a Translation SienOen Edited with an Introduction by Susan PetrilliAcknowledgments The project for this volume was originally conceived with Augusto Ponzio and is an expression of my ongoing collaboration with him whose teachings have always benefitted my research. To him goes my most profound gratitude. To Arianna De Luca and Rosa Stella Cassotti I express my appreciation for their assistance in proof-reading this volume. 1 am also affectionately grateful to my husband Franco Auditore whose quiet support and active participation have always been an essential condition for the happy realization of my work. The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 90-420-0947-0 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2003 Printed in The NetherlandsTable of Contents _ 233 ‘Translation from the it of Peircean Semiotics 235 Dinda L. Gorlée Meaningful Mouthfuls in Semiotranslation 253 Gregor Goethals, Robert Hodgson, Giampaolo Proni, Douglas Robinson, Ubaldo Stecconi Semiotranslation: Peircean Approaches to Translation 269 Intersemiotic and Intersemiosic Translation 271 Peeter Torop Intersemiosis and Intersemiotic Translation 283 Stanley N. Salthe Translation Into and Out of Language? 297 _F. Eugene Yates Three Views of Translations 307 Thomas A. Sebeok Intersemiotic Transmutations: A Genre of Hybrid Jokes 313 _ Biotranslation 315 Kalevi Kull, Peeter Torop Biotranslation: Translation between Umwelten 329 Jesper Hoffmeyer Origin of Species by Natural Translation 347 Translation between Organic and Inorganic 349 Peter Cariani Cybernetic Systems and the Semiotics of Translation 369 Douglas Robinson Cyborg Translation 387 Translation and Cultural Transfer 389 Myrdene Anderson Ethnography as Translation 399 Gideon Toury Culture Planning and Translation 413 Eugene A. Nida Language and Culture: Two Similar Symbolic SystemsTable of Contents 425 Itamar Even-Zohar Culture Repertoire and Transfer 433 Susan Bassnett The Translation Turn in Cultural Studies 451 Anthony Pym Alternatives to Borders in Translation Theory 465 Paolo Bartoloni Translating from the Interstices 475 Translation, Literary Writing and Multimedial Communication 477 Mary Snell-Homby Literary Translation as Multimedial Communication: On New Forms of Cultural Transfer 487 Barbara Folkart The Valency of Poetic Imagery 507 Augusto Ponzio Reading, Translating and Remembering: An Autobiography 2s Petrilli Translating with Borges 531 Judith Woodsworth In the Looking Glass: Bernard Shaw On and In Translation 553 Translation, Otherness, Foreignization 555 John Milton The Nation, Foreignization, Dominance, and Translation 581 Terry Threadgold When Home Is Always a Foreign Place: Diaspora, Dialogue, Translations 603 Anne Cranny-Francis Translation and Everyday Life 615 David Buchbinder Queer Diasporas: Towards a (Re)Reading of Gay History 633 ___Index Nominum 645 __Index Rerum 651 List of ContributorsFor Franco, Kalif Louis and Assetou Madeleine Quello che noi vediamo chiaro in aitrui ¢ nel lontano, ci serva di specchio e di esempio per ben vedere, per accorgerci, per conoscere ¢ concepire il fatto nostro, ¢ quello ch’essendoci proprio ¢ troppo vicino, non suolPreface Augusto Ponzio The overall aim of this volume is to offer an interdisciplinary approach to the fascinating question of translation. Contributions have been included from scholars working in different directions: not only recognized experts in translation, but also researchers from different areas including semiotics, linguistics, literary criticism, philosophy, biology, and the medical sciences. All were invited to discuss the problem of translation in the light of their own competencies and special interests. Papers have been elicited on the intertextual relation, therefore, on translation processes across the different historical- natural languages — so-called “interlinguai” translation; also on translation processes among the different sectorial or special languages forming any single historical-natural language — “intralingual” translation; furthermore, on translation processes among verbal and nonverbal sign systems as well as among nonverbal sign systems without the implication of verbal signs — “intersemiotic” translation. With this volume we hope to make a contribution to the current debate on the problem of translation, remembering that it has now also become a primary concern for tertiary education. As such the problem of translation involves implications of a didactic order in addition to the theoretical. With reference to Europe, our interest in translation responds to new community needs. On an international level and in the context of globalization the problem of translation is no less than fundamental. In its most obvious sense translation concerns verbal texts in their relations among different languages. However, to remain within the sphere of verbal signs, translation is not limited to the relation between one historical-natural language and another, All historical-natural languages are endowed with internal plurilingualism to a greater or lesser degree, that is, they are made of a plurality of different languages which too relate to each other through translation processes. Furthermore, as anticipated, translation occurs between verbal languages and nonverbal languages as well as among the different nonverbal languages without necessarily involving verbal languages.Prefisce Approached in this way it should be obvious that reflection on translation cannot be restricted to the domain of linguistics but necessarily involves semiotics, the general science or theory of signs. However, before becoming an object of semiotics, translation is a sign process in itself. This is not only true in the obvious sense that translation occurs among signs, but that the signs implicated are those of the sign sphere in its totality and not just those of the linguistic-verbal order. Where there are signs, or, better, where there are semiosic processes there is translation. This means that translation is a semiotic fact in a dual sense: firstly, because semiotics as a science cannot prescind from translation; secondly, because semiosis or sign processes as such are, in fact, translation processes. Perspected in such terms, the question is whether the signs implicated in this broad approach to translation are only human signs, those