Translation Torop

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Sign Systems Studies 30.2 , 2002

Translation as translating as culture

Peeter Torop

Deptartment of Semiotics, University of Tartu,Tiigi 78, Tartu 50410, Estonia

e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract. The most common difficulty in translation studies has traditionallybeen the dilemma between the historical and synchronic approaches in theanalysis and description of the culture of translation. On the one hand theculture of translation might be presented as the sum of various kinds of translated texts (repertoire of culture), on the other hand it might be describedas the hierarchy of the various types of translations themselves. The firstapproach assumes plenty of languages for such description, in the latter onesuggests only one language for the same representation. A cultural critic facesthe same problems. In these perspectives the translation reveals importantmechanisms of the performance of culture. First of all it is the semiotic inter-pretation of the theory of translation, introduced by the number of scientistsbeginning with R. Jakobson and including U. Eco who put together inter-linguistic, intra-linguistic, and inter-semiotic translations, so crucial for thefurther understanding of culture. As a result, the general notion of culturemight be described as the process of total translation. And secondly, the othervaluable contribution to the theory of translation has been made by both M.Bakhtin and J. Lotman in terms of the synthesis of two traditions in semioticsof culture resulted in juxtaposing such notions as dialogism and autonomy —creolization, polyphony, counterword, and translation.

Translating as an activity and translation as the result of this activityare inseparable from the concept of culture. The translational capacityof culture is an important criterion of culture’s specificity. Cultureoperates largely through translational activity, since only by the inclu-sion of new texts into culture can the culture undergo innovation aswell as perceive its specificity. After the expansion of the paradigm of postcolonial and the related field of gender studies into translationstudies, the borderline between culture studies and translation studieshas become fuzzier, yet at the same time, there has emerged a visible

















Translation as translating as culture 601

differences, it also observes the differences between samenesses or thesameness of differences. This has been called “heterology” by Tz.Todorov who has declared in a fit of polemics, “heterology that makesthe differences between voices audible, is necessary; polylogy is dulland empty” (Todorov 1982). One of the first people to introduce

Bakhtin to the world at large, Julia Kristeva, has stressed the ambi-valence of Bakhtin’s system; considering the same poles, she juxta-posed the polyphonic novel with Menippean satire as a heterologicphenomenon.

To explain heterology as a concept we should return to the timewhen Bakhtin was most active. Some dozen years before Bakhtinintroduced the concept of polyphony, a dictionary of musical terms A

Guide to Concerts by B. Asafyev (1919) was published in Russia.

This booklet, that has had considerable influence on the metalinguisticthought of its period, defines several concepts of the theory of musicas general and theoretical ones. When it is read through the prism of Bakhtin’s works that were to follow, also the notion of heterophonyopens up in this way. Heterophony “is not yet polyphony in itsdeveloped (articulated) form, in which each voice has an independentmeaning, but one of the stages in the transition to polyphony (in whichall voices form an intricate horisontal complex that is moving andcontinuously changing)” ³

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Asafjev 1978: 31–32). Thus, if we proceed from thislogic, polyphony creates a vertical dimension, a dimension of diversevoices differing from one another.

An ethnological description of culture or one deriving fromcultural anthropology is first and foremost polylogic, for it fixes thecultural languages that differentiate themselves intelligibly (i.e. can bedescribed) and these are described in an autonomous way. This iswhat Clifford Geertz opposed. Semiotics of culture, however, startedto fill an important gap — to describe the complexes, the intertwiningof the languages of culture. J. Lotman drew distinctions between twodifferent processes in his description of culture. One is thespecialisation of languages of culture (e.g. as the autonomy in cultureof photography or film as the result of new technical developments).

Another is the integration of languages of culture, that can be markedfirstly by the appearance of metadescriptions and autometadescrip-






ability to analyse autonomous phenomena and the ability to analysecreolisation, and mixtures, for it is the proportion between autonomyand creolisation that best explains the present state of a culture and itsdynamics. In the discipline of semiotics of culture it comes naturallyto say that culture is translation, and also that translation is culture.

However, in the present context it should be added that translationactivity is also an activity that explains the mechanisms of culture andthat translation itself is a concept that is extremely loaded metho-dologically. Still, the fact that translation as a concept is loaded doesnot mean it is metaphorised. Translation and translating are conceptsconcurrent with an active culture and allow us in the situation of thescarcity of culture theoretic means to approach the essence of culturalmechanisms in a way that the analysis of both translation and

translating as well as culture are enriched.

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Tõlge kui tõlkimine kui kultuur

Tõlketeaduses on tavaraskuseks tõlkekultuuri terviklik ajalooline või sünk-rooniline kirjeldamine. Ühelt poolt võib tõlkekultuuri vaadelda eritüübilistetõlketekstide kogumina (kultuurirepertuaarina), teiselt poolt tõlketüüpide hie-rarhiana. Esimene lähenemisviis võimaldab erinevate kirjelduskeelte kasuta-mist, teine eeldab ühtse kirjelduskeele olemasolu. Samade probleemidegaseisab silmitsi ka kulturoloog. Seega avanevad tõlketegevuses kultuuri toime-mehhanismi olulised aspektid. Kõigepealt aitavad kultuuri paremale mõist-misele kaasa R. Jakobsoni ja U. Eco töödest tingitud semiootilise pöördetulemused, interlingvistilise, intralingvistilise ja intersemiootilise tõlke kõrvu-

tatavus. Selle tulemusel võib kõigepealt kogu kultuuri kirjeldada totaalsetõlkeprotsessina. Teiselt poolt muutub väärtuslikuks kahe kultuurisemioo-tilise, J. Lotmani ja M. Bahtini nimedega seostuva traditsiooni süntees, misasetab kõrvuti mõisted dialoogilisus ja autonoomia-kreoliseerumine, polüfoo-nilisus ja heterofoonilisus, vastusõna ja ja tõlge.

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Translation Torop