The Translator’s Craft as a Cross-Cultural Discourse

Abstract

Dialogue between cultures which avoids cultural assimilation into a global form of communication still depends on the translator's ability to negotiate the space between cultures. Therefore, along with the writer in the context of globalisation, it seems relevant to redefine the translator as well. The traditional view of translation is expressed from the theorists's vantage point involving two potentioally opposing concepts: translation equivalence with respect to the source text vs. translation acceptability within the target culture. The paper argues that important questions are closed off by an emphasis on the translated text that acquires its identity by virtue of either being equivalent to the source or acceptable within the target literary system. Postmodern logic can redefine the translator's craft in terms of access to the potentially manifold modes of mutual refraction of the source and target. Such refraction occurs in the space between them which is opened up by the concept of translatability as the mode of a cross-cultural discourse. Different translations of a poem are analysed from a linguistic and critical perspective to try to account for the individually established, multiple routes of reference where translatability means the chance to embrace more than was possible before.