Surrationalism after Bachelard: Michel Serres and le nouveau nouvel esprit scientifique

The work of Michel Serres is often presented as a radical break with the work of Gaston Bachelard. The aim of this paper is to partly correct this image, by focusing on Serres’s early Hermes series (1969-1980). In these books Serres portrays himself as a follower of Bachelard, exemplarily shown in his neologism of the ‘new new scientific spirit’ (le nouveau nouvel esprit scientifique), updating Bachelard in the light of more recent scientific developments. This allows a reinterpretation of the relation between both authors, one where there is room to acknowledge how the roots of Serres’s philosophy lie not in a radical break with Bachelard, but can be partly understood as a Bachelardian criticism of Bachelard himself. This Bachelardian criticism consists in what could be called his ‘surrationalism’: the sciences do not follow the categories imposed by philosophers, but are always more flexible and open than these categories allow. Specific critiques of Serres, such as those concerning the novelty of Bachelard’s thought, the role of epistemology and finally the political dimension of science will be evaluated through a reappraisal of this Bachelardian move that underlies Serres’s criticism

The Gods of My Father Terah’: Abraham the Iconoclast and the Polemics with the Divine Body Traditions in the Apocalypse of Abraham

The first eight chapters of the Apocalypse of Abraham recount the early years of the young hero of the faith who is depicted as a fighter against the idolatrous practices of his father Terah. The conceptual developments found in this section of the work, especially in the depictions of the idolatrous statues, seem to play an important role in the work\u27s overall retraction of the anthropomorphic understanding of the deity. In the depictions of the idol Bar-Eshath (`the Son of Fire\u27) and some other human-like figures, whose features are vividly reminiscent of the familiar attributes of the anthropomorphic portrayals of the deity in Ezekiel and some other biblical and pseudepigraphical accounts, one can detect subtle polemics with the divine body traditions. This article investigates these conceptual developments in the Apocalypse of Abraham and seeks to understand their place in the larger anti-corporeal ideology of the Slavonic pseudepigraphon

Interactive Translation vs. Pre-Translation in TMs: A Pilot Study

Translation clients today are looking for high productivity and quality, but are looking for these at reduced costs. Translation Memory (TM) systems are currently among the most popular translation tools on the market and are intended to help translators produce more translations in a short time period while maintaining high quality and consistency in their work. There are two ways of working with a TM system: interactive mode and pre-translation mode. However, there have been no studies to date which attempt to determine whether one mode is superior to the other. This paper describes a pilot study which investigates which of the two produces better results in terms of productivity, quality and translator satisfaction.Les mémoires de traduction (MT) sont présentement l’un des outils de traduction les plus convoités sur le marché. Aujourd’hui, les clients recherchent la productivité et la qualité, sans que cela affecte de façon négative leurs revenus. Deux méthodes s’offrent à l’utilisateur lors de la traduction avec une MT : la traduction interactive et la pré-traduction. Jusqu’à maintenant, on ignore si le choix entre la traduction interactive et la pré-traduction produit un effet sur la productivité, la qualité et la satisfaction du traducteur. Le présent article se propose d’analyser les deux méthodes de traduction avec MT à l’aide d’une méthodologie comparative

Translation methods and experience : a comparative analysis of human translation and post-editing with students and professional translators

While the benefits of using post-editing for technical texts have been more or less acknowledged, it remains unclear whether post-editing is a viable alternative to human translation for more general text types. In addition, we need a better understanding of both translation methods and how they are performed by students as well as professionals, so that pitfalls can be determined and translator training can be adapted accordingly. In this article, we aim to get a better understanding of the differences between human translation and post-editing for newspaper articles. Processes were registered by means of eye tracking and keystroke logging, which allows us to study translation speed, cognitive load, and the usage of external resources. We also look at the final quality of the product as well as translators' attitude towards both methods of translation

PRZENIESIENIE KONCEPCJI MIĘDZYNARODOWEGO PRAWA KARNEGO NA JURYSDYKCJE KRAJOWE – PRZYPADEK LUDOBÓJSTWA

This article discusses preliminary findings of a study on the transposition of the legal concept of genocide into 131 national jurisdictions. The specificities of this transposition into national criminal systems, as well as those related to the international legal definition of genocide, are described in the first part. The communicative situations in which the concept of genocide has been transposed are then examined in order to show their scope and breadth, and to which extent they contribute to the transformation of the concept of genocide. Trends related to the object of transformation in the definition and their effect on meaning are subsequently outlined. The findings point to a situation where, despite having been the object of multiple consensus at the international level, the concept of genocide has been transformed by the vast array of domestic legal languages and legal systems into which it has been transposed and thereby reinforce the relation between the configuration of the language and law, and the difficulty of translation.Artykuł przybliża wstępne badania nad przeniesieniem prawnej koncepcji ludobójstwa na 113 jurysdykcji. W pierwszej części uwzględnia się uwarunkowania tego przeniesienia w systemach karnych jak i powiązań z międzynarodową definicją prawną ludobójstwa. Przeanalizowano sytuacje komunikacyjne, w których uwypuklił się koncept ludobójstwa by ukazać ich zakres i rozległość jak i określić, w jakim stopniu przyczyniły się one do przeformułowania koncepcji ludobójstwa. Ustalenia wskazują na sytuację, w której pomimo ludobójstwa na szczeblu międzynarodowym koncepcja ludobójstwa została przekształcona przez wachlarz krajowych języków prawnych i systemów prawnych, do których została transponowana, a tym samym wzmocniła relację między konfiguracją języka i prawa a trudnością tłumaczenia