Hermeneutics

Theo Hermans
 Hermeneutics
• Represents the understanding of the
intelligible
• It views contiguity of intra/inter-lingual
translating as the negotiation of difference and
otherness
• Is of Greek etymology (to interpret)
• It concerns translation as an interpretive
practice
 Modern Hermeneutics

• Exegesis = analisys of sacred texts

• Philology =analysis of Ancient texts

 The Enlightment (XVIIIth century)

• Consisted of removing obstacles of

language for a clear view of the text’s
meaning
 F. Schleiermacher (1813)
• The Romantic Period: language is related to
thought
• Meaning interpretation is influenced by
history and context
• The hermeneutic circle
• Bring the author to the reader or take the
reader to the source culture
• Hermeneutics – grammatical
– - technical
 Martin Heidegger 1889-1976

• The meaning of texts exceeds any

authorial intention
 Hans Georg Gadamer 1900-2002

• Take into account the historicity of the

interpreter
• ‘a fusion of horizons’ rather than ‘a view
from the top’
 George Steiner 1975
• Recasts the idea of fidelity:
• 1. Initial confidence
• 2. Aggressive incursion into the ST
• 3. Incorporate new material into the TT
• 4. Satisfaction that ST has been enhanced
 Paul Ricoeur 1913-2005
• Overcome resistance: that of the ST not
being fully rendered and that of the TT as
a perfect translation
• Dismiss the Original/universal language
utopia
• Celebrate the Babel myth as a symbol of
diversion
• Translation as a linguistic hospitality
 J. Derrida 1930
• The deconstructive approach
• Hermeneutics of suspicion
• Translation as a both impossible and
necessary process
The Hermeneutic Motion
George Steiner
 I. The initial confidence

• Approaching the text with the belief that

there is ‘something there’ => risk of finding
‘anything’ that can be ‘everything’, or
‘nothing’
 II. The Aggression
• The Hegelian postulate that all cognition is
aggresive
• Attempting to understand the original
means appropriating it
• Translating means breaking a code
 III. The Incorporation
• Incorporating the meaning the translator
retrieves: - positive results
• - negative results (importation
fails into mimicry)
 IV. The Enhancement of the
Translation
• Choosing a text for translation magnifies
its importance => the text becomes
prestigious
• The mirror allegory
• Fidelity as a balance between too much or
too less meaning transfer
 Paul Ricoeur
On Translation
 Introduction
• Richard Kearney: Ricoeur developed the
‘dialogical/diacritical hermeneutics’ => a
path between the Romantic and
Deconstructive approaches
• 2 paradigms of Translation:
– Linguistic
- Ontological
 Ricoeur’s Contribution
• Shaping the frame of ontological
translation: between one human self to
another
• Reconciliating Schleiermacher’s
dichotomy
• Linguistic hospitality: a correspondance
without complete adhesion
 One
• Translation as a labour process that
involves salvaging and some acceptance
of loss
• Translation as a work of remembering and
of mourning
• To translate is to serve two masters
• The paradox of translation
 One
• The concept of mourning:
– Give up the idea of perfect translation
(stemmed from philosophical thoughts such
as the ultimate Book or the achievement of
pure language)
– Give up the idea of translating as gaining
without losing
Giving up the absolute translation will
release happiness (a real gain)
 Two
• Translation as
– transfer of spoken message from one
language to another
– İnterpretation of any meaningful whole within
the same community
 Two
• Tackles the original/universal language
issue:
– Language is universal = all men speak =>
languages are diverse = all men speak
different languages and are able to learn new
ones => rise to a dichotomy:
– Either the diversity of language is radical =
untranslability
– Either translation is a fact = attempt to
reconstruct the apriori condition of this fact
 Two
• Ricoeur’s alternative: The myth of Babel =
the renunciation of recreating the original
language (‘And they left off to build the
city)
 Three
• The diversity of language inhibits the act of
translation (untranslatable), due to their
difference in semantic and synthatic construction
• The difference stems in the way they carve up
reality and project discourse, in different visions
of the world expressed by texts
• The translating process shouldn’t start from the
word, but from the text
 Three
• Translation always existed, and it always was a
partial response to the ‘test of the foreign’ –the
curiosity towards ‘the other’
• The faithfulness/betrayal dilemma stems in
finding the absolute criterion, that is the same
meaning
• Aiming at a supposed equivalence is not helpful;
solution=abandon the dream of perfect
translation by admitting the difference between
the peculiar and the foreign + constructing
comparables (construction of a glossary)
• The return to the literal translation?