New Frontiers in Translation Studies

Teresa Seruya
José Miranda Justo Editors

Rereading
Schleiermacher:
Translation,
Cognition and
Culture
New Frontiers in Translation Studies

Series editor
Defeng Li
Centre for Translation Studies, SOAS, University of London,
London, United Kingdom
Centre for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition,
University of Macau, Macau SAR

olivpaulo@gmail.com
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11894

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Teresa Seruya • José Miranda Justo
Editors

Rereading Schleiermacher:
Translation, Cognition
and Culture

olivpaulo@gmail.com
Editors
Teresa Seruya José Miranda Justo
Faculty of Letters Faculty of Letters
Department of German Studies Department of German Studies
University of Lisbon University of Lisbon
Lisbon, Portugal Lisbon, Portugal
CECC, Centre for Communication CFUL, Centre for Philosophy
and Culture Studies University of Lisbon
Catholic University of Portugal Lisbon, Portugal
Lisbon, Portugal

ISSN 2197-8689 ISSN 2197-8697 (electronic)

New Frontiers in Translation Studies
ISBN 978-3-662-47948-3 ISBN 978-3-662-47949-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-47949-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015955247

Springer Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

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General Editor’s Preface

New Frontiers in Translation Studies, as its name suggests, is a Series which focuses
on new and emerging themes in Translation Studies. The last four decades have
witnessed a rapid growth of this fledgling discipline. This Series intends to publish
and promote these developments and provide readers with theories and methods
they need to carry out their own translation studies projects.
Translation Studies is now expanding into new or underexplored areas both in
theories and research methods. One recent development is the keen interest in trans-
lation theories that transcend Eurocentrism. Translation Studies has for decades
been dominated by Western modes of understanding and theorizing about transla-
tion and closed to models of other traditions. This is due to, as many have argued,
the “unavailability of reliable data and systematic analysis of translation activities in
non-European cultures” (Hung and Wakabayashi 2005). So in the past few years,
some scholars have attempted to make available literature on translation from non-
European traditions (Cheung 2006). Several conferences have been held with
themes devoted to Asian translation traditions. Besides, rather than developing
translation theories via a shift to focusing on non-Eurocentric approaches, efforts
have been directed towards investigating translation universals applicable across all
languages, cultures and traditions.
Modern Translation Studies has adopted an interdisciplinary approach from its
inception. Besides tapping into theories and concepts of neighbouring disciplines,
such as linguistics, anthropology, education, sociology, and literary studies, it has
also borrowed research models and methods from other disciplines. In the late 1970s,
German translation scholars applied Think-aloud Protocols (TAPs) of cognitive
psychology in their investigation of translators’ mental processes, and more recently,
process researchers have incorporated into their research designs lab methods, such
as eye-tracker, EEG and fMRI. In the early 1990s, computational and corpus linguis-
tics was introduced into Translation Studies, which has since generated a proliferation
of studies on the so-called translation universals, translator style, and features of
translated language. Studies on interpreting and translation education have also taken
a data-based empirical approach and yielded interesting and useful results.

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vi General Editor’s Preface

As Translation Studies seeks further growth as an independent discipline and

recognition from outside the translation studies community, the interest to explore
beyond the Eurocentric translation traditions will continue to grow. So does the
need to adopt more data- and lab-based methods in the investigations of translation
and interpreting. It is therefore the intent of this Series to capture the newest devel-
opments in these areas and promote research along these lines. The monographs or
edited volumes in this Series will be selected either because of their focus on non-
European translation traditions or their application of innovative research methods
and models, or both.
We hope that translation teachers and researchers, as well as graduate students,
will use these books in order to get acquainted with new ideas and frontiers in
Translation Studies, carry out their own innovative projects and even contribute to
the Series with their pioneering research.

Defeng Li

References

Cheung, M. 2006. An anthology of Chinese discourse on translation, volume one: From earliest
times to the Buddhist project. Manchester/Kinderhook: St. Jerome Publishing.
Hung, E. and J. Wakabayashi. 2005. Asian translation traditions. Manchester/Northampton:
St Jerome.

