What Authority Can a Translation Claim?

Marcus Perman — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 05:15:42 +0000

Although we recognise the fundamental importance of translation in the transmission of texts written in languages that we do not know, the question remains as to what authority a translation can claim. The relationship between translation and original has been a source of heated debate for centuries, with widely differing views as to how ‘faithfulness’ in translation might be defined. There is a paradox at the heart of how we view translation, for though we acknowledge the inherent difficulties of the task, we also take translation for granted to the point where translators become invisible. This paper will consider that paradox, and will trace some of the main strands of thought prevailing in the emergent discipline of Translation Studies, looking at issues of both aesthetics and ethics and exploring the role of the translator.

Approaches to Translation & Transmission

Marcus Perman — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 13:41:23 +0000

In this session, two world-renowned specialists in the area of translation and translation theory engaged in discussion with Buddhist studies scholars Luis Gomez and Jonathan Gold. Luis Gomez begins the session with a wide ranging and detailed speech on translation theory and practice, including challenges faced by the translator of a family of discourses that try to be both specialized and inspirational, as well as translation into more than one language and what that may reveal about the nature of the “source” and the “target” texts. Jonathan Gold then provides a short discussion of Sakya Pandita’s insights on translation. In his [Sapan’s] view, it was never intended that the translations should stand on their own as words on a page; they could be passed from generation to generation and from context to context, but only as long as they were transmitted through an intellectual community of knowledgeable experts. This conservatism was not the result of linguistic realism or essentialism, which would have been anathema to this great philosopher of emptiness. It is simply an extension of the pragmatic assumptions implicit in the Buddhist tradition that the dharma always needs to be carried forward by the community of practitioners, the sangha. Susan Bassnett continues the discussion by offering thoughts on ‘culture bumps’, those points in a translation where meaning is so culture-bound that it poses problems for a translator. David Bellos discusses the difference between names and nouns and concludes that using xenisms (such as those used by Buddhist translators in many cases) is tantamount to treating concepts as names, which has many advantages—but also falls short of the ideal, if not the very idea, of translation.

Susan Bassnett – Tsadra Conferences

What Authority Can a Translation Claim?

Approaches to Translation & Transmission