Translation, Intertextuality, Interpretation

Intertextuality is central to the production and reception of translations. Yet the possibility of translating most foreign intertexts with any completeness or precision is so limited as to be virtually nonexistent. As a result, they are usually replaced by analogous but ultimately different intertextual relations in the receiving language. The creation of a receiving intertext permits a translation to be read with comprehension by translating-language readers. It also results in a disjunction between the foreign and translated texts, a proliferation of linguistic and cultural differences that are at once interpretive and interrogative. Intertextuality enables and complicates translation, preventing it from being an untroubled communication and opening the translated text to interpretive possibilities that vary with cultural constituencies in the receiving situation. To activate these possibilities and at the same time to improve the study and practice of translation, this article aims to theorize the relative autonomy of the translated text and to increase the self-consciousness of translators and readers of translations alike.

Memoires of Translation

Online publication. 5000 words.