Dear All,
Translators do not usually think of themselves as philosophers, but maybe they should. I mean, we are constantly dealing with the difference between languages, and that is a philosophical question among others. So just imagine the consequences of your opinion regarding this difference. For example, there are some who think that some languages are better than others. Look how many wars that has led the world into when one group thinks the other group speaks a lesser or ‘bastardised‘ version of their ‘pure‘ language, and very soon these language differences result in open hostility. The Church cannot always claim to have got it right either in this regard. There have been decrees on translation which seem to suggest that Latin is a sacralised language. Important, yes, for all kinds of reasons I would agree. There are sacred texts. But is one language intrinsically more sacred than any other? I think it better to focus on what is communicated through a language (including the divine) rather than conveying a religious message about these languages.
There is an opposite point of view, that we all think the same, we are all human in the end, so there is no problem with different tongues, and they are all equal. Some would like to think that this is what Aristotle thought. Except that he did not have a theory of translation, but one of poetics, and rhetoric. Aristotle believed that words are symbols of mental experiences, which in turn are similar for all humans, even if the languages differ. This concept is relevant to translation, as it suggests that there is a commonality of human experience that can be expressed across different languages. It is not the same, however, as saying that language differences don't matter or that all languages are the same.
But there is a description of translation that comes from French Philosopher Paul Ric
ur, that I find particularly charming. Let me give it to you in full: ‘Translation sets us not only intellectual work but also an ethical problem. Bringing the reader to the author, bringing the author to the reader, at the risk of serving and betraying two masters - this is to practice what I like to call linguistic hospitality.’ And despite being an agnostic, he had this to add: ‘It is this [linguistic hospitality] which serves as a model for other forms of hospitality that I think resemble it: confessions, religions, are they not like languages that are foreign to one another, with their lexicon, their grammar, their rhetoric, their stylistic which we must learn in order to make our way into them? And is Eucharistic hospitality not to be taken up with the same risks of translation - betrayal, but also with the same renunciation of the perfect translation?’We can leave aside his final conclusion (he was not a theologian, not a Catholic even), but gladly take up his thoughts about linguistic hospitality. He recognised it was a biblical concept too, one we can easily place at the very beginning, when ‘ha adam’ was a guest in God’s garden. Paul Ric
ur has an interesting take on the Babel myth. He does not like to see it as an almighty fall from grace where humans sinned and were ‘punished’ with different languages. He thinks the differences of language display something wonderful about God, and argues that if we understand the wisdom tradition of the people who wrote those books of the Bible, we would know that they just liked to state how things are: In other words, Babel describes the wonderful reality of human difference. He believes that as translators we must in the end betray both masters (author and reader) but strike some sort of balance, and that ‘betraying’ both author and reader could also be understood as allowing both to keep something secret to themselves... something we can’t touch, a part of their identity. So our work as translators will have to ‘mourn’ the unattainable ‘perfect’ translation, and we can find happiness in our hospitality.I love that idea, and is it not also (despite him not realising it) a very positive Salesian approach?
And by the way, in his Apostolic Letter Scripturae Sacrae Affectus on the sixteen hundredth anniversary of St Jerome, Patron Saint of translators and interpreters (who is celebrated on 30 September each year), Pope Francis borrowed the same idea from Ric
ur: “It has been rightly pointed out that an analogy exists between translation as an act of ‘linguistic’ hospitality and other forms of hospitality.” I am attaching this Apostolic Letter for your meditation as the annual liturgical memory approaches.Have a look at the Best Practice to think about how we can make this a practical thing in our translating activity.
best_practice_32-linguistic-hospitality.docx