Opportunities of Contact: Derrida and Deleuze/Guattari on Translation (original) (raw)
Related papers
Translation as a Path to the Other: Derrida and Ricoeur
IN Lisa Foran (Ed.) Translation and Philosophy (Peter Lang 2012) pp.75-87 This essay offers a brief summary of the writings of both Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) and Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) on the theme of translation. Given the importance both thinkers accord language and the text; the theme of translation, while not always explicit in their writings, is certainly a background concern throughout them. We will here, however, focus on their specific dealings with the theme and how these might relate to theories of the Other. What will be revealed is that, although both writers differ on various points, ultimately they both argue for the necessity of translation for the survival and enrichment of a language; and that this positive aspect of translation in linguistic terms might be viewed, analogously or not, as an argument for the necessity of the Other in the constitution, and indeed the very survival of the self. Central to this analysis is the role played by the text, by meaning, and by the dichotomies of faithfulness/betrayal and translatability/untranslatability
The Scene of Babel: Translating Derrida on Translation
Jacques Derrida's texts pose specific and notoriously complex challenges for the translator. In particular, the performative nature of his writing makes the transfer of meaning and rhetorical effects especially difficult to negotiate. This paper examines Joseph F. Graham's English version of “Des Tours de Babel”, arguably Derrida's most influential text on translation. In a translator's note, Graham acknowledges the limitations of his version and claims – despite these limitations, or precisely because of them – to have succeeded in enacting Derrida's ideas on translation. My paper examines the implications of this claim and asks: first, what are the “principles” derived from the source text that Graham sees as taking shape in his translation and “guiding” it; second, how does the performativity invoked by Graham, if it is at all present, come about in his translation; and third, is Graham's stated approach borne out by his translation choices? It is not my concern to reach an evaluative judgment on Graham's translation, but rather to trace the workings of this peculiar Babelian scene.
Derrida and Translation (Pre-publication Draft)
2018 (Routledge Handbook of Translation and Philosophy), 2018
Derrida powerfully critiques a certain philosophical view of language—logocentrism—and the ideal of translation it implies. According to this ideal, the function of language is to express meaning while the task of translation is to find an equivalent expression for this meaning in the target language. Derrida’s critique consists, first, in showing that logocentrism entails thinking of meaning as radically transcendent to language and, secondly, that such transcendental meanings are impossible. Meaning is necessarily language-like; therefore it cannot anchor language, nor assure the possibility of successful linguistic equivalence between languages. The philosopher John Searle has argued that if we accept Derrida’s claim about meaning, we must also accept the nonsensical view that language is a meaningless game of reference between signifiers without resolution. According to Derrida, this interpretation of the claim that meaning is textual assumes what it ought to contest: the absolute difference between signifier and the signified. In fact, the signified element is not “outside” the text, depending on language users to give and restore meaning—it is inscribed on the “inside.” Derrida argues that language is “parasitically” structured—or iterable, one set of differential elements encode another, texts are nested in other texts. The difference between signifier and signified, then, is something like the difference between negative and positive space, latent and manifest content, or again, as Derrida suggests between a parasite and host. “Meaning” is the inter-modal effect of differences resonating in other differences. Deconstructively speaking, translation is not a derivative linguistic practice with respect to establishing meaning but essential and primary. Indeed, texts are defined by their capacity to “translate” heterogeneous texts. More narrowly, deconstructive theories of translation help us to see how the ideal of inter-linguistic equivalence masks the productive role of translation and the power of translational practices to enrich and shape language.
Derrida The Subject and the Other, 2016
Ch. 4 of Derrida, The Subject and The Other (Palgrave, 2016). A critical summary of Derrida's writings on translation and their relationship to broader intersubjective ethical concerns. Key Words: Derrida, Translation, Other, Border, Identity
Traduire C'est Trahir—Peut-être: Ricoeur and Derrida on the (In)Fidelity of Translation
Études Ricoeuriennes / Ricoeur Studies, 2015
Paul Ricoeur and Jacques Derrida agree that translation is a tensive activity oscillating between the possible and the impossible with reference to the transposition of meaning among diverse systems of discourse. Both acknowledge that risk, alterity, and plurality accompany every attempt at paraphrasing language “in other words.” Consequently, their positions adhere to the traditional adage that “the translator is a traitor,” precisely because something is always lost in the semantic transfer. Yet, Derrida notes an important disagreement between their respective approaches to translation and accuses Ricoeur of harboring a nostalgia for unitive meaning and of promoting the possibility of a transcendental signified that could produce a “pure” translation. In this essay, I critique Derrida’s interpretation of Ricoeur specifically by examining their individual interpretations of the Tower of Babel myth. I argue that Ricoeur’s theory of Babel as a non-punitive celebration of diversity an...
