ABSTRACT
The experience and consequences of dislocation and of temporary or permanent settlement in a foreign land have found expression in the works of a group of English-speaking writers of Portuguese-American literature. The source text provides an English translation for most of the occurrences in Portuguese. Katherine Vaz regularly inserts Portuguese cultural references in her stories, either by using Portuguese words, sentences and popular expressions or by adapting and mixing those references with others taken from American culture. Heterolingualism is always italicised and the author—through the third-person narrator—usually offers some sort of translation, not immediately as in Vaz’s case, but using the context. Insufficiency of articulation is in itself a literary subject-matter, often blatantly so in the case of diasporic narratives. In any case, the obligation to express oneself in the alien tongue for the sake of acculturation amputates full articulation, especially in moments of distress.
