Trilingual self-translation. A typology

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenon of trilingual self-translation in literary production and proposes a typology that distinguishes it from the much more widely studied practice of bilingual self-translation. While research has primarily focused on authors working between two languages, trilingual self-translators remain rare and largely understudied. Drawing on a corpus of fifteen authors who published in at least one Romance language between 1980 and 2016, the article argues that trilingual self-translation should not be seen merely as a quantitative extension of bilingual models, but rather as a qualitatively distinct phenomenon. The proposed typology identifies three ways of integrating three languages into the process of self-translation. The first type, intra-textual plurilingualism, occurs when a text that is already bilingual is translated by the author into a third language. The second type involves language alternation across different works: authors translate themselves between three languages throughout their careers, but each individual text exists in only two linguistic versions. Despite the presence of a third language, these two types remain largely structured by the traditional binary model of self-translation. The third type, multidirectional self-translation, is characterized by the author translating the same text into two additional languages, resulting in three versions of a single work. In this configuration, writing and translation processes intertwine and challenge the traditional hierarchy between original and translation. The case studies of Laia Fàbregas and Monika Zgustova illustrate how multilingual writing, recursive revision, and cross-linguistic interaction shape the genesis of trilingual texts. This typology highlights the diversity of trilingual self-translation practices and opens new perspectives on the dynamics of multilingual literary writing. Further research based on larger corpora will be necessary to identify possible recurring strategies.