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Contents

Part I The Afterlives of a Text: Rereading “On the Different

Methods of Translating”, Its Theories, Concepts & Expectations
Friedrich Schleiermacher: A Theory of Translation
Based on Dialectics.......................................................................................... 3
José Miranda Justo
Revisiting Schleiermacher on Translation:
Musings on a Hermeneutical Mandate ......................................................... 15
Richard Crouter
From Jerome to Schleiermacher? Translation Methods
and the Irrationality of Languages................................................................ 27
Josefine Kitzbichler
Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Legacy
to Contemporary Translation Studies ........................................................... 41
Ana Maria Bernardo
Why Berman Was Wrong for the Right Reason.
An Indirect Discussion of the Pivotal Role of Friedrich
Schleiermacher in the Ethico-Translational Debate .................................... 55
Gys-Walt van Egdom
The Paradoxical Relationship Between Schleiermacher’s
Approach and the Functional Translation Theory ...................................... 67
Ayla Akın
From Friedrich Schleiermacher to Homi K. Bhabha:
Foreignizing Translation from Above or from Below? ................................ 79
Hélène Quiniou

vii

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viii Contents

(Un)Folding the Meaning: Translation Competence

and Translation Strategies Compared .......................................................... 89
Carla Quinci
Language Conception and Translation: From the Classic
Dichotomy to a Continuum Within the Same Framework ......................... 105
Paulo Oliveira
Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Lecture “On the Different
Methods of Translating” and the Notion
of Authorship in Translation Studies ............................................................. 115
Verena Lindemann

Part II Metamorphoses, Applications & Transgressions

Do People Only Create in Their Mother Tongue?
Schleiermacher’s Argument Against the “Naturalizing”
Method of Translation, From Today’s Point of View ................................... 125
Teresa Seruya
Der hermeneutische Akt des Übersetzens.
Schleiermacher und die Literaturverfilmung .............................................. 137
Dagmar von Hoff
Translating Schleiermacher on Translation: Towards
a Language-Internal Enlargement of the Target Language........................ 149
Ester Duarte
Translational Ethics from a Cognitive Perspective:
A Corpus-Assisted Study on Multiple
English-Chinese Translations......................................................................... 159
Isabelle C. Chou, Victoria L.C. Lei, Defeng Li, and Yuanjian He
How Translations Function: Illusion and Disillusion .................................. 175
Katarzyna Szymańska
Translators and Publishers: Friends or Foes? ............................................. 185
Jorge Almeida e Pinho
Je Suis un Autre: Notes on Migration,
Metamorphosis and Self-translation ............................................................. 197
Alexandra Lopes
Translating and Resisting Anglomania in Post-revolutionary
France: English to French Translations in the Period 1814–1848 .............. 209
Gabriel Moyal
Vikram Seth’s Golden Gate as a Transcreation
of Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin ........................................................ 219
Anna Ponomareva

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Contents ix

“It’s Deeper Than That”: Manifestations of Schleiermacher

in Martin Crimp’s Writing and Translation for Theater ............................ 233
Geraldine Brodie
Domestication as a Mode of Cultural Resistance:
Irish-English Translations of Chekhov ......................................................... 245
Zsuzsanna Csikai
Is the Politics of Resistance (Un)Translatable?
Translating James M. Cain in Fascist Italy .................................................. 255
Rita Filanti
Translating into Galician, A Minor Language:
A Challenge for Literary Translators............................................................ 267
Beatriz Maria Rodríguez Rodríguez
Foreignization and Domestication: A View from the Periphery ................. 277
Martina Ožbot
Creativity and Alterity in Film Translation:
A Return to Schleiermacher’s Hermeneutics ............................................... 291
Adriana Şerban and Larisa Cercel

Index ................................................................................................................. 305

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Language Conception and Translation:
From the Classic Dichotomy to a Continuum
Within the Same Framework

Paulo Oliveira

One keeps forgetting to go down to the foundations. One

doesn’t put the question marks deep enough down.
(Wittgenstein)

Abstract Following the advice of Vermeer and Snell-Hornby about giving more
attention to Schleiermacher’s views on language and interpretation when approach-
ing his classical lecture on the two methods of translating, I shall here argue that his
text is multilayered, with his National Translation Project above his epistemic
insights into language and understanding. I propose that we invert the hierarchy,
looking at hermeneutics in a way informed by the philosophy of language from the
later Wittgenstein, as well as taking into consideration some major positions in con-
temporary translation theory. Ultimately, the paper deals with different conditions
of possibility: that of the interpreter for translation and that of the conception of
language for translation theory.

