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Target
Vol. 9:1 (1997) ► pp.43–68

Translating the Untranslatable

The Translator's Aesthetic, Ideological and Political Responsibility [1] 1

| McGill University

Translation scholars have recently emphasized the importance of the translator's (in)visibility (Venuti) and of the ethical aim of translation (Berman). This paper argues that a) the translation of literary sociolects is paradigmatic of the way in which the translator's visibility is foregrounded within the target text; b) their translation requires a "visible" engagement on the part of the translator which is grounded in an ethics of translation, thus leading beyond the visible/ invisible dichotomy implied by Venuti and the positive/negative ethics dichotomy set up by Berman; c) the comments made by numerous translation scholars concerning the problems raised by literary sociolects reflect some of the contradictions besetting contemporary translation theory.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.The Concept of Literary Sociolect
    • 1.1.Literary Sociolects as Textual Constructs
    • 1.2.Literary Sociolects as Ideological and Pragmatic Constructs
    • 1.3.The Translation of Literary Sociolects as Paradigmatic of the Translation Process in General
  • 2.Translating Literary Sociolects: An Impossible Task?
    • 2.1.The Risk of Meaning Creation
    • 2.2.The Risk of Meaning Loss
    • 2.3.The Risk of Ethnocentricity
    • 2.4.The Risk of Unauthenticity
    • 2.5.The Risk of Conservatism and/or Radicalism
    • 2.6.Accepting the Risks
  • 3.Toward an Ethics of Translation
    • 3.1.Lawrence Venuti: The Invisibility vs the Visibility of the Translator
    • 3.2.Antoine Berman: The Negative vs the Positive Analytic of Translation
    • 3.3.Beyond Dualism
    • 3.4.The Translator's Responsibility
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 January 1997
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.9.1.04lan
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