The Translatability of Texts: A Historical Overview (original) (raw)

RÉSUMÉ Cet article étudie les diverses approches de l'intraduisibilité des textes en portant une attention spéciale aux théories des 19 e et 20 e siècles. On analyse les points de vue des chercheurs qui ont adopté une position monadiste (par ex. Edward Sapir) et ceux qui ont choisi une interprétation universaliste (Eugene A. Nida, par ex.). On affirme que le déport de l'attention du concept de l'intraduisibilité, qui a caractérisé les théories récentes, n'est que superficiel et que cela tire son origine, d'une part, de l'élargissement du concept de traduction lui-même, et d'autre part, dépend du désir d'oublier des arguments tradition-nels et idéologiquement modifiés qui pourrraient être perçus comme problématiques. ABSTRACT This paper critically surveys the different approaches to the (un)translatability of texts, giving special attention to the theories generated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It analyses the views of scholars who adopted a monadist stance (such as Edward Sapir) and those who chose a universalist interpretation (Eugene A. Nida, for instance). It is argued that the shift of attention away from the concept of untranslatability, which has characterised recent theories is only superficial and that it has resulted, on the one hand, from the expansion of the concept of translation itself and, on the other, from a wish to leave behind traditional, ideologically motivated arguments which could be perceived as problematic. There are essentially two points of view from which translatability has been traditionally approached: the universalist one and the monadist one. 1 Supporters of the former approach claim that the existence of linguistic universals ensure translatabil-ity. Those who endorse the latter approach maintain that each linguistic community interprets reality in its own particular way and this jeopardises translatability. The polarisation of thought which these two opposed approaches imply has not always been manifest in translation scholarship. Some theorists have oscillated between the extremes represented by universalism and monadism and some have attempted to combine aspects of both perspectives. There is a third, more recent approach to translatability: that of the Deconstructionists, who question the notion of translation as transfer of meaning. The issue of the translatability of texts started to be considered as such in the nineteenth century, when the birth of a linguistic science encouraged the positing of theoretical questions of this nature. Until then, scholars had focused their attention mainly on translation methodology and the principles of translation. The development of theories on the nature of language and communication provided a growing medium for an analysis of the possibility or impossibility of elaborating concepts in a language different from that in which they were conceived.