Schleiermacher’s seminal lecture on The Two Methods of Translation is a multilay-

ered text, which not only addresses different topics but also entails different levels
of discussion, each of these with its own validity, but also facing certain limits of
application. According to Mary Snell-Hornby (Foreignization), contemporary
approaches rely too strongly on Venuti’s reading of the lecture and his dichotomy
between the positions of foreignizing and domesticating. Vermeer (Hermeneutik)
and Snell-Hornby (Foreignization) argue that a suitable understanding of
Schleiermacher should take into account not only his two alternatives of leading
“the reader to the author” or “the author to the reader” but also his views on

P. Oliveira (*)
University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil
e-mail: olivpaulo@gmail.com

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016 105

T. Seruya, J.M. Justo (eds.), Rereading Schleiermacher: Translation, Cognition
and Culture, New Frontiers in Translation Studies,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-47949-0_9

olivpaulo@gmail.com
106 P. Oliveira

language and interpretation, as developed in his classical text on hermeneutics. The

argument is valid and deserves further exploration, but here I restrict myself to the
consequences of the evident polarity between Schleiermacher’s political project (of
enriching the German language and culture through the translation of the Classics)
and the radical epistemic implications of his conception of language, made explicit
in the lecture, but relegated to a secondary position by the author himself. My claim
is that in order to get a better, clearer picture of what actually happens when we
translate and make choices concerning how “domestic” or “foreign” our transla-
tions appear, we must invert the polarity vertically: there is here a logical hierarchy.
The epistemic domain is necessarily more important, because this is where the
parameters for everything else come to life, as conditions of possibility (cf. note 10).
At the Lisbon 2013 Schleiermacher Conference, the focus seems to have shifted
somewhat in the way suggested by Snell-Hornby and Vermeer, in that many speak-
ers underlined the importance of Schleiermacher’s conceptions of language and
interpretation, as developed in his courses on hermeneutics and dialectics. Other
recurrent themes were the fact that the lecture text was written under the pressure of
time (in only 3 days) and the finding that there are inconsistencies in the argument,
although these inconsistencies were not necessarily spelled out in detail. In this
general mood, the question about what one can still learn from Schleiermacher in
the current debate in translation studies remained open. I would like to suggest that
a closer look at the nature of the alleged inconsistencies in the text itself (and also
their possible strategic function) may help us answer this question in a way that will
clarify some of the issues and misunderstandings we are apparently faced with.
Before I get to my main argument, it seems necessary to mention not only that,
but also how Schleiermacher had to move to conceal the interpreting subject in
order to set up his famous dichotomy. Without this concealment, there would be no
dichotomy at all, but rather a continuum with dislocations towards one or the other
direction, all within the expanded framework of the translator and the target audi-
ence. First of all, one should not forget that Schleiermacher establishes a very clear
hierarchy of the modes of translating, favoring the translation of written texts in
scientific and cultural domains (Übersetzen) to the detriment of oral interactions in
commercial transactions and everyday language (Dolmetschen: interpretation).1
Here, we are faced with the first effacement of the mediator, whose work in trade
relations, where the interlocutors have contact via explicit mediation of the inter-

1
“On this double scale, then, the translator rises ever higher above the interpreter until he reaches
the true realm of translation: where all work revolves around the cultural products of art and schol-
arship” (Schleiermacher Methoden 41). In setting up this hierarchy, there is a repeated use of gra-
dation in expressions like “the less/more” followed by “the more” (je weniger/mehr… desto
mehr…; 40–41). The dichotomy, here, relies explicitly on an abstraction from the recognized
gradations. I shall explore elsewhere the difference between process (e.g., Übersetzen) and product
(e.g., Übersetzung). In this article, translation and interpretation are used as general terms. Unless
acknowledged in the references, translations are of my own final responsibility and reflect the
strategic decision of publishing in English instead of Portuguese or German, respectively, my
native and main working language. Some degree of “foreignness” will then be constitutive of the
text, a feature that is not alien to the arguments it poses.

