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#11 Deconstructionist View - Spring 2010 - 筆譯研究方法專論

張貼者： NTNU GITI BLOG on 2010年2月22日 星期一
標籤：
#11 Deconstructionist View
Jacques Derrida, “Des tour de Babel”, “What is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?”

2 意見:

charlotte wu 提到...

In the first article, Des Tours de Babel, Derrida examines the relation between the original and the translation in terms of the story of Babel establishment and of Benjamin’s article ‘The Task of the Translator’. For Derrida, the Babel story suggests the irreducible multiplicity in languages (tongues), which also indicates the necessity and impossibility of translation. From here, he suggests that there is an insolvent debt within translation. In my reading of the text, I think the indebtedness may come from two levels. On one hand, it comes from the multiplicity of tongues, which is the fundamental condition for translation. On the other hand, it comes from the relationship between the original and the translation. That is, through the postmutation, rather than the restitution, of the translation, the original and the translation form the relationship of what Benjamin terms as ‘afterlife’. The texts complete each other, not based on resemblance, but based on mutual complementarity. I think this is rather important in Derrida’s argument because from this perspective translation is not merely a process of language exchange but, more importantly, a mechanism that enhances the growth of languages, or Language (as a system). In addition to the indebted, relaying relation, Derrida also specifies that translation is also ‘original’ in terms of its expression, not content. I think this is a very crucial notion that needs to be addressed more to the public for translators’ rights (i.e. copyright/payment) to be valued. I do think every translation is a kind of creation which generates different ‘tangents’ (in Derrida’s words) between the source and target texts with different translators.

In the second article, What Is a Relevant Translation, Derrida sees a ‘relevant’ translation as the fundamental essence of translation. In his point of view, a relevant translation suggests the obligations that translation needs to achieve and also the institutional accreditation and canonization of ‘what is a translation’. By pointing out the fact that ‘ (good) translation=relevant translation’, I think what Derrida indicates is the vague yet powerful canon (i.e. to be relevant) that is overruling our assumptions and practices of translation. And it may be this unawareness that binds us with the notion of fidelity, or in Derrida’s words, the ‘oath’, which would lead inevitably to perjury. In both of the articles, Derrida tries to examine translation in terms of ‘economy’, I think this is not merely for the metaphor of ‘indebt’ between languages or texts, but also indicates that translation is an event, a mechanism that is involved with change/exchange in property and quantity. To me, what this metaphor of economy suggests is the inevitable changes involved in translation. In my viewpoint, I think what Derrida values in translation is not the sameness between texts or languages, but these inevitable changes/ mutations. Only by changes can translation enhance the growth of language. One more interesting point in this article is that Derrida sees appropriating and appropriate both as the criteria for a ‘relevant translation’: ‘A relevant translation is a translation whose economy, in these two senses, is the best possible, the most appropriating and the most appropriate possible’ (179). To me, this statement seems to suggest that what we usually consider as ‘appropriate’ may be largely related to what we have ‘appropriated’ or have been ‘appropriating’ and we might not even be aware of this appropriation taking place.

To sum, both of the articles are not easy to read and interpret with. One issue that I would like to explore more is why Derrida, in both articles, links translation with word, not sentences or any other linguistic level. (E.g. In What is a relevant translation: ‘The philosophy of translation, the ethics of translation… today aspires to be a philosophy of the word, a linguistics of ethics of the word’, p. 180).

2010年5月3日 下午4:11
Unknown 提到...

This weeks articles, both by Derrida, are an interesting look into the seemingly unlimited ‘potentiality’ of language. This absolute multiplicity of language is not only at the heart of Derrida’s discourse but it is also very much a part of his own poetics. Both articles, Des Tours De Babel and What Is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?, are filled with examples of homonymy and seemingly endless wordplay that neatly highlight Derrida’s belief in the infinitely subtle complexity of ‘origination’ in general, and of the ‘word’ in particular. Of course, Derrida is interested in trying to approach this originary complexity through the complementary processes of structuring and destructuring. This is perhaps one of the motivating factors behind his interest in translation. As he states in Des Tours De Babel, “each language is as if atrophied in its isolation, meagre, arrested in its growth, sickly.” It seems that Derrida feels that much of the ‘infinitely subtle complexity’ found at the level of ‘origin’ or of ‘word’ is temporarily lost when a language is left to stagnate in relative isolation; however, through the act of translation a language may be rejuvenated and reacquainted with its original potentiality. Such a notion of translation as rejuvenator is one that is surprisingly similar to views on translation forwarded by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, particularly those pertaining to the idea that a translation may indeed improve upon the original. In fact, Uruguayan scholar Emir Monegal even suggested that Derrida was promoting ideas that were merely recycled from the work of Borges.
Of course, in contrast to Borges’ views on translation, Derrida’s discussion of the subject seems to be much more concerned with the metaphysical aspects of meaning and of language. In particular, he seems to be implying an endless spiralling of meaning as languages interact and integrate with one another at various points. It is interesting to note that in discussing these notions of language and meaning Derrida often chooses to use terms borrowed from systems of mathematical analysis, namely Economics and Calculus. For example, when talking about translation Derrida employs the term ‘limit’ to discuss, as he puts it himself, “The to-be-translated of the sacred text, its pure transferability, that is what would give at the limit the ideal measure for all translation”; the term ‘limit’ is used in a very similar way in the field of Calculus: A function f(x) has a limit L at an input p if f(x) is close to L whenever x is close to p. In other words, f(x) becomes closer and closer to L as x moves closer and closer to p. Interestingly, if we take f(x) to represent the full range of potentiality pertaining to a source language ‘word’, p to represent the various ‘current’ source-language connotations of that word, and x to be the possible target language translations for that word, then expression of ‘pure transferability’ L is reached as different values of x moves closer and closer to p. Perhaps this idea is a little bit far-fetched but I have thought about it before so it was interesting to see that Derrida had used some of this vocabulary to talk about translation.

2010年5月5日 凌晨12:25

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