Yearbook of Translational Hermeneutics
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Reading Political Economy at the Level of the Sentence: Automated Translation and the Global South
No full textAutomated translation is being touted as revolutionizing inter-lingual communication on a global scale. Models such as Google Translate and DeepL are claimed to show a high accuracy rate in translating between certain languages, often to the extent of surpassing human-level performances. However, automated translation between most of the world’s languages, primarily those from the Global South, does not exhibit a consistently high standard accuracy rate. The reason for this disparity is discussed only superficially by the creators of these models. It is either claimed to be the result of the limited online presence of these languages or is written off as a symptom of these languages’ inherent complexities. This article attempts to understand the underlying structures that constitute this inequality in the field of automated translation. In light of world-systems analysis, this article argues that the underperformance of automated translation technology in certain languages is a systematic project of subordination of the Global South. It delineates the chain of processes, starting with European colonialism, that led up to the modern-day invention of automated translation, to examine how this inequality was at the core of global events, although it has always been branded as organic. This article then shows how this new ‘milestone’ of automated translation also becomes a device that operates to propagate the ideologies of the dominant structures of power
Translating Divinity in the Liminal Space. Performative Translations in the Medieval and Early Modern Period in India
No full textThis essay investigates the Bhāvārthadeepikā (1290) of the saint poet Dnyāneshwar and Father Thomas Stephens’ Kristapurān (1616) in the light of the performative turn in the field of translation studies. The aim of this essay is to explore performativity in these medieval and early modern period Indian translations by culling academic discussion from existing scholarship in translation studies and theatre studies. Attempt will also be made to expand the existing notions of performativity by adding inputs from the Indian discourse on translation. The essay concludes with the finding that the dialogic form of the translations with the use of a quatrain folk meter called the ovi, appear to be the common elements which contribute largely to making the Bhāvārthadeepikā and the Kristapurān performative and eventful translations
Review of: SIMON, Sherry (2019): Translation Sites. A Field Guide, London / New York: Routledge. 282 pp. ISBN 978-1-131-53110-9 (eBook).
No full textTranslation Before the Law: The Hermeneutics of Translation in the American Legal Context
No full textThis essay examines how American scholars, lawyers and judges in¬terpret the Constitution. Discussed is how anxieties arise in view of interpretations deemed to be too free to serve the interests of law, and how the solution to that putative hermeneutic freedom is an imposition of interpretive rules. But those rules are profiled in terms of an appeal to “fidelity,” and that appeal is relayed to the topic of translation. My essay offers a critical assessment of the problematic parallel made between legal interpreters and translators: the ethical principle translators are presumed to obey, that of fidelity, is conveniently––but too conveniently––transferred to legal interpreters. Despite the deep misgivings one might have about that presumption, and the equivalence model of translation it supposes, at issue for legal scholars is ensuring fidelity to the original meaning of the Constitution, and fidelity to the original intentions of those who wrote that foundational text
Spannung zwischen Inhalt und Form. Hermeneutische Aspekte in der technischen Fachübersetzung
No full textThis paper presents a description of the hermeneutic approach to texts in technical translation. While specialist authors focus their text production on knowledge generation and specialist readers on knowledge extraction, specialist translators focus their attention on the linguistic form of this knowledge, which of course requires a certain amount of prior understanding, since translation means the responsible presentation of an understood source text. Examples are used to show how the translator uses a holistic approach to examine the background of the text, the position in the specific subject area, the terminology and the mode of expression. The comparison of terminology and word formation, as well as the functional style and the text type are important for formulating of the translation
From Human to Binary and Back: On the Need to Explain and Understand Digital Machines in the Humanities
No full textThis article aims to bring attention to some usually overlooked aspects of the relationship between humans and complex digital technologies. Before engaging with artificial intelligence (AI), it is indeed pivotal to address some key questions about it. Specifically, I will try to focus on our ability to understand how AI technologies work and determine creative and critical uses we can make of them. To do so, I will first discuss problems associated with using the current definitions of AI and suggest that we should make a creative effort to re-translate these terms in order to find better-suited expressions. I will call attention to the need for a different kind of translation, which negotiates between what machines do and what we can understand about them, because one of the biggest challenges of machine learning is to make the internal processes explainable and understandable for us humans. I will close with elaborations on some creative forms of interaction with language models and image models which support artists, writers and creators (who do not want to see their work stolen by AI crawlers and used to train datasets), with the overall goal of building an ethical, critical and sustainable relationship between humans and digital machines
Der smarte Übersetzer – Mensch vs. Maschine
No full textThis essay aims to show how important it is that translational hermeneutics, which places the anthropological dimension at the centre, deals more closely with specialized translation and does not leave machine translation to computational linguistics or computer science. Such a shift in focus, I argue, is important since the mechanisation endpoint of the translation automation continuum is getting closer and closer, especially in specialized translation. Moreover, the profound changes that have affected the profession of specialized translators in recent decades have been accompanied by trans- and post-human tendencies, and these tendencies have numerous ethical implications. In this respect, my essay is intended as a plea in favour of the human being in the translation process
Speculations – On Translation
No full textReview essay of: von der Osten, Esther / Sauter, Caroline [eds.] (2023): Was ist eine “relevante” Übersetzung? Arbeiten mit Derrida. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. 186 pp. ISBN: 978-3-8376-5678-7