Reflexive Translation Studies
Translation as Critical Reflection
Silvia Kadiu
In the past decades, translation studies have increasingly focused on the ethical dimension of translational activity, with an emphasis on reflexivity to assert the role of the researcher in highlighting issues of visibility, creativity and ethics. In Reflexive Translation Studies, Silvia Kadiu investigates the viability of theories that seek to empower translation by making visible its transformative dimension; for example, by championing the visibility of the translating subject, the translator’s right to creativity, the supremacy of human translation or an autonomous study of translation.
Inspired by Derrida’s deconstructive thinking, Kadiu presents practical ways of challenging theories that argue reflexivity is the only way of developing an ethical translation. She questions the capacity of reflexivity to counteract the power relations at play in translation (between minor and dominant languages, for example) and problematises affirmative claims about (self-)knowledge by using translation itself as a process of critical reflection.
In exploring the interaction between form and content, Reflexive Translation Studies promotes the need for an experimental, multi-sensory and intuitive practice, which invites students, scholars and practitioners alike to engage with theory productively and creatively through translation.
Silvia Kadiu is a literary translator and academic. She holds a PhD in Translation Studies from University College London, and is the author of several articles on translation theory, literary translation and translation pedagogy.
Introduction: Genesis of a reflexive method in translation
1. Visibility and Ethics: Lawrence Venuti’s foreignizing approach
2. Subjectivity and Creativity: Susan Bassnett’s dialogic metaphor
3. Human vs. Machine Translation: Henri Meschnnic’s poetics of translating
4. Criticism and Self-Reflection: Antoine Berman’s disciplinary reflexivity
Conclusion: Towards self-critical engagement
Format: Open Access HTML
Copyright: © 2019
ISBN: 9781787352568
Publication: April 08, 2019
Series: Literature and Translation
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