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Language Conception and Translation: From the Classic Dichotomy to a Continuum… 107

preter, is considered of lesser value.2 In translation proper (Übersetzung), consid-

ered the noblest form, the mediation is diluted, as it has been assimilated into the
knowledge that the translator has acquired and the sources she/he uses. A second
logical step is the actual concealment of the translator, when Schleiermacher states
that the point of view of the translator cannot produce reliable results (Methoden
47). Note that this concealment targets mainly the translator as an interpreter, as a
reader of the original text. In fact, Schleiermacher talks a lot about the translator as
a writer who will have to make various decisions concerning the different methods
(or strategies) she/he can use to achieve the intended effect on the target public. But
then interpretation (in the meaning of Deutung) has already taken place, logically
speaking, no matter how often this process is repeated on the micro-level.3 This hav-
ing been said, we can resume my main argument, returning to André Lefevere’s
comment(s) on the topic as a starting point:
A view of language, like Schleiermacher’s, which no longer sees the signifiers as essentially
neutral vehicles for conveying signifieds, but rather as inextricably bound up with different
languages, will have to raise the problem of the very possibility of translation. If, as
Schleiermacher holds, “every man is in the power of the language he speaks and all his
thinking is a product thereof” (…), translation appears to be an impossible task. Or rather,
what appears to be impossible is translatio [translation as sameness] and all translation will
have to be transposition, traductio. In his persona of translator, Schleiermacher himself
shied away from the consequences of this insight, which makes the second part of his
famous maxim, “move the author towards the reader” the only viable one. But if translation
was to remain possible after 1800, it would have to be traductio. (Lefevere 19)

Lefevere is certainly right in pointing out an apparent contradiction, but he fails

to perceive that the two arguments are not on the same level, a shortcoming that is
induced by Schleiermacher himself and something that applies to any discussion
which takes foreignizing vs. domesticating at face value: this means not asking on
what level things are being looked at. Lefevere’s quotation of Schleiermacher omits
the further explanation that the German philosopher gives about the relation between
language, culture, and thinking:

2
To some extent, one could claim that Schleiermacher mobilizes an instrumental (or referential)
conception of language when talking about this domain. It is as if everything is known and one has
simply changed labels from one language to the other, since “the participants know well these
[commercial and legal] relations,” which are also referred to as “universals.” In other words, here,
the “irrationality of languages” would play no relevant role, as communication would take place
under the sign of the “object”—and not under the “spirit of the language(s).”
3
There is indeed some discussion about the level of proficiency in the source language and culture,
which can be understood as a polemic against translators who are insufficiently educated for their
task (e.g., 44-45): “Of course, whoever has acquired this art of understanding, through the most
diligent treatment of language, through exact knowledge of the whole historical life of a nation, and
through the most rigorous interpretation of individual works and their authors —he, of course, but
only he— can desire to open up to his compatriots and contemporaries that same understanding of
the masterpieces of art and scholarship” (emphasis added). But then this educated, scholarly
reader/translator is seen as if she/he had direct access to the source culture/text, as if she/he were
immersed in that culture, emerging from his/her own frame of reference, or his/her world-picture
to speak with Wittgenstein (cf. note 10).

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108 P. Oliveira

Every human being is, on the one hand, in the power of the language he speaks and all his
thinking is a product thereof. He cannot think with complete certainty anything that lies
outside the limits of his language. The form of his concepts, the way and means of connect-
ing them, is outlined for him through the language in which he was born and educated;
intellect and imagination are bound by it. On the other hand, however, every freethinking
and intellectually spontaneous human being also forms the language. (…) [T]herefore, it is
the living power of the individual that produces new forms in the malleable material of the
language…. (Schleiermacher, Methoden 43 [emphasis added])4

What is important for our discussion is that in this passage Schleiermacher poses
an epistemic claim, as he establishes formal, a priori conditions for knowledge and
knowledgeable action, a claim that to some extent anticipates the linguistic turn of
the twentieth-century philosophy and its continuing echoes in the contemporary
debate. For Schleiermacher somehow articulates (in his terms, for translation the-
ory and within the context of romantic hermeneutics) that inextricable relation
between language and the world that the early Wittgenstein would condense in the
Tractatus with the famous statement “The limits of my language mean the limits of
my world” (T. 5.6), a relation later to be moved from the “crystal rigidity” of pure
logic into the fluidity of language games and forms of life, e.g., in Philosophical
Investigations (PI) and in On Certainty (OC).5 Simplifying the very complex, this
means that any understanding whatsoever can only occur through the tools one has
at one’s disposal, and these are, primarily, the ones of the mother tongue(s) and
culture(s), since they establish “our way of looking at things, and our researches,
their form,” belonging thus to “the scaffolding of our thoughts” (OC § 211). The
translator can and must, of course, get acquainted with the tools and peculiarities of
the other language(s), through learning/acquiring them.6 But then the point she/he

