A history of translation

Anthony PymSpring School for Translation Studies in Africa

29 November – 4 December 2010

A history of technologiesVoiceAlphabetStone, papyrus, parchmentWax tablets, paperPrintElectronic communication

So what?Social systems comprise communication (Luhmann)Technologies extend and direct communicationTechnologies configure social systems… and thus the groups between which we translate.

Oral communicationSmall social groups (tribes, clans)Numerous languages; polyglottism No translation in the contemporary sense

AnuvadInterpres

Heavy alphabetic communicationComplex social groups with historical identity

Writing as sacred

Hierarchy of languages

Translation restricted to privileged social castes

Rosetta stoneKēryx vs. ángelos

Translation moves down the hierarchy, to develop languages

“Primitive literalism” (alien-I)Spoken teaching (explanation, gloss)

Paper communicationAges of translation:

Embassies to the Khan

School of Baghdad (9th-10th centuries)

School of Toledo (12th-13th centuries)

Revision produces more copiesKnowledge circulates among nobilities and intellectuals

Translation plus explanation

Complex social groups – incipient nationalities with contestational knowledge.

Print communication (from 1455)Nations with vernacularsFixed texts to which a translator can be equivalentJoan 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 languagesTranslators controlled by nations (censorship of books)Professionalism

Struggle between types of equivalence.

Electronic communication Communication between small specialized groupsSource texts are unstable – no equivalenceConstant localization Return to the pre-equivalence dichotomy:

Literalism from translation technologiesExplanation, pedagogy, adaptation to compensate for the technologies.

Translators move into more-than-translationCrisis of professionalism.

Electronic communication Communication between small specialized groupsSource texts are unstable – no equivalenceConstant localization Return to the pre-equivalence dichotomy:

Literalism from translation technologiesExplanation, pedagogy, adaptation to compensate for the technologies.

Translators move into more-than-translationCrisis of professionalism.