A history of translation
Anthony Pym
Spring School for Translation Studies in Africa 29 November – 4 December 2010
A history of technologies
Voice
Alphabet
Stone, papyrus, parchment Wax tablets, paper
Electronic communication
So what?
Social systems comprise communication (Luhmann)
Technologies extend and direct communication
Technologies configure social systems
… and thus the groups between which we
translate.
Oral communication
Small social groups (tribes, clans) Numerous languages; polyglottism No translation in the contemporary sense
Anuvad
Interpres
Heavy alphabetic communication
Complex social groups with historical identity Writing as sacred
Hierarchy of languages
Translation restricted to privileged social castes
Rosetta stone
Kēryx vs. ángelos
Translation moves down the hierarchy, to develop languages
“Primitive literalism” (alien-I)
Spoken teaching (explanation, gloss)
Paper communication
Ages of translation:
Embassies to the Khan
School of Baghdad (9th-10th centuries) School of Toledo (12th-13th centuries)
Revision produces more copies
Knowledge circulates among nobilities and intellectuals
Translation plus explanation
Complex social groups – incipient nationalities with contestational knowledge.
Print communication (from 1455)
Nations with vernaculars
Fixed texts to which a translator can be equivalent
Joan Lluís Vives, De ratione dicendi (1533):
The third kind of commentary is when the matter and the words keep their balance and equivalence, that is, when the words add force and grace to the meaning […]
The end of the hierarchy of languages
Translators controlled by nations (censorship of books)
Professionalism
Struggle between types of equivalence.
Electronic communication
Communication between small specialized groups
Source texts are unstable – no equivalence Constant localization
Return to the pre-equivalence dichotomy:
Literalism from translation technologies
Explanation, pedagogy, adaptation to compensate for the technologies.
Translators move into more-than-translation
Crisis of professionalism.
Electronic communication
Communication between small specialized groups
Source texts are unstable – no equivalence Constant localization
Return to the pre-equivalence dichotomy:
Literalism from translation technologies
Explanation, pedagogy, adaptation to compensate for the technologies.
Translators move into more-than-translation
Crisis of professionalism.
