Philosophy of Translation

“Translational Hermeneutics as a Research Paradigm”

2015-12-31T07:05:00.002-08:00

The Third Hermeneutics and Translation Studies Symposium

“Translational Hermeneutics as a Research Paradigm”

1st Call for Papers

The objective of this series of symposia is to study how Hermeneutics and Translation Studies can complement each other. The first symposium in 2011 opened up the main avenues of enquiry, while the second, in 2013, focused on new areas of research in Translational Hermeneutics. The papers presented covered a wide range of topics, including literary and specialized translation, the role of hermeneutics in the Muslim tradition of exegetics, and the importance of translation in the interpretation of postcolonial texts. In particular, questions concerning the proper place and definition of “subjectivity,” “phenomenology,” and “method” within Translational Hermeneutics emerged as the primary points of scholarly debate.

The objective of the third symposium is to frame Translational Hermeneutics as a research paradigm capable of engaging both the theory and practice of translation. In terms of theory, hermeneutics broaches a wide field of philosophical enquiry, inasmuch as it draws upon phenomenology and deconstruction, on theology, and on aesthetic, ethical, and political philosophy. In terms of practice, hermeneutics offers a useful framework in which to elaborate concrete research agendas in translation studies. There will also be a discussion session held during the symposium geared to foster research in Translational Hermeneutics: We hope to discuss concrete, collaborative research projects and how to get them financed. We therefore invite you to bring your research interests and ideas with you to Cologne. Hopefully these discussions will lead to the submission of a few concrete research proposals for funding.

We invite participants to consider the relationship between hermeneutics and translation studies both as a practical methodology informing specific (empirical) research projects as well as a philosophically rigorous investigation into the (cognitive) processes involved in the mediating activities surrounding translation.

One outcome of this symposium on hermeneutics and translation, we hope, will be a map for the future of research in translation studies. But since there is no future without a past, this symposium will – as did the last two – endeavor to deepen the sense of the roots of hermeneutics, be they in e.g. Schleiermacher, Heidegger, Gadamer, Schütz, or Steiner. Because this can be regarded as an exercise in reminding hermeneutics of its own intellectual debts, it is appropriate to declare one debt in particular: one of the great proponents of the hermeneutic approach to translation studies in Germany was Fritz Paepcke. He would have celebrated his 100th birthday on the 6th of June, and the symposium accordingly invites all participants to join in a celebration of his life and work.

The third conference will take place over two days, the 30th of June and 1st of July 2016, at the Technische Hochschule in Cologne, Germany. A selection of papers presented at the conference will be published in association with Zeta Books. Participants might wish to view Translational Hermeneutics: The First Symposium, edited by Radegundis Stolze, John Stanley and Larisa Cercel (Zeta Books, 2015). The proceedings of the second symposium is forthcoming in 2016.

The keynote speaker is Anthony Pym. He will be speaking on the “Modes of Erlebnis within translation knowledge” and will be dealing with the ways practice, involvement, commitment and activism all produce special kinds of knowledge specific to translation (and why empiricism is still mostly better).

The following three distinguished scholars will be speaking as well:

Philippe Forget
Radegundis StolzeZur Anschlussfähigkeit der Hermeneutik in der Übersetzungswissenschaft”

SUGGESTED TOPICS

We are inviting papers on new research areas relevant to Translational Hermeneutics. The topics include – but are not limited – to the following:

Using hermeneutics to define the object (the Sache) of translatory enquiry
Using hermeneutics and phenomenology to describe the implications of subjectivity in the translator
Deploying hermeneutics to mediate ‘translation’ to both philosophy and the empirical sciences
The relevance of hermeneutics for media translation
Theological hermeneutics and the task of translating sacred texts
The hermeneutical approach in translational didactics
The place of individual knowledge and experience in practical translation
The role of historical and/or cultural “fore-understanding” in the process of interpreting and translating

More here: http://www.phenhermcommresearch.de/index.php/conferences/16-call-for-papers

Review: Barbara Cassin, editor DICTIONARY OF UNTRANSLATABLES A philosophical lexicon

2015-01-29T04:40:00.002-08:00

The philosophy of translation by TIM CRANE

This extraordinary book, a huge dictionary of philosophical terms from many languages, is a translation of Vocabulaire européen des philosophies: Dictionnaire des intraduisibles, originally published in 2004, the brainchild of the French philosopher Barbara Cassin. If the original project was paradoxical, then the present version is doubly so: not just a dictionary of untranslatable words, but a translation of that dictionary. Rather than despair at the self-undermining self-referentiality of the whole idea, the editors rejoice in it. Indeed, moving the word “untranslatable” to the beginning of the English title proudly asserts the paradox even more forcefully than the original French title does, and forms what the English-language editor Emily Apter calls “an organising principle of the entire project”.

More here:
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1512220.ece

Lecture: On Translating Aristotle

2014-02-05T14:29:00.002-08:00

The Dabis Lecture, 2014

Professor Sir Anthony Kenny

ON TRANSLATING ARISTOTLE

Tuesday 11 February 2014 6.15pm

The Picture Gallery

Royal Holloway, University of London

Directions: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/aboutus/locationmap/home.aspx

For more information: events@royalholloway.ac.uk

All welcome, admission free

The lecture will be followed by a reception

For more information: events@royalholloway.ac.uk

Aristotle's Greek word kalon can mean beautiful and also morally noble. Does that mean that for Aristotle ethics and aesthetics are the same thing? When we in English have many different words to translate one word of his, does that mean that we are sensitive to differences he ignored, or that we are insensitive to similarities that were important for him?

Conference programme

2014-02-03T03:04:00.000-08:00

Registration is now open for the conference

"The Philosophy of Translation and the Translation of Philosophy"

hosted by the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Zurich

Programme:

Monday, 17th February 2014
University of Zurich, Room KO2-F-174


18:00 - 18:15 Welcome Address

18:15 - 19:15 Keynote: Hans-Johann Glock (University of Zurich):
Translation, Incommensurability and Indeterminacy

19:15 - 19:45 - Discussion

Tuesday,  18th February 2014
University of Zurich, Room KOL-G-212

10:00 - 10:45 Vasso Kindi (University of Athens):
Incommensurability and Translation

10:55 - 11:40 Simon J. Evnine (University of Miami):
Translation and the Ontology of Language

11:50 - 12:35 Gabriele M. Mras (WU/University of Vienna):
Where There Is No Real Question of Choice: Translation and Correctness

12:35 - 14:00 Lunch break

14:00 - 14:45 Piers Rawling (Florida State University):
Have Our Beliefs Got Lost in Translation?

14:55 - 15:40 Stefan Riegelnik (University of Zurich):
Intermediaries and the Object of Translation

15:40 - 16:00 Coffee break

16:00 - 16:45 Mélika Ouelbani (University of Tunis):
Can One Learn to Translate as One Learns to "Play the Piano"?

