A Hermeneutic Critique on George Steiner’s Hermeneutic Motion in Translation
Mohammad Ali Kharmandar
Islamic Azad University, Shiraz Branch, IranRésumé
George Steiner’s Hermeneutic Motion, published in his major book After Babel, is usually regarded as the most important theory in the hermeneutics and even philosophy of translation. The work, however, has received criticism by authors who normally write outside of the classical realm of hermeneutics. A lingering assumption is that hermeneutics, and even other strands of Continental philosophy, necessarily need or should rely on Steiner’s postulates. A critical approach to his theory from a hermeneutic perspective can clarify how valid/practical Steiner’s ideas are. Reviewing all of the chapters in After Babel, this study thematically unifies the criticisms on Steiner’s theory, while highlighting deeper conflicts in the work. As a most substantial reading of the hermeneutic motion, the study emphasizes the importance of emerging hermeneutic theories of translation in the twenty-first century.Mots-clés :
translation theory, Ricoeur, Gadamer, translation studies, literary translationRéférences
Ahmadi, Babak. 1998. Creation and Liberation: Essays on Hermeneutics and Aesthetics. Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz Publishing Co.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1960. Truth and Method (Trans. by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, 2006). London and New York: Contimuum.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1980. Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato (Trans. P. Christopher Smith). New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Kharmandar, Mohammad Ali. 2015. Ricoeur’s Extended Hermeneutic Translation Theory: Metaphysics, Narrative, Ethics, Politics. Études Ricoeuriennes / Ricoeur Studies 6 (1): 73-93. DOI:10.5195/errs.2015.281
Kharmandar, Mohammad Ali. 2018. The Strata of Subcultural Translation: Sources of Fragmentation in Globalizing Societies. In: Olaf Immanuel Seel (ed.), Redefining Translation and Interpretation in Cultural Evolution, 142-160. Hershey: IGI Global. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-2832-6.ch008
Kharmandar, Mohammad Ali. Forthcoming. The Principles of Empirical Hermeneutics: A Primary Investigation of Translation Studies. In: Radegundis Stolze, Larisa Cercel, John Stanley, and Brian O’Keeffe, Translational Hermeneutics: The Third Symposium.
Minier, Márta. 2006. ‘The Translatress in her Own Person Speaks’: A Few Marginal Notes on Feminist Translation in Practice, in Creative Writing and in Criticism. In: Ana G Macedo and Margarida E Pereira (eds.), Identity and Cultural Translation: Writing Across the Borders of Englishness: Women’s Writing in English in a European Context, 39-54. Oxford: Peter Lang.
Newmark, Peter. 2009. The Linguistic and Communicative Stages in Translation Theory. In: Jeremy Munday (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Translation Studies, 20-35. London/New York: Routledge.
Piecychna, Beata. 2015. Is (Translational) Hermeneutics of any Use for the (Cognitive) Analysis of Translation Products? Crossroads: A Journal of English Studies 11: 29-45. DOI: 10.15290/cr.2015.11.4.03
Ricoeur, Paul. 1976. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Texas: The Texas Christian University Press.
Ricoeur, Paul. 1984. Time and Narrative (Volume 1). (Trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer). Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Ricoeur, Paul. 1990. Oneself as Another (K. Blamey, Trans. 1992). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ricoeur, Paul. 1991. Life in Quest of Narrative. In David Wood (Ed.), On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and Interpretation, 20-33. Routledge: London and New York Steiner, George. 1998. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stanley, John; Brian O’Keeffe, Radegundis Stolze and Larisa Cercel. 2018. Philosophy and Practice in Translational Hermeneutics. Bucharest: Zeta Books
Stolze, Radegundis. 2010. Hermeneutics and Translation. In: Yves Gambier, Luc van Doorslae (ed.), Handbook of Translation Studies 1, 141-146. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publication Company. DOI: 10.1075/hts.1.her1
Stolze, Radegundis. 2011. The Translator’s Approach: Introduction to Translational Hermeneutics: Theory and Examples from Practice. Berlin: Frank & Timme GmbH.
Stolze, Radegundis. 2013. The Legal Translator’s Approach to Texts. Humanities 2(1): 56-71. DOI: 10.3390/h2010056
Stolze, Radegundis, John Stanley and Larisa Cercel. 2015. Translational Hermeneutics: The First Symposium. Bucharest: Zeta Books.