TTR : traduction, terminologie, rédaction, 2000
Technolectes et dictionnaires Volume 8, numéro 2, 2e semestre 1995 URI : id.erudit.org/iderudit/037228ar
Deconstructionist Translation Theory: Visibility of Différance
2020
The paper focuses on the challenge deconstructivist theory constitutes for translation via an analysis of Derrida’s theory that revised not only the «violent hierarchy» of the ‘original – translation’ but also the keystones of translatability: equivalency, adequacy, formal correlation, etc., arguing that translation, in the conventional use of the term, is impossible. From the perspective of deconstruction it is viewed only as a powerful tool in unveiling the plurality of the text’s meaning that makes invisible differance visible. Untranslatability in Derrida’s use of the term does not imply that translators should not translate. It simply implies that it is impossible to produce the plurality of the source text in a translation. Derrrida, Paul de Man, Foucault, Jonathan Culler, J. Hillis Miller et al. criticize the traditional views of translation by eliminating equivalence from the purpose of the translation. The focus is on the complex set of relations between the two texts. The ...
Translation and Literature, 2003
Deconstruction, as Kathleen Davis reminds us in the introduction to this excellent short book, is not a translation theory. As the mantra has it, texts deconstruct themselves. So why should practising translators and translation scholars concern themselves with deconstruction at all? Davis' central argument is that translation and deconstruction (for 'deconstruction' here read 'Derrida') are deeply implicated in one another. Both wrestle with language at its limits, with 'untranslatability', with how to do justice to another's words. They often work with the same texts (Saussure, J. L. Austin, Walter Benjamin's 'The Task of the Translator'). But although Derrida may have become, in Rachel Bowlby's amusing realignment , a 'household' name (Hoover? Dettol?), his work, Davis writes, is still 'strange territory to many translation scholars'. 1 Of course several already engage with deconstruction (Lawrence Venuti, Barbara Godard, Luise von Flotow, Rosemary Arrojo), and Davis refers extensively, if not uncritically, to their work. Yet she does not use Derrida as a way of correcting the past errors of Translation Studies. Her achievement is to uncover the close relations between the fields of deconstruction and translation, patiently and undogmatically clarifying what is at stake for translation in Derrida's critique of logocentrism, and demonstrating the shared bids of both fields for the same territory. But her purpose is also to take readers unfamiliar with Derrida through a series of textual moments that first critique the traditional western understanding of translation as linguistic transfer, and then reorient the field of Translation Studies in relation to how texts 'perform', and to questions of justice. Given the huge range of Derrida's work that touches on translation, Davis has had to practise for herself the kinds of difficult decisions that she discusses in her concluding chapter. For example, she explicitly does not consider (for reasons of space) the far-reaching political ramifications of Derrida's exposure of the 'border' as a constructed limit for feminist, queer, and
Translational transitions: “Translation proper” and translation studies in the humanities
Translation Studies, 2009
The increasing use of “translation” in the humanities during the past few years has brought about a broader variety of perspectives on translation than previously allowed for by modernist and positivist approaches. For centuries, attempts to control meaning and the metaphysical idea of translation which extended this desire for control beyond linguistic boundaries have resulted in a concept of translation which, since the second half of the eighteenth century, has progressively added to the constraints faced by both translators and translation theorists. The fact that now their “master word” is being celebrated by other disciplines is understandably being welcomed with enthusiasm by scholars in translation studies who, for almost four decades, have been working on broadening the boundaries of both the concept and the discipline. The paper discusses various aspects of the “translational turn” in the humanities with a focus on the concept of “translation proper” and its implications f...