16:55 - 17:35 Susanne Huber (University of Zurich):
Translating Pictures: a Wittgensteinian Approach to the Question of Translation


Wednesday, 19th February 2014
University of Zurich, Room KOL-G-212

10:00 - 10:45 Joachim Schulte (University of Zurich):
The Impossible Business of Translating Philosophical Works

10:55 - 11:40 Joachim Adler (University of Zurich):
Conceptual Clarification and its Language

11:50 - 12:35 Nenad Miscevic (CEU/University of Maribor):
Translating Pejoratives

12:35 - 14:00 Lunch break

14:00 - 14:45 Georg Bossong (University of Zurich):
Typology and Creativity in Translation: Expressing Philosophy in Indo-European and Semitic

14:55 - 15:40 Philip Wilson (Inönü University):
Maybe a Completely Different Poem: a View from Literary Translation

15:40 - 16:00 Coffee break

16:00 - 16:45 Piotr Stalmaszyk (University of Lodz):
Proper Names in Translation: Philosophy of Language Meets Linguistics

16:45 - 17:00 Concluding Remarks

Venue:
University of Zurich
Rämistrasse 71
8006 Zurich

Conference: "The Philosophy of Translation and the Translation of Philosophy"

2013-11-14T08:23:00.001-08:00

The Institute of Philosophy of the University of Zurich is organizing a Conference and a Graduate Workshop on 

"The Philosophy of Translation and the Translation of Philosophy"

Dates
Conference: Monday, 17th February - Wednesday, 19th February 2014
Workshop: Thursday, 20th February

Place
University of Zurich, Zurich

The conference aims to examine the concept of translation and its place
in contemporary analytic philosophy. Although the notion of translation
has played an important role throughout the history of analytic
philosophy, the notion itself has not been explored sufficiently.
The conference intends to address the following questions: What does it
mean to translate something, in particular regarding different theories
of meaning? What are the criteria for the correctness of a translation? Are
conceptual clarifications translatable or are they confined to a
language? What is the role of linguistic kinship? Is the translation of
philosophical works special?

Speakers:

Georg Bossong (University of Zurich)
Simon Evnine (University of Miami)
Susanne Huber (University of Zurich)
Hans-Johann Glock (University of Zurich)
Vasso Kindi (University of Athens)
Gabriele M. Mras (University of Vienna, WU Vienna)
Nenad Miscevic (CEU, University of Maribor)
Mélika Ouelbani (University of Paris) 
Piers Rawling (Florida State University)
Piotr Stalmaszczyk (University of Lodz)
Joachim Schulte (University of Zurich)
Philip Wilson (University of East Anglia/Inönü University)

Call for Abstracts

Graduate Workshop: "The Philosophy of Translation and the Translation of Philosophy"

with 
Vasso Kindi (University of Athens)
Joachim Schulte (University of Zurich)

We invite submissions from PhD candidates studying philosophy or/and
linguistics for presentations at the graduate workshop on this topic to
be held on 20th February 2014 at the University of Zurich. Please submit
abstracts of no more than 300 words suitable for 30 minutes
presentations to translation2014@philos.uzh.ch. The deadline for
submission is 15th December 2013. Notifications of acceptance will be
sent by 31st December 2013. 


Conference and workshop organizers:
Joachim Adler joachim.adler@philos.uzh.ch
Stefan Riegelnik stefan.riegelnik@philos.uzh.ch

The conference and the workshop are sponsored by the Swiss National
Science Foundation (SNF), the Institute of Philosophy of the University
of Zurich and the Doctoral program "Philosophy: Language, Mind and Practice".
General questions concerning the conference and the workshop should be
directed in the first instance to translation2014@philos.uzh.ch.

New book: Die Latinisierung des Griechischen. Übersetzung, Verstehen und Sprache im Ausgang von Martin Heidegger und Hans-Georg Gadamer.

2013-06-21T14:00:00.003-07:00

Kosmas Raspitsos, Die Latinisierung des Griechischen. Übersetzung, Verstehen und Sprache im Ausgang von Martin Heidegger und Hans-Georg Gadamer.
Epistemata Philosphie 531 € 36,00

ISBN: 978-3-8260-5128-9
Reihen Nr: EpiP
Band Nr: 531
Erscheinungsahr: 2013
Seitenanzahl: 230
Sprache: deutsch
Kurzinhalt: Welche Verwandlung erfährt das Denken der Griechen durch seine Übersetzung in die lateinische Sprache, in die Welt und in die Kultur der Römer? Martin Heidegger charakterisierte diese Latinisierung als Entfremdung der griechischen Philosophie. Reichen die Folgen dieser Umformung bis heutzutage und ist es eigentlich nicht mehr möglich, die Grundbegriffe der griechischen Philosophen angemessen zu verstehen? Das vorliegende Buch versucht mit Heidegger, aber gleichzeitig anders als bei ihm, eine Antwort auf diese Aporie zu geben. Dabei wird auch das Werk Hans-Georg Gadamers herangezogen. Das Ergebnis dürfte vielleicht etwas mehr Licht in die Interpretation der beiden Philosophen werfen, in die eigentümliche Beschaffenheit der philosophischen Sprache und auch in die Diskussion über die Probleme des Übersetzens, des Verstehens und der Sprache, d. h. über zentrale Fragen der philosophischen Hermeneutik.
Der Autor Kosmas Raspitsos hat Philosophie, Germanistik und Übersetzungswissenschaft in Athen, Berlin und Freiburg i.Br. (Promotion) studiert. Außer seinen Forschungsschwerpunkten in Hermeneutik, antiker Philosophie und moderner Vernunftkritik übersetzt er philosophische und literarische Texte.

Article: Ricoeur's later thought

2013-03-12T02:20:00.001-07:00

Scott Davidson: Ricoeur's later thought: from hermeneutics to translation and back again.

Article: Chasing Ricoeur, in pursuit of the translation paradigm

2012-06-28T04:13:00.000-07:00

Chasing Ricoeur: in pursuit of the translational paradigm
Deborah M. Shadd, University of Ottawa, CANADA

ABSTRACT
It was in the midst of negotiations leading up to the formation of the European Union that
Paul Ricoeur published an article arguing for the adoption of translation as an ethical
model for dealing with the political and cultural challenges facing the emerging
international community. Twenty years later, his idea is gaining new currency among
Translation Studies scholars, as broader conceptions of translation open the way for a
fuller consideration of translation as a paradigm for interrogating other forms of
intercultural encounter. Drawing on the work of scholars ranging from Susan Bassnett
and Harish Trivedi to Robert Young and Salman Rushdie, this paper seeks to examine
how translation has been used as a model for addressing cultural issues in recent studies
and to explore how a more paradigmatic view of translation could help us to apply what
has been learned from centuries of dialogue about the cultural negotiations demanded by
textual translation to other non-textual transformative processes.

[Abstract] [Article]

Article: Ricoeur and Berman, an encounter between hermeneutics and translation studies

2012-05-07T00:57:00.004-07:00

Ricoeur and Berman, an encounter between hermeneutics and translation studies

Philosophy Today | February 1, 2012 | Lee, Hyang; Yun, Seong-Woo

This essay surveys commonalities and differences between Antoine Berman, a translation philosopher, and Paul Ricoeur, a hermeneutic philosopher, and thereby tries to discover where and how Translation Studies and hermeneutics might come into contact. Ricoeur and Berman are known as leading representatives of modern hermeneutics and modern Translation Studies, respectively. Ricoeur, however, takes translation as his last philosophical topic in the context of his research about the problematics of meaning, textual interpretation, Self-and-Other. On the other hand, Berman incorporates a variety of philosophers' thoughts on translation - such as Schleiermacher's, Benjamin's, Heidegger's, and Derrida's - into today's Translation Studies, and thereby develops philosophical reflections in Translation Studies that we can call translation philosophy, per se.

