1. Contemporary Translation Theories-II ETI 301 Neslihan Kansu-Yetkiner

2. FRAMEWORK So far we have considered literary, linguistic and cultural theory of translation. In this session we will move on to look at modern philosophical approaches to translation that have sought out the essence of translation (mainly literary) over the second half of the 20th century.

3.  -Steiner’s hermeneutic motion  -The task of translator: Walter Benjamin  -Deconstruction Theory

4. -Steiner’s hermeneutic motion  WHAT IS HERMENEUTICS?  Hermeneutics is an interpretive method, named after the Greek word hermeneuin meaning 'to understand'. It involves empathic projection of the interpreter's desire to understand the activity s/he is trying to understand. They imagine themselves inside the activity, feel subjectively and describe what they find from within.  As a theory of interpretation, the hermeneutic tradition stretches all the way back to ancient Greek philosophy.  In the course of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, hermeneutics emerges as a crucial branch of Biblical studies. Later on, it comes to include the study of ancient and classic cultures.

5.  Hermeneutics, briefly, can be defined as the science and methodology of interpreting texts.  Interpretation can never be divorced from language. Because language comes to humans with meaning, interpretations and understandings of the world can never be prejudice-free.  As human beings, one cannot step outside of language and look at language or the world from some objective standpoint.  Language is not a tool which human beings manipulate to represent a meaning-full world; rather, language forms human reality. (quoted from Bullock, 1997)

6.  Hermeneutics is the discipline that has traditionally dealt with mediating processes and human understanding. Authors such as Fritz Paepcke and Georg Steiner endeavored to establish hermeneutics within translation studies.  However, since its inception in the mid 20th century, the field of translation studies has been dominated to a large extent by linguistics.  With the pragmatic and cultural turns later on, there has been a growing awareness that the linguistic paradigm is too limited in scope. Recently scholars have tried to re-establish hermeneutics as a viable paradigm in translation studies.

7.  Steiner in his seminal work “After Babel” states that the reason for the lack of new developments in translation theory is that translation is a hermeneutical task, "not a science, but an exact art.“ hermeneutical  He then presents a new translation model that combines philosophical hermeneutics with existing translation studies to form a "systematic hermeneutic translation theory". The new model comprises four "movements": trust, aggression, incorporation, and retribution (compensation).

8.  WHY?

9.  “Nerden çıktı bu kara kargalar,  Mustafa onları kovalamamış mıydı?”

10. ALDANI-ALDATI  I Benim düşlerimin içinde O uyuyordu, duyuyordum. Ben bir uykusunda onun, Bir düş'ünde bulundum.. Uyuyordu,duyuyordu, Avundum. II Benim düşlerimin içinde O uyumuyordu, biliyordum. Ben ne bir uykusunda onun, Ne de bir düş'ünde bulundum.. Bulunsaydım, Vururdum.  Özdemir ASAF

11. Hermeneutic motion-  A term of George Steiner's coined in his attempt to project himself into the activity of translating. It is a movement through four stages:  Trust-the translator surrenders to the SL text and trusts it to mean something.  Aggression-the translator goes abroad, enters the SL text, driven no longer by passive trust but by an active intention of taking something off the SL and tries to extract something. The translator is said to go with plunder in mind.  Incorporation- the translator has the intention of bringing something from the SL to TL which is already full of its own words and meaning. Different types of assimilation can be seen (complete domestication vs. permanent strangeness and marginality).  Restitution/Compensation- the translator tries to achieve a balance by trying to be as faithful as he can and as freely as he must. The translator must be willing to give back to the SL as much as he has taken.

12. To experience difference  For Steiner, the concept of “difference” occurs in two ways: -the translator experiences the foreign language differently from his or her mother tongue. -Each pair of languages, SL and TL, differs and imposes its vivid differences on he translator and society. “To experience difference, to feel the characteristic resistance and ‘materiality’ of that which differs, is to re-experience identity” (Steiner 1998:381).

13. Discussion of Steiner  “After Babel” is still popular.  Theories do not seem dated.  Male dominated language of the text as Steiner was opposed to feminist ideology.