4
Lefevere is not alone in this dissection of things. Venuti’s famous texts about the lecture (e.g.,
Genealogies) also discuss the two aspects at very different moments, and one could easily infer
that this amounts to a general tendency. It is then no coincidence that various speakers at the 2013
Lisbon Conference return to the same passage to recuperate Schleiermacher’s conception of lan-
guage and interpreting.
5
As usual in the specialized literature, references to Wittgenstein’s work are made here using acro-
nyms and section numbers, when possible, to facilitate the use of different editions and render the
text more economical. Kopetzki (19-43) gives a valuable account of other forerunners to the lin-
guistic turn in her discussion of relativistic vs. universalistic positions about language and transla-
tion, with special emphasis on the German romantics: “This end result of a futile search for the
original unit was formulated by Schleiermacher early as 1822: ‘The oldest given is the separate-
ness of people through the diversity of languages’. Because ‘languages are mutually irrational and
their difference is a difference in thinking’ [Hermeneutik und Kritik 420, 461]. If this sentence and
Humboldt’s famous remark —‘The difference of languages is a difference of worldviews itself’—
are compared with the statement Wittgenstein uses to explain that the agreement of people ‘in
language’ is ‘not in opinions, but rather in form of life’ [PI § 421], one can clearly see the extent to
which the romantic departure from the philosophy of consciousness, led by the formative influence
of language on perception [Erkennen] and thinking [Denken], has paved the way for the much later
linguistic turn” (38–39).
6
Zimmermann (90), e.g., reminds us that Wittgenstein’s grammar “doesn’t speak ‘about’ but rather
‘from within’ language,” as “the hermeneutical circle is reinforced (…) by the fact that ‘any kind
of making a language understood presupposes a language.” See also Oliveira (Revisitando;
Quadro).

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Language Conception and Translation: From the Classic Dichotomy to a Continuum… 109

can take the reader to is not the author, but his/her own reading of the author, or
rather the reading that is made possible by the frames (in the sense of Fillmore)
offered to the readership or by the objects of comparison those readers have at their
disposal (to retain an important idea of the later Wittgenstein). However, at the lec-
ture, probably for the sake of consolidating the project to enrich the German lan-
guage and culture via foreignizing translations, Schleiermacher actually rejects the
translator’s stance as an inadequate one, as if there could be translation without him/
her:
Both paths are so completely different from one another that one of them must definitely be
adhered to as strictly as possible, since a highly unreliable result [ein höchst unzuverläs-
siges Resultat] would emerge from mixing them and it is likely that author and reader
would not come together at all (…) Actually, no other methods are possible. The two sepa-
rate parties must either meet in the middle at a certain point, which will always be that of
the translator, or one party must completely link up with the other. (Schleiermacher
Methoden 47, 48; emphasis added]) 7

Since my claim that the dichotomy is sustained by the effacement of the transla-
tor (as interpreter/reader) has caused skeptical reactions, I must insist here: how
else can one understand the highlighted passages, except as inadequacy in the trans-
lator’s stance? For the choices are either one of the two extremes (establishing the
dichotomy) or the middle ground, where the translator takes his place and creates
“mixtures” (which bring “a highly unreliable result”). So, one should avoid the
middle (where the translator is present). Yes, one can read the passage as pointing
to the intended effect on the reader (as has been done by many interpreters and as
Schleiermacher himself writes at length in supporting his preferred method), but
then we would be leaving the realm of episteme out of consideration. That means
we would have proceeded as if this realm and its implications for the act of transla-
tion as reading/interpretation had no practical consequences for the possible
products at all.8 That is precisely where the shift from one dimension (episteme) to
the other (impact on the target culture) takes place.9