Klaus Held: Observaciones sobre la fenomenología de la traducción

2012-04-09T16:47:00.002-07:00

Klaus Held: Observaciones sobre la fenomenología de la traducción.

New book: Translation and Philosophy

2011-12-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

Foran, Lisa (ed.)

Translation and Philosophy

Series: Intercultural Studies and Foreign Language Learning - Volume 11

Year of Publication: 2012

Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien, 2012. VIII, 188 pp., num. tables

ISBN 978-3-0343-0794-9 pb.

Book synopsis

To what extent is philosophy reliant on translation and how does this practice impact on philosophy itself? How should philosophical texts be translated? Is translation inherently philosophical? Can philosophy be described as a 'type of translation'? The essays in this collection seek to respond to these intriguing and provocative questions. Exploring a wide range of issues, from the complexities of translating ambiguous philosophical terms to the role of language in concepts of identity and society, each essay highlights the manner in which the two disciplines rely on (and intersect with) each other. Drawing the collection together is an understanding of both translation and philosophy as practices which seek for meaning in our complex relationship with language and the world.

Contents: Theo Harden: The Awful German Language, or, Is 'Die Geistige Entwicklung' 'The Mental Development'? - David Charlston: Translating Hegel's Ambiguity: A Culture of Humor and Witz - Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan: Reading Oneself in Quotation Marks: At the Crossing of Disciplines - Andrew Whitehead: Moonless Moons and a Pretty Girl: Translating Ikkyu Sojun - Angelo Bottone: Translation and Justice in Paul Ricoeur - Lisa Foran: Translation as a Path to the Other: Derrida and Ricoeur - Elad Lapidot: What is the Reason for Translating Philosophy? I. Undoing Babel - Alena Dvorakova: Pleasure in Translation: Translating Mill's 'Utilitarianism' from English into Czech - Veronica O'Neill: The Underlying Role of Translation: A Discussion of Walter Benjamin's 'Kinship' - Sergey Tyulenev: Systemics and Lifeworld of Translation - Feargus Denman: Translation, Philosophy and Language: What Counts?

About the author(s)/editor(s)

Lisa Foran is a tutor and doctoral candidate in the School of Philosophy at University College Dublin and a visiting graduate student at the Archives Husserl (ÉNS) Paris. Her research, funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, focuses on the relationship between translation and the Other in the work of Jacques Derrida.

Translating Dietrich von Hildebrand

2011-12-24T02:23:00.000-08:00

Translator Search Fall 2011

General Description

The Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project exists to produce, publish, and disseminate English translations of the philosophical works of the German phenomenologist, Dietrich von Hildebrand. The Legacy Project seeks translators who are philosophically trained and who are familiar with the philosophical language used within the school of Husserl. Candidates should be capable of making translations of the highest quality, uniting aspirations for conceptual fidelity with the ability to produce a flowing and natural English text. They should also be in a position to translate a German text of several hundred pages within 7-8 months.

Contracts for translating the works of von Hildebrand will be offered to those who are deemed by the Legacy Project to be the best translators. Compensation will be in accordance with current standards for academic translation.

Upcoming Translation Projects:

The following books are scheduled to be translated in 2012 and 2013:

Die Metaphysik der Gemeinschaft (The Metaphysics of Community, 380pp.) Von Hildebrand’s major work in the philosophy of community in which he develops a distinctively personalist vision of community. Of particular significance in this work is von Hildebrand’s original analysis of the essential connection between objective values and the formation of genuine community.
Moralia (523 pp.) A late work in ethics in which von Hildebrand develops, expands, and even revises elements of his earlier writings in ethics and the philosophy of love.
Die Idee der sittlichen Handlung (The Idea of Moral Action, 126 pp.). Von Hildebrand’s dissertation, written under Edmund Husserl, of which Husserl remarked: “I almost want to say that the [artistic] genius of Adolf von Hildebrand [the father of Dietrich von Hildebrand] has been inherited by his son, the author, as a philosophical genius.” This work saw the first developments of von Hildebrand’s value philosophy.
Sittlichkeit und ethische Werterkenntnis (Morality and the Knowledge of Ethical Values, 140 pp.) Von Hildebrand’s habilitation in which he makes important contributions to our understanding of the depth character of personal existence.

To Apply:

Persons interested in translating a work of von Hildebrand should submit the following materials topublications@hildebrandlegacy.org by midnight EST on Wednesday, January 4th, 2012.

A polished translation of the following excerpt from Sittlichkeit und ethische Werterkenntnis, available for download here (for the title page, table of contents, and forward of Sittlichkeit, click here).
A current CV/resume, which includes a list of your translations, noting publication where applicable.

All applicants will be contacted by January 18th, 2012. The Legacy Project reserves the right to not select an applicant and to announce future translator searches.

Article: Jeff Speaks, Truth theories, translation manuals and theories of meaning

2011-07-15T00:55:00.000-07:00

Truth theories, translation manuals, and theories of meaning

Jeﬀ Speaks

January 20, 2006

Versions of the Davidsonian program in semantics aim to use a Tarskian truth theory to accomplish the tasks of a theory of meaning. In “Truth and Meaning,” Davidson identiﬁed two related aims for the theory of meaning: (i) to give the meanings of expressions of the language, and (ii) to explain the semantic competence of speakers of the language, by stating information knowledge of which would be suﬃcient to understand the language.

From the start, the attempt to use a truth theory to accomplish these tasks faced a number of fundamental objections. In the last thirty years, though, a number of variants of Davidson’s original framework have been proposed to avoid these objections.

The question I wish to raise in this paper is: do any of the proposed modiﬁcations of Davidson’s original theory validate the idea that, as Davidson put it, we ﬁnd in Tarskian truth theories “the sophisticated and powerful foundation of a competent theory of meaning”?

I will argue that they do not. To show this, it will be useful to begin with a discussion of two traditional problems for the Davidsonian program, and the solution to these problems oﬀered by Max K¨olbel in his “Two Dogmas of Davidsonian Semantics.”

Here.

