Philosophical Approaches to Literary Translation

Authors

  • Mohamed Sidi Mohamed Sidi Mahmoud Professor, Department of English, Nouakchott University, Nouakchott, Mauritania

Keywords:

Translation, Foreignization, Domestication, Culture, Translation Procedures, Inter-Cultural Communication

Abstract

This article discusses the philosophical foundations of literary translation tackled by thinkers such as Walter Benjamin, Ezra Pound, Jacque Derrida and Georg Steiner. More specifically, it brings to view Benjamin’s call for the protection of the voice of the other, Pound’s archaism, Derrida’s notion of difference and Steiner’s hermeneutic motion. It pinpoints the limitations that characterize their views and the complications that frame their discussions. The article shows the extent to which their models help deconstruct the predominating domestication strategies which lead to the monolithic discourse of representation via translation. That is to say, they deconstruct the hegemony prevailed in traditional Western literary paradigms of translations. However, their models are philosophically oriented, without providing relevant methods for dealing with the linguistic gaps encountered in the literary translation.

 

 

Author Biography

Mohamed Sidi Mohamed Sidi Mahmoud, Professor, Department of English, Nouakchott University, Nouakchott, Mauritania

 

 

Dimensions

Benjamin, Walter. “The Task of the Translator.” In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Laurence Venuti, 15-25. London: Routledge, 2000.

Birsanu, Roxana. “The Image of the Other in Ezra Pound’s Translations,” SYNERGY 5, no. 1 (2009): 122-130, http://synergy.ase.ro/issues/2009-vol5-no1/15-the-image-of-the-other-in-ezra-pounds-translations.pdf

Cheung, Andy. “A History of Twentieth Century Translation Theory and its Application for Bible Translation.” Journal of Translation 9, no. 1(2013): 1-15, https://www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/14/62/43/146243287590382592044287238746367616828/siljot2013_1_01.pdf

Derrida, Jacque. “Living On” and “Border Lines.” Translated by James Hulbert, in Deconstruction and criticism, edited by Harolod Bloom, 75-176. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul PLC, 1980.

“What is a .Relevant. Translation?,” translated by Laurence Venuti Critical Inquiry 27, no. 2 (2001): 174-200, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1344247

Hornby, Marry. The Turns of Translation Studies: New Paradigms or Shifting Viewpoints? Amsterdam: Benjamins Translation Library, 2006.

Kim, Yougmin. “Ethics of Cultural Translation: Ezra Pound and Walter Benjamin,” Foreign Literature Studies 36, No. 6 (2014): 7-17. https:// www. Researchgate.net/publication/279315898_Ethics_of_Culutral_Translation_Ezra_Pound_and_Walter_Benjamin

Lindah, James. “Anthropological Approaches to The Philosophy of Translation.”PhD. diss., University of Western Ontario, 1999.

Lin, Xin and Shi Cheng. “The Analysis of Translators from the Perspective of Deconstruction.” Asian Social Science 7, no. 5 (2011): 258-262. https//doi:10.5539/ass.v7n5p258

Mohamed, Kharmandar. “A Hermeneutic Critique on George Steiner’s Hermeneutic Motion in Translation.” CROSSROADS. A Journal of English Studies 20. (2018): 83-98. https:// DOI:10.15290/cr.2018.20.1.05

Moradi, Hossein. “The Afterlife of a Text in Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Translation.” Journal of English 1, no. 4 (2011): 53-58. https://jes.srbiau.ac.ir/article_5598.html

Munday, Jeremy. Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. London & New York: Routledge, 2008.

O’Neill, Veronica. “The Underlying Role of a Translation: A Discussion of Walter Benjamin’s ‘Kinship.” In Translation and Philosophy, edited by Foran Lisa, 125-138. Berlin: Peter Lang AG, 2012.

Pound, Ezra. “Raphaelite Latin.” In EzraPound’s Poetry andProseContributions to Periodicals, edited by Lea Baechler, A Walton Litz, and Longenbatch James Ezra. 5-8. New York: Garland Publishing, 1991.

“Guido’s Relations.” In TheTranslation Studies Reader, edited by Laurence Venuti, 26-33. London: Routledge, 2000.

Radnoti, Sandor. “Benjamin’s Dialectic of Art AndSociety.” In Benjamin: PhilosophyAesthetics, History, edited by Gary Smith, 126-156. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Steiner, George. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

“Hermeneutics Motions.” In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Laurence Venuti, 186-191. London: Routledge, 2000.

Williams, John. “Modernist Scandals: Ezra Pound’s Translations of ‘The’ Chinese Poem.” In Orient and Orientalism in US-American Poetry and Poetics, edited by Sabine Seilke and Christian Kloeckner, 145-165. New York: Peter Lang, 2009

Published

2023-04-02

How to Cite

Mohamed Sidi Mohamed Sidi Mahmoud. (2023). Philosophical Approaches to Literary Translation . African Journal of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (AJASHSS), 2(2), 1–8. Retrieved from https://aaasjournals.com/index.php/ajashss/article/view/286

Issue

المجلد الثاني، العدد الثاني، (أبريل-يونيو) 2023

Section

Articles
Copyright & Licensing
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.