Target-cultural ‘facts’ – Do they really exist?: A critical assessment of Toury’s Descriptive Translation Studies

Gideon Toury pioneered Descriptive Translation Studies as a science based on observation, (re)defining translation as a target-cultural ‘fact’ and, thus, shifting the focus to the translation as a product which can and should be studied without any methodological presumptions. However, this proves illusive, as it falsely supposes neutrality in research. Arguing that there could be no strict separation between description and evaluation, I will argue that— if we are to fully understand its complex nature—translation cannot be properly viewed as an exclusively target-cultural phenomenon. An overview of some alternative concepts that allow a more balanced perspective will be given

Target-cultural ‘facts’ – Do they really exist? A critical assessment of Toury’s Descriptive Translation Studies

Gideon Toury pioneered Descriptive Translation Studies as a science based on observation, (re)defining translation as a target-cultural ‘fact’ and, thus, shifting the focus to the translation as a product which can and should be studied without any methodological presumptions. However, this proves illusive, as it falsely supposes neutrality in research. Arguing that there could be no strict separation between description and evaluation, I will argue that— if we are to fully understand its complex nature—translation cannot be properly viewed as an exclusively target-cultural phenomenon. An overview of some alternative concepts that allow a more balanced perspective will be given

Transcultural Misunderstandings: The bilingual practice of Milan Kundera and the search for ‘The Joke’

Milan Kundera’s critical views and his difficult relationship to translation and translators has been frequently a subject of heated discussion and debate among translation scholars and experts. While some show understanding and sympathy for Kundera’s radical attitude and his uncompromising demand for fidelity, others see in him an author who desperately wants to assert his authority as sole owner of the text, referring to his interventions in the translation process as expression of an ‘essentialist’ desire or need to control meaning translingually. While demanding utmost loyalty from translators, Kundera himself takes full liberty when translating his own work, making significant editions and creating different versions of the same text in different languages. The history of his novel The Joke is symptomatic of the contradictions pertinent to Kundera’s bilingual practice. In this paper, I will discuss the problem of translation and the relationship between original and translation in Kundera’s work. Drawing on the themes of misunderstanding, remembrance and forgetting in The Joke, it will be argued that Kundera deliberately uses misunderstanding as a special mode of reading/writing. While apparently seeking to create a ‘definite’ version, Kundera’s rewriting practice rather erases boundaries and raise serious questions regarding what can be considered a translation and what is supposed to be an original

Von den Möglichkeiten translatorischen Handelns: Eine performative, ausgangskulturorientierte Perspektive am Beispiel Antoine Gallands und der ‚Tausend und eine Nacht‘

This article deals with the translation history of the Arabic narratives of the ‘Thousand and One Nights’ from a performative, source culture-oriented perspective. The two-stage nature of the translation process as interlingual/bilingual communication implies a one-dimensional linearity that determines the relationship between source and target text. The effects of translation on the production/reception of the source text fall beyond the conceptual scope of the concept of translation and cannot, in principle, be dealt with in a translation-theoretical framework, resulting in a static-genetic conception of the source text as a “source”. I will use the 'Thousand and One Nights' to argue that a new concept of translation as a performative movement towards the source text can better demonstrate the complexity of translational action and expand the interpretative possibilities of translation as an interaction between a source text and a target text. The role of Antoine Galland and his translation of the ‘Thousand and One Nights’ (Les mille et une nuits) is highlighted

Translation als Mythos

This paper investigates the reception history of the Danish Poet and fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen in 19th-century Germany and its influence on his (auto)biographical depiction. Like many Scandinavian poets, Andersen discovered Germany’s literary potential and took advantage of it to further his career. In most cases, he was pictured as a genius who suffered systematic underestimation in Denmark. This narrative which determined his reception plays a central role in his German autobiography Märchen meines Lebens (Fairy Tale of my Life). Analyzing Andersen’s autobiographical discourse, I will reconstruct the process of the construction of Andersen’s (auto)biographical myth, emphasizing translation’s role in shaping autobiographical narratives

Von den Möglichkeiten translatorischen Handelns: Eine performative, ausgangskulturorientierte Perspektive am Beispiel Antoine Gallands und der ‚Tausend und eine Nacht‘

Dieser Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der Translationsgeschichte der Arabischen Erzählungen der ‚Tausend und eine Nacht‘ aus einer performativen, ausgangskulturorientierten Perspektive. Die Zweistufigkeit des Translationsprozesses als interlingualer/zweisprachiger Kommunikation impliziert eine eindimensionale Linearität, die die Beziehung zwischen Ausgangs- und Zieltext bestimmt. Die Effekte der Translation auf Produktion/Rezeption des Ausgangstextes fallen jenseits der konzeptuellen Reichweite des Translationsbegriffes und können prinzipiell nicht in einem translationstheoretischen Rahmen behandelt werden, was in einer statisch-genetischen Konzeption vom Ausgangstext als „Quelle“ resultiert. Ich werde anhand der ‚Tausend und eine Nacht‘ argumentieren, dass eine neue Auffassung der Translation als performative Bewegung in Richtung Ausgangstext die Komplexität translatorischen Handelns besser zeigen und die interpretativen Möglichkeiten der Translation als Interaktion zwischen einem Ausgangstext und einem Zieltext erweitern kann. Dabei wird die Rolle Antoine Gallands und seiner Übersetzung der ‚Tausend und eine Nacht‘ (Les mille et une nuits) hervorgehoben.This article deals with the translation history of the Arabic narratives of the ‘Thousand and One Nights’ from a performative, source culture-oriented perspective. The two-stage nature of the translation process as interlingual/bilingual communication implies a one-dimensional linearity that determines the relationship between source and target text. The effects of translation on the production/reception of the source text fall beyond the conceptual scope of the concept of translation and cannot, in principle, be dealt with in a translation-theoretical framework, resulting in a static-genetic conception of the source text as a “source”. I will use the 'Thousand and One Nights' to argue that a new concept of translation as a performative movement towards the source text can better demonstrate the complexity of translational action and expand the interpretative possibilities of translation as an interaction between a source text and a target text. The role of Antoine Galland and his translation of the ‘Thousand and One Nights’ (Les mille et une nuits) is highlighted