Book: Analisi riflessiva

2011-05-19T01:21:00.001-07:00

Lester Embree

ANALISI RIFLESSIVA
Una prima introduzione allʼinvestigazione fenomenologica

Presentazione di Angela Ales Bello
Traduzione di Angelo Bottone

Edizioni Studium
pp. 168, € 11,50
ISBN 978-88-382-4071-3

La fenomenologia, teorizzata da Husserl alla fine dellʼOttocento, rappresenta una corrente fondamentale nella filosofia contemporanea. Nel corso dei decenni si è progressivamente diffusa in tutti i continenti, influenzando discipline non filosofiche: dapprima la psicologia e la psichiatria, per poi coinvolgere il teatro, la letteratura, lʼarchitettura, la medicina, le scienze infermieristiche, la psicologia sociale, lʼecologia.
Il volume propone unʼintroduzione alla fenomenologia intesa come analisi riflessiva. Essa viene affrontata non in senso storico, attraverso la presentazione di temi o autori appartenenti a questo filone teoretico, ma come metodo applicabile a qualsiasi ambito di esperienza, sia diretta che indiretta. Lʼautore distingue due stili filosofici: lʼargomentazione, prevalente nella filosofia analitica contemporanea, e lʼanalisi riflessiva che, a suo giudizio, è propria della fenomenologia. Scopo di questo lavoro è familiarizzare con il metodo fenomenologico e quindi migliorare le proprie abilità riflessive e teoretiche.
Il testo, già tradotto in diverse lingue e qui presentato per la prima volta in traduzione italiana, ha un intento pedagogico – ogni capitolo si conclude con degli esercizi – ma non è orientato limitatamente ad un pubblico di studenti, bensì a chiunque voglia imparare ad analizzare e a riflettere. La prima metà del lavoro presenta gli strumenti del metodo fenomenologico mentre i capitoli finali si concentrano su alcuni ambiti particolari dellʼesperienza quali il credere, il valutare ed il volere.
Lester Embree è William F. Dietrich Eminent Scholar in Philosophy presso la Florida Atlantic University. Ha studiato presso la New School for Social Research con Dorion Cairns e Aron Gurwitsch, discepoli di Edmund Husserl. Ha insegnato presso la Northern Illinois University (1969-1974) e la Duquesne University (1974-1990). Autore di oltre 200 pubblicazioni, ha diretto per ventʼanni il Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology e curato la Encyclopedia of Phenomenology (Kluwer 1997). È fondatore della Organization of Phenomenological Organizations (OPO), che raccoglie 160 organizzazioni filosofiche di ispirazione fenomenologica.

Rhétorique et traduction

2011-05-03T01:21:00.000-07:00

Colloque international

Rhétorique et traduction

Organisé par

SEPTET, Société d’Etudes des Pratiques et Théories en Traduction

LLL, Laboratoire Ligérien de Linguistique

Université d’Orléans

26-27 janvier 2012

5 rue du Carbone (Bât IRD)

Comité organisateur

Pierre Cadiot (Université d’Orléans)

Florence Lautel-Ribstein (Université d’Artois)

Antonia Cristinoi (Université d’Orléans)

Gabriel Bergounioux (Université d’Orléans) ( ?)

Pour les Latins, le terme de Traductio désignait une figure de rhétorique. On mesure ainsi la pertinence d’une rencontre portant sur les liens entre traduction et rhétorique.

Aujourd’hui, la rhétorique, tout comme la traduction, rapproche des champs disciplinaires variés : linguistique, littérature, anthropologie culturelle, philosophie du langage, etc.

Les différents axes de travail suivants pourront être explorés :

1. La traduction et la nature de la rhétorique

La rhétorique peut-elle être encore aujourd’hui conçue comme un ajout, un supplément d’âme et de présentation, voire même un masque (plutôt qu’un visage) ? Autrement dit, la rhétorique cessant progressivement de se confondre comme dans l’Antiquité gréco-romaine avec l’art de dire, mais aussi de penser, peut-elle être confondue avec un ensemble de procédés, qui sans être strictement ornementaux, l’engage néanmoins dans le sens d’une esthétique seconde, comme c’est le cas chez un Fontanier par exemple ? Le traducteur doit-il alors considérer qu’un « contenu » invariant est ainsi masqué ? Par voie de conséquence, la rhétorique peut-elle se confondre avec un aspect de l’art du traducteur qui serait de faciliter (mais aussi éventuellement d’agrémenter) la lecture ? Les dimensions clairement « rhétoriques » du texte-source (par exemple les questions précisément dites « rhétoriques », liées à la seule gestation du texte) doivent-elles être gommées dans le travail du traducteur ?

La rhétorique du traducteur a-t-elle une dimension « critique » ? Est-elle censée véhiculer (aussi) le point de vue singulier du traducteur ? Quelle est la part de la rhétorique dans le fait qu’historiquement les traductions ont si souvent fait l’objet d’adaptations marquées par la censure, l’idéologie, la volonté pédagogique, etc ? Quels sont les liens avec l’argumentation ? Le texte, la « lettre », doivent-ils dans l’acte de traduire s’effacer derrière des intentions, représentationnelles, polémiques et autres ? La rhétorique est-elle une « technique » ou un art « tactique ? Le traducteur doit-il être rusé ?

Doit-on à rebours s’attacher à relever, comme le fait un Dumarsais, des liens étroits entre grammaire et rhétorique (nonobstant le trivium médiéval) ? La rhétorique, au contraire de l’idée commune, plonge-t-elle ses racines au cœur même de la langue ? Quelles seraient les conséquences d’une réponse positive pour la traduction ?

2. La traduction entre champs rhétorique, poétique et émotionnel

Quels sont les liens entre rhétorique en tant que visée d’action, proche de la pragmatique moderne et poétique en tant qu’imitation d’action (mimesis) ? La traduction doit-elle être conçue comme une action, rendre le texte-source toujours plus efficace, ou doit-elle déployer et explorer les sources de sa propre poéticité ?

la rhétorique est-elle délibérément « cibliste » ? Est-elle idiosyncrasique, un art différent dans chaque langue particulière… ou relève-t-elle au contraire de techniques tendanciellement universelles ?

La distinction entre rhétorique et poétique ne serait-elle pas une conséquence d’une vision réductrice de ce qu’était la rhétorique des origines, celle d’Aristote, comme semblent en attester certaines des plus récentes traductions de son texte fondateur et qui montrent l’indissociabilité non seulement des propriétés sémantiques et esthétiques du langage, mais aussi de ses propriétés esthétiques et poétiques ?

On pourra s’interroger sur l’instabilité du statut de l’émotion et de ses inscriptions passionnelles dans le champ rhétorique. Qu’à l’occasion d’un événement émotionnel, on convoque le concept de thymie en sémiotique, ou tout autre concept affine, comment cette « subconscience » où se déploient les instances affectivo-émotives est-elle saisie dans l’acte traductif ?

3. Rhétorique et traduction dans leurs dimensions philosophiques et sémiologiques

D’une part :

la rhétorique ne serait-elle pas au fond de nature philosophique ? Peut-on y voir l’art même de former des concepts en les délivrant ?

la rhétorique se confond-elle avec la pragmatique moderne (wittgensteinienne, austinienne …) ?

D’autre part :

Quels liens avec la sémiologie et/ou la sémantique discursive et textuelle ? Comment la traduction doit-elle prendre en compte des effets comme l’idiomaticité, le cliché, le stéréotype, l’emblèmatisation, les « métaphores conceptuelles », etc. Les questions évidemment décisives de l’analogie, de la polysémie, de l’implicite, de l’inférence, comme mécanismes de production des textes sont-elles rhétoriques et relèvent-elles à ce titre d’un chapitre autonome de l’art du bien traduire ?

Et finalement :

Quels liens entre rhétorique, traduction et phénoménologie : le « contenu » peut-il être distingué de son apparaître, de ses modalités de donation ? L’essence figurale du langage renvoie à l’expérience immédiate, au « corps vécu » ? La traduction est sans arrêt confrontée à cette alternance de présentation (figurale, motivée, phénoménologique) et la gestation de contenus de représentation. Tout accès au réel est partiel, de l’ordre de l’esquisse, mais il s’impose avec la force du tout : ce que la tradition figure en termes - trop analytiques - de métaphore, métonymie, synecdoque, etc. renvoie à cette réalité en quelque sorte anthropologique. Mais très différemment d’une langue à l’autre. Comment la traduction doit-elle affronter ce problème ?