belonging to the sphere of anthroposemiosis, or signs of more extended spheres and phenomena. A related question is whether translation as an object of study is limited to general linguistics. Differently from the linguists and their own limited interpretation of linguistics, “general linguistics” is understood here 4 fa Charles Morris as a discipline that deals with all human languages, both verbal and nonverbal, and not just with verbal languages. A “semiotic approach” (if we must identify fields and boundaries) to problems of translation is not limited to verbal language but rather extends its gaze to include all human languages, verbal and nonverbal, therefore the anthroposemiosic sphere in its entirety. But even more fundamentally, the sign in general (and not just the human. sign) may be considered in terms of translation. In fact, the sign relati a relation between an interpreted sign and an interpretant sign (there is a sign each time there is another sign — the interpretant in Charles S. Peirce’s terminology). Therefore, if we exit the boundaries of the “semiosphere” limitedly understood as the “human-cultural sphere” following Ju. M. Lotman, translation processes extend to the whole organic world, that is, to wherever there are signs and semiosis. According to this approach, translation implies the entire biosphere or biosemiosphere (to broaden Lotman’s concept of “semiosphere”), as clearly evidenced by research in the relatively new field known as “biosemiotics”. Another aspect to consider concems the fact that translation is not only asemiosic operation traceable wherever there are signs, that is, in all expressions of life (if, as Thomas A. Sebeok maintains, life = semiosis). Translation is also a semiotic operation, but not only in the sense that it is the object of reflection by a discipline called semiotics. We are now alluding to use of the term “semiotics” to denote an operation which presupposes conscious awareness, reflection, a mediated use of signs necessarily occuring on two levels: 1) a metasign level whose object of inquiry is; 2) another level of sign activity. It would seem that semiotic operations thus intended are only possible in human 4Augusto Ponzio animals insofar as they are endowed with “language” (of which the verbal is just one aspect). According to this approach, humans are not only semiosic animals like all others but also semiotic animals — an expression which translates and explains the traditional expression “rational animal”. This capacity for semiotics thus understood confers an enormous responsibility upon humans: a responsibility which involves life over the whole planet. From this point of view the familiar adage “traduttore/traditore” or the equation “to translate” = “to betray” assumes far stronger implications. We are referring to the fact that the risk of betrayal is not simply the risk of misunderstanding a text or of mystifying an author, but far more important, it is the risk of betraying life or semiosis — which is not only human but also planetary semiosis — by reasoning and acting against it: such a risk and the responsibility implied is exclusive to human animals. It is obvious that the problem of translation cannot be reduced to the problem of the relation among texts in different languages. Each time there is a sign process, semiosis, there is translation. Therefore, translation concerns the relation among signs in general. Extension of the notion of translation thus understood to the very point of coinciding with semiosis in general also implies the possibility of looking at signs from a special angle. We are alluding to the relation of similarity among signs, between sign-interpreted and sign-interpretant, which is the most determinant in translation processes. The question of translation may be connected to the typology of signs. Given that the relation of similarity predominates when semiosis is considered in terms of translation, the type of sign to prevail is the iconic as understood by Peirce. By contrast with the index and the symbol, which are dominated respectively by the relation of causality and of convention, the icon is based on the relation of resemblance among signs. The term “icon” does not only have a denotative meaning, but (for historical reasons) it also has a connotative meaning: here we are alluding to the distinction between the icon-image and the idol-image. Therefore, considering the iconic character of translation, to deal with sign relations in terms of translation in the sphere of anthroposociosemiosis means to recognize the possibility of a sort of “non suspect subversion” relatively to the widespread idolatry of our times. jiven that its immediate object of study is the sign which can only subsist in the relation of interpretation by another sign, semiotics as a field of study, we believe, may contribute to a further understanding of the problem of translation. With reference to the processes of interlingual translation, a fundamental issue concerns the type of relation established between the original text and the translated text. These texts are similar to each other, but what is the nature 15Preface _ _ _ - _ of such similarity? The paradox of translation consists in the fact that the text must remain the same while becoming other simply because it has been reorganized into the expressive modalites of another language: the translated text is simultaneously identical and different with respect to the original text. Another related aspect of the problem of translation thus perspected concerns the status of the translator and, therefore, the relation between author and translator: the author is often considered as the continued proprietor of the translated text, while the translator is reduced to the function of spokesman or transmitter. However, as evidenced by current debate on the “author-function” (Foucault), the concept of authorial authority, which is particularly problematic in the case of translation, needs reconsideration. As we have set out explaining, our invitation to participate in this project on the question of translation was originally extended to researchers in different fields as well as to major translation experts. This has implied a dual possibility. Contributions could focus on verbal signs, that is, on the relation among