Paradoxes of translation
On the exceedance of the unspoken
Angelo Vannini | Paris 8 University
In this article, I consider what is assumed to be the speculative paradox of translation: that translation is theoretically impossible but actually practicable. My thesis is that this aporia is nothing but a consequence of the limited way in which translation is often conceptualised. In this article, the term ‘translation’ is to be understood as interlingual translation, unless otherwise indicated; more precisely, as literary translation. In order to present my argument, I will examine three examples of translation, namely: (1) the fictionalisation of the translation process in Nicole Brossard’s novel Le désert mauve; (2) Jean-François Billeter’s translation of a poem by the medieval Chinese poet Su Dongpo; and (3) the translation of the words ‘tragedy’ and ‘comedy’ by the fictional character Averroes in a short story written by Jorge Louis Borges. The analysis of these real or fictitious examples of translation will help to introduce the notion of the unspoken as that which cannot be transmuted or recognised as a sign. This ever-present dimension of the translation process will allow me to show that the thesis of fundamental untranslatability is a false aporia, which derives from a reductive understanding of the phenomenon of translation.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Nicole Brossard’s Le désert mauve
- 3.A translation by Jean-François Billeter
- 4.Averroes’s translation in a short story by Borges
- 5.Conclusion
- Notes
-
References
Published online: 07 December 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.20114.van
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.20114.van
References
Baker, Mona
Baldo, Michela
Basile, Elena
2007 “The Most Intimate Act of Reading: Affective Vicissitudes in the Translator’s Labour.” Doletiana: Revista de traducció, literatura i arts, 11: 1–7 https://raco.cat/index.php/Doletiana/article/view/148410/200238
Billeter, Jean François
Borges, Jorge Luis
Brossard, Nicole
Cassin, Barbara
Cassirer, Ernst
Chow, Rey
Davou, Bettina
De Lotbinière-Harwood, Susanne
Frota, Maria Paula
Hokkanen, Sari, and Kaisa Koskinen
Hubscher-Davidson, Séverine
Kaindl, Klaus
Koskinen, Kaisa
Large, Duncan, Motoko Akashi, Wanda Józwikowska, and Emily Rose
Lefevere, André
Marais, Kobus
Marais, Kobus, and Reine Meylaerts
Risku, Hanna
Sakai, Naoki
Schleiermacher, Friederich
Vannini, Angelo
Weisgerber, Leo