Calendrier

1 juin 2011 : envoi d’un résumé de deux pages environ et d’une courte bio-bibliographie à Florence Lautel-Ribstein :

30 juin 2011 : notification de la décision du Comité scientifique

1 mars 2012 : envoi des articles (max. 45, 000 caractères espaces compris) à Camille Fort

Les textes des communications seront publiés dans la revue SEPTET, Des mots aux actes

(ou le cas échéant soumis à la revue R.S.P.)

Comité scientifique

Antonia Cristinoi (Université d’Orléans)

Annie Cointre (Université de Metz)

Véronique Duché (Université de Melbourne)

Camille Fort (Université de Picardie)

Jean-René Ladmiral (Université de Paris Ouest-Nanterre et ISIT)

Michèle Lorgnet (Université de Bologne)

François Nemo (Université d’Orléans)

Yen-Mai Tran-Gervat (Université de Paris III).

Article: The Vanishing Mediator and Linguistic Hospitality

2011-03-17T01:57:00.002-07:00

The Vanishing Mediator and Linguistic Hospitality

In We, the People of Europe? Balibar argues for a Europe as the interpreter of the world, a ‘vanishing mediator’ translating languages and cultures.

Ricoeur in his last works has considered translation as a paradigm of the attitude towards the other, holding the view that the ethical purposes relating to linguistic hospitality are the model for any kind of hospitality. I intend to contrast Balibar’s vanishing mediator with Ricoeur’s concept of linguistic hospitality.

In spite of the fact that Étienne Balibar and Paul Ricoeur practically ignore each other in their works, I found some striking similarities in their thoughts regarding the role of languages and translation in Europe. In my paper, I will highlight these common views, with the intention of also showing their differences.

Here.

Article: The Vanishing Mediator and Linguistic Hospitality

2011-03-17T01:57:00.001-07:00

The Vanishing Mediator and Linguistic Hospitality

In We, the People of Europe? Balibar argues for a Europe as the interpreter of the world, a ‘vanishing mediator’ translating languages and cultures.

Here.

Article: The Vanishing Mediator and Linguisti Hospitality

2011-03-17T01:57:00.000-07:00

The Vanishing Mediator and Linguisti Hospitality

In We, the People of Europe? Balibar argues for a Europe as the interpreter of the world, a ‘vanishing mediator’ translating languages and cultures.

Here.

Call for papers: Hermeneutics and Translation Studies

2010-11-29T14:15:00.000-08:00

Hermeneutics and Translation Studies

1^st Call for Papers

Even though Translation Studies and Hermeneutics share a common interest in the mediating processes, these two disciplines have co-existed and developed since the advent of Translation Studies in the mid 20^th century with strikingly little interaction. The purpose of this symposium is to explore avenues in which Hermeneutics and Translation Studies could complement one another, thereby strengthen research on both oral and written mediation and the mediating processes. The symposium is conceived of as a forum for posing and discussing questions of relevance to these two disciplines. In particular, the purpose of the symposium is to begin developing the contours and goals of and simultaneously setting limits to the scope of an emerging discipline, Translational Hermeneutics, which could be developed by merging these heretofore distinct research strands.

SUGGESTED TOPICS

1. A Retrospective: Hermeneutics and the Development of Translation Studies

2. The Future: the New Field of “Translational Hermeneutics”

3. Didactics of Translation and Interpreting from a Hermeneutical Point of View

4. Translation in Practice – Specialized Texts versus Literature

5. Hermeneutics, Culture and Postcolonial Translation Studies

6. Synergies: Hermeneutics and Cognitive Linguistics

7. Hermeneutics, Corpus Studies and Empirical Research – Conflicting Paradigms?

PROGRAM

The symposium is scheduled to start in the morning of 26^th of May, 2011 and end by 5:00 p.m. on the 27^th of May, 2011. It will include papers and panel discussions. An evening dinner will be provided on the 26th of May to foster a discussion in a less formal atmosphere.

VENUE

The symposium will take place in the Rotunde, a large, circular room overlooking the Rhine River at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne. Accommodations are available within walking distance.

PAPER AND PANEL PROPOSALS

Abstracts for papers should be sent electronically as an attached file (MS Word format) to: Dr. John Stanley (john_wrae.stanley@fh-koeln.de).

Abstracts for panel proposals should be submitted by the moderator as a single abstract of 300-500 words with a list of panellists (names and affiliations). Panels should deal with a clearly defined topic and consist of a 90-minute debate. These abstracts should be sent to: Dr. John Stanley (john_wrae.stanley@fh-koeln.de).

All submissions should include a short author profile.

SYMPOSIUM LANGUAGES

Congress languages will be English and German. Please submit your abstracts in the language the paper or panel discussion will be held in.

DEADLINES

The deadline for submission of abstracts and panel proposals is 15^th of February, 2011.

The scientific committee will inform potential contributors of its decision around March 1, 2011.

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Radegundis Stolze, Larisa Cercel, John Stanley

LOCAL ORGANIZATION

John Stanley

PUBLICATION

A selection of contributions will be published as a volume of proceedings.

REGISTRATION

Symposium fees (2 Days, including refreshments and evening dinner)

Early Registration (by March 31, 2011)

Late Registration (as of April 1, 2011)

Students, Early Registration (by March 31, 2011)

Students, Late Registration (as of April 1, 2011)

€ 40,00

€ 60,00

€ 25,00

€ 50,00

Review: The Truth (and Untruth) of Language: Heidegger, Ricoeur and Derrida on Disclosure and Displacement

2010-11-16T03:06:00.000-08:00

Gert-Jan van der Heiden, The Truth (and Untruth) of Language: Heidegger, Ricoeur and Derrida on Disclosure and Displacement, Duquesne University Press, 2010, 296pp, $25.00 (pbk), ISBN 9780820704340.

Reviewed by Karl Simms, University of Liverpool

Van der Heiden's project is deceptively modest: to understand how Heidegger, Ricoeur and Derrida address poetic language and truth through the twin concepts of disclosure and displacement. This, of course, already presupposes much: that truth is to be found in poetic language rather than any other sort (scientific, propositional, etc.), and that the concepts of disclosure and displacement are central to discerning a certain commonality of purpose between these three thinkers.

Van der Heiden's book is organised into four principal chapters: 'Heidegger on Disclosure and Language', 'The Transference of Writing', 'Inventions of Metaphor', and 'Mimesis in Myth and Translation'. In the first, he reminds us that for Heidegger, Being arrives to Dasein in a state of unconcealedness (alētheia), but that metaphysics from Plato on has veiled the way whereby Being brings its unconcealedness with it. In Sein und Zeit, the 'fundamental phenomenon of truth' is 'the disclosedness of Dasein' (p. 46), and on this rests a conception of language that is 'apophantic', which is to say, it reveals beings (to themselves), rather than representing the world. This apophantic, or showing, character of language is dependent on Dasein's disclosedness. In his later work, Heidegger turns towards the essence of language and in so doing sees language as the origin of disclosure itself, rather than being derivative of it. Along the way, Heidegger rejects the project (associated with Frege and the analytic tradition) of producing an unambiguous computable metalanguage: such a metalanguage by definition cannot find truth as disclosure within the heart of language itself, as a lived experience. By the same token Heidegger also rejects everyday speaking which, through its forgetting of the originarily authentic in its adoption of cliché and idle talk, does not bring language to language itself. This bringing of language to language can only be achieved, according to Heidegger, through poetic language, leading him to readings of Stefan George and Hölderlin as exemplars of poets who unconceal the essence of language to beings. Heidegger thus privileges Ereignis, the event whereby the appropriate word is said in poetry as an unconcealment of truth and reality. The essence of language is this poetic Sage, saying.

