TRANSLATION STUDIES: A DYNAMIC MODEL FOR THE REVITALIZATION OF THE HUMANITIES –

RAINER SCHULTE

 The methodologies derived from the art and craft of translation furnish tools that are
modifying the interpretative approaches to literary and artistic texts.
 They have also been responsible for changing the field of textual scholarship and for
creating a new theory of editing.
 They revitalize procedures and practices of scholarly research that can be applied as a
model for the development of interdisciplinary studies.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES BASED IN TRANSLATION THINKING

 The humanities interpret, it interprets literary and artistic texts, ideas and concepts,
human situations.
 It seeks entrances into texts so that we can enlarge our understanding of the intricate
structures that interact in works and intensify the aesthetic experience.
 STEINER  all acts of communication are acts of translation.
 Acts of interpretation interact with the text, they establish a dialogue with the text and
communicate with it. As a consequence, all acts of interpretation initiate an act of
translation.
 OCTAVIO PAZ  when we interpret a text, especially one from a previous century, we
must translate that text into our own sensibility of the twentieth century.
 To enter into a meaningful relationship with a text, we are aided by research methods
employed to open up avenues of thinking about a particular work. The question is: what
kind of research has to be pursued in order to do justice to the text?
 JABÉS  talks about the foreigner who lets you be yourself and at the same time makes
you a foreigner of yourself.
 All texts are foreign to us, and we have to decipher their foreignness in order to find
entrance into them and interpret them. That foreignness postulates the enactment of
two mental processes:
o It must be identifies as the foreign within the parameters of its own context,
juxtaposed with our own intellectual environment in comparison to which it
becomes foreign;
o It has to be translated into the possibilities of our own sensibility.
 No interpretative act seems possible without an act of translation. And in some art
forms, the work can only be experienced through the medium of the
interpreter/performer  the translator only becomes visible in the act of translating.
 In the realm of language, the translator has to cope not only with the vision that an
author wanted to create in a work, but also with the reality that each language in itself
is a way of seeing  it applies not only to foreign languages but also to texts that were
created at different times in the history of our culture.
 Research procedure derived from translation thinking  when we translate a text from
another language, we must first explore the connotations and associations that words
have in the context of the SL.
 The research that has to be enacted with respect to texts is similar to the research
involves in the exploration of a word in the foreign language.
 As translators relate every word in the translated text to the semantic connotations of
the word in the translated text to the semantic connotations of the word in the originl
 text, they also use the situations in the original text to determine what kind of research
has to be initiated to do justice to a full understanding of the text.
 This kind of research fosters associative thinking, which is the basic foundation of all
translation thinking, and above all interdisciplinary thinking.
 Translation fosters an attitude of research that springs from the necessity of the
moment in the text. Each word creates its own procedure for research exploration, first
as an isolated phenomenon and then as a magnetic field in relation to another magnetic
field.
 Research in this view is guided by necessity of the moment in the text, the word or the
situation in the text.

INTERPRETATION AND READING

 Translators cannot support the assumption that there is such thing as a definite
interpretation of a text. The basic dynamic inherent in any translation attempt is the
linking of something with something else.
 The notion ‘to carry across’ comes into focus. The emotional and cultural landscapes on
both side of the river are incongruous; they are built on different premises and cultural
traditions  links have to be discovered in order for any communication to take place.
 Translators explore texts and establish dialogue with the text, when he establishes an
interpretative perspective to a given text, he is trying to figure out how a text comes to
mean something.
 Deconstructing a text is extremely helpful for translators, but they have to be concerned
about the reintegration of the parts into the wholeness of the text. The notion of
deconstruction can only be a means towards ‘reconstruction’ of the aesthetic totality of
the text.
 Accepting the fact that there is no such thing as a definite interpretation of a given text
and that there are a multiplicity of possible interpretations depending on the
interpretative perspective that the translator brings to the literary work, a way to
approach interpretation of a translate work is through the application of multiple
translations.
 When we have multiple translations for the same word, we can assume that something
is going on in the original  ambiguity. Each translators has brought his own
interpretative perspective to that moment and has filled the ambiguity with a particular
way of thinking through it.
 The reader becomes an active participant in thinking through the poem and not looking
at the poem as an object that can be defines into the strictures of one definite
interpretation.

TRANSLATION CRITICISM AND PUBLISHING

 Literary criticism in the past few years has been dominated by application of canon—
oriented methodologies to the interpretation of texts. The products of these kinds of
criticism have become not only unreadable but also inaccessible to students.
 The language used by critics and scholars increasingly obscures rather than illuminate
an understanding of the complex structures inherent in an artistic creation.
  Translation criticism has been completely neglected. Very few intelligent reviews of
English translations of foreign authors can be identified.
 Criticism dealing with translations must deal with a close comparative study of the
original and its translation. Through such a comparative study, the success and failures
of transplanting situations from another language into English will further intensify the
dialogue with a given text.
 It should also address the problems of literary and cultural transfer via the avenue of
anthologies. No major critical evaluation has taken place with respect to the quality of
translations that are represented in anthologies.

EXPANSION OF INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

 Literary criticism is becoming more and more local, contrary to the globalization around
the world. Ironically, many of the subject matters are anchored in foreign cultures.
 TS should play a major role in expanding the horizons of graduate research. The practice
of multiple translations shows us that even within the same language there are various
ways of interpreting situations in a text.
 When we look at a text through the eyes of another language, new and often
unexpected interpretative perspectives surface.