La traducción metalingüística como herramienta didáctica. El caso de IR A + INFINITIVO y su expresión en italiano

Translation can contribute to fostering in the learner a better understanding of a given linguistic phenomenon (Delmas 1995), so it can and should be used as a tool to direct attention to the mechanisms of language functioning. On the other hand, if linguistic operators are metaoperators insofar as they themselves comment on the type of operation they are executing in the utterance (Adamczewski 1978), metalinguistic translation would focus on making explicit or reinforcing the enunciative operation carried out by a given operator in the source language. This can help us to understand the functioning of operators that have no equivalent in the target language, as well as to find ways to translate utterances that make use of such operators. This is the case of the Spanish verbal periphrasis IR A + INFINITIVE, of which we propose a rationale of translation in Italian, based precisely on taking into consideration its own operability.