This leads Heidegger to a dismissal of writing as a displacement of this Sage, a displacement which conceals the essence of language. Thus disclosure and displacement are the two opposing poles which delimit the field of Heidegger's enquiry into language: disclosure as the unconcealment of language's essence and displacement as its concealment. It is at this point that van der Heiden sees Ricoeur and Derrida as engaging with Heidegger, both in accepting his premises regarding the alētheic nature of language, and in rejecting the opposition he establishes between writing and authentic saying. Ricoeur, we recall, appropriates and radicalises Gadamer's notion of distanciation. For Ricoeur, writing entails a fourfold distanciation. Firstly, it partakes of the distanciation common to any form of discourse, that between event and signification. What a piece of discourse means can always in principle be distanced from the event of its being articulated: I can have a conversation on a certain topic one day and tell a third party about it on another day. The second form of distanciation is peculiar to writing, in that a written text may be distanced from its explicit addressee, if it has one: 'the text addresses everyone who can read' (p.79). Thirdly, writing distances from the world, insofar as in hearing speech I understand meaning directly, whereas writing draws attention to its structure, form, genre and so on. What is significant about this for Ricoeur is that through this suspension of the world, written text is able to present an imaginary or fictive world: fiction refigures and redescribes the world we inhabit (it is not clear from Ricoeur's account, or from van der Heiden's summary of it, why the stories produced by oral cultures do not enjoy the same privilege). And fourthly, writing distances self from self, as when we 'lose ourselves' in a book. Contrary to Gadamer, who held that we impose our Vor-urteile (pre-judgements or prejudices) on texts, for Ricoeur we expose ourselves to texts. Texts increase the interpreter's understanding of the world while exposing his or her illusions.

More here.

Book: The Truth (and Untruth) of Language

2010-11-13T03:00:00.001-08:00

The Truth (and Untruth) of Language

Heidegger, Ricoeur, and Derrida on Disclosure and Displacement

By Gert-Jan van der Heiden

$25.00 paper
ISBN: 978-0-8207-0434-0
300 pages

Book Information

Throughout the history of philosophy, the truth of language has often been considered from the perspective of the distinction between language that serves the transparency and univocality to which philosophy strives and language that threatens this goal. Linguistic phenomena such as writing, metaphor, and poetic mimesis are often considered examples of the latter form, and as a result, treacherous to truth; they would exemplify the “seduction of language,” as Husserl beautifully called it. Against this background, it is remarkable that contemporary hermeneutics often inquires into the relation between truth and language by taking these seductive forms of language as a point of departure. Contemporary hermeneutics does so in order to provide a new understanding of truth and untruth in relation to language.

In this study, Gert-Jan van der Heiden shows that this hermeneutic understanding of the relation between truth, untruth, and language can be clarified by inquiring into the meaning of two notions: disclosure and displacement. Unconcealment and hiding, truth and untruth, disclosure and displacement are the key notions to understanding the various conceptions of language in contemporary approaches to hermeneutics in continental philosophy. By painting a picture of the different meanings of these concepts in the work of Heidegger, Ricoeur, and Derrida, illuminating the differences and affinities of their respective projects, he finds an original way of showing how these three thinkers mutually discuss the relation between truth and language.

The Truth (and Untruth) of Language also confirms Heidegger’s continued influence in contemporary debates by tracing the influence of his account of the disclosure and displacement of language in the reigning schools of hermeneutical thought in continental philosophy. As a result, he offers a clear account of the comparison between hermeneutics and deconstruction by elucidating Ricoeur and Derrida’s shared resource of Heidegger’s project.

“Van der Heiden clearly locates the problem of language around its double ability to disclose the essence of things and displace the essence of things. No one has penetrated the Heidegger hinge between Ricoeur and Derrida as much as van der Heiden has.” — Leonard Lawlor, Edwin Erie Sparks Professor of Philosophy, Penn State University

Author Information

GERT-JAN VAN DER HEIDEN is assistant professor at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands) and holds doctoral degrees in both mathematics and philosophy. He has previously published journal articles in Philosophy Today, Symposium, and International Journal for Philosophy and Theology.

Book Reviews

Van der Heiden clearly locates the problem of language around its double ability to disclose the essence of things and displace the essence of things . . . No one has penetrated the Heidegger hinge between Ricoeur and Derrida as much as van der Heiden has.” — Leonard Lawlor, Edwin Erie Sparks Professor of Philosophy, Penn State University

Article: Carolina Paganine: A tradução ou o absurdo do possível: ‘On Translation’ de Paul Ricœur.

2010-10-23T02:01:00.001-07:00

Carolina Paganine (2010): “A tradução ou o absurdo do possível: ‘On Translation’ de Paul Ricœur” in: Scientia traductionis, 7 (2010), 93-102.

Abstract: This article seeks to present Paul Ricoeur’s main idea on translation as exposed in his book On translation (2006) which ultimately views the various translation’s dilemma in a positive perspective. By calling up theories of different thinkers on translation and on language issues, we aim at emphasizing translation’s intrinsically paradoxical character, something that serves at the foundation of its own possibility of its achievement, that is, to think of translation as a task that lies in the “absurd of the possible”.