7
This being the second step in the process of concealing the mediator, as suggested above.
Robinson (51) also perceives this concealment and asks: “Why can’t the translator simply be pres-
ent at the face-to-face meeting [between author and reader] and interpret between the two?” The
answer I am proposing here is twofold. First, in rhetorical terms, for Schleiermacher, this would
lower translation (Übersetzen) to the level of interpretation (Dolmetschen), thus diminishing the
importance of the “National Translation Project” (which Robinson [22] himself recognized as the
target of the lecture). And, second, on the epistemic level, the author and reader actually cannot
meet without this mediation, since the translator is the condition of possibility for the meeting itself
and its resolution.
8
Interestingly enough, Schleiermacher himself insists on these implications when it comes to con-
demning the less favored part of the dichotomy (Methoden 58 ff.), which is then reduced to the
favored method, the one suitable for the “National Translation Project.” This makes clear to what
extent the lecture is a strongly rhetorical piece of work, technically speaking.
9
One could argue that Schleiermacher (Methoden 48) does take the translator into consideration,
when he states that the translator should try to “offer his audience the same [that is: his own] under-
standing of the work” (Das nämliche Bild, den nämlichen Eindrukk, welchen er selbst… gewon-
nen, … mitzutheilen; cf. Oliveira, Revisitando 171 and note 3). The problem is exactly this: the

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110 P. Oliveira

If we now resume my close reading of the passage, the contradiction between the
requirement of avoiding the point of view of the translator (in order to prevent a
“highly unreliable result”) and Schleiermacher’s own conception of language
becomes evident, especially when we remember that, for him, it is the individual,
with his/her acting, who “forms the language” and who is responsible for introduc-
ing changes into the system. It is the same individual(s) who must also read/inter-
pret the text while giving their rendering (no matter how intensive are the changes
made in the target system as a result of this rendering). Putting the argument in
Saussurean terms, to distinguish the “right” questions from the “wrong” ones in
translation theory, as does Eugenio Coseriu, although the dichotomy is supposed to
work at the level of the langue (Sprache), or system, translating necessarily occurs
as an instance of the parole (Rede), the act.10 Nor does it follow that, in “his persona

dichotomy, as it is articulated in the lecture, obliterates the fact that it is necessarily the translator’s
understanding which is offered to the audience, no matter what effect she/he intends to achieve,
even at the two poles of the dichotomy. Here lies probably the most important of the alleged incon-
sistencies of the text. Whether Schleiermacher would have changed the text in this respect, had he
had enough time to prepare a more consistent version, remains bare speculation. My guess is that
he would probably have maintained the focus on the strategies of translation that allow the enrich-
ment of the German language and culture, in opposition, e.g., to what was done in France at that
time, especially when taking into consideration the selected audience he was talking to and the
strategies he used to address this audience while trying to hide more effectively those inconsisten-
cies, because his main target at that moment was a political one.
10
Again, it is the concealment of the specific point of view of the translator as reader/interpreter
that brings about this shift, with the adequate reading being seen as a matter of knowledge about
the language and culture of the source text (cf. note 3). Notice also that when it comes to prizing
Schleiermacher’s own preferred strategy, the translator’s stance is put in a positive light: “had the
author learned German as well as the translator Latin, he would not have translated his work,
originally composed in Latin, any differently than the translator has done” (Methoden 48; empha-
sis added). The importance and efficacy attributed by Schleiermacher to this kind of philological
knowledge might be one of the allusions to the work of August Wolf mentioned in his letter to his
wife, since Wolf had written a “founding document of philology” (cf. Robinson 25). But if one
takes Schleiermacher’s declared conception of language to its final consequences, one has to admit
that such philological work also occurs as a result of “the power of the language [and time] one was
born and educated” (Methoden 43; comment and emphasis added). In other words, every under-
standing is already an application from the point of view of the interpreter, as Gadamer (307-9e/312-
14g) correctly argues, as does also Wittgenstein: “Different ‘interpretations’ must correspond to
different applications” (Culture and Value [CV] 46e). One might be tempted to blame
Schleiermacher for not perceiving, at the time of the lecture, that philological work also relies to a
great extent on a set of standards and assumed facts/hypotheses which amounts to a paradigm, a
concept made famous in the philosophy of science by Thomas Kuhn and now current currency in
the humanities, but which was first tackled on the epistemic level by Wittgenstein (cf. PI § 50; CV
21, 23, 30, 59) and which is also very deep-seated in the latter’s notion of grammar and his discus-
sions on the different normative or descriptive uses in/of language—a distinction that some com-
mon “skeptical” or “relativistic” readings of his later work have not grasped, as Wittgenstein’s
anti-essentialism cannot be reduced to any of these traditional (dis)positions (cf. PI § 655; OC §§
97, 152, 211, 341; whereas even the notion of scientific hypothesis is surpassed by the much deeper
underlying world-picture, which is not a matter of choice, e.g., in PI § 241–242; OC §§ 93–95,
105, 140–144, 162, 167, 248 inter alia; cf. Rhees 78–92; Moyal-Sharrock). Nevertheless, I prefer
to praise Schleiermacher for having already taken steps in this direction with his conception of
language (as quoted above), even if he does not take things to their final consequences in his lecture