14. The task of translator: Walter Benjamin  We will discuss Walter Benjamin’s famous essay ‘The Task of the Translator’ (1923).  For Benjamin a translation is part of the ‘afterlife’ of a text.  As a text in its own right, a translation does not only carry messages; it recreates the value given to the text throughout the ages.  Moreover a translation appears as something unique in Benjamin’s words for it has the potential to convey what he calls a ‘pure language’, where the ‘mutually exclusive’ differences among two languages can coexist and where the ‘complementary intentions’ of these languages can be communicated.

15.  The task of translator is not to ‘assemble’ or express what is to be conveyed since the poet/writer has already done that when writing the original text.  The task of the translator rather ‘consists in finding that intended effect [Intention] upon the pure language into which he is translating which produces in it the echo of the original’.   This pure language is released by the co-existence and the complementation of the translation with the original.

16.  Thus the two texts, both the original and its translation, share what Benjamin calls a ‘vital link’ and from this linguistic harmony arises a greater language, a ‘pure language’.  This is the reason why the task of translator is something unique and powerful for Benjamin because until he has released this greater language in his translation, ‘it remains hidden in the languages.’

17.  “It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language which is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re- creation of that work”.  Benjamin’s stress on allowing the foreign to enter the translation language harks back to Schleiermacher’s concept of foreignization.

18. Deconstruction  Deconstruction is a method or practice of reading developed by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida to uncover that which is forgotten, hidden or repressed in texts.  It thus interrogates key concepts in the philosophical tradition, and questions the dualisms or binary oppositions in Western thought (presence/absence, nature/culture, speech/writing, etc).  In literary studies, deconstructionists do not seek to find a single meaning for a work or works, but rather uncover the multiplicity of meanings, often  unacknowledged and even contradictory, that exist in literary texts.  Yet they do not attempt to reconcile those meanings into a single, coherent structure. Instead, they explore how those meanings are ultimately irreconcilable and proliferate in ways that call into question received assumptions or “truths.”

19.  Deconstruction seems to center around the idea that language and meaning are often inadequate in trying to convey the message or idea a communicator is trying to express.  Since the confusion stems from the language and not the object then one should break down or deconstruct the language to see if we can better understand where the confusion stems.

20. Deconstruction  Deals with the fact that we construct meaning  Is suspicious of all cultural forms, including language  Encourages critical inquiry and self- reflective thinking  Seeks to deconstruct hidden meanings in structures.  Difference between signifier and signified.

21.  Derrida discusses his idea of "interpreting the interpretations," through the ideas of an event, the structure of that event and the play of the elements of that make up the structure.  To really understand a thing, in this case language, one would need to break down what language is, how it works, why we adhere to that structure as our means of communications etc. The problem is that we use language to analyze language and I don't think you can do that.

22.  Derrida is opposed to concept of relevance in translation. Because according to Derrida relevance depends on a stable signified, signifier relationship and aims at total transparency.

23.  Previous translation theories,  such as functional equivalence, failed on two fronts.  Firstly, they failed to provide an equally valid account of the diverse kinds of translation.  Secondly, they suffered from some erroneous assumptions about the nature of communication and the conditions for successful communication in translation.

24. Translation and Relevance Theory (Gutt,1991)  Relevance theory distinguishes between descriptive and interpretive use of language.  In descriptive use, (a) the thought belongs to the speaker and (b) the speaker intends it to accurately represent reality. In interpretive use,  (a) the thought belongs (originally) to someone other than the  speaker and (b) the speaker intends his/her utterance to accurately represent the original thought. Someone speaking descriptively intends to be faithful to reality; someone speaking interpretively intends to be faithful to the meaning of the original speaker (Smith 2000:39).

25.  Mary: Would you like to come for a run? Bill: I'm resting today.  -Annemleri yemeğe çağırdın mı?  -Masamız 6 kişilik  -Eti beğendin mi?  -Ben sebzeciyimdir aslında.

26. Next Week: General Review