Peritext as a tool to measure translators' social capital

Abstract

This work is an example of the paratextual research within translation history. Moreover, this case study demonstrates that peritext analyses can help to understand power relations between the agents, to measure the capital they possess (in Bourdieusean sense) and their networks (as a part of social capital), which in combination with archival research provides convincing results. The networks established within and around the Paul Zsolnay Verlag in interwar Vienna are being investigated in this article, with a special focus on the interaction between the author, publisher and translator. I follow the correspondence from the publisher’s partial archive at the Austrian National Library and the peritext of the published translations. This investigation led to establishing a classification of the translators at the company. According to the peritext and the archival material, there were three groups of translators (author’s translators, publisher’s translators and independent translators) at the company, each of which had a different network, professional behaviour and income. This classification became a basis for several case studies dedicated to the investigation of the company’s functioning and translators’ personal and professional path.