Textual Shifts in Translation: The Case of the Migrant (M)other in Italian-Canadian Women’s Writing

This book examines the representation of the Italian migrant maternal figure in the Italian translation of three memoirs by the Italian-Canadian women writers Penny Petrone, Caterina Edwards, and Mary Melfi. By combining linguistic and cultural approaches to Translation Studies, it offers a comparative analysis of the source and target texts focusing on textual translation shifts and exploring the role of translation in engendering new meanings and readings. Through the lens of such shifts, namely the alteration of thematic structure and the re-arrangement of cohesive devices that guide the reader’s interpretation, the book examines how translation reframes the Italian migrant maternal figure, who plays a central role in the Italian-Canadian daughter-narrator’s construction of transcultural identity.