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Language Conception and Translation: From the Classic Dichotomy to a Continuum… 111

of translator,” Schleiermacher had the power to suspend the role of the translator as
the condition of possibility of any translation, as can be inferred from Lefevere’s
argument. On the contrary, to be coherent with Schleiermacher’s own conception of
language, one must conclude that, on the epistemic level, any translation is, de facto,
traductio, which means bringing the source text to the frame of reference of the
translator and of his/her audience in the target language. This amounts to a rein-
forcement of Toury’s thesis that translations are, first and foremost, a fact of the
target system (cf. Toury, Rationale 18–19, apud Snell-Hornby, Turns 49; Toury,
Descriptive 15–34), independent of the kind of translating strategy one mobilizes.11
And this does not mean that translations have no implications for the afterlife of the
original texts. We know they do. However, they do so as a second step, both logi-
cally and empirically speaking.
If one wants to look at how things operate at the same time on different levels, a
very punctual aspect of the Skopos theory may be enlightening, especially when one
is dealing with a “source-oriented” approach, as is the case of one of the five types
of translation suggested by Vermeer:
The documentary or “scholarly” translation reflects Schleiermacher’s maxim of “moving
the reader towards the author” (…): the text is here seen in its entirety, but the translation is
oriented towards the source text and aims at informing the reader of its content, even by
“alienating” or “foreignizing” the target language. (Snell-Hornby Turns 53)

Here, a careful reading will show both dimensions working at once, but in differ-
ent directions. On the functional level, being source oriented is a very significant
feature, which distinguishes such a documentary translation from the more prag-
matic type, such as product instructions or any text type that has to take the target
culture into special consideration. At the 8th Brazilian meeting of German teachers

itself, as he was unable to escape the scope of his own time and the much discussed political/ideo-
logical pressures.
11
Toury’s discussion on the topic of translation problems actually operates with the distinction of
different levels, although he does not mobilize, e.g., the term episteme or its variants. But that is
exactly where his definition of PROBLEM1 lies (abstract “[un]translatability”), whereas PROBLEM2
and PROBLEM3 correspond respectively to the product and process dimensions of translation (cf.
Toury, Descriptive 35-46). When he states that there is no “SOLUTION1” for PROBLEM1, he is admit-
ting that translation cannot amount to an a priori equivalence, although he then accepts practical,
established equivalences, which will underlie his crucial concept of translational norms (61-77).
Actually, many of Toury’s views on language and translation can be correlated to Wittgenstein’s
later philosophy, the most evident being the notion of family resemblance, which Toury explicitly
mentions, although he states that he did not develop the topic due to his “shaky background in
philosophy” (69; see also 85). A good example of the case of family resemblance is his account of
27 translations of a single Japanese haiku into English over nearly a century (203–211; Oliveira,
Forma 219–223 reviews 7 translations of another haiku into Portuguese). See also the discussion
of the impact of changing translational norms on Hebrew translations of Hemingway’s short story
“The Killers” (Toury, Descriptive 97–98), in contrast to Schleiermacher’s claim that the author
himself/herself would not have translated the text “any differently than the translator has done,” as
quoted in note 10. Hence, Toury’s target-oriented approach and his adherence to Wittgenstein’s
later philosophy of language turn his work into a privileged channel for illustrating some of my
points. But the projects are different, since Toury’s ultimate goal is a rationale for Descriptive
Studies, while my interests lie more on the epistemic level.