New book: Thinking through Translation with Metaphors

2010-10-07T00:54:00.000-07:00

New book: Thinking through Translation with Metaphors: "Thinking through Translation with Metaphors
Edited by James St. Andre
ISBN 1-905763-22-0, 22.50 (inc. postage and packing)
http://www.stjerome.co.uk/page.php?id=543&doctype=StJBooks&section=3
Thinking through Translation with Metaphors explores a wide range of metaphorical figures used to describe the translation process, from Aristotle to the present.
Most practitioners and theorists of translation are familiar with a number of metaphors for translation, such as the metaphor of the bridge, following in another?s footsteps, performing a musical score, changing clothes, or painting a portrait; yet relatively little attention has been paid to what these metaphorical models reveal about how we conceptualize translation. Drawing on insights from recent developments in metaphor theory, contributors to this volume reveal how central metaphorical language has been to translation studies at all periods of time and in various cultures. Metaphors have played a key role in shaping the way in which we understand translation, determining what facets of the translation process are deemed to be important and therefore merit study, and aiding in the training of successive generations of translators and theorists. While some of the papers focus mainly on past metaphorical representations, others discuss recent shifts in both metaphor and translation theory, while others still propose innovative metaphors in a bid to transform translation studies.
The volume also includes an annotated bibliography of works centrally concerned with metaphors of translation.
Table of Contents
Translation and Metaphor: Setting the Terms
James St. Andr, University of Manchester, UK
Abstract. Theorists of translation have persistently used a wide, at times bewildering, range of metaphors to describe the translation process. Despite a period of roughly forty years in the post WWII era (1945-85) in which such metaphoric language was downplayed or even denigrated, recent developments in metaphor theory have led to a resurgence in interest in how metaphors shape our basic understanding of the world and may in fact lead to breakthroughs in a wide variety of scientific fields. This paper first traces briefly the combination of factors (historic mistrust of metaphoric language in Western philosophy, the rise of logical positivism in the sciences, the linguistic basis of translation studies in the post-war period, and problems with the misuse of metaphors in translation studies) that led to the neglect of the study of metaphors in a wide variety of academic discourses in the 20th century, and translation studies in particular. Two developments in metaphor theory that led to its redeployment are then briefly explored: the work of Max Black and others on metaphor as cognitive instrument in the sciences, and the work of Lakoff and Johnson on the pervasive presence of conceptual metaphors in everyday language. Finally, the article situates the individual essays in the current volume and suggests ways in which the study of metaphors of translation may further enrich the field.
Something old
Imitating Bodies, Clothes: Refashioning the Western Conception of Translation
Ben Van Wyke, Indiana University-Purdue, University Indianapolis (IUPUI), USA
Abstract. The concepts of translation and metaphor are intimately connected in the West. Not only do they share a common etymology in many European languages, but both have been designated as secondary forms of representation in the Platonic tradition. Consequently, translation and metaphor have undergone similar revisions in contemporary, post-Nietzschean philosophy, which has given them positions of primary importance. One metaphor that has frequently been used to describe translation is that of dressmaking ? meaning is viewed as a body and the translator?s job is to redress this meaning in the clothes of another language. Using this common metaphor, I will highlight a common thread in our conception of translation that has basically remained unchanged throughout the ages, a thread that can be tied directly to Plato?s theory of representation. Nietzsche radically placed into question this Platonic model, beginning with a reformulation of the traditional relationship between metaphor and truth. After examining the implications of his critique of Platonism, I will turn to Nietzsche?s own use of the metaphor of dress, which will help us recast our conception of translation by focusing on elements that have traditionally been left out of the picture.
Performing Translation
Yotam Benshalom, Centre of Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Warwick, UK
Abstract. Translators are similar to actors: they both assume altered identities in an effort to modify a sign system and represent it in front of an audience. They are both praised for being creative, but also blamed for being technicians; treated as servants of truth, but also as masters of deceit. This paper aims at further developing the metaphor of translation as performance by isolating specific issues dealt with by actors and theatre scholars and reviewing their relevance to translation practice. One of these issues is the question of time concept: translators, used to revising their work when they wish, may still benefit from strategies developed by performers who cannot go back in time and correct their errors. Another issue involves impersonation: performance scholars, like Diderot and Stanislavsky, have dealt with the question whether practitioners who imitate a persona should perfect their external performances or change their internal natures. The conclusions they draw may be relevant to translators. The limits of this metaphor can be pushed even further by adapting additional performance issues to the realities of translation. The acting metaphor thus exemplifies the fertility of interaction between translation studies and other disciplines and also contributes to the status of translation as an art.
Metaphorical Models of Translation: Transfer vs Imitation and Action
Celia Martn de Len, PETRA Research Group, University of Las Palmas, Spain
Abstract. Metaphorical models play an essential role in scientific reasoning. Through analogical thinking, they guide the elaboration of hypotheses in domains that do not have a clear conceptual structure. Traditionally, the domain of translation has been conceptualized through different metaphors, some of which are still used in modern translation studies. According to the principles of cognitive linguistics, it can be hypothesized that the way in which a person translates might be associated with the way in which that person conceptualizes translation. Since metaphor is an important tool for conceptualizing complex domains, conceptual metaphor theory offers a coherent theoretical frame for both a systematic study of metaphorical models of translation and research into the relations and potential interaction between those models and translation practice. Following this approach, the paper analyzes the basic structure underlying some prevalent metaphors in writings on translation (transfer, footsteps, target, assimilation, reincarnation, and projection) and the implicit communication models they assume, and puts forward some hypotheses about the way in which each metaphor might influence the translator?s work.
Something new
Western Metaphorical Discourses Implicit in Translation Studies
Maria Tymoczko, Department of Comparative Literature, University of Massachusetts, USA
Abstract. Dominant words for ?translation? in most (Western) European languages (such as translation, traduccin, traduction, and bersetzung) represent central cognitive metaphors for translation, signifying such things as carrying, setting, or leading across. These metaphors for textual translation became dominant in the late Middle Ages, associated with pressures to translate the Bible into the vernacular languages and encoding orientations related to the beginnings of the European age of imperialism. In a densely woven argument, this article demonstrates that the ascendancy of dominant contemporary Eurocentric cognitive metaphors for ?translation? inverted Cicero?s valorization of sense-for-sense over word-for-word translation, resulting in a pervasive orientation toward literalism in modern Eurocentric expectations about textual translation. The metaphors suggest there should be full semantic transfer between source text and target text and that protocols for achieving such results are possible. A central contention is that the strength of these metaphors rests in large part on Western European sacralization of the word, itself a consequence of the early Christian translation of the logos of God in New Testament Greek as verbum, ?word (Word)?, in Latin translations of the Bible, with the result that Jesus became equated with the Word become flesh. This metaphorical conceptualization persists in vernacular translations of the Bible into Western European languages to the present, contributing to the view of words themselves as numinous and the valorization of literalism in translation and other domains.
Squeezing the Jellyfish: Early Western Attempts to Characterize Translation from the Japanese
Valerie Heniuk, University of East Anglia, UK
Abstract. Translation has typically been conceptualized as a bridge, a mirror, a window through which we gaze at the original, a fountain from which we obtain water when we cannot go directly to the stream, the action of carrying across, and so on. Most of these images have lost their power to make us take seriously how they filter or even distort what we see as being involved in the process. Setting aside such dead metaphors and instead trying to think of translation as the squeezing of a jellyfish, as one early anthology of Japanese literature puts it, cannot help but force us to come at the problem from a fresh perspective. When Japan opened to the West in the mid-19th century, translators struggled to describe their experience of rendering this newly discovered canon into a foreign tongue, and often ended up employing eccentric images in order to do so. This article considers some of those images, including the jellyfish one and a cluster referring to such chemical or alchemical processes as distillation, filtration and sublimation. It thereby explores how translation is conceptualized via figurative language, and thus how metaphor may constitute a particular view ? if not a theory ? of cross-cultural transposition.
Something borrowed
Metaphor as a Metaphor for Translation
Rainer Guldin, Universit della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland
Abstract. There are three major points of contact between translation studies and metaphor theory: the use of specific metaphors to describe the functioning of translation, the use of translation as a metaphor for exchange and transformation within different forms of discourse, and the question of the translatability of metaphors and the development of translational strategies necessary to achieve this. There is, however, a fourth possibility that has not encountered yet all the attention it deserves: Metaphor and translation share a series of structural similarities and their history within the Western tradition has been interlinked from the very beginning. Traces of this shared but not always explicitly acknowledged history can be detected in the common etymology of the two notions in Greek, Latin and English. Throughout history, furthermore, shifts in the appraisal of metaphor have very often found their echo in corresponding reappraisals within translation studies. Instead of studying the different metaphors used to describe translational processes and the theoretical points of view they imply, this paper therefore focuses on the different theoretical approaches developed with regard to the functioning of metaphor in an attempt to investigate the workings of translation and some of the stages translation studies has gone through. To put it in other words, the paper focuses on the meta-communicative potential of metaphor as a metaphor for translation.
Metaphors for Metaphor Translation
Enrico Monti, Universit di Bologna , Italy
Abstract. This essay analyzes the metaphors used by translation scholars to define metaphor translation. The topic has elicited a surge of interest in translation studies since the late 1970s, and here a corpus of some 15 essays is taken into account, covering a diverse range of approaches to the issue. The main narrative is that of metaphor as a problem in translation, which finds its way through most if not all of the essays considered here. While not being dissociated from the traditional narrative of a more general theory of translation, in this specific case the activity seems almost doomed to failure. This is also confirmed by a number of spatial metaphors drawing a borderline space for metaphor translation and locating metaphors at the ?limits of translatability?. A final set of metaphors identified in the corpus resorts to the concepts of dimensions and forces, in order to allow a more encompassing view of the figure and its translation. Such models attempt to move beyond the narrative of a troublesome, unsolvable activity, towards a non-simplistic, quantitative approach to the issue.

