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A history of translation

A history of translation. Anthony Pym Spring School for Translation Studies in Africa 29 November – 4 December 2010. A history of technologies. Voice Alphabet Stone, papyrus, parchment Wax tablets, paper Print Electronic communication. So what?.

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A history of translation

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  1. A history of translation Anthony Pym Spring School for Translation Studies in Africa 29 November – 4 December 2010

  2. A history of technologies • Voice • Alphabet • Stone, papyrus, parchment • Wax tablets, paper • Print • Electronic communication

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

  4. Oral communication • Small social groups (tribes, clans) • Numerous languages; polyglottism • No translation in the contemporary sense • Anuvad • Interpres

  5. Heavy alphabetic communication • Complex social groups with historical identity • Writing as sacred • Hierarchy of languages • Translation restricted to privileged social castes • Rosetta stone • Kēryxvs.ángelos • Translation moves down the hierarchy, to develop languages • “Primitive literalism” (alien-I) • Spoken teaching (explanation, gloss)

  6. Paper communication • Ages of translation: • Embassies to the Khan • School of Baghdad (9th-10th centuries) • School of Toledo (12th-13th centuries) • Revision produces more copies • Knowledge circulates among nobilities and intellectuals • Translation plus explanation • Complex social groups – incipient nationalities with contestational knowledge.

  7. Print communication (from 1455) • Nations with vernaculars • Fixed texts to which a translator can be equivalent • JoanLluís Vives, De rationedicendi (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 languages • Translators controlled by nations (censorship of books) • Professionalism • Struggle between types of equivalence.

  8. Electronic communication • Communication between small specialized groups • Source texts are unstable – no equivalence • Constant localization • Return to the pre-equivalence dichotomy: • Literalism from translation technologies • Explanation, pedagogy, adaptation to compensate for the technologies. • Translators move into more-than-translation • Crisis of professionalism.

  9. Electronic communication • Communication between small specialized groups • Source texts are unstable – no equivalence • Constant localization • Return to the pre-equivalence dichotomy: • Literalism from translation technologies • Explanation, pedagogy, adaptation to compensate for the technologies. • Translators move into more-than-translation • Crisis of professionalism.

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