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112 P. Oliveira

in Belo Horizonte (July 2011), Tinka Reichmann pointed out that some refrigerators
are sold in Brazil with the explicit instructions that the back grids should not be used
to dry laundry, an observation that is not included in the original German booklets.
The reading of philosophical texts will provide a completely different picture,
because, in this case, what counts is understanding the original, an approach which
in Brazil has led to the so-called structural method that relies strongly on a very
close reading of the primary texts, to the detriment of commentaries and reference
works, which are actually much less numerous than in European or North American
contexts. One could think of such a translation as a kind of Ouroboros, the mythical
animal that bites its own tail and is often referred to as a symbol of rebirth—a figure
commonly used in association with the translation of classical texts.
On the epistemic level, however, the differences vanish, as both text types are
intended for the target context, no matter how different appearances are on the sur-
face. For even when the technique or strategy of translation aims at “moving the
reader towards the author” and is “oriented towards the source text,” even if it “for-
eignizes” the target language, the reader will only be able to grasp the contents on
the basis of his/her previous experience, within the frame of reference of his/her
world-image. The reading (of the translated text) itself serves to expand or modify
this frame of reference and is, in this respect, surely target oriented, especially since
such an expansion/modification can only be made from within, if we assume, as I am
proposing here, that Schleiermacher’s conception of language is well founded. That
is the reason why classical texts continue to demand new translations as time goes
by, as we acquire new objects of comparison that allow us to see the original in a
different light. In other words, on the epistemic level, we are still in the realm of
traductio, to retain Lefevere’s wording, even if the declared purpose at the func-
tional level seems to point at translatio.12 This is also the case of Schleiermacher’s
political project of enriching the German language and culture by translating the
Classics: a functional Ouroboros.
At this point in the argument, one might be tempted to ask what the practical
implications of distinguishing the various levels of the discussion are, especially
those of the epistemic one. A first answer, in the spirit of Wittgenstein, would be
none, since philosophy, unlike engineering, for instance, leaves the world as it is (cf.
PI § 124). A second answer, which is also very Wittgensteinian, would be that we

12
Source orientation usually evokes translatio (or “fidelity”), and “foreignizing” is taken as a sign
of being close to the source text, even at the expense of style in the target system. Vermeer’s defini-
tion of the “scholarly” type of translation enables the association of “foreignizing” translations
with an “ethical” attitude towards the source text, in the sense of Berman. On the other hand, it is
problematic to conclude that Lefevere takes a “conservative” stance by advocating translation to be
necessarily traductio, as Venuti (Genealogies) does in his scholarly and very influential text. On
the epistemic level, a stance is not “conservative” or “progressive,” but rather clarifying or not; in
other words, does it help us to understand, or does it create confusion? That is probably the reason
why Wittgenstein regards clarity as a goal in itself (cf. CV 9). On the other hand, on the sociopoliti-
cal level, one could rather think of “foreignizing” and “domesticating” translations as different
aesthetical approaches, with the former being akin to auto-referential poetics such as from
Shakespeare, Brecht, or Godard, the latter akin to illusionist poetics in the Aristotelian tradition, as
in mainstream movies. Cf. Szymanska on illusion and Robinson (17–18) on simulation.

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Language Conception and Translation: From the Classic Dichotomy to a Continuum… 113

can change our attitude in the wake of a better understanding of what is really going
on (cf. Moyal-Sharrock 49; PI § 339), i.e., we can appraise more realistically what
our theories are capable of, in other words, what their actual shortcomings and con-
ceptual limits are. Bearing this in mind, an investigation of some of the central ques-
tions of the translation studies informed by a Wittgensteinian conception of language
and translation might prove to be very clarifying in itself, especially in a close dia-
logue with hermeneutics and target-oriented approaches, taking into consideration
not only Schleiermacher but also certain more recent thinkers such as Gadamer and
Ricœur. Due to space limitations, however, the results of such an investigation will
have to wait for further work, although the target itself is certainly maintained as a
goal. A few concrete steps in this direction have already been taken (Oliveira
Mainstays; Norm). A book systematically presenting Wittgenstein to translation
studies and dealing with some of the main questions of the field in relation to his
conception of language and translation is also in the works.

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