ON TRANSLATION THEORY AND PRACTICE IN BRAZIL by Alice LEAL, 2014. [Transkulturalität - Translation – Transfer] Volume 12. Berlin: Frank & Timme, 334 pp. ISBN 978-3-7329-0068-8

Abstract

This book results from Alice Leal’s doctoral research at the Universität Wien carried out from 2007 to 2011, under the supervision of Mary Snell-Hornby. The main objective of her work is to examine the conflict between translation theory and practice in Brazil as well as “the reception of foreign theories and tendencies in the country” (p. 14), at first anchored in the works of two prominent Brazilian scholars, namely Rosemary Arrojo and Paulo Henriques Britto, and then opening up to translation studies in general. The discussion also tackles both the professionalisation of translation and the standpoints of practitioners and researchers, as in whether they have a more essentialist or anti-essentialist orientation, as well as the curricula of some higher education translation programmes in Brazil.