Yves Bonnefoy?s Metaphors on Translation
Stphanie Roesler, McGill University, Canada
Abstract. Although poet-translators rarely share details of their craft, Yves Bonnefoy is one notable exception. This article examines the ways in which Bonnefoy employs metaphors to elucidate both the role of the translator and the translation process. One is immediately struck by a group of metaphors Bonnefoy employs to describe the relationship between author and translator, all of which suggest friendship and intimacy and establish the translator as a privileged interlocutor. Another set of metaphors depicts the translator as an explorer. The translator journeys into the recesses of the poet?s psyche, trying to decipher his thoughts in order to re-express them through another poetic language. A third set of metaphors suggests that translating is less about the original text and its author than about the translator himself. In these metaphors, Bonnefoy invokes the senses: he proposes, for example, that translating consists in feeding on the teachings of another poet. Last but not least, translation is, in Bonnefoy?s words, an occasion for self-reflection, suggesting a self-oriented and narcissistic process. Ultimately, the metaphors used by Bonnefoy in his articulation of the translation process ask us to reconsider both the translator?s role in the translation of poetry and the profound motivations that lie behind this enterprise.
Something blue
Translation as Smuggling
Sergey Tyulenev, Cambridge University, UK
Abstract. This paper considers the epistemological and methodological potential of the metaphor ?translation is smuggling?, in particular as it relates to the axis of visibility/invisibility of the translator or other agents of the translation process. The metaphorization of translation as smuggling is shown to be a middle case between the two extremes: visibility and invisibility of the translator, allowing researchers to overcome this simplistic dichotomy. In the illustrative part of the paper, translation as smuggling is analyzed in two domains: the social-political and the sexual. Examples are taken from Russian translation history, mainly Boris Pasternak?s and Ivan Dmitriev?s translations of Western European writers. The metaphor ?translation is smuggling? is shown to be a useful methodological tool for studying translation as practised under various ideological and ethical pressures. Under the surface of its text, the translator as smuggler introduces a hidden content charged with a concealed subversive mission. This content represents the translator?s own convictions, sentiments, and anxieties not found in the source text.

Passing through Translation
James St. Andr, University of Manchester, UK
Abstract. In this paper I demonstrate that cross-identity performance, a new and specific metaphor for translation related to acting, has several points to recommend it. It covers a number of different but related types of performance, including passing, slumming, drag, blackface, yellowface, impersonation and masquerade. In each of these activities, a number of variables, including appearance versus reality, the relative power relationship between representer and represented, how knowledge of the Other is linked to knowledge of the self, and the meaning of border crossing, lead to a spectrum of practices which can be mapped on to an extremely wide variety of translation practices. The metaphor also draws attention to the importance of both aural and visual signs. The ability to mimic the speech patterns of others is crucial to successful cross-identity performance, and this should make us more aware of the importance of ?voice? even in written translation, to say nothing of oral interpretation. Furthermore, various dichotomies in translation studies, such as the visibility or invisibility of the translator, source norms versus target norms and domestication versus foreignization, might be overcome, or at least problematized, by the metaphor of cross-identity performance. Finally, I suggest that there are links with post-structural attempts to dislodge the author and the original text from their throne and open up translation studies to a more radical vision of the field.

Appendix
An Annotated Bibliography of Works Concerned with Metaphors of Translation
James St. Andre
List of Contributors
Index"

Review: Irène Kuhn, Antoine Bermanns "produktive" Übersetzungskritik

2010-10-04T01:00:00.000-07:00

Rolf Pütter über Antoine Bermans „produktive“ Übersetzungskritik von Irène Kuhn,

Schon 1995, anlässlich eines Kolloquiums zum Thema Literaturimport und Literaturkritik in Düsseldorf, berief sich die Übersetzerin Irène Kuhn auf ihren französischen Kollegen Antoine Berman, indem sie ihrem Beitrag ein Zitat aus seinem letzten, postum erschienenen Werk Pour une critique des traductions: John Donne[1] voranstellte:

Wenn Kritik folgendes bedeutet: strenge Analyse einer Übersetzung, Analyse ihrer Grundzüge, des Übersetzungsprojekts, aus dem sie hervorgegangen ist, Analyse des Horizonts, an dem sie aufgetaucht ist, Eingehen auf die Position des Übersetzers; wenn also Kritik grundsätzlich darauf abzielt, die innere Wahrheit einer jeden Übersetzungherauszuarbeiten, dann muß man zugeben, daß die Übersetzungskritik über ihre Anfänge noch nicht hinweggekommen ist.[2]

Sie fühlte sich von dieser Einschätzung Bermans wohl auch deshalb unmittelbar angesprochen, weil ihre eigenen Erfahrungen als Übersetzerin in die gleiche Richtung wiesen:

In all diesen Jahren, bei all den sehr verschiedenen Titeln – viele Romane, aber auch Sachbücher, Essays, Theaterstücke, Kunstkritik, Kinderliteratur – ist mir noch nie von Seiten der offiziellen Kritik ein einziges ernst zu nehmendes Wort über das Geleistete gesagt worden, ein Wort der Beachtung, sei es lobend oder tadelnd, geschweige denn ein Wort der Würdigung. Damit meine ich durchaus Konkretes: Antworten auf Fragen, die ich mir selbst stelle, die ich aus mangelnder Distanz zur Sache nicht zu beantworten vermag. Ist es mir etwa gelungen, die Übersetzung in ein „reines Deutsch“ zu bringen, ein dem Original angemessenes? Gibt es Stellen, die noch „übersetzt“ wirken, ungelöst? Hat mein Ohr den Grundton, den Sprachgestus des Originals gehört und ist er wenigstens annähernd in meinen Text eingegangen? Was ist gut geworden, was ist mißglückt?[3]

More here.

Book: Irène Kuhn, Antoine Bermanns "produktive" Übersetzungskritik

2010-10-01T00:58:00.000-07:00

Irène Kuhn
Antoine Bermanns "produktive" Übersetzungskritik
Entwurf und Erprobung einer Methode

Series: Transfer
Volume: 15

Number of pages: 214
Cover: kartoniert

Date of publication: 24.10.2007
lieferbar

Edition: 1. Auflage
ISBN: 9783823340942
ISBN13: 978-3-8233-4094-2
Reference number: 14094