Hybrid Texts

Abstract

The term 'hybrid' in translation studies refers to texts that are mixtures of two different languages and cultures. It applies both to translated texts, i.e. target texts where linguistic and cultural traces of the SL are preserved, and texts, particularly literary works, which are a blending of the languages of the ex-colonized and ex-colonizers, e.g. a poem or novel written in English by an Indian poet or author in which s/he preserves her/his cultural signs. The article shows that immigration literature constitutes a body of hybrid texts written by immigrant writers. It concludes that the post-colonial writer shares certain qualities with the immigrant writer: they both are hybrid and in search of new identities, in an in-between world. This gives rise to linguistically and culturally texts which belong to the in-between world, a world located between the native and the colonizer's/host culture.