historical-natural languages, or, even more specifically, for example, on literary writing or, within the sphere of literary writing, on the delicate problem of translating poetry. Another possibility was to focus on intersemiosic translative processes beyond human languages, therefore, beyond “semiotic” translation in the sense described above. Thanks to this interdisciplinary perspective it has been possible to assemble a wide variety of papers focusing on different aspects of translation: these range, for example, from the presentation of findings relative to problems of translation of a biological order (different life forms are supported by different translative processes, indeed plants, animals and funghi may be characterized in terms of the type of translation process enacted by their nutritional systems) to cyborg translation which problematizes translative processes as they occur across organic and inorganic worlds. Translated from Italian by Susan PetrilliTranslation and Semiosis. Introduction Susan Petrilli To translate is not to decodify, nor to decipher, but to interpret. Therefore, translation theory should be grounded in sign theory, and, precisely, semiotics of interpretation. To this end the typology of translation proposed by Roman Jakobson may be further developed and extended to semiosis in its entirety, to the biosemiosphere, and not simply limited to the human world. The problem of translation is closely connected with the problem of reported discourse and, therefore, with the problem of alterity. For this reason, translation is inseparable from the problem of dialogue where the terms involved are connected by @ relation of reciprocal responsive understanding thanks to their condition of irreducible extralocalization. Translation and Interpretation To translate is neither to “decodify” nor to “re-codify”. Such operations are doubtlessly part of the translative process, but they do not exhaust it Jn the Jirst place to translate is to interpret. lf we agree with Charles S. Peirce that signs do not exist without an interpretant and that the meaning of a sign can only be expressed by another sign acting as its interpretant, translation is constitutive of the sign, indeed sign activity or semiosis is a translative process. Meaning is indissolubly interconnected with translation, in fact is engendered in translative processes, as too clearly emerges when meaning is described in terms of “interpretative route” (cf. Ponzio 1995 [1985}; Petrilli and Ponzio, Semiotics Unbounded, forthcoming). In this perspective it should be obvious that translation does not only concern the human world, anthroposemiosis, but rather is a constitutive modality of semiosis, or, more exactly, of biosemiosis. Therefore, translative processes pervade the entire living world, that is, the great biosphere. (Various examples of what hereafter will be classified as endosemiosic and intersemiosic translative processes are availabl Sebeok 1998a and 1998b). When translation is viewed in relation to the human cultural world, generally reference is to the relationship among texts in different historical-naturalTranslation and Semiosis. Introduction languages. However, to translate is not only to transit from one language to another — interlingual translation. Beyond this common understanding of “translation” (which does not imply operations classifiable as common), other forms of translation must be taken into consideration. Translative processes may be internal to the same language: they may occur from verbal sign systems to nonverbal sign systems and vice versa; or among nonverbal sign systems; and again among the various nonverbal languages. The terminology proposed by Roman Jakobson in his essay of 1959, “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation” is useful here, Jakobson distinguishes among three different types of translation: a) intralingual translation or rewording, which consists of interpreting verbal signs by means of other verbal signs from the same historical-natural language. (However, in “Des Tours de Babel”, Jacques Derrida [cf. 1992] reflects critically on the concept of “same language” observing that it presupposes “unity and identity” of a historical-natural language, and that we know what these terms imply); b) interlingual translation or translation proper, which consists of interpreting verbal signs of a given historical-natural language by means of verbal signs of some other historical-natural language; c) intersemiotic translation or frasmutation which consists of interpreting verbal signs by means of nonverbal signs and viceversa, as well as nonverbal signs of a given sign system with nonverbal signs of another sign system. This terminology as proposed in English helps to avoid confusion between the concepts of “language-in-general”’ (It. inguaggio, Fr. langage) and natural language” (It. lingua, Fr. langue) when the adjective “ling derivatives (“intra- or endolinguistic” and “interlinguistic”) are used i forreference to both, as occurs in Italian for example. In fact the term “linguistic” may derive from either language-in-general (linguaggio, langage) or from historical-natural language (lingua, langue). However, as Derrida points out, when Jakobson analyzes “translation”, his reference is to translative processes among historical-natural languages while reserving the terms “rewording” and “transmutation” for all other cases. In Jakobson’s view translation among historical-natural languages is “translation proper”. However, while in the cases of “intralingual” and “intersemiotic” translation he provides other interpretants by way of explanation, respectively “rewording” and “transmutation”, he fails to do so for “interlingual” translation which, moreover, is claimed to be “translation proper”. This state of affairs betrays the difficulties involved when translating the word itself “translation” precisely when a question of “translation proper”, and, therefore, as says Derrida in the paper cited above, it also betrays the fact that this reassuring tripartition may in fact present problems. On our part, we shall now begin from the most general level of translation and in this perspective attempt to establish an appropriate terminological apparatus following the schema below, which visualizes the typology we are proposing: 18