HERMENEUTICS AND TRANSLATION

NEWSLETTER 9 – 2011

Books

Márta Fehér, O. Kiss, L. Ropolyi (2010): Hermeneutics and Science, Springer

Miriam P. Leibbrand (2011): Grundlagen einer hermeneutischen Dolmetschforschung, Frank & Timme

Petr Pokorny (2011): Hermeneutics as a Theory of Understanding, Eerdmans Publishing

Articles

Carla Canullo (2011): La traduction à l’épreuve de l’herméneutique, in: Christian Berner, Tatiana Milliaressi (ed.): La traduction: philosophie et tradition, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, Villeneuve d’Ascq 2011, 113-127

Fernando Coelho (2011): Em Busca de uma Fundamentação para a Tradução de Filosofia Antiga: o Aspecto Hermenêutico, in: Scientia traductionis 10 (2011), 90-100

Aloo Mojola (2010): The Global Context and Its Consequences for Old Testament Translation, in: Knut Holter & Louis C. Jonker (eds.): Global Hermeneutics? Reflections and Consequences, Society of Biblical Literature, 57-82

Caroline Paganine (2010): A tradução ou o absurdo do possível: ‘On Translation’ de Paul Ricoeur, in: Scientia traductionis, 7 (2010), 93-102

Tristan G. Axelrod (2011): Interpreting Gawain: The Hermeneutics of Translation, in:  Student Pulse. Online Academic Student Journal, 3.04.2011

Journals

Studia Phaenomenologica: Concepts of Tradition in Phenomenology, XI / 2011

Meta. Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy, vol. III, no. 2 / 2011

Announcements

L'herméneutique en perspective, Séminaire du Centre d'herméneutique phénoménologique - Université de Paris-Sorbonne-Paris IV en lien avec les Archives Husserl de Paris (UMR 8547). 3 décembre 2011 - 5 mai 2012, Maison de la Recherche, Paris

Norm und Natur des Verstehens: Neue Ansätze der Hermeneutik, 3. Internationaler Marbacher Sommerkurs, 24. bis 27. Juli 2012
Bewerbungsschluss: 30. April 2012

Report

Eco-translatology in China

Radegundis Stolze attended the 2^nd International Symposium on Eco-translatology from 11-13 November 2011 held at Shanghai Maritime University as a keynote speaker. Here is her report.

There is coming up in China an innovative translation theory so-far unknown in the West. Thirty years since China’s opening-up policy, the country has achieved great progress in economy and also in research. Since the 1980s, western translation theories have been introduced and came into contrast to prevailing local convictions. Now Hu Gengshen from Macao has developed and proposed since ten years an indigenous Chinese theoretical approach to do academic studies in translation, called eco-translatology. The idea is to overcome the traditional century-old criteria of translation evaluation, such as “faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance”, once designed by Yan Fu. Those find close parallel in the Western dispute about literal or free translation.

A growing number of scholars in mainland China now apply the basic tenets of eco-translatology to observe translation practices and phenomena, and various dissertations were completed by adopting the theoretical framework of eco-translatology. In 2010, the International Association of Eco-translatology Research IAETR (www.eco-translatology.com) has been founded at Macao. By the end of 2010, 31 tertiary institutions in the Chinese mainland have been approved to open a program for BTI (Bachelor of Translation and Interpreting) and 158 for MTI (Master of Translation and Interpreting) programs.  Applied translation teaching in China has begun to take shape and undergone a fast development.

The main characteristic of this theory is a shift of the perspective away from the critique and comparison of texts and translations towards the translator acting in his or her subjectivity. This approach has an interdisciplinary orientation, uniting theoretical and practical observations. Translation is seen as “adaptation and selection” (Gengshen 2008).

Eco-translatology views translation as an entire ecosystem that is harmonious and dynamic in its interplay with the surroundings, focusing on the relationship between the translator and his translational eco-environment. That translational eco-environment is construed as a highly integrated entity comprising the actual text, the cultural context and the human agents, as well as other tangible and intangible ingredients. In Eco-translatology, translation activities are described and interpreted in terms of such ecological principles as holism, relevance, dynamics, balance and harmony, together with ecological aesthetics. This is closely related to the ecologically-oriented wisdom in ancient China. This philosophical thinking was characterized by theories such as “the unity of Heaven and humanity”, “the doctrine of golden means”, “the people-first principle” and “the wholeness of world-outlook”. These classical ecological conceptions of nature, coexistence, harmony and balance advocated by Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism are, to a certain extent, the basis for this new ecological approach to Translation Studies. At one and the same time, translation affects the environment and is affected by the multiple factors in the human, social, historical, geographical and geopolitical contexts in which translation takes place.

This theoretical concept provides us with a new terminology for dealing with the entire field, that is the eco-environment of cultures, authors, texts, readers and editors that influence the acting translator. There is adaptation and selection as the translator’s reaction to assure his/her own survival in the whole process. Eco-translatology is an excellent model of explanation for communication. Key-words are dynamics, interrelationship, interrestriction, coexistence, changeability, holism, overcoming binaries, adaptation, selection, process, choice-making, interdisciplinarity.