INTERPRETER BETWEEN TWO CIVILIZATIONS

Abstract

This article presents a historiographical essay on the life and work of La Malinche or doña Marina, translator of Hernan Cortes during the time of the conquest of Mexico. The following aspects that are signif cant for the history of translation are studied: the prerequisites for the formation of a representative of the Indian ethnic group as a translator for the Spanish conquerors, an expanded range of her intermediary functions during the colonial campaigns, her alleged participation in the massacre in Cholula as an informer of Cortes and, as a result, her condemnation by her compatriots and the formation in the future, the negative image of the translator among the indigenous people, from which she herself was. Thus, the genesis of the translator’s personality is traced, the value aspects of translation are revealed, and the axiological ambivalence of translation activity is demonstrated.