Translating impersonal constructions from Italian into Spanish

Abstract

Italian has a strong tendency to use impersonal constructions and, more generally, a preference for non-personal linguistic forms, whether these express an impersonal meaning or not, whereas Spanish favours person markers, even in impersonal constructions. This article analyses different structures which illustrate this lack of symmetry, as well as inherent contrastive rhetoric, and the problems these pose when translating from Italian to Spanish.