Publications

Publication details [#19126]

Johnston, John. 1992. Translation as simulacrum. In Venuti, Lawrence, ed. Rethinking translation: discourse, subjectivity, ideology. London: Routledge. pp. 42–56.
Publication type
Article in jnl/bk
Publication language
English
Person as a subject
Title as subject

Abstract

In this article, the author discusses concepts and ideas from Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Task of the Translator” (1923), for example the notion of “pure language”, the use of the words “kinship” and “prototype”. The author then elaborates on the idea of translation as copy. Benjamin rejected the notion of translation as the copy or reproduction of a Platonic essence, but his use of the model-copy relationship remained ambiguous or untheorized. The author here wants to theorize this perspective more fully and proposes to consider translation as a simulacrum.